John Trumbull. The Declaration of Independence. (c. 1817-1819) 144 BY 216 IN. United States Capitol Building Rotunda. (Click on the image for a high resolution version.)

The painting depicts the presentation of the draft of the Declaration of Independence to John Hancock, then President of the Second Continental Congress (1775-1777) by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, who were given by the task of writing the Declaration.

John Trumbull (1756-1843) was born in the Colony of Connecticut, where his father was the Crown-appointed Governor and the only Royal Governor to support Independence for the Colonies.

Using his family's close ties to England, Trumbull studied and worked in the London studio of the British portraitist Benjamin West. While in Europe he painted the portraits of John Adams, serving as the Ambassador to England at the time, and Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who were both Ambassadors to the French Court. These portraits would later be incorporated into The Declaration of Independence.

The scale and multi-figural nature of the painting are ambitious. There are 47 portraits, all done from life. The painting itself was made over a period of three years. However, Trumbull, in his career as a portraitist in the Colonies, had gathered many of the portraits over f decades and brought together his sketches for this piece.

A key to the painting with the name of each figure.

The painting was later used as the back of the two-dollar bill.

United States Currency. Two-Dollar Bill.

The Declaration of Independence was commissioned by the United States Congress to be hung in the Capitol Building. It is one of eight paintings of the same scale that Turnbull painted for the Rotunda:

• Surrender of General Burgoyne
• Surrender of Lord Cornwallis
• General George Washington Resigning his Commission
• Death of General Warren
• Death of General Montgomery
• George Washington before the Battle of Trenton
• Battle of Princeton

But, because Congress had only commissioned four paintings, the last four were sent or sold to other institutions.

Vilhelm Hamershøi. Untitled (c. 1900) Oil on Canvas.

Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. The exhibition, Vilhelm Hammershøi: The Poetry of Silence, at the Royal Academy in London displays more than 60 of Hammershøi's works and runs until September 7. (It will then travel to Tokyo.)

Hammershøi received training at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and produced a number of landscapes early in his career. After graduating he submitted a number of portraits to the Royal Academy's annual exhibition, but was regularly rejected.

Portrait of the Artist's Sister (1887) Oil on Canvas.

Instead of challenging the system, beginning in the 1890s Hammershøi began painting interior scenes of his home that usually featured his wife, Ida. These paintings were generally sold directly to patrons and only occasionally on public view.

Vilhelm Hammershøi. Interior with Young Woman seen from the Back (c.1903–04) Oil on canvas. Randers Kunstmuseum.

The exhibition catalog often referred to Hammershøi's life as "an uneventful life." If that's true, I prefer the term "meditative" to describe his paintings.

For the past several days, I have been consumed by a deadline-driven project. From the moment I stepped into the exhibition, I was filled with a surpassing peace. The uneventfulness of Hammershøi's works are a wonderful antidote to a busy life. Without realizing it, I spent nearly two hours going from painting to painting.

Vilhelm Hammershoi's Palette.

Hammershøi's cool tones and bare compositions are typical of other painters working in Denmark at the time (e.g. Christian Krohg, L. A. Ring, Johannes Holbek). The choice of subjects and the incredible control over the gradation of light in the paintings also begs comparison to Vermeer.

However, Vermeer seemed to always have an underlying narrative to his works, and used a very wide palette, including copious amounts of lapis lazuli. By contrast, Hammershøi seems to have no obvious or hidden narrative and, as can be seen in the photograph (above) of his palette, he worked with an extremely limited range of colors.

Vilhelm Hammershøi. Sonnige Stube (1905) Oil on canvas, 49.7 x 40 CM. Nationalgalerie Berlin.

Hammershøi's deliberately visible brushwork and muted colors seems to resemble, above all, the influence the American painter James McNeil Whistler. Hammershøi's journals reveal his admiration for Whistler, who was working both in Paris and London at the time. More than once, Hammershøi went to England in the hopes of meeting Whistler; but, whether by poor planning or deliberate avoidance, Whistler always seems to have traveled to Paris when Hammershøi arrived in London.

Vilhelm Hammershøi. The British Museum (c. 1905-1906). Oil on Canvas.

Thinking of the title of the exhibition, The Poetry of Silence, I was reminded of a poem titled Silence by Billy Collins:

There is the sudden silence of the crowd

above a motionless player on the field,

and the silence of the orchid.

The silence of the falling vase

before it strikes the floor

the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.

. . .

The silence before I wrote a word

and the poorer silence now.

