The Northern Renaissance

The term "renaissance" is so profoundly associated with the Italian Renaissance (1400-1600) that most people do not realize that northern Europe also experienced far-reaching societal changes. Some scholars prefer to not use the term "renaissance" when discussing Northern Europe during the same time period because of its immediate associations with Italy. Other scholars use "Northern Renaissance" and stress the different socio-historical conditions that shaped this time. And still, other scholars will discuss northern and southern Europe during 1400-1600 within the same context of changes that characterize early modernity: seeds of capitalism, higher birthrates, increased contact between nations, colonization, and a new awareness of the individual's place in the world.

However, art of the northern Europe does not look like the art of the Italy. The Italian artists were busy exploring their ancient Greco-Roman heritage and idealizing nature via classical proportions, single-light source modeling, and perspective. Northern artists drew upon their own artistic traditions: expressionist* handling of the body, and diligent attention to intricate detail. These traditions, combined with the increased emphasis on empiricism and awareness of nature, created a distinct type of northern Renaissance art that marks a move away from medieval art traditions.

Here is the Gero Crucifix from Cologne Cathedral in Germany:

Gero Crucifix, 970 CE, painted and gilded wood, 6'2".
Cologne Cathedral, Germany

Look how Christ's body curves from His right hand, swooping downwards and through the torso, knees, then feet. Gravity makes the body sag but the artist handled the proportions of the curve so that a single line through the body unites physical suffering and emotional sacrifice. This type of expressionism can be seen in Rogier van der Weyden's Deposition:

Rogier van der Weyden, Deposition, c. 1435, oil on wood, approx. 7' x 8'6."
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

Rogier van der Weyden has taken the Gero Crucifix's simplistic, stark curve and turned the Deposition (taking Christ's body down from the cross) into a compressed, intense drama. The shading of the body and vibrancy of the oil paints (a northern European specialty) creates a jewel-toned, sorrowful and realistic menage. van der Weyden's Deposition is profound to the viewer because of the varying representations of grief: from quiet sorrow to resignation to the wringing of the hands (Mary Magdalene at the far right).

Another artistic tradition of northern European art is an intense focus on detail. In my opinion, this results from the illuminated manuscript tradition in monasteries. Illuminating a pages of the New Testament was both a way to beautify the words, increase their importance, and accrue merit with God. Here is the Chi Rho Iota (the first three letters of Christ's name in Greek) page from the Book of Kells and the carpet page from the Lindisfarne Gospels:

Chi Rho Iota page, from Book of Matthew (1:18), from the Book of Kellys, c. 800 CE.
Ink and pigment on vellum, 13 x 9.5". Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

Cross page, from the Lindisfarne Gospels, c. 700 CE. Tempera on vellum, 13.5 x 9.25".
The British Library, London.

Close inspection of the two pages shows how these are not just patterns but intricate and complicated interlacings of organic vegetation and animals. These are functional pages that have been turned into aesethetic objects due to religious devotion and the human urge to decorate.

During the northern Renaissance, we see artists work this type of attention to detail into symbolic elements that add to our understanding of the scene. Here is a detail from the front of the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck and possibly Hubert van Eyck. This is an annunciation scene, where Gabriel tells Mary she is going to bear the son of God. The scene takes place ina simple Flemish interior, bringing the sacred closer to the world of the viewer. Mary kneels and by showing her readig, we notice her education and humility:

Jan van Eyck and Hubert van Eyck, Annunciation, from the Ghent Altarpiece (closed),
completed 1432. Oil on panel, 11'5" x 7'6". Church of St. Bavo, Ghent, Belgium.

This simple interior scene is rich with details. Look how far we can see into the distance through the windows:


Or see how Gabriel is holding white lilies (symbols of the Virgin's purity), and a white dove is above Mary's head (the Holy Spirit). In the back of the room is a kettle and wash basin set into a niche (symbolic of the Virgin's role as maternal vessel):


Look back at the first image of the Annunciation. There are golden words coming from Gabriel's and Mary's mouths. Gabriel says, "Hail, thou that are highly favored the Lord is with thee." In return, Mary says, "I am the handmaid of the Lord ... let what you have said be done to me." These words are written in Latin, but are upside down - so that God can read the lettering!

But it is not just symbolic details that Jan van Eyck includes, but also the details of texture. He has convincingly replicated the smooth gleam of metal, the matte wood, and the folds of cloth. This is another variation of the theme "attention to detail" that we see in northern Renaissance art. So if the traditions of classicism and naturalism are hallmarks of the Italian Renaissance, then we see the traditions of expressionism and attention to detail as characteristic of the northern Renaissance.

Finally, I'd like to add that a common element to both the Italian and northern Renaissances are the artist's intent to convincingly replicate the world around him. This then implicates several areas of importance that are "reborn": a new awareness of the physical world, bringing art (that which is usually depicted is sacred, i.e., religious) closer to the earthly world of the viewer, the role of the artist as creator and recognition of talent**, and the recording of the world (art) as a way to create a spiritual experience for the viewer.

*expressionism: communicating emotion through distortion and and emphasis, and can be found in artworks of any period. Source: ArtLex.com
** medieval artists were rarely seen as "geniuses" or has having special talent, but as craftsmen who were good with their hands.

