Jacob Lawrence

We all have something to say as artists. We try to say it through our work, but all to often we end up saying it about our work, our words far more effective in saying what we want than our painting. Maybe that's because we don't do enough painting. Why stop at a single work when a whole series may be needed to convey our thoughts? This is the unspoken philosophy of one of the most beloved African-American painters--Jacob Lawrence. Starting with his Migration series in 1941, which was reproduced in Fortune magazine, then purchased jointly by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Phillips Collection in Washington; Lawrence is seen in the tradition of venerable, black storytellers. He lists among his artistic influences Arthur Dove, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Picasso, Ben Shawn, John Marin, the the comic strips, Katzenjammer Kids, Maggie, and Jiggs. He sees each work in his many series as something akin to individual panels in the comics. And with his simple, yet emotionally charged style, the comparison is apt.

Pool Parlor, 1942, one of Jacob
Lawrence's WPA works

Born in 1917, in Atlantic City, young Jacob grew up in Philadelphia, and as a teenage, in Harlem. With no formal training of any kind in art, he soaked up, like the proverbial sponge, every drop of art of any kind he saw. Haunting museums as an impressionable young artist while working for $23.86 a week in the WPA Federal Arts Project, he found himself drawn to the works by artists such as Romney, Gainsborough, and Reynolds. He admires that which, he says, he could never accomplish himself. That's just as well in that what he can do suits well what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. He admires the work of his contemporaries, Frida Kahlo, Kathe Kollwitz, Dubuffet, and black sculptors Mel Edwards and Richard Hunt. But his favorite artist was the Mexican muralist, Jose Clemente Orozco, whom he met in the 1930s. During this time, he also met his wife, fellow artist, Gwendolyn Knight. Together they have pursued with their art the legendary figures from black history that makes up the largest body of his work--whole series on Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Frederick Douglas, Adam Clayton Powell Sr. and the Haitian revolutionary, Toussaint L'Ouverture.

Nigerian Series, Street in Mbari, 1964,
Jacob Lawrence

While there certainly are African influences in his work, as black artists go, they are not all that dominant.  For a time he and his wife lived in Nigeria, basking in an all-African culture for the first time in their lives while he painted his Nigerian series.  They brought back to this country, and a college teaching position in Seattle, more an internal feeling for their African heritage, representing a spiritual presence in their work, rather than a noticeable change in a stylistic sense.  Though not a portrait artist in the sense of Lucien Freud,  Alice Neel, or Francis Bacon, each series he has done involving African American legendary figures is a portrait; not in the sense of capturing a likeness physically, but thematically, in telling their stories and in capturing their essence--more than any single painting could ever do.

Isabella Stewart Gardner

Fenway Court, the Gardner museum courtyard

The art world is balanced firmly on three legs, not unlike the tripod easels many of us use when painting outdoors, or even in our studios. One leg is, of course, the artist. The second is the art lover.  The third is the one most often forgotten, that being the art buyer. The first of these is so obvious as to bear no further elucidation at this point. Being the self-centered egoists we are, we usually do little else but talk about him or her. In the ranks of the art lover I include the millions who visit art galleries and never buy, or troop through museums till they're so pooped they plop, and those, like myself, who write about painting. (What one wag once compared to dancing about architecture.) And, though artists seldom forget about them, most people think little about the third leg, the art buyer, specifically, homeowners, museums, and collectors. In recompense for this oversight, I'd like to pay homage to one of the greatest American art collectors of the 20th century--Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Isabella Stewart Gardner,
1888, John Singer Sargent

Isabella Stewart was born in 1840. In 1860, she married John Lowell Gardner. Her own son having died before his second birthday, she raised three orphaned nephews while her husband raised a family fortune. In 1891, she inherited her father's fortune of $1.6 million accumulated from the sale of the family's large farm near Jamaica New York on Long Island (he was also into iron and steel). It was with this windfall she began collecting art, and not just any art, but one of the better self-portraits of Rembrandt (below, one of sixty he painted during his lifetime). With the untimely death of her husband in 1898, Isabella Gardner quieted her grief by throwing herself into the construction of a museum to house her collection as well as herself. (She lived on the fourth floor). Today it is a Boston landmark. She called it Fenway Court.

Self-portrait at Age 23, 1629,
Rembrandt van Rijn

The place is somewhat Moorish in style, featuring a large courtyard which in some climates might be open to the sky, but being in Boston, was wisely covered with a then unusual glass roof so as to admit natural light to the inner rooms of the mansion/museum. The numbers are impressive--2,500 objects spanning 30 centuries of which about 300 are paintings. Also included are a similar number of sculptures, textiles, ceramic/glass objects, as well as a lesser number of drawings, prints, and art objects of other kinds. Antique furniture makes up an astounding 450 pieces in the collection. In addition to Rembrandt, she acquired Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, Degas, as well as portraits of herself by such contemporary art luminaries as Whistler and John Singer Sargent (above, right). While some have characterized her as eccentric, perhaps independent and unconventional would be more accurate. She was a wise, witty, and determined collector, a very strong, legendary third leg in the art scheme of things. If only there were more like her today.