(Excerpt from Silence by Billy Collins. The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems.)

For an antidote to the ever-busy lifestyle we all lead, I highly recommend finding a Hammershøi painting and sitting in silence for a time.

Art, Exhibitions, museums, Ramblings/IdeasMicah ChristensenJuly 1, 2008

Cover of Prado. On the Cover Design: A Preparatory drawing by the sculptor Cristina Iglesias for the Doors of the Prado Museum's new extension.

According to the last page of the magazine: "The format of Prado has the exact same proportions as the painting Las Meninas by Velázquez."

Diego Velázquez. Las Meninas. (a. 1656) Oil on Canvas. Prado Museum, Madrid.

The Prado Museum--one of the most important museums in Europe--has begun publishing a new magazine simply titled Prado. A press release on the Museum's website explains:

Starting this week, the new issue of Prado magazine will be available in the Museum's shop. This magazine, the first issue of which was published last year, is a bilingual publication in Spanish and English with contributions signed by prestigious guests such as, in this issue, the photographers Gianni Berengo Gardin and Attilio Maranzano, the essayist, poet and playwright Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Príncipe de Asturias Award for Communications and Humanities in 2002, or the architect and Professor Juan José Lahuerta, amongst others The magazine includes the documentary in DVD Patinir and the Invention of Landscape.

The magazine is beautifully illustrated and written. Rather than a stuffy, academic publication, it looks more like a high-end architectural or design magazine.

I wonder why I have to go to Madrid to buy a bilingual magazine from an internationally-renowned museum. I was lucky enough to be at the Museum shop when this issue came out. But, I'm not going to Spain to buy each new issue.

The Museum website does raise the unspecified possibility of getting the magazine another way by stating in its press release: "Purchase by email: tiendaprado@museodelpradodifusion.es."

Ordering it via email is definitely worth a try.

Three quarters of what constitutes painting is comprised of drawing. If I had to put a sign above my door I would write: 'School of Drawing,” and I'm sure that I would produce Painters. -Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Studies for "The Grand Odalisque," 1814. Graphite on three sheets of paper, 10 BY 10 1/4IN. (25.4 BY 26.5CM.). Département des Arts Graphiques, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Grand Odalisque, 1814. Oil on canvas, 35 1/4 BY 63 3/4IN. (89.66 BY 162CM.) Private collection.

Drawing was the fundamental teaching of the French art education system, a model that spread to the rest of the world.

In its original, seventeenth-century coursework, students submitted to a daily regimen beginning with copying modeles de dessin, plaster casts, and individual body parts. After years of practicing from inanimate objects, talented students were allowed to draw directly from nude models and compete for government commissions for work on the merit of their drawings.

Drawings Produced from 1800 to 1850

In the process of their study and work, nineteenth-century artists created specific kinds of drawings with distinct purposes. Because there was no widely recognized market, drawings were not made for the purpose of sale. Instead, the public purchased paintings or prints. However, this did not mean that the drawings were considered to be valueless. In the tradition going back centuries, David and Ingres kept stored and labeled drawings, and sometimes used them for instructional purpose.

Most of the drawings included in this post are by the prime example of academic drawing of the period: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867). Ingres was the undisputed leader of the École des Beaux-Arts after the death of David. Ingres was David’s star pupil and had been awarded the Prix de Rome from the French Government, allowing him to study directly from classical works in Rome. He returned to Paris in 1841 and dominated teaching at the École.

EDUCATIONAL DRAWINGS

Individual parts of the body, from the plaster cast

Anonymous study of plaster foot. Musée d'Orsay. Paris, France.

Before students were allowed to work on the human figure, each was required to produce convincing two-dimensional reproductions of plaster casts made from ancient statuary. Greek and Roman works were considered representations of ideal beauty, and were often created using complex mathematical equations in pursuit of the Golden Mean.

The intent of this approach was to firmly establish a foundational concept of the human body in each student’s practice before he or she encountered wide-ranging variation in the natural human figure.

From the Nude

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. Study of Seated Female Nude. c. 1830. Musée Ingres.

From the early Renaissance to the mid-nineteenth century, mastering the human body was considered the supreme challenge and goal of academic painters.

This foundation was especially necessary for commercial success in France, where the most lucrative commissions came in the form of patriotic history paintings comparing the new French Republic to classical democracies in Greece and Rome.

The live drawing sessions were overseen by the head teacher of the École. In the beginning of the century, David arranged the school’s schedule around live model drawing.