Genuine Fakes, pt. II

This other post discusses originality, quality, and artistry and the impact it can have on a person's viewing experience, and also an artist's legacy. At the end of the post, I introduced an element that puts tests notions of originality, quality, and artistry: the forgery, a work presented with the intent to deceive.

Art forgeries are usually plots devices in popular entertainment (see this episode of the CBS drama, "The Mentalist"). I don't really think the general populace thinks about art forgeries because most people don't think about how art is made, nor do they think about how art changes hands throughout the centuries. And in general, the art market mystifies everyone - including those who work in it. Art experts estimates about forgeries vary from 15-30% of all art on the market are fakes, and one estimate even claims up to 60%. Fakes have come in the form of antiques, paintings, sculptures, sketches, and archaeological "finds." (Check here and here for some more history of counterfeit art.) There was enough fraudulent art activity that an FBI Art Crime Team was formed to help recover stolen art and detect fakes.

How does someone become an art forger, and how does a fake get onto the market? In the case of British art forger John Myatt (in picture at left), it was a combination of financial need and an unsavory "friend." As Myatt tells the story, he was a high school art teacher with two kids, struggling to make ends meet. For fun, he had painted a few imitation paintings for friends. In 1983, he placed an ad in a newspaper that advertised "genuine fake" paintings, and was contacted by a man named John Drewe. Drewe eventually commissioned more than 200 paintings by Myatt in the style of the modern greats: Monet, Camille Pissaro, Mark Chagall, to name a few. Drewe took these works to the auction houses, and the works were put on the market - some selling over $150,000.

Myatt created the art, but Drewe faked provenance (history of ownership) and documentations. He would put them in old frames and spill coffee on the canvases to make them appear old. What shocked Myatt the most was how his blatantly 20th century materials (including intimacy lubricant KY Jelly) managed to sneak past the "experts" at Christie's and Sotheby's. According to Myatt, faking the history of the painting was easy: just go to the libraries at Cambridge or Oxford, find a book about the artist and then tell the auction houses that the painting is mentioned in there. And there apparently was very little follow-up. And Myatt kept painting for Drewe and stayed deliberately naive about where the paintings were going or where the money was from.

Myatt and Drewe got caught when Drewe's marriage fell apart. His wife called the cops. And the cops arrested Myatt and Drewe. According to prosecutors, Myatt made about about £90,000 and Drewe profited £1.5M. Myatt cooperated with authorities, and spent one year in jail. He claims his inmates called him "Picasso."

Myatt is still creating forgeries, only this time, it's a real business called "Legitimate Fakes." I briefly met Myatt when I studied at Cambridge, he was a guest speaker and taught a practicum about creating fakes. He was very lively, and funny in that dry/self-deprecating British way. What struck me as the most interesting was his disdain/cynicism for the art market and art historians. He told us all that what art historians did was "useless. If you want to get in the mind of Monet, paint like Monet. I know what went on inside his head because I've had to make all the same choices as him." Myatt did a wonderful imitation of Monet's signature; he explained to us that you can do the signature as long as he signs the back of the canvas.

(And obviously, as an art historian, I disagree with Myatt's assessment. Art history isn't really about getting into the the mind of the artist - you can't even do that for living artists! There are many different intents, functions, methods, and techniques to the discipline. But that's for another post.)

Is Myatt an artist? Is he a "good" (quality) artist? Where is his place in art history: as a forger or an artist? Can someone be both? If you find his works pleasurable to look at, does that devalue or call into question the notion of the famous artistic genius? Does it even matter, you just like what you like? Here are some comparisons of Myatt's work (on the left) and the originals (at right):

Left: John Myatt, Harlequin,

Right: Joan Miro, The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers (from the Constellation Series), 1941, gouache, oil wash and charcoal on paper. 18 x 15".
Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

Left: John Myatt, Jasper Johns: Mixed Metaphor, 1960

Right: Jasper Johns, False Start, 1961, oil on canvas, 68 x 53".
Sold at auction in 1988 for $16M.

For curators, art dealers, auction house workers, and scholars, determining authenticity is a central concern: how can we charge millions of dollars or write hundreds of pages of research if the piece in question is a fake? It is a matter of ethics and legality. We are continually developing new technology and techniques to test authenticity. Scholars are delving into archives and painstakingly reconstructing artists' biographies so that our ideas are also authentic.

And yet, some artists make fakes, conformity and reproduction a central part of their aesthetic: Jeff Koons, Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol all come to mind. I'm envisioning a future where the conceptual tension arises when artists are trying to make forgeries, and forgers are trying to pass of their work as authentic. When compared to a few books based on fake works or art sales of forgeries, that seems like the worse option.

Genuine Fakes, pt. I

When discussing an artist or a work of art, originality is often cited as a key aspect to determining quality. Discussing originality can be framed in various aspects: as a daring new composition (Bernini's David), new techniques (Cezanne's edges), the willingness to be boring (Warhol), or new materials (Duchamp). Originality is what gives us goosebumps when standing in front of a Michelangelo sketch or a Picasso painting: we believe we are seeing the brushstrokes of a genius, that they touched this very canvas. Our physical proximity to the art makes us thismuchcloser to a famous genius; we are now a witness to their artistry.