Interior Decoration

The White House State Dining Room after
Louis Comfort Tiffany got done with it, c. 1880

There's some disagreement among those who worry about such things, as to who first came up with the Modern Art incantation, "Less is More." Some credit it to Walter Gropius of the Bauhaus School, while others tack it on to the lengthy list of quotations from Frank Lloyd Wright (joining a lot of other things he probably didn't say). I'm not sure who said it but I have a pretty good idea why. It probably came from a young, post-WW I artist retreating in horror from a room "designed" by Louis Comfort Tiffany, who, quite apart from his exquisite stained glass, is credited with having been the first "interior decorator." His unspoken philosophy, and undoubtedly that of his robber baron clients during the second half of the nineteenth century, was "More is More." Or, as Mae West once put it, "Too much of a good thing is a good thing."

The Cactus Room, El Marisol (the Herter estate), 
1914, Christian Herter

To our modern eyes, heir to, and accustomed to "modern" design, it's easy to gasp in amusement or dismay at the Victorian ostentation, clutter, and pretension of early interior decorators such as Tiffany, Christian Herter, and Charles Locke Eastlake (famous for his ornate, Victorian sofas). Our homes today may not be masterpieces of modern art but they do boast, for the most part, a comfortable "lived-in" look that is surprisingly, quite a modern concept. Few homes today could pass for Victorian museums or antique shops where one is afraid to move for fear of breaking something. For many of us, if we were to describe the style of our interior decor, the word "eclectic" would be often used. And that's ironic, because during the Victorian period, both here and in Europe, the same word would also apply to their interior decoration. Yet the effect is radically different.

A typical Eastlake interior, c. 1890

A Tiffany drawing room might have Persian carpets, Japanese fans, Chinese ceramics, an American sideboard, peacock feathers, Neoclassical marble statues, English wallpaper, Italian tiles, Indian ivory, Moorish brass, Renaissance paintings, and of course an obligatory stained glass window. Okay, so maybe the definition of eclectic back then was closer to that of a world's fair. In today's world, even the phrase "interior decorator" is antique. Now we call them environmental designers and with the more modern assignation comes a totally different approach. The Victorian interior decorator was charged with taking an empty room and chucking it full of "stuff," often with no other goal than showing off the owner's great wealth, presumed good taste, and collecting persistence. Whereas the modern designer starts by working with the building's architect in creating the living area itself (often not really a single "room"in the traditional sense), based upon the purpose for which the interior space will be used, then designing the content and environment to make that experience as pleasant and practical as possible. The decor might still be eclectic, but at least the Modern (or Postmodern) "lived-in" look indicates a human presence other than that of a museum curator

Post-modern eclecticism. Modern interiors (mid-20th century),
 though eclectic, were often far more austere than this.

Ingres, the Transitional Artist

Psyche Receiving the First Kiss of Cupid,
1796, Francois Gerard, a perennial
favorite with the adolescent boys

For an artist, there is no more visually exciting experience than to "lose" oneself in a great art museum. In fact, some are so great that "losing oneself" is quite literally a problem. And anyone who had ever taken a group of young people to a great art museum can think of little else. I once questioned a group of boys on the way home from just such a foray as to why they had obviously enjoyed themselves so much. One told me, in so many words, "Where else can you go around looking at pictures of naked women and no one gets on your case about it?" He had a point, of course. I had earlier noticed this group gravitating toward the "French quarter" of the museum and particularly the work of the Neoclassical and Romantic artists such as Jean-Auguste Ingres, Francois Gerard, and Jean Broc, three of their country's most notorious painters of "naked women." For centuries, art has been a respectable safe haven for those at all levels of society who wanted to admire (or perhaps leer) at the nude figure without someone "getting on their case about it," as my adolescent friend so succinctly put it. 

The Death of Hyacinthus, 1801, Jean Broc

As my teenage art lovers quickly discovered, the early nineteenth century is an interesting case study in this regard. And Jean-Auguste Ingres (pronounced Ang) is a critical art figure of this time. Born in 1780, he was the star pupil of the Neoclassical painting icon, Jacques-Louis David. His early work is quite conservative, replete with graceful portraits, a stunning ability to handle printed fabric, and a taste for dramatic allegory. But Ingres is also a transitional figure. Though his work never approached the loose brushwork or lavish color of Delacroix, nor depicted the shocking, gory details of Gericault, he was such a pivotal figure in French art for the first two-thirds of the 19th century we can get a real handle on what was happening in the painting capital of the world at the time just by studying his 67 years of work.

Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1808,
Jean-Auguste Ingres

What was happening, of course, was the zenith of Academic art, and within it, a "French Revolution" of sorts as Ingres at first fought, then accepted, then promoted the Romantic movement in painting. Gerard's Psyche Receives Cupid's First Kiss (top, right), painted in 1796 was the opening shot in this revolution.  It was classical, yet clearly Romantic in it's blatant eroticism. Broc's The Death of Hyacinthus (above, left), painted in 1801 even adds a homoerotic Romantic broadside to the dominance of reserved Classicism of the time.  In 1808, Ingres seems to be "accepting" of this new art in his Oedipus and the Sphinx (right), his first classical nude (male by the way) in which his Greek hero confronts the bare-breasted lion goddess, solving her riddle, which leads to her suicide. Oedipus of course, goes on to unknowingly fall in love with his own mother, whom he marries, which leads to her suicide once she finds out--classical mythology, but pretty tragic stuff, and typical of Romantic art. By 1818, Ingress had (philosophically at least) fully joined the movement with his Roger Freeing Angelica (below), a Renaissance tale developed into a full-fledged Romantic epic in which he demonstrates his own devotion to the female romantic nude.  I must confess, if you haven't realized it by now, this period of French art has always been one of my favorites too, ever since I was a teenage boy.

Roger Delivering Angelica, 1819, Jean-Auguste Ingres

Influences

One of the hallmarks of the past hundred years of art, is the ease and degree in which the art from various "schools" and geographical areas are able to influence each other. In fact, we, as working artists in this time frame, have come to take for granted such "borrowing." More than that, we thrive on it, which may go a long way in accounting for the fact that various, schools, movements, and nationalistic styles all seem quaintly retro. The national media broadcasts the latest fine arts news to our highly receptive eyes and ears, we accept it (or reject it), but nonetheless make it a part of who we are as artists. On a more individual level, thanks to the Internet, the thousands of artist's Web sites, and hundreds of mailing lists and newsgroups, we can feast on an art smorgasbord of words and images limited only by the time and energy we can spare from our personal painting routines.

Madonna of the Rose (Garden),
1420-35, Stephano da Verona
(or Michelino da Besozzo)

However, before you get the idea that this is something predicated solely on modern communications technology, or modern "enlightenment," let me tell you it ain't necessarily so.  Over five-hundred years ago, the same thing was happening. No, Flemish painter, Jan Van Eyck, didn't, in 1420, type "Venetian painting" into his web browser and instantly become familiar with Stefano da Verona's Madonna of the Rose (left). But he was, nonetheless, familiar with it. He had to visit Venice to see it, but with the dawning of the Renaissance all over Europe, one of its most important elements was the ease with which artists and intellectuals were able to travel from city to city and country to country to see, to work, and to learn the art which the various, previously isolated, provincial areas called their own.

Portrait of a Woman, c. 1435,
Robert Campin

One of the most important improvements in Renaissance art in Italy came in its new naturalism. That trait came from the North where the patient study of modeling, detail, and light was cultivated to a degree that astounded the artists from the South. The secrets of oil painting itself came south from Flanders. The incredibly detail draftsmanship of German artists found a similar path, often through Venice, from there to Florence, thence to Rome and Naples. The work of Robert Campin (Portrait of a Woman, right), Konrad Witz (The Miraculous Draft of Fishes c. 1444, below), came south to influence Italian artists such as Colantonio, and the Spaniard, Bartolomeo Bermejo who happened to be studying in the Po Valley near Florence a the time. In trade, the artists from the North took back with them the rich tradition of color that was the hallmark of Italian painting. And the French, who have always considered Rome their private art academy, gathered up all these influences and took them home, igniting a glorious painting spectacle that lasted there for over three hundred years!  Today, we envy them as we sit before our computer monitors and wish we could see the real things.