The art critic Etienne-Jean Delécluze described the approach of Jacques-Louis David, who is responsible for the trajectory of the École in the first half of the century:

“in the eaves . . . facing the Pont des Arts . . . the model was posed twice a week, or rather every ten days, at the time. For the first six days the model was posed nude; the last three days, a model for the head only, and the studio was closed on the tenth day.”

These drawings did not relate to any particular painting, but were understood to assist the painter in his mastery of the human figure.

Years after receiving his first lessons in drawing the nude from David, Ingres was one of the most prominent portrait painters in Europe. In a surviving drawing, we can see that even when working with a fully-clothed sitter, Ingres used his understanding of human anatomy to understand the structure of the body beneath the clothing.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Study for the “Portrait of the Baronne James de Rothschild,” c. 1848. Graphite on paper, 8 BY 5 1/8IN. (20.4 BY 13CM.). Musée Bonnat, Bayonne.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Portrait of the Baronne James de Rothschild, 1848. Oil on canvas, 55 3/4 BY 40IN. (141.8 BY 101.5CM.). Private collection

I'm fairly confident that Ingres died not tell the Baronne that he was imagining her in the nude.

PREPARATORY DRAWINGS FOR PAINTINGS There were, broadly speaking, three classes of drawings created by artists trained in the École in the process of making a painting: the première pensée, the esquisse peinte, and the croquis. Again, Ingres will be used as the example.

The première pensée Drawings were seen as the beginning of the painting process. An artist’s first idea, or première pensée, would be captured in a rough sketch with the intent of developing composition. Successive drawings would develop the idea found in the original and create a clearer or more thoughtful expression of what had only originally been sketched. Detail such as figures, stance and gestures come into focus.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Study for "The Odalisque with a Slave," 1839. Pen and ink on paper, 6 1/4 by 7 1/4IN. (16 BY 18.5CM.). Musée Ingres, Montauban, France.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Odalisque with a Slave. 1839.

This drawing by Ingres is the first known draft for his painting Odalisque with a Slave (1839). It is a very small drawing. The quick lines and lack of any detail are used as a starting point for further drawings.

The esquisse peinte The second stage of drawing used by Ingres is referred to as the esquisse peinte and is used as a complete road map for the final painting. Much larger than the première pensée, it was often drawn to the scale of the final painting directly onto the canvas and then painted over by the artist.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Study for "The Odalisque with a Slave," 1839. Pen and ink, white pastel, and gouache on paper, 6 1/4 by 7 1/4IN. (34.5 BY 47.5CM.). Louvre. Paris, France.

The croquis

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Study of Hands and Feet for "The Golden Age," (1862), graphite on paper. Louvre, Paris, France.

Throughout the drafting process, areas of the painting that pose particularly difficult challenges (e.g. hands, feet, linen folds, facial expressions) are drawn sometimes multiple times and in multiple positions. In this way the adage of “measure twice, cut once” was applied to painting. In this way the artist could test multiple approaches to individual areas of the painting without jeopardizing the entire work.

Alphonse Mucha. Poster for the Exposition of The Slav Epic. (1928). Color Lithograph.

I went to Madrid to continue research on Spanish painters, and left with an obsession for the Czech painter Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939).

Photograph of the CaixaForum building's vertical garden.

While walking to a cafe next to my hotel, I stumbled onto an exhibition on Mucha. Titled Alphonse Mucha: Seduction, Modernity, and Utopia, the exhibition is a joint effort between CaixaForum and the Mucha Foundation. It will be on show at CaixaForums new building, located across the street from the Prado, until August 31.

The CaixaForum is the cultural wing of the Caixa Bank. Banks in Spain are required by law to use a percentage of their profits for cultural purposes. As a result, many important exhibitions, like this one, have come to Spain in the past few years. As a rule they are free to the public, and are almost always accompanied by beautiful catalogs. Unfortunately, these catalogs, like the one accompanying the Mucha exhibition, are almost never available in stores or online.

Photograph of Alphonse Mucha (1906)

Alphonse Mucha was born in Moravia (the modern-day Czech Republic). At the age of 25, he began studies at Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Two years later, he would move to Paris and study at the prestigious Academie Julien in France.

Eventually, he would become friends with Gauguin and participate in Symbolist art shows with Bonnard, Grasset, Toulouse-Lautrec, Mallarmé and Verlaine. His participation in Symbolism, which has underlying metaphysical and religious beliefs, went hand in hand with his participation in Freemasonry.