An artist that is perceived as "unoriginal" can kiss his artistic legacy good-bye. For example, Dutch Baroque painter Jan Lievens was one of the most sought-after artists during his lifetime. He also happened to be a close friend and colleague (they shared a studio) of Rembrandt's. Lievens's style changed quite a bit by the end of his life due to international travel, and his late works clearly show the influence of the Catholic Flemish style. Perhaps that is why Dutch Protestant historians and critics criticized that Lievens never lived up to his prodigious talent? Or maybe Lievens's technique and handling of paint really isn't as expressive as Rembrandt? Regardless, Lievens has been a minor footnote even in Dutch Baroque studies, considered a lesser imitation of Rembrandt. The recent traveling exhibition "Jan Lievens: Out of Rembrandt's Shadow" seeks to amend Lievens reputation as a truly talented, original artist in his own right.

When discussing originality and art, there are implications of ownership and quality. (We won't even get into the notion of the male artistic genius and the female amateur practitioner.) And with these contentious issues, art historians and scholars have had their work cut out for them. For example, we have to determine who made what: artists have worked collectively in studios and workshops since antiquity. Many medieval works of art fail to capture the world's attention simply because we can't name the artists. And master artists like Raphael, Titian, David, etc. all ran their own workshops. In a workshop, the master artist runs the show: he lands commissions, creates designs and sketches, and then lets his assistants fill in the canvas. The master artist may come in to do a difficult part of the painting - some hands, or a difficult body position, or he may come in to do the most important part (the Virgin's face, the climax of action). Or for some artists, they may simply sketch in the lines and direct their assistants as they paint it. Some contemporary artists do this as well. For the general public, once learning this fact of artistic production, the mystique and grandeur of the viewing process has been lost.

What happens when we stand in front of a work of art and believe it is an original work by a genius? What happens when we find out that piece is actually a forgery? The work of art that we "oohed" and "ahhed" over is actually made by some random guy?

Forgeries are excellent tests to those who believe originality and quality are assuredly linked. A forgery shines a light on the hypocrite who fawned over the "excellent" brushstrokes and the choices made with line and color, but then dismisses the object upon learning it's a fake. A forgery that gave a person a pleasurable viewing experience forces the person to ask if the cache of a famous name was a factor in their pleasure. A very good forgery asks us to redefine who can and should be considered artists in their own right. And a forgery places the burden of proof on scholars, historians, critics, conservators, and art dealers to not only reasses an artist's entire oeuvre, but their own expertise.

What are you looking at?

Late 19th century French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) was born to an aristocratic family who dated their lineage back over 1000 years. Unfortunately, by the time Henri was born, the family fortune was lost and all that was left was a country home and the family name. Toulouse-Lautrec broke his legs at age 12 and 14, and his legs failed to heal properly, stunting his growth and leaving Toulouse-Lautrec incredibly self-conscious. At 4'5", Toulouse-Lautrec could no longer accompany his father on hunting trips but left him with time to draw. In the 1870s, he left for Paris to become an artist.

Because he felt women from his own social class only talked to him out of pity or obligation, Toulouse-Lautrec was much more comfortable with the Montmarte district of Paris. In the bars, cabarets, and brothels, Toulouse-Laturec found his subjects, audience, and patrons. This demimonde (French, "half world")
occupied an interesting place in the rapidly modernizing Paris: a strange type of freedom where people carouse, act, drink, dance, and gamble. Only modernization and industrialization could make this possible: people no longer had to work sun up to sun down, and Baron George Haussmann's newly renovated Paris had wide sidewalks with gas lamps so that venturing out at night was safer. And significantly, due to various capitalistic and industrial processes since the Renaissance, leisure was now a business and a commodity. It is not difficult to psychoanalyze Toulouse-Lautrec's draw to the demimonde. Among the "freaks" of polite Parisian society (which still clung to traditional social distinctions) he felt quite at home amidst the dark Montemarte nightlife with prostitutes, actors, performers, and other outcasts.

As an artist, Toulouse-Lautrec was prolific and progressive with his use of line, color, and composition. His Montemarte subjects as well as their depiction are distinctively modern. This is one of Toulouse-Lautrec's most well-known paintings:

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge, c. 1892-95, oil on canvas, approx. 4' x 4.62'.
Art Institute of Chicago. Author photo.

Actress May Milton's greenish face peers (leers?) at us from the right foreground, lit by the late-19th century stage technology that used actual gelatin screens to create colored light (now, these are plastic sheets known as "gels"). Behind her are various performers, dancers, and patrons of the Moulin Rouge - including a self-portrait of the artist (above the orange-red hair of the woman in the center of the canvas). The Moulin Rouge was described as "Vice up for auction; one could put [a sign] on the door front: 'People, abandon all modesty here.'" Several elements of this painting indicate that the Moulin Rouge isn't necessarily a happy, welcoming place: Milton's green mask-like, everyone else in the painting has their back turned to us, and the ground is unstable as it rises toward the picture plane, disorienting us like we've drank too much absinthe.