The Miraculous Draft of Fishes, 1444, Konrad Witz

The Impact of Cubism

Today, as we artists muddle through the nuts and bolts of putting our ideas, impressions, and environmental visions into concrete form with paints on various prepared surfaces, we hardly think at all of the many art movements of the past hundred years. In the Postmodern era, art movements have become passe'. There may still be regional differences in our art, just as there is in our music or the way we pronounce words--what we would call accents--but in general, we pretty much all speak the same language, at least in the "Western" world. This makes it all the more difficult for us to comprehend the stunning advent of the most powerful art movement of the twentieth century, and the effect it had upon painting in particular for the next fifty or more years. This "bombshell" exploded from the enormous easel of Pablo Ruiz Y Picasso in 1907, a stroke of genius (many strokes, actually) seemingly with a life of its own that may well have taken the Spanish painter himself by surprise.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1909, Pablo Picasso

When Picasso began Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (left),  judging from his preliminary sketches (one is below, right), he had in mind only to paint the parlor of a brothel on the Carrer d'avinyo (Avignon Street) in Barcelona. Drawings show a seated sailor, five nude women, and a student with a skull. The composition appears to have been loosely based upon a small painting by Cezanne (itself a study for a monumentally larger work). As the work evolved, the sailor and student (skull and all) bit the dust. What was left was the five women in poses suggestive, not of sex but violence, faces evoking visions of horror rather than eroticism. There is a demonic quality many have said calls to mind Picasso's fascination with African masks, especially in the two figures on the right, yet if the artist himself claims his interest in African tribal sculpture for the most part came months after this work was completed. (Many believe Picasso repainted the African faces at that time.) Whatever the case, if contemporary accounts are to be believed, not only his friends, to whom he privately showed the picture, but Picasso himself, seem to have been quite stunned by what he had wrought. It was several years before the work was publicly displayed.

Preliminary oil sketch for Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon, 1907, Pablo Picasso

The Ladies of Avignon was merely the flash point. By the time it was shown, Picasso was harvesting a crop of equally revolutionary works that came to be called Cubism. The seed was planted and the art that sprouted from it could be likened to Jack's beanstalk. Nothing like it had ever hit the art world. Working in association with Georges Braque, the two explored this new visual discovery in paintings virtually indistinguishable from one another. Picasso's Seated Woman from 1909 is an interesting measure of their progress which continued through most of 1912. Though they remained aloof from what was developing into a full-fledged artistic revolution with the publication of various treatises on Cubism (one of which went through fifteen editions and was translated to English) the two artists and their work were the most influential art forces in the first half of the twentieth century. Artists such as Marcel Duchamp (Nude Descending a Staircase, No 2) and Fernand Leger (Disks), as well Robert Delaunay (Homage to Bleriot) followed in their giant painted footsteps almost before they were dry. Fifty years later, the abstractionists of the New York School, such as de Kooning (Woman I, below), were still speaking their names in awe, and using mental images of their work to guide their owns brushes.

Woman I, 1950-52, Willem deKooning

Icons



Warner Sallman's Head of Christ,
(1940) having been reproduced over
 500 million times, is undoubtedly the
most popular iconic image of
Christ in modern times.

As computer users, we have all become familiar with the term "icon." It's the little thingie we click on when we want the computer to do something. Actually they're little more than fancy pushbuttons for our mouse-clicks where descriptive words defining what happens would be too long and complex.  Some might also deem them an assault on literacy. In art, the church once relied on icons for much the same reason--the illiteracy of the masses. The Greek letters Chi and Rho, used to refer to Christ, are an example. Later the use of the fish and still later the cross came to symbolize Christianity. As art and Christianity progressed hand in hand, the image of Christ became much more realistic and complex. Today, we know him as a bearded young man of medium height, fairly athletic in build, sometimes with Aramaic features, usually seen more light complected than was likely the case, and always with a benign, loving expression.

Jesus of Nazareth as Christus Imperator,
494-520 AD,San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy

No one artist is likely to have defined this image, in that it seems to have gradually evolved over a period of centuries. If one looks back over Christian Art far enough, there are some depictions of Jesus that seem to have been created before our present-day icon/image was set in stone (or wood or pigment, whatever). One can be found in a lunette of the atrium leading to the church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy (one of the oldest in Christendom). It dates from sometime in the period 494 to 520 AD. It's not a painting, but a mosaic not unlike the much more famous mosaics in the church itself, which depict the Roman emperor, Justinian, and his court. It is Byzantine in style, and totally unlike any picture of Christ you've ever seen before.

He stands in an arch, his right foot on a Roman lion, his left on a satanic serpent. Behind him are two rolling hills, around his head a halo, over his right shoulder is slung a slender cross held not unlike a farmer might carry a hoe. In his left hand he displays an open book with a Latin text. He is portrayed not as the good shepherd (as in the earlier Roman catacombs), but as a conquering monarch, young, unbearded, eyes large and stylized, hair braided, dressed in a knee-length Roman "kilt," a regal robe slung over his shoulder, held by a jeweled clasp, his feet shod with Roman military footwear. The predominant colors of the mosaic tiles are gold, brown, red, black, and green. Were it not for the title, Jesus of Nazareth as Christus Imperator, we might mistake the figure for a young prince of perhaps St. George of dragon slaying fame. One has to wonder why this image lost out to that which we know today. Maybe it was the kilt.