Mucha was initiated in the Masonic Lodge of Paris in 1898 and continued to practice Freemasonry until he died, including references to it in many of his works.

One of my favorite moments in the exhibition came from a group of school children visiting at the same time I was. Their teacher asked them: "Does anyone know what a Masonic Lodge is?" The students seemed puzzled and no one was able to answer the question. Lesson: Don't expect a group of students in a country where 94% of the public is Catholic to know much about Masonry. Besides being an important Symbolist, Mucha was one of the most influential players in the development of Art Nouveau, for which he is most remembered.

His Work

Alphonse Mucha. Madonna of the Lilies. (1905) Oil on canvas. Mucha Museum, Prague

One of the great discoveries of this exhibition for me was Mucha's ability to paint in oils. Had I only seen his posters, which often use a limited palette and solid colors separated by black lines, I would not think these paintings were his.

Alphonse Mucha. The Apotheosis of the Slavs. (1926) Oil on canvas. Private collection

In contrast to the posters, the oils are full of light and use a generous palette. His ability to gradate from one color to another is extraordinary. While looking at The Apotheosis of the Slavs (1926), I thought of late-fifteenth-century paintings by Bellini, where he was just beginning to use oil rather than tempera, egg-based paints. Almost overnight, Bellini was able to make smooth shadows and gradual changes in color that were previously impossible. Mucha seems to crown nearly five hundred years of oil painting with a symphony of color that seamlessly glides from one bright color to another.

The Slav Epic

Photograph of Alphonse Mucha at the opening of the Exhibition of The Slav Epic. (1919) Klementinum, Prague.

In 1911, Mucha had returned to Prague--never to return to Paris--and began creating his magnum opus: The Slav Epic. In over fifteen years of work, he created 20 paintings measuring nearly 18 by 20 feet each. Ten of the paintings depict historical events related specifically to the Czech nation. The other ten depict spiritual and mythological events in the history the Slavic race. The paintings, now in Prague, were missing for thirty years. Unbeknownst to his family, Mucha had rolled them up and hidden them from Nazi occupiers.

Alphonse Mucha. The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia. (1914) Tempera on canvas. Mucha Museum, Prague

Strangely, Mucha began his epic portrayal of his people at about the same time that Joaquín Sorolla had begun Visions of Spain, which was done in a similarly large scale.

Alphonse Mucha. Holy Mount Athos. (1926) Tempera on canvas. Mucha Museum, Prague

In can't wait to go to Prague to see the large canvases myself, and to learn more about Alphonse Mucha.

Art, Classical, Historical, museums, Ramblings/IdeasMicah ChristensenJune 24, 2008 Comment

Cane dealer and scholar, Geoffrey Breeze, showing me one of his favorite canes currently on show at Olympia.

"You do not carry a cane. You wear a cane." The foremost English cane dealer, Geoffrey Breeze, told me. At the time, he was holding a late-eighteenth-century English cane with an extending metal blade. ("I'd rather wear it than have it wear me," was the running commentary in my head.)

It was just one of many fascinating things--and equally fascinating interactions--I had at this year's Olympia Fair.

A view of the Fair from the upper level.

Olympia, as it is commonly referred to here, has taken place every June for 30 years. Dealers in fine and decorative arts gather from around the world to showcase their best works. The range of objects on view is enormous.

Before the fair opens to the public, dealers are required to submit their pieces to a vetting process. As a result, only items of a certain quality are available for sale. This means that no one is likely to find a diamond in the rough; but, it also ensures visitors see mostly diamonds.

Gilt-wood English pier glass (c. 1770) together with a French Louis XIV gilt-wood bed (c. 1870) from Butchoff.

I oppose the idea of putting a French Louis XIV bed, with its weightier, more muscular carving together with a playful, English Rococo mirror, but it's hard to resist all the glitter they create together. Of the two, the mirror is the more impressive.

This is one of three magnificent mirrors on show at Butchoff. There is growing trend of collecting mirrors. To the average person, it may be hard to put a mirror in the same category as high art. Cheap and ready access to mirrors in almost any home furnishing store diminishes our expectation of them. However, these mirrors were some of the most expensive and luxurious items of their day.

The mirror above was either the product of or heavily influenced by the designs of Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, published in 1755 (First Edition). It was likely made in the last quarter of the eighteenth century.

Chippendale was influenced by imported Asian art, especially lacquer and ceramics that depicted scenes of scholars, Buddhist temples, dragons, and plants, little understood but copied by European ceramicists, textile makers, and furniture designers.