Toulouse-Lautrec's subjects include the "others" of Paris: prostitutes. In the 19th century, prostitution was seen as a major illness of modernity and urbanity, and usually the woman's fault despite sheer demand for their services. (We'll not get into the gender implications now, or the sheer number of prositute pictures from the later 19th century.) Toulouse-Lautrec preferred liasons with prostitutes : because of the nature of the job, they were all business, and there were no ambiguities about their intentions. In the 1890s, he painted more than 50 paintings of prostitutes, such as this one:

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, In the Salon of the Brothel of the Rue des Moulins, 1894, oil on canvas, 43 x 52". Musee Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi, France.

In one of the most expensive brothels in Paris, Toulouse-Lautrec shows the downtime in between meetings with clients. He has contrasted the slouching positions and glazed expressions with the lavish and glamorous interior design to show a side of the women that their clients do not care about. Look at the woman at the right in the long white nightdress: the straight-backed posture and the forced smile indicate the carefree woman generous with intimacy with her clients is more of a business choice, a persona, than a personality trait. In this regard, as client and sympathizer, Toulouse-Lautrec gives a more nuanced and wistful, but not pitiful, depiction.

Perhaps audiences are most familiar not with Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings, but his posters for Montemarte entertainment. He created 393 lithographic posters, and are his most influential and longest-lived works. Look at these and tell me you've never seen them in a dorm room somewhere:

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, various four color lithographic posters, c. 1890-95.

These prints are easy to read: broad areas of flat color, and the actions and gestures of the silhouetted figures are clearly conveyed. For me, Toulouse-Lautrec's lines are the most compelling element to his posters: sinuous, confident, graphic. The way they flow up and down and around the canvas, outline forms, and still indicate handwritten script - the lines are alive and vibrant, like the nightlife they are used to advertise.

Prints are a democratic medium, and the perfect medium for Paris after a long century of revolutions, reconstructions, and socio-political upheaval. These lithographic posters were hung in the streets with the understanding that they'd be viewed by people from various social classes, occupations, genders, persuasions, and sexual orientations. By being cheap and easy to produce, the print's very construction and nature makes it an emblem of modernity: advertising, mass media, and disposable. Furthermore, the prints' function as advertisements become representative of that unique moment in human history when capitalism and culture meet: anonymous urban audiences as consumers of cultural products.

Finally, we need to consider how the spectator and the act of viewing is treated by the artist. At the Moulin Rouge has a unique tension to it because the spectator is confronted by May Milton but not acknowledge by anyone else. The diagonal railing in the lower left corner prevents us from entering the painting's space, reinforcing to the viewer, that you can watch but not participate. The casual, behind-the-scenes look at the Rue des Moulins brothel is about careful observation: seeing what others can't/won't/don't see, and the women either don't know or don't care that they are being watched. Our vantage point is odd; we are slightly above and removed from the women, but close enough so that the woman's body extends out of our view (notice how her foot is cut off at the right). The posters don't care who looks at them. Toulouse-Lautrec, retreating to the Montemarte nightlife to escape being stared at (and thus pitied or becoming a passive object of looking) has created a life and art about the implications of looking and watching.

Intro to the Italian Renaissance

Note: Because I know Renaissance scholars are a finicky, methodical group, I'd like to clarify that I understand a few of my definitions and art choices are problematic: the lack of distinction between Early and High Renaissance art, no references to the Siena school, the simplified definition of humanism, the cursory introduction to illusionism, etc. All I can say is this is an introductory post for people who have NEVER HEARD OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE, EVER. (Unbelievable, I know!)

Okay, moving on....

Quite often, the undergraduate art history survey course is divided into two sections: Ancient and Medieval, and Renaissance and Modern. Renaissance means "rebirth," from the Latin renasci, "be born again." What exactly was this "rebirth"?

Understanding the Renaissance means understanding our present historical situation, as the Renaissance is generally identified by historians as the Early Modern period. Many cultural, social, religious, technological, scientific, historical, political, and economic structures of our contemporary society have their roots in this period. In art, it is both the standard bearer for great art, and what all artists have rebelled against. And while it is generally understood that all of Europe underwent this rebirth, this post will specifically deal with the Italian Renaissance, with later posts devoted to the equally interesting Northern Renaissance.

As with the survey course, we begin with discussing late medievalism because to understand what was reborn, we must understand what was left for dead. Medieval Europe is the period after the fall of Rome through the Renaissance, and is (unfairly) called the Dark Ages. For some historians, medieval Europe shows a stagnation of learning, incredibly low mortality rates, and an unfair socioeconomic/political structure known as feudalism. (It is also the period that brings us soaring Gothic cathedrals, beautiful illuminated manuscripts, and the formations of the present-day nations.) Furthermore, this "darkness" was seen in comparison to the perceived learning, light, and progressive nature of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Both the term "dark ages" and the idealization of Greco-Roman antiquity indicate how history can be manipulated through bias.

Anyways, late medieval art in Italy looks like this:

Bonaventura Berlinghieri, panel from the St. Francis altarpiece, 1235, tempera on wood,
5' x 3' x 6'. Church of San Francesco, Pescia.

Ancient Greek and Roman art looked like this:

Polykleitos, Doryphoros, c. 450-440 BCE, front is 212 cm, from Pompeii.

And Italian Renaissance art looks like this:

Michelangelo, David, 1504, marble, approx. 14'3". Galleria d'Accademia, Florence, Italy.

