Vincent's Love Life

If someone were to make a list of the most written-about artists who ever lived, the exact order of importance might be in debatable, but without a doubt, at the top would be Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh. There have been other, equally great and influential artists living and working along side these titans, so why have these four seemingly gotten the bulk of the ink? The answer is simple. Merely writing about the art of great artists is boring. To generate any real interest, artists have to have been colorful, troubled, and tragic, as well as tremendously talented and influential. All of the above were all of the above.  Leonardo was a mysterious genius, Michelangelo a lonely workaholic, Picasso a flamboyant, creative dynamo, and Vincent...well, we might say he was something of all these rolled into one.

Portrait of the Artist's Mother, 1888,
Vincent van Gogh

Perhaps because of this, Vincent van Gogh may well top the list. I'm not going to add significantly to the overwhelming volume of words depicting this troubled soul. Writing about his work would be redundant and, as I said before, boring (yes, even van Gogh). I could write about his chronic mental illness, but that would quickly become quite clinical and boring too. And, we all know already quite a lot about two of the men in his life, his crucial, touching relationship with his brother, Theo, and his stormy friendship with Paul Gauguin. Very well, what about the women in his life?  Mmm...that sounds juicy and also far less familiar. Moreover, there were five of them.

Cornelia Adriana Vos-Stricker

Eugenie Loyer,
Vincent's first love

First, of course, was Vincent's mother, Anna Cornelia (above). She appears to have been a very normal, Dutch, Protestant mother whose most notable trait would seem to be her surprising longevity. She outlived both her sons by some seventeen years! She died in 1907 at the age 88.

At the tender age of twenty, Vincent found his first love, a sweet, young English girl named Eugenie Loyer (above, left), the daughter of the woman who ran the boarding house where he stayed. She rejected him for another man. He became very depressed, began his Bible studies, and moved to Paris. Eight years later, in 1881, his fling with religion behind him, Vincent fell in love with Cornelia Adriana Vos-Stricker (above, right, called Kee), who incidentally happened to be his cousin. She rejected him too, this time triggering his first bout with the mental illness that would eventually end his life.

Woman Sewing with Girl,
1883, Vincent van Gogh

A year later, Vincent met Clasina Maria Hoomik (called Sien), a pregnant prostitute with a five-year-old daughter (both depicted by Vincent in the drawing at left). After living with her more than a year, he ended up in a hospital with gonorrhea. As the health of his father deteriorated, Vincent moved back to Holland where he set up a small studio and fell in love with the daughter of his neighbor, Margot Begemann (below). They planned to marry, but both families opposed the union, and in despair, Margot attempted to poison herself. With the death of his father in 1885, a tormented Vincent returned to France, his love life  as tortured as his state of mind.  There he finally found love, if not contentment, in his painting. During the next five years, he was to conceive and bring forth a remarkable 864 vibrant painted masterpieces--the timeless fruit of his one true love.

Margot Begemann, the only
woman to ever love Vincent.

Vernacular Art

The Fountain, 1913, Marcel Duchamp

Back in the year 1913, the French Dada artist, Marcel Duchamp (living in New York at the time), took a urinal, laid it on its back, signed it, "R. Mutt," and named it The Fountain. He then entered it anonymously into the ground breaking Armory Show of that year, much to the consternation of even the most liberal minds in charge. Actually, Duchamp was one of those liberal minds in charge. In any case, he then, as a member of the jury, argued for its inclusion. It was, after some rather heated discussion, eliminated from the show, unceremoniously dumped in a back alley. But by that time it had served its purpose (and Duchamp's) in attempting to broaden the definition of what is "art." This is very much the situation when a curator of a museum uses "vernacular art" in an exhibition. As a Co-organizer of the Armory show, Duchamp was both an artist as well as a co-curator.

In 1970, the curators of the Museum of Modern Art assembled surveillance camera photos of bank robberies to create a new work of art they titled One Eyed Dicks. Individually, none of them would be art, but together, through the artistic devices of the curator, they made an artistic statement. Vernacular photography is therefore art made, not by the maker of the photographs, but by the user of the photographs (in this case the curator). It would be no different if one of us found some old photos in the family archives and used them in the creation of a collage thereby making art where there was none before. Since the days of Duchamp, artists have been taking "found" objects and assembling them into works of art (especially sculpture). However, the question that arises is, should a curator of a museum take on this role?  Should a curator become an artist or should the two roles forever remain separate?