By the 1800, glass technology had not progressed to the point where a large, continuous sheet could be made. The process of making even small panes was expensive and time consuming and required the use of dangerous chemicals like lead and mercury.

The above mirror appears to consist of at least six panes, which are cleverly separated by gilt wood carving.

Bridget Riley (b. 1931), Coxcomb (1984), oil on linen, 81 BY 67 1/4IN. (206 BY 171CM.)

I know very little about the painter Bridget Riley. Over the past year, Riley's paintings have been increasingly seen in fairs and art galleries throughout London, but usually on a smaller scale that make the works look like creative bar codes. Not usually a fan of non-traditional painting, I was drawn to this work. (I literally saw it from across a room and, ignoring everything else, walked until I was standing in front of it.)

The combination of its large scale and tiny, multi-colored lines made this one of the most pleasant and--perish the word!--interesting paintings I have seen. (For a complete discussion on why "interesting" is a poor word for art criticism, read Leo Tolstoy's What is Art? I'll post on it later.) Riley's paintings are all done by hand, not by machine. Up close, it would be fair to call them painterly, as each stroke is visible. The execution of the piece reminded me of the Russian Suprematist work Black Square (1915) by Kasimir Malevich, who painted simple geometric shapes by hand.

The testosterone emanating from this booth had me quoting Theodore Roosevelt the rest of the day. ("Bully!") Carved elephant tusks to either side of the marble bust, a narwhal tusk lying on the table, sea turtle shells . . . all in front of the manly backdrop of chains.

Albert Besnard (1849-1934) Nude Looking Out to the Sea (1885), oil on canvas, 21 3/4 BY 18IN. (55 BY 46CM.) Available from Constantine Art.

This was my favorite painting from Olympia. Though not the most important work--I'm sure it was little noticed by most people--it is a beautiful, meditative painting.

Besnard's father studied under Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and Besnard himself studied in the studio of Alexandre Cabanel. By age 19, Besnard was already showing works in the Salon.

This work is part of a tradition of nymph paintings, which were popular during the 1870s and 1880s. Perhaps the most famous work in this category is Opal (1881) by Anders Zorn. The paintings usually feature a nude, other-worldly woman in a natural setting.

The result is usually boudoir and mildly-erotic. But the effect of this painting is not sexual; it is full of melancholy. I found myself looking over her shoulder into that large abstract expanse with a kind of contentment I haven't felt from a painting in some time.

On a less-serious note, what English antiques fair would be complete without an Admiral Lord Nelson enamel snuff box? Yours for a mere £300 (about $600) from the Antique Enamel Company.

Note: I have used several high-resolution images in this post. Depending on the speed of your internet connection, it may take a few moments to properly load them all.

Martin Lewis HA'NTED (1932) Drypoint with sandpaper-ground, 33.3 BY 22.6CM or 13 BY 9IN. (Although one of the least-featured works in the exhibition, it is one of my favorites.)

The British Museum has the largest collection of American prints outside the United States. Much of its collection has come from the artists' families themselves. Over a hundred prints are now on view in the in Museum's Print Room. In addition, a beautiful catalog, The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock, has been printed to accompany the exhibition. It includes many high-quality, little-published images. It is also beautifully written by Stephen Coppel, who is a great storyteller.

The American Scene exhibition is on show until September 7 at the British Museum. For those who can't be there in person, the exhibition website has an interactive section worth visiting. Because it is just around the corner from me, I've been able to sneak away, sometimes with my three-year-old son asleep in his stroller, to see some of the pieces several times.

George Bellows A Stag at Sharkey's (1917) Lithograph, 47.5 BY 61CM. or 18 3/4 BY 24IN.

A Stag at Sharkey's (1917) illustrated a time in the US when public boxing matches were illegal. To avoid prosecution and simultaneously gather paying crowds, gyms would have private boxing clubs. Members would pay dues to the gym in place of tickets and the matches would be held behind closed doors. George Bellows (1882-1925) was a regular viewer and sometimes participated in the matches. He was even given the boxing name "Chicago Whitey."

Bellows was born in Columbus, Ohio where he studied as Ohio State University and hoped to eventually become a professional baseball player. Instead, he studied under Robert Henri and John Sloan in New York at the Ashcan School. There he gained a solid foundation in drawing and painting the human figure, which is reflected in the above work.

Leonard Baskin MAN OF PEACE (1952) Woodcut on oriental paper 158 BY 78.7CM or 62 1/8 BY 31IN.