You can see from the naturalistic volume, idealized anatomy and proportions that Renaissance art looks a lot like ancient Greco-Roman art. Renaissance artists are credited with reviving the idealized and naturalistic forms of antiquity. This revival accompanied a general rebirth of the liberal arts for the aristocratic classes, an emerging middle class, vernacular Latin dialect, and the repopulation after the Black Death that reached Italy in 1348. (For the purposes of this post, the Renaissance took place 1400-1600 but I ask that you see these dates with some nuanced understanding. People didn't wake up on January 1, 1400 and say, "Well, now we're in a Renaissance! Lets start printing books and imitating the Greeks!" Rather, the developments that came into fruition during those dates had their roots in the late medieval period.)

Most importantly, a new mindset began to take place: humanism. Human-ism. I call it the "humans first!" ideology; humans begin to start questioning their own place in the world and through the accumulation of new knowledge, begin to theorize about individual potential. To slightly stereotype the medieval mindset, people were told by the main authority (the Church) that they were lowly, weak creatures who endure lives of pain and labor, and by the grace of God, if you were pious enough, you may reach the rapture of the heavenly afterlife. To slightly generalize the Renaissance mindset, people began to ask, "really? That's the way it has to be?'

For artists, there was a new interest in representing the world as the eye saw it, and an increased artistic drive to not only depict the real world, but to make it perfect. No longer do images need to flat and otherworldly but the can be, well, real. Beauty = truth; truth = perfection; ergo, beauty = perfection, another way to achieve heaven. Artists experimented with a variety of techniques and devices that craft a real-looking appearance: linear perspective and single-light source modeling. Significantly, we start seeing idealized proportions and anatomy: humans start to look like Greek (pagan) gods. Here, Jesus has taken on an appropriately idealized, godly form:

Piero della Francesca, Resurrection, 1463, mural in fresco and tempera, 7.38' x 6.56'.
Museo Civico, Sansepolcro, Italy.

And figures no longer stand stiffly. Bonaventura Berlingheri's St. Francis looks timeless, permanent; his body is concealed under his thick robe, his feet hover off the ground (only the blessed do that) and he exists in a heavenly gold world (achieved by the use of gold leaf). Piero della Francesca's Jesus looks like a proud man, and has returned to a world with realistic space, trees, and sleeping guards.

In the Italian Renaissance, sculptures exist in the same world and move the same way as humans. Here is Donatello's David, considered the first freestanding nude sculpture created since antiquity:

Donatello, David, c. 1444-46, bronze, approx. 5' high. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

David stands in contrapposto ("counter pose"), shifting his body weight onto one leg as he contemplates Goliath's head at his feet. Contrapposto creates a beautiful harmony of opposites: one bent leg across from a straight arm, a straight leg opposite a bent arm. It is how humans stand and move through the world, letting gravity pull weight onto one leg and to compensate, the other leg bends. Art is no longer reserved for the holy and righteous; Donatello's David's small shift of the body brings the world of art back to the world of man. Hence, rebirth.

... we all Scream!

One way or another, we're all familiar with this image of the Christiana fjord in Oslo, Norway:

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893, oil on canvas, approx. 35" x 28".
National Gallery, Oslo.

Perhaps Munch's painting is familiar to you because of the many pop culture parodies and merchandise it has inspired? Here are just a few that popped up with a quick Google Image search:


This post deals with the intersection of the fine arts and pop culture: how does the latter affect the original intent/meaning of the former?

From The Scream, Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is perceived by viewers as a tortured soul. We know he had addiction issues, mental health issues, and was agoraphobic. His family life was fractured - his father was strict and religious, and his mother and sister both died of tuberculosis. (A recent exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago tackles the notion of the mentally-ill and tragic artist.) About The Scream, he wrote,

"I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting- suddenly the sky turned blood red- I paused, feeling exhausted and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city - my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety- and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."

Munch's Scream exists in several paintings and prints. Each piece shows a man clutching the sides of his face in the foreground while standing on a bridge, and two figures in the background. The triangular shape and composition of the bridge dislocates the viewer: there is plenty of space for the man in the foreground, but the bridge looks "fast" - the diagonal of the bridge races to the back left corner. The bridge's ground pushes toward the picture plane. Munch's wavy lines of the man are echoed in the lines/shapes of the colors in the sky as the scream (heard inside the man's head?) fills the his psyche and the external environment. The viewer is left with the impression that the man is psychologically and physically compressed.

Munch denied that his work referenced Nietzsche's own theory about the scream. Research about the geography of Oslo shows that in this particular area of Oslo included a slaughterhouse and the mental institution where Munch's sister, Laura, was housed. Sue Prideaux reports in her biography of Munch that "the screams of animals being slaughtered in combination with the screams of the insane were reported to be a terrible thing to hear." The Scream takes on a new dimension of psychological, biographical, and visual intensity when we consider this fact.

The Scream's appearance lends itself to pop culture imagery because of its efficiency: the elongated and wavy lines, the gesture and expression of the man, and the dizzying diagonal of the bridge - all these elements instantly conjure a moment of a terror. And late 20th century pop culture imagery, based on the modes of mass marketing, demands an image where the physical appearance instantly conveys a message. Constant reproductions and parodies like the ones posted above are the equivalent of an art history shortcut - no need to know the original, we get enough from the parodies.