Orange Marilyn, 1964, Andy Warhol

A similar quandary arose with regard to the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination and the family's attempt to regain its ownership from the federal government. So far as I know, except for its use in Irving Stone's film, JFK (which may or may not count), no one, curator or artist, has ever exhibited this footage as a work of art alone, or as a part of a larger museum exhibit, which would certainly leave suspect the Zapruder family's legal argument that the film is, in itself, a work of art involving a cultural icon. So, this begs the next question, what about a "cultural icon?" Is a cultural icon a work of art or merely a museum piece? Is the comparison of the Zapruder film to Warhol's Orange Marilyn a valid argument in that, like JFK, Marilyn Monroe is also a cultural icon? Warhol didn't make of Marilyn a cultural icon any more than Zapruder made one of President Kennedy. It's a complex issue. I think the question boils down to the fact that Warhol intended Orange Marilyn to be a work of art (a cultural icon about a cultural icon) whereas Zapruder was merely shooting a home movie of President Kennedy, the cultural icon, simply as a curiosity or keepsake. Therefore, the Zapruder family's legal claim that the film is in any way a work of art seems, at best, to be weak.

Renaissance Cities--Urbino

The Ducal Palace, Urbino, Italy

It's tempting when we think of Renaissance Italy to fall into the frame of mind that the whole world revolved around Rome and Florence. This is only natural for many of the best artists, architects, sculptors, and thinkers did tend to gravitate toward one or the other of these poles--the Catholic Church in Rome and the humanism of the de Medici family in Florence. And strangely enough, though it was Rome where many of the greatest works of the time were created, it was Florence who fed the church's insatiable appetite for artists, and even popes. A few well-informed students of Renaissance art might recall that Milan was where the Florentine, Leonardo, did much of his work, rather than Rome, and that Venice was also an important center of Renaissance art.

Federico da Montefeltro,
ca. 1450, Pierro della Francesco

But what about Urbino?  Ever heard of Mantua?  Could you even find Ferrara on a map of Italy?  It's quite likely most might be hard-pressed to find any of the cities I've mentioned (with the possible exception of Rome) on a map of the Italian "boot." Okay, a little art/geography lesson. Let's start with Urbino. It's almost due north of Rome on the opposite side of the boot, near the Adriatic Sea. It was a small, hilltop town in which the massive ducal palace of the Montefeltro family was almost bigger than the town itself, and indeed from a distance, it all appeared to be one structure (above). If you've ever seen a picture of the Duke (right), he's the one always shown in profile with a sort of notch in the bridge of his nose.  He earned that facial characteristic (and a missing eye) in battle as a heroic mercenary soldier for the church which was how he got his title and land.

Duomo of Urbino, 1604, Leon Battista Alberti
(the facade is of a later date)

From 1444 to 1482, he and his family presided over one of the most enlightened courts in Italy, his patronage being responsible for much of the artistic "research" responsible for the development of the rules of perspective, proportions, foreshortening, and anatomical studies. A brilliant scholar himself, Federico Montefeltro (above), was one of the most cultured, well-educated men of his time with a personal library of over 1,100 books.  His court sheltered such artists as the painter Piero della Francesca (above, right), the architects, Georgi Martini and Leon Battista Alberti (above), as well as their student Donato Bramante, the man responsible for the initial plans and construction of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.  During the coming days and weeks, we'll be looking at some of the other "lesser known" cities which shared in the reawakening of Italy and Europe in general during this fascinating period.

Transavantguardia

Son of the Son, 1982, Sandro Chia

Just when you think you've seen and heard it all with regard to new art and art movements, something really new or really obscure pops up that may lead you to think that, as they say, "You don't know the half of it." Ever heard of Transavantguardia? Heard of it, you say, I can't even spell it. Well, like so many art movements, it was one extreme in the pendulum swing. Basically it means beyond the avant-garde. Not long ago, I mentioned the Roman Secession and its negative reaction by Italians to, not only traditional Italian genius in the arts, but to Futurism as well. It would seem that a few more ticks of the clock, a few more swings of the pendulum and you come to Transavantguardia (sometimes called Neo-expressionism), which was a rediscovery of figural art, and traditional tools, techniques, and colors in painting. But it wasn't a rediscovery of 1950s, postwar figural painting but Renaissance painting (ala Michelangelo). The year was 1979. A whole new generation had grown up since the Figural 50s and had time to digest and react to what their fathers had done with paint, brushes, and pigments on canvas.

Inside Outside, 1980, Francesco Clemente

The reaction was one of dismay, longing for something more than mere bodies. Among the artists in the group was Sandro Chia (above, right), Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria, Mimmo Paladino, and Francesco Clemente (left). They wanted to pull out all the stops to expressive freedom without reference to any one cultural mode, but assimilating all of them. The result was a considerable amount of inconsistency often referred to by critics as "nomadism." Nonetheless, they moved to meld Surrealism, Cubism, Expressionism, Realism and numerous other divergent influences without any cultural or political ax to grind. There was even a German branch of the movement that was especially sensitive to their postwar past, wanting mostly to free German art from the overwhelming power of American art which had so pervading their culture.