Together with his equally pessimistic work The Hydrogen Man, this piece by Leonard Baskin (1922-2000) greets everyone entering the exhibition. I couldn't help but wonder if the Museum curator who placed them there was making a statement about the United States' current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (It seems like at least twice a week I'm told by European acquaintances how the US is finally learning its lesson.) Maybe I'm projecting.

In any case, this work was meant to be an anti-war piece reflecting discontent with the Korean and Cold Wars in America. That's a dead dove in the man's hands. I think it is wonderfully effective in expressing the intended message and the kind of complicated emotions people felt at the time.

Despite my short-lived angst with their prominent display in a show whose mood they do not proportionately represent, while looking at Baskin's two works I found myself reflecting on my own pessimism, anger, sadness, regret, and helplessness that I feel about the current war in Iraq.

Julius Bloch THE PRISONER (1934) Lithograph 34 BY 25.3CM. or 14 3/8 BY 10IN.

Julius Bloch (1888-1966) was heavily influenced by French Realism from the late nineteenth century (e.g. Jean-François Millet) and American painters Thomas Eakins and Robert Henri. This work shows a kind of stripped-down simplicity that still borrows from a solid understanding of the human figure. (Look at the figure's chest and sides as the shoulders rise forward and they bend inwards. Wow.)

The Prisoner at once emanates sadness and hope. I found myself staring at it for a few minutes, lost in thought. It reminded me of the meditative paintings of seventeenth-century Bolognese painters like Guido Reni and Ludovico Carracci. From page 147 of the exhibition catalog:

The model was Alonzo Jennings, who had sat for an earlier portrait. In his journal Bloch described the placing of handcuffs on Jennings: 'I had a horror of putting them on him, but he only laughed, and said, "I'll trust you to take them off again.'" (Bloch, Journals, no. 3, 25 November 1933)

James Allen The Connectors (1934) Etching, 32.7 BY 25CM. or 12 7/8 BY 9 7/8IN.

Is there anything more American than building skyscrapers during the Depression? I submit that it stands aside hot dogs, baseball, apple pie, and John Wayne movies. The rising forms of buildings, soaring heavenward, must have been statues of optimism in a time when it was difficult to feel good about the future.

The Connectors depicts two workers supposedly working on the Empire State Building during the height of the Depression. As was the case with most workers, they are high above the ground without safety harnesses or scaffolding. James Allen (1894-1964) did a number of construction-worked pieces. I wonder how much of this piece is taken from first-hand experience or from Allen's imagination. Having served as a US pilot in WWI, he was no stranger to dangerous heights.

(He is not the same James Allen that wrote the essay As a Man Thinketh that is given to almost every hormonal teenager in my hometown.)

Robert Gwathmey THE HITCHHIKER (1937) Solor screenprint, 42.8 BY 33.3CM. or 16 7/8 BY 13IN.

The Hitchhiker is one of the promotional pieces used by the Museum to advertise the exhibition, and can be seen all over London. According to the Coppel label for the work, it is based on the only early painting by the artist that he did not destroy. That explains why several online searches for other works by Robert Gwathmey (1903-1988) had little result.

Gwathmey was a native Virginian who trained in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Europe. Later in life, his efforts were more as a teacher than producing artist.

Louis Lozowick New York (c. 1925) Lithograph, 29.2 BY 22.9CM. or 11 1/2 BY 9IN.

As a Russian Jew born near the turn of the century, Louis Lozowick (1892-1973) may have known my grandfather, a Jew living near Lozowick's hometown. Lozowick studied art in Kiev, but was forced to leave during the Russian revolution of 1905.

New York is his most famous work. Comparing it to works by Natalia Goncharova, a Cubo-futurist painter, it appears that Lozowick was heavily influenced by his Russian background. According to Coppel, Lozowick knew some of the major Russian artists of the day: Kasimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin, and El Lissitsky.

My wife lived in Manhattan for several years. Seeing this lithograph, she said "I really, really miss New York," saying it was like living in a "man-made canyon."

--

I've now been to the exhibition four times. For an American living in London, seeing images that carry a distinctly American flavor is like having comfort food. I plan on going many times more.