How do processes like reproduction and parody affect our understanding of the original? I'm guessing that most audiences don't know Munch, his writings, or his biography. I wonder if audiences would feel like they need to know any of that information when the image, as noted earlier, is compact in its presentation of emotion. Or to viewers out there who were only familiar with The Scream's pop culture references: does The Scream take on a new, significant dimension when learning a bit about the history of the art and artist? Or does The Scream have, to quote Mia Fineman, a "correspondingly fall in gravitas" when looking at the parodies/reproductions? Is a keychain of The Scream somehow disrespectful to the original work of art or Munch?

For me, I'm unresolved. I'm mostly interested in the broader themes raised by this discussion: the distinctions drawn between fine art and pop culture, the role of the media/marketing in creating a mass consciousness of an image, and the distance between the original work of art and future viewers. In many ways, the durability of a work hinges on its ability to be relevant to future, anonymous generations. And in this regard, The Scream has become relevant via the reproductive mechanisms of mass media and capitalist consumerism. The Scream has produced endless amounts of scholarly writing, research, and history so that anyone who wants to learn more will be able to do so. Does Munch deserve better? Probably, but we can't control who steals your image - for a necktie, or an actual art heist. At the very least, those who care about art and write the history will try to be objective and fair to the artist and his work.

New Art City by Jed Perl

Contemporary American art critic Jed Perl’s book, New Art City (2005) presents mid-century New York City as participant, catalyst, and grand stage of Abstract Expressionism. Using quotes, memories, photographs, literature, and critical writings of the period, Perl invokes the cultural and intellectual milieu that fermented throughout downtown New York City. The result is a narrative of cultural and historical conditions that, according to Perl, inevitably lead to America’s greatest contribution to modern art. It is a story of heroes, antiheroes, big ideas and villains, all contributing to the artistic landscape spanning from its foundations in the 1930s through the repercussions in the late 1960s and 70s. In addition, Perl acts as cultural and urban geographer through his exploration of the now-legendary places of Abstract Expressionism, such as artists’ studios, the Cedar Tavern, the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the City itself.

Perl’s 557-page book, not including notes and endnotes, is organized into five sections with each section consisting of 2-4 chapters. The book proceeds chronologically, beginning with painter Hans Hofmann, a German émigré who ran a legendary studio school beginning in 1933, and ending in the mid-1970s with Minimalist sculptor Donald Judd and painter Fairfield Porter. Using these artists as bookends, Perl's narrative begins with the introduction of the European avant-garde to American artists, the ascent of the American art scene alongside the promotion of American-style modernism, and a "descent" into ironic conceptualism. Perl loves that the United States took center stage after WWII: "What was clear to just about all the artists was that the ball was in New York's court. The grand old themes now belonged to Manhattan. These themes included the artist's relationship with society; the struggle to define and redefine quality; and the place of meaning in art, and especially, now, in abstract art." Art historians will recognize the validity of this statement and also appreciate the romanticism it implies.

Perl asks, “If the New York artists were dialecticians first and last- instinctive students of the histories of style, which they spliced and diced, accepted and rejected- who can wonder that collage itself and the image of New York as a grand collage were so dear to their hearts?” The introduction of a facet of the city's geography or personality then connecting it to the artists and art of the time is an effective technique. In a very accessible (and still high-brow) manner, New Art City is a study of the metaphorical spaces and communities within an urban context.

This structure allows Perl to support his thesis that the relationship between the city and artist results in extraordinary American art, as well as an effective way to capture the zeitgeist. New Art City overlaps people, places, ideas, quotes and memories trying to recreate this heady cultural milieu, the diverse ideas and people and reactions and relationships, in order to give context to the revolutionary ideas and art that from it. About the legendary Cedar Bar where the Abstract Expressionists would meet/drink/argue/laugh, he quotes the diary of actress and director Judith Malina:

"[The opening of the Ninth Street show] was a great splash. Some wonderful painters have rented a large loft, painted it white, and hung hundreds of canvases in the bare rooms. We seek relief from the intense night heat outside, under the sign painted by Franz Kline, lit from the window of a studio across the street. I talk for a long time with John Cage about painting and music ... After the exhibit there's a party at the Three Arts Club ... Clement Greenberg jitterbugs violently to Louis Armstrong's 'I Ain't Rough.' Sidney Janis jitterbugs conservatively and does a very suave tango."

This is a recollection of America's foremost modernist art critic (Greenberg), one of the most influential art dealers in the 20th century (Janis), a ground-breaking composer (Cage), and an Abstract Expressionist painter (Kline), all in the same place at the same time. The city is the grand stage and catalyst for the art, and New Art City is clearly a love letter to Manhattan and what Perl calls "the Silver Age."