La Mano ubbidisce all'intelletto, 1983,
Carlo Maria Mariani

Some critics called this development "anachronistic painting." It looked back to Mannerism and Neoclassicism such as in Carlo Maria Mariani's La Mano ubbidisce all'intelletto (The Hand Obeying the Intellect, right), painted in 1983. In it he depicts two classically nude Greek male figures each with brush in hand, sitting facing one another, both delicately painting one another. The figures and composition are crystal clear. The colors are Renaissance, the content Surrealistic, the poses Classical. It's a painting mirroring itself but also reflecting its independent existence. It's unquestionably Italian, but with so many international influences, it also reflects the fact that, by the 1980s, art was no longer provincial, but global in scope. In that sense, perhaps we're all Transavantguardian painters.

The Seeds of Expressionism

Although the romantic tendencies in us all sometimes causes us to think so, seldom does an artist's idea for a painting spring full-blown from his mind in some miraculous flash of God-given spiritual brilliance. If that is true of the individual artist and the individual painting, it also holds true in terms of art movements as well. Take Expressionism, for example. With its deepest roots in Germany with Die Brucke and Der Blaue Reiter, the tendrils splayed out in several different directions, to France and le Fauves even extending to Russia, Austria, England, and Norway, which each had a branch of the movement. It doesn't take an art history genius to recognize the seed that started it all--Vincent van Gogh. But Van Gogh alone cannot account for the broad diversity sprouting from this stalk. Van Gogh was luscious, sweet, and despite his background, optimistic. Expressionism also had a dour, sad, bitter, pessimistic flavor as well. Where did this element come from?

Two Skeletons Fighting over a Dead Man, 1891, James Ensor

He was a little younger than Van Gogh--born in 1860. He was from Belgium. His name was James Ensor, and he was as unknown, even today, as Vincent is famous. But unlike Vincent, he lived long enough (89 years) to see his influence felt in Expressionism, even though he was never really a part of the movement. An 1891 painting is typical. Wildly colorful and overtly humorous, it's entitled, Two Skeletons Fighting over a Dead Man (even the title is funny). The influence of Hieronymous Bosch is obvious. The painting is set on a sort of stage with various masked figures peering in from the wings and the audience while a grotesque man hangs suspended by his neck in the center (presumably the dead man). On either sides, two skeletal figures dressed in ragged women's clothes threaten one another with a broom, fishing pole, and umbrella. On the floor lying between them is another foppishly dressed skeleton. (What? Another dead man? Or is it a dead woman?). The painting is a riot!

The Skate, 1892, James Ensor

But there was another side of Ensor. A still-life painted the following year, while no less gruesome and only slightly less grotesque, bares the marks of a distinct Chardin influence (an 18th century French painter). The painting is titled The Skate. (Skate being a kind of fish.) The colors are more expressive, brighter, higher in contrast than anything Chardin ever did, but the work is no less realistic. And it is all the more powerful in its impact because of this realism. It is raw. Dominating the composition is the underside of a horrendously ugly stingray with a face like a monkey and a tail section to make one shudder. To the left are added the fresh Skate from whence comes the title and the raw redness of a freshly caught Conch (and I don't mean just the shell). Nothing from this period compares with this abrasive strain of expressionism except perhaps the work of Edvard Munch, who was an almost exact contemporary of Ensor. Munch is the third spiritual icon of early Expressionism. But unlike Ensor, he was more than just an early influence, he became an Expressionist, seeing the movement through to the end.

The 1930s

Washroom and Dining Area of
Floyd Burrough's Home, Hale County,
Alabama, 1936, Walker Evans

One of the blessings resulting from membership in what has come to be known as the "baby boomer" generation is that we were spared the suffering and memories of the two most difficult decades of the 20th century--the 1930s and 40s. Bad as the war years of the 40s were in terms of death and suffering at least both were encountered mostly elsewhere in the world and in general, they were a time of hope for a better tomorrow. The Great Depression of the 1930s, on the other hand, was a home grown tragedy mired in despair, and few who lived through this decade escaped without bearing psychological scars as a result. As art goes, there wasn't much of any consequence during either decade. The WPA sponsored some murals in public buildings that were, well, interesting, if hardly remarkable. And after the war the seeds of Abstract Expressionism began to sprout in New York which was to some degree noteworthy. However during this period, one art form did stand forth with remarkable valor and excellence--photography. It's interesting to note that during periods of economic hardship, art tends to embrace realism on the downward slide and idealism on the upswing. This perfectly describes art styles during this period. And the camera captured both with incredible fidelity.

Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California,
1936, Dorothea Lange 

The Farm Security Administration was established in 1935 during the darkest hours of the Depression.  Its director, New Deal economist and sociologist, Roy Stryker, felt the need to spearhead reform at all levels of rural society. He hired six photographers to show everyone else just how bad things really were. Three of the best, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, and Walker Evans took their cameras to the heartlands and heartaches of a troubled nation. They brought back over 270,000 negatives, some of which have burned their way into our national psyche like no other art before or since. Lange's Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California (right) has often been called an American Madonna. The mother was 32 but looked much older, lines of worry and suffering etched indelibly on her tired face; while behind her, two of her ten children cower in fear, hiding their faces from the world. They could very well have come from the deserted prairie farmhouse in her 1938 photo Tractored Out, from Childress County, Texas, in which deep, curving furrows are plowed right up to the front door of a sharecroppers abandoned home.

Rehabilitation Clients, Boone County, Arkansas,
1938, Ben Shahn

At the dawn of the decade of the 30s, the typical image of the American Midwest came from the painter, Grant Wood. His dour, yet at the same time slightly humorous American Gothic, was hopeful and modestly noble in a sort of stiff, somewhat anxious way. Just five years later, Ben Shahn's photo, Rehabilitation Clients, Boone County, Arkansas (left), marks a 180-degree turnabout. The pose is the same (the figures are reversed, however). The bib overalls are the same. So are the dour expressions, but there is nothing the least bit humorous about this desperate depiction of Midwestern rural existence.  The backdrop is not Gothic Revival but the logs of economic lethargy. The look is not hopeful but hopeless. Walker Evans captures a similar stark existence minus the players in this social tragedy with his 1936 still-life photo, Washroom and Dining Area of Floyd Burrough's Home, Hale County, Alabama (top). The house is more upscale, the logs replaced by weathered siding, the worn, wooden floorboards scrubbed bare, but the furniture is stark and sparse. A towel hangs from a nail on the doorjamb next to a shelf with a small, metal wash basin. It is art rising to meet a need, then rising beyond that to the realm of greatness in becoming a sign of the times.

Thank God for Hollywood

Imagine the challenge of contemplating a blank canvas perhaps in the neighborhood of thirty feet tall and some forty feet in width. It that wouldn't be intimidating enough, consider being asked to paint on that canvas the interior of a great Baroque church or a grand palace complete with massive columns, intricate vaulted arches, statuary, and wall murals. Welcome to the world of eighteenth-century stage design where the architect and painter worked hand-in-hand to paint the enormous backdrops for the most popular form of entertainment of the day--grand opera. Even a Hollywood set designer could learn a thing or two from the Galli-Bibiena family of gifted designers skilled in all the theatrical arts of the time, when the soaring operatic presentations demanded everything from ornate palaces to pitched naval engagements. It was a time when grandiose theatrical effects blurred the lines between mechanical engineer, pyrotechnical technician, architect, painter, set designer, and interior decorator.

Set design by Ferdinando Galli-Bibiena ca. 1710. The actual backdrop
 was in color and has, of course, long since disappeared.

Ferdinando Galli-Bibiena's stage sets were often more inspiring than the wailing sopranos and bellowing baritones who found themselves competing with them for the audience's attention. Even in Venice, where performances of Grand opera were more important than the water in the Grand Canal, his towering backdrops broke new ground in painting, architecture, and set design. He invented what he called "oblique view" perspective. It was basically two-point perspective with a very low horizon, corresponding to the average eye-level of the seated theater audience.  (Previously one-point perspective, unrelated to the theater itself, had been the norm.) Combined with just enough peripheral set construction to confuse the eye, his architectural backdrops blended with them perfectly to form the illusion of spatial depth creating breathtaking vistas known as "inquadratura,"--what the French would call (albeit on a smaller scale), tompe l'oeil or "fool the eye" painting.

A set design in "ruins," Gaspare Galliari, ca. 1790

In Milan and Turin, the Galliari family specialized in similar larger-than-life paintings except that their specialty tended toward the pastoral landscape in which the use of aerial perspective attempted to delude the audience, transporting them to faraway lands of sweeping grace and beauty. Their architectural wonders tended toward ancient Roman ruins, Chinese temples, and exotic pavilions, or busy seaports offering shelter from vast, stormy seas. What they lacked in historical accuracy, they more than made up for in splendorous Arcadian grandeur. So, the next time you sit down before your French easel to contemplate a flowing stream and your all-American covered bridge, think briefly about the efforts your Italian painting ancestors went to in order to deceive and entertain the grand dukes and duchesses three hundred years ago. Then take out your mighty 16-by-20-inch canvas panel and thank God for Hollywood.

Today, we're left only to imagine theatrical scenes such as this by
Gaspare Gallari, in brilliant color, mounting 30 to 40 feet above the
 stage while measuring 50 or 60 feet into the wings.