I have been reading The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross, music critic for the New York Times. It is a stunningly clear way of looking at the story of twentieth century music. (It was nominated for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize.) In it, Ross brings up several arguments that have not been settled. Ross' discussion of the atonal--as opposed to melodic--music movement has me wondering about whether or not music, and art of the same period that went through a similar rejection of tradition, should be popular or if the arts are mean to be the playground of the few, the elite. On May 16, 1906 Richard Strauss conducted his opera Salome in the Austrian city of Graz. Kings, composers, and, supposedly, a seventeen-year-old Hitler were present. Salome was a departure from traditional opera. Besides the gruesome, controversial topic (i.e. the beheading of John the Baptist followed by a necrophilic aria sung to his severed head) it was more atonal than melodic. Surprisingly, it was an instant success.

The composer and Strauss' friend, Gustav Mahler, was there for opening night and the congratulatory parties:

On the train back to Vienna [where he was working as a conductor], Mahler expressed bewilderment over his colleague's success. He considered Salome a significant and audacious piece--"one of the greatest masterworks of our time," he later said--and could not understand why the public took an immediate liking to it. Genius and popularity were, he apparently thought, incompatible. Traveling in the same carriage was the Styrian poet and novelist peter Rosegger . . . [He] replied that the voice of the people is the voice of God--Vox populi, vox Dei. Mahler asked whether he meant the voice of the people at the present moment or the voice of the people over time. Nobody seemed to know the answer to that question.

(Ross, Alex. The Rest Is Noise. Fourth Estate: London, 2008. p. 9. Emphasis added)

Mahler's question has been ringing in my ears since I read it. By asking whether or not the people's opinion matters, it flies in the face of Strauss' student, Schoenberg who said: "If it is art, it is not for all . . . and if it is for all, it is not art."

Schoenberg's opinion squares with nearly 100 years of art criticism, which has consistently preached a rejection of courting popular appreciation in exchange for deliberately difficult art. If that is what they wanted, they got it. It has led to a popular lack of comprehension and consequently a lack of interest in art.

Why Is this Day Different? Michael Brecker as photographed by my camera phone at the Royal Free Hospital, London.

Last week, my wife had minor surgery at the Royal Free Hospital in London. The Hospital had a wall covered in contemporary art being sold for the benefit of various charities. As my wife and I walked by, a woman standing in front of a collage work said to her companion "It's not really art, is it!? I don't get it."

Vox populi.

What did she mean by "not really art"? Without her explanation, I can only guess that she meant that Michelangelo's David by comparison would be art. David exhibits obvious above-average skill to create. On the second statement, "I don't get it," she suggests that comprehensibility would help he appreciate it.

The above piece doesn't seem, on the surface, to meet the first of her supposed requirements. (Regardless of the work involved, collage art will never been seen as something requiring extraordinary skill.)

As for subject, it is unspecific in that it could be interpreted many ways depending on individual perspective. Its lack of specificity is a barrier to comprehension. The lack of comprehension in collage art has been deliberate since the beginning.

It has been nearly 100 years since Picasso and Braque introduced collage. At the time, Picasso commented to Braque in a letter that "if it was understood, it was boring."

When talking about the people and their perspective of art, a central issue is comprehensibility. Debussy argued that music should be deliberately difficult in order to deter the passing interests of lesser minds.

My friends who collect and love contemporary art are tired of me talking about the deliberate, or even accidental, obfuscation of subject and lack of specificity in collage art and its sister movements. They think 100 years has settled the issue. But, I have to remind them that it has only been 100 years. "One hundred years?!" is the usual reaction. (As if art were subject to the same product cycle as the next model of Apple's iPhone.) Prices are only one indication of the value of art.

Ars longa. Vita brevis.

Lord Frederick Leighton, Study for Captive Andromache (1888); White and black chalk on brown paper

Lord Frederick Leighton, Captive Andromache (1888), DETAIL

Lord Frederick Leighton, Captive Andromache (1888). Click here for a larger image.

I was researching another artist when I stumbled across the website for Leighton House Museum, dedicated to preserving the memory and collection of the painter Lord Frederick Leighton. The Museum has digitized its collection of his drawings.

Leighton was appointed President of the Royal Academy in London in 1878. His highly realistic approach to this sketch reflects the values of the Academy in his day.

As can be seen above, the woman in his sketch is much younger than that appearing in the final version of the painting. The purpose of the sketch was to explore the drapery and not the woman's features, which accounts for the lack of detail in the face and limbs and the detail in the fabric that faithfully appears in the final work.

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The play Andromache by Euripides is well-worth reading. Here is a link to an online summary. Here is a link to the full play.

Art, Classical, museums, Ramblings/IdeasMicah ChristensenApril 29, 2008

Disclaimer: This post briefly discusses the work of an artist that some may find offensive.