Perl's prose uses winding sentences to impress upon the reader the force of the heady, "anything is possible" moment of 1950s and 1960s NYC. His words become long sentences, turning into incredibly rich descriptions of not only the artist and art, but the city as well. This writing style (re)creates a once-in-lifetime cultural zeitgeist. For example, he writes about assemblage artist Joseph Cornell and sculptor David Smith,

"David Smith is an alchemist. Whether he works with brand-new sheets of stainless steel or with the exquisitely forged iron tools abandoned in an Italian factory, he is a master of poetic possibility, removing materials from their ordinary contexts and giving them a metaphoric sizzle. Both Smith and Joseph Cornell, in their very different ways, offer lyric variations on life's hurly-burly. Their relationship with the city is so intuitive as to sometimes feel uncanny, and that feeling is only underscored when we consider that the very locations where they worked in New York had been given, well before they arrived, names that suggest the stamp of their personalities. Everybody who has ever thought about Cornell has noted the serendipity of his having lived on Utopia Parkway. As for David Smith, born three years after Cornell, in 1906, he had a similarly propitious encounter with a certain name in the borroughs of New York, this one on the Brookly waterfront, where the artist and his wife, the sculptor Dorothy Dehner, one day in the fall of 1933 came upon what Smith described as 'a long rambling junky looking shack called Terminal Iron Works.'"

In this excerpt, we see how Perl merges artistic sensibility with the personality of the city. For Perl, Joseph Cornell's meticulously created boxes are a way of heroizing minutiae - the discarded and overlooked that can be found in the streets (literally, gutters) and the hole-in-the-wall stores where one can find personal gems. Cornell's boxes are personal artistic expressions and also metaphors for someone trying to make sense of the endless visual sensations a person encounters in a lifetime. Smith's metal sculptures parallel NYC's skyscrapers used as proof of modernity, democracy, daring creativity, heroism and capitalism: the steel aesthetic. Smith's sculptures can be metal drawings or solidly-balanced geometrics. Collectively, Smith's pieces are now collectively known as Terminal Iron Works due to their durability (in this case, the permanence of the medium and also their visual appeal).

Perl's strength is his very clear prose: he has a beautiful way of describing the art and also describing the milieu. His descriptions, in my opinion, are dead-on and he has a lovely way of evoking not just what the art looks like but how someone looks at it. Of one of my favorite artists, Ellsworth Kelly, he writes of Kelly's "hyperbolic simplicity." Look at this or this or this or these panels at the Art Institute of Chicago:

Author photos of Ellsworth Kelly's Chicago panels, taken in April 2009.

Now, tell me that "hyperbolic simplicity" isn't a wonderful way to describe the individual works as well as Kelly's aesthetic.

New Art City is a modernist narrative because there are clearly heroes and villains. There is no postmodern ambiguity - only the sincere, modernist belief that individuals can achieve great things. Perl's heroes are the great American modernists but he clearly has his preferences: Willem De Kooning, Cornell, Kelly, Clement Greenberg. Marcel Duchamp is posited as the villain of Perl's story because of his Dada art and spurious, needling ideas about low art. At times, Perl's story lags when it seems like an endless amount of anecdotes and name-dropping, but if you're an art history junkie like me then the stories may also enthrall you.

If you are interested in reading more of Perl's work, then check out his his art criticism at The New Republic.

(Post adapted from my GoodReads.com review.)

Juan Sanchez Cotan's Still-Lifes

Full disclosure: I'm a still-life junkie. From flower pictures to laid tables, I never tire examining how an artist mixes realism and aesthetics. The history of art is sometimes told through the grandiose, magnificant, and tragic but the history of man can be told through the things with which he surrounds himself. In my mind, still-lifes are the ultimate "art for art's sake" genre because it allows you to mix flowers and foods from different seasons, you can be ahistorical and impractical all for the sake of beauty and composition.

Spanish Baroque painter Juan Sanchez Cotan (1561-1627) painted some of the most compelling food pictures. In 1603, he became a Carthusian monk and most of his paintings date before his entry into monastic life. His best known picture is Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber:

Juan Sanchez Cotan, Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber, c. 1600, approx. 27" x 33.5".
San Diego Museum of Art.

Cotan's still lifes take place in stage-like setting, most likely a cooling window found in Spanish homes. Foodstuffs were placed in this window so that cool air rushes over the food, keeping it fresh. Scholars debate whether this space is a cantarero or a dispensa. Both serve the same function though the latter is found in the cellar.

I often look for "entries" into a painting; here, our entry into the painting is the cucumber and melon slice. Each of these objects hangs over the ledge and brings us into the space. Cotan's pictures invite contemplation. He draws us in with the black space, the depth of the color preventing our eye from moving into the space and beyond the objects. Once our eyes adjust and recognize the forms, we start noticing how the individual textures of each object. The bright light from outside the canvas highlights every fold, crevice, and bump. And because of this light, each object gradually changes color - notice the cucumber's transition from light spring green to a darker, murkier olive. The sharp, nearly-white peach of the melon's flesh becomes a dark orange in shadow. The black background, the piercing spotlight from outside the canvas- from our space, the meticulous rendering of texture - this is food treated as theater. Visual tension arises from the simple foods and the dramatic presentation.

Cotan's composition is fabulous. The quince and cabbage are suspended in air by strings, a technique for retaining freshness. Cotan hangs them from different lengths, creating a curve spanning from the upper left corner to the lower right. Our eye travels over this parabolic curve in a swoop, and then with the cucumber, we begin the close looking of texture, light, and color. Overall, I love how Cotan's startling design balances form to space to color. It is asymmetrical but still harmonious.

Cotan utilizes the same window-stage setting in most of his paintings. Here is a photograph I took at the Art Institute of Chicago. It is a bit more crowded, but Cotan retains the same compositional structure and light treatment:

Juan Sanchez Cotan, Still-Life with Fowl, c. 1600-1603, 26 11/16" x 34 15/16".
Art Institute of Chicago

Details of the Art Institute painting:

Originally, art historians understood Cotan's still lifes as humble displays of food consumed by lower classes. However, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor Kenneth Bendiner points out that in 17th century Spain, all social classes ate cooked foods, not raw ones. Cotan, presenting food in its original state, invites us to look at what is overlooked - food before it becomes a meal.

As our eye studies Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber, we may notice how the curve of the melon slice is the same parabolic compositional curve turned almost-but-not-quite perpendicular to the picture plane. Or we might look at three round forms balanced against two elongated ones, which balance the negative space in the upper right quadrant of the canvas. We may even wonder what type of meal can be composed of a quince, cabbage, melon and cucumber. And then we realize we've been entranced by this painting for several moments, musing over foods, meals, technique, presentation, all because of "just" a food painting.

Sources: Kenneth Bendiner, Food in Painting: From the Renaissance to the Present, London: Reakton Books, 2007.

Clueless about Monet?

Cher: She's a full on Monet.
Tai: What's a monet?
Cher: It's like a painting, see? From far away it's okay, but up close it's a big ol' mess.

While this is a pithy dialogue excerpt from a great 90s movie, it is also a good starting point to discuss an Impressionist painting. For most people, Claude Monet (1840-1926) is the most recognizable name associated with French Impressionism, an outgrowth of the Realist movement. (Future posts will be dedicated to Realism, and also how Impressionism is also realism.) Here is his painting that led a critic to coin the term "Impressionism." It debuted in 1874 at what is now recognized as the first Impressionist exhibit:

Claude Monet, Impression: Sunrise, 1873, oil on canvas, 19 5/8 x 25 1/2 inches.
Musee Marmottan, Paris.

As Cher notices, from a distance it is easy for us to see Impression: Sunrise as a three-dimensional view of Port Le Havre. However, a closer inspection of the canvas shows how Monet left his brushstrokes unblended so they rest, quite visibly, on top of the canvas surface:


Impression: Sunrise was shocking and crude to the 19th century eye. This is more apparent when looking at the highly-finished Academic canvases like this one, which debuted to critical acclaim at the Salon of 1874:

William Bouguereau, Nymphs and a Satyr, 1874, oil on canvas,
9'3/8" x 5'10 7/8".
Sterling and Francis Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA.

Bouguereau's classical subject, large size, inclusion of nudes, and the naturalistic style were all the hallmarks of the conservative Academy's tastes. In contrast, Impression: Sunrise defiantly rejected the Academy's expectations. The canvas is relatively small (19 1/8 x 25 1/2 inches), and landscapes were viewed as impromper subjects for ambitious painters.

Most insulting to critics were Monet's brushstrokes because they weren't paint pretending to be flesh or water, but just boldly declaring their material as paint. Monet uses paint to suggest the changing light and and atmosphere at sunrise, and anyone who has seen the moment when a sun bursts on the horizon knows how quickly the phenomenon happens. As the viewer, we get the sense that the artist is working very quickly to capture that specific moment; notice how the speed of the artist's hand is indicated by the direction of the brushstrokes, and the distance in between the individual strokes. Suddenly, the brushstroke becomes a vehicle to capture not just the physical appearance of a scene but also the artist's gut response to visual sensation. In that regard, Monet's brushstroke is complex because it is both objective and subjective.

The total effect when viewing Impression: Sunrise is that we expect a three-dimensional representation of a real place, but the brushstroke prevents our eye from sinking into illusionistic three-dimensional space. In other words, we want to see a "real" view but the blatant marks on the top of the canvas deny any recessive space. This effect is what art historians and critics call "visual tension." The brushstroke is our entry into the painting, and also what prevents us from seeing anything but a flat surface. For some critics and historians, a defining characteristic of modernism in any artistic medium (poetry, sculpture, etc.) will be evidence of the creation of process, and the self-referentiality of the medium. The visual paradox of an Impressionist painting lies in visual and mental tension: knowing that it is a finished product vs. the sketch-like appearnce; the desire to see Impression: Sunrise as a three-dimensional view but being acutely aware of the two-dimensional nature of the canvas.

However, we know this because of our retrospective perch in 2009. At the time, 19th century writers couldn't handle Monet's style. Critic Louis Leroy dismissed it as "wallpaper in its embryonic state." To critics, it looked like an oil sketch but Monet indicates the finished status by signing and dating the lower left corner. It was perceived by Leroy as a slap in the face to 400 years of artistic development that stressed modeling, line, and perspective.

Finally, Bouguereau's Nymphs and a Satyr offers a safe, objective view of the subject. To 19th century critics and Salon-goers, the artist's intelligence is implied through this restraint and objectivity. By comparison, Monet's Impression: Sunrise is a sensual plunge into atmosphere, light, color, and tactility. The durability (lasting appeal) of Impression: Sunrise hinges on Monet's ability to let the 21st century see what he saw, to feel what he felt as he painted the Port of Le Havre.