Rembrant, Self portrait in his studio (1629)

The recent, morally-objectionable work of a Yale University student has some questioning the current state of art education in this and other US universities. It makes me wonder if schools are training artists or public relations experts.

The student, Aliza Shvarts, "preformed repeated self-induced miscarriages" after inseminating herself with sperm from volunteers. The "performance" was part of an undergraduate art project meant to raise questions about abortion, society, and the female body.

The Yale Daily News interviewed Shvart in an article titled "For senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse." (Side note: If abortion is considered a "medium," what else can be considered part of an artist's toolkit? Car wrecks? Assault? Suicide?) From the article:

The display of Schvarts’ project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts’ self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.

Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.

Shvarts is quoted as saying: "I think I am creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be." She also stated, "I hope it inspires some sort of discourse."

"It inadvertently raises an entirely different set of questions: How exactly is Yale teaching its undergraduates to make art? Is her project a bizarre aberration or is it within the range of typical student work?" wrote Michael Lewis in a recent article for the Wall Street Journal, discussing Shvarts' work. Lewis, a Professor of Art at Williams College, goes on to explore a series of issues central to how anyone begins to assess art:

It is often said that great achievement requires in one's formative years two teachers: a stern taskmaster who teaches the rules and an inspirational guru who teaches one to break the rules. But they must come in that order. Childhood training in Bach can prepare one to play free jazz and ballet instruction can prepare one to be a modern dancer, but it does not work the other way around. One cannot be liberated from fetters one has never worn; all one can do is to make pastiches of the liberations of others. And such seems to be the case with Ms. Shvarts.

Amen. Futher on, he writes:

Immaturity, self-importance and a certain confused earnestness will always loom large in student art work. But they will usually grow out of it. What of the schools that teach them? Undergraduate programs in art aspire to the status of professional programs that award MFA degrees, and there is often a sense that they too should encourage the making of sophisticated and challenging art, and as soon as possible. Yale, like most good programs, requires its students to achieve a certain facility in drawing, although nowhere near what it demanded in the 1930s, when aspiring artists spent roughly six hours a day in the studio painting and life drawing, and an additional three on Saturday.

Given the choice of this arduous training or the chance to proceed immediately to the making of art free of all traditional constraints, one can understand why all but a few students would take the latter. But it is not a choice that an undergraduate should be given. In this respect -- and perhaps only in this respect -- Ms. Shvarts is the victim in this story.

Double Amen.

Two weeks ago, my wife and I had dinner with a professor of art at a top-25 ranked US university. I am not a professor of art nor an artist. I am an art historian accustomed to studying artist studios and schools a hundred years old or older where artists used to train. I wanted to find the answer to a seeming contradiction: how can universities teach art in an climate where anything seems permissible? What standards are used by educators to determine whether or not a student is making progress or if he or she is even good?

In answering my questions, the professor stayed away from terms like "good" and "bad," preferring to refer to students as being "unique" and "individually inspired." He summed up the teaching method as making sure students "hit what they are aiming at." The professor was repulsed by my ideas regarding classical training as being necessary for artistic excellence. He believed such training was optional. In some cases, he considered training as intolerant of and damaging to nascent artistic talent. In other words, unhindered artistic talent is the goal. Consequently, untrained immaturity is confused with unsullied innocence. Not only should artists not be taught, but teaching can be damaging and morally repugnant.

I wondered what Yo-Yo Ma, who is currently part of a large, non-classical orchestra project, would say about squashing his capacity or freedom through rigorous training.

As William F. Buckley, Jr. once said referring to a similarly confusing turn of logic, I wanted to "knock something off the table to make sure that gravity still functioned."

A culture where standards are absent leads to what I call "the artistic arms race." When there are no standards for judging what is good or bad (or skilled versus unskilled), art is judged by the attention it receives. Courting controversy becomes the standard method for success. Controversy then equals quality. The skills necessary for creating art are more aligned with Public Relations than with trained artistic talent.

I am not saying that there are no standards in all or even most universities. Dr. Lewis, who wrote the Wall Street Journal article, teaches art at a US university. He obviously has standards.

I know living artists who are extremely gifted and work hard to develop those gifts. I like some of their art and I don't like others'. This is not a question of producing art that the majority of people like--though that would be nice too. It is not about dumbing down art or lowering standards.

For me, this is about progress. Can art progress without rigor or discipline? Science is progressing, answering questions that it was asking in decades past and coming up with new questions. Is art progressing or is it rotting?