Picasso in London: “Not a Slave to the Canon”
Photograph of Pablo Picasso (c. 1955)
After seeing The Raft of the Medusa by Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798-1863) Théodore Géricault (French, 1791-1824), a friend recorded Picasso saying: “That bastard! He was good.”
The exhibition, Picasso: Challenging the Past, currently on show at the National Gallery in London, is a well-documented testament to the artist’s admiration for artists that he made posthumous collaborators in his work, among them Goya, Velázquez, Poussin, Ingres, and El Greco.
Tom Mills. Picasso: Challenging the Past at the National Gallery. (February 2009) From a 360-degree photograph. Click photograph to go to original on www.360cities.net.
Lest visitors think that Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) had betrayed or diluted his innovative impulses, the introductory paragraph to the exhibition–boldly written on the wall near the entry–states “he certainly was not a slave to the canon.” Thus, a confusing tone was set, turning up throughout the exhibition, that simultaneously attempted to admire Picasso’s admiration for “traditional” artists while, in some cases, denying them admiration.
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) Nude Woman in a Red Armchair (1932) Oil on Canvas. 130 by 97 cm. Tate Museum, UK.
An example was the exhibition’s treatment of Ingres. Making a comparison between the National Gallery’s Portrait of Madame Paul-Sigisbert Moitessier by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (French, 1780-1867) to Picasso’s Nude Woman in a Red Armchair, the exhibition claimed that Ingres, like Picasso “idealized eroticism,” and that “the more one looks at Ingres, the less plausible his work seems.” According to the film accompanying the exhibition, Ingres’ arms and fingers appear to have no bones, and figures seem dramatically out of distortion, as if they were anticipating Picasso’s work. It seemed like revisionism. (See my previous post on Ingres’ careful attention to the human figure.) It was as though Ingres could not be appreciated on his own terms, but only on Picasso’s.
Jean August Dominique Ingres (French, 1780-1867) Portrait of Madame Paul-Sigisbert Moitessier (1856) Oil on canvas. 120 by 92.1 cm. National Gallery, London
Seeing Picasso’s works, I don’t necessarily think that he would have shared this perspective. There is no denying the copious amounts of time he spent reworking Diego Velázquez’s (Spanish, 1599-1660) Las Meninas or the Rape of the Sabines by Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594-1665). This is what makes Picasso great: his simultaneous departure from and use of classical themes. As I walked through the exhibition I was remineded of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s comment: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” Despite the startling variety of his output–one piece reflects his classical training, another is nearly completely abstract, a work full of color, and another nearly void of spectrum–Picasso confidently comes across in each painting.
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) Las Meninas, after Diego Velázquez (1957) Oil on canvas. Picasso Museum, Spain.
The exhibition seemed organized for those who already love and acknowledge Picasso as part of the canon. As such, it was, at first, difficult for me–someone who still struggles to relate to his works–to approach. However, the more I looked directly at the works, the more approachable they became. Despite the exhibition’s sometimes revisionist treatment of “the canon,” it was an ideal primer to his oeuvre. Deciphering Picasso’s translation of Las Meninas by Velázquez, for example, kept me occupied for at least 30 minutes and provided numerous insights into Picasso’s pictoral devices. It was a Rosetta Stone for Picasso.
Diego Velázquez (Spanish, 1599-1660) Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor) or the Royal Family (1656-57) Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain
A mentor of mine is fond of saying that “art is very personal.” Personally, Picasso is a shock to my natural inclinations. However, I admire his genius and, with the help of this exhibition, found myself thinking: “That bastard! He was good.”
The Prado Museum + Google Earth
Roger van der Weyden (Flemish, 1400-1464) Descent from the Cross (c. 1435) 220 BY 262 cm. Oil on panel. Prado Museum, Madrid. (Images from Google Earth.)
The Prado Museum and Google have announced a very exciting partnership. Together, they have created virtual painting exhibition with high-definition images of several major works of art in the Prado’s collection.
Here is a brief video, produced by Google, to demonstrate the virtual museum:
Google Earth, which is different from Google Maps, is a free sofwtare for PC, Mac, and Linux that requires users to download Google’s software. The program allows users to visit different parts of the world and add photographs to a particular location. What is different with visiting the Prado Museum in Google Earth is the quality of the images along with documentation.
I tried it out, using the painting Descent from the Cross (c. 1435) by Roger van der Weyden (Flemish, c. 1400-1464) as my test work. Here I zoom in on Mary.
Roger van der Weyden (Flemish, 1400-1464) Descent from the Cross (c. 1435) 220 BY 262 cm. Oil on panel. Prado Museum, Madrid. (Images from Google Earth.) Detail.
In this first image, we are about as close as viewing the work as seeing it in person would allow.
Roger van der Weyden (Flemish, 1400-1464) Descent from the Cross (c. 1435) 220 BY 262 cm. Oil on panel. Prado Museum, Madrid. (Images from Google Earth.) Detail.
Here, the ability to see paint texture is better here than seeing them in person. And, it gets even closer.
Roger van der Weyden (Flemish, 1400-1464) Descent from the Cross (c. 1435) 220
This last image is as closest as I can get. It is absolutely astounding and unprecedented for a museum to openly publish such high-quality images of works in a collection. These make it possible to see the individual strokes and, even, through layers of paint. This application of technology may open up a whole new way of looking at objects of art and training of artists by showing them textures and strokes not visible in standard reproduction. My next wish is for Google: 3D images of sculptures in similarly high resolution.
Bearded Roman in Madrid
Photo of upturned tree trunk placed with 18th-century Persian rug. Seen at Feriarte Madrid
This week and next, I’m in Madrid, where a number of impressive exhibitions and fairs are taking place, including:
- The 32nd Annual Feriarte: One of Europe’s largest Fine & Decorative Art Fairs.
- Rembrandt, History Painter: An exhibition of painter’s narrative works the Prado Museum.
- Between Gods & Men: A rare look at two major ancient sculpture collections, from Dresden and Madrid, on show at the Prado Museum.
- Sorolla Museum in Madrid: My report on a visit to the home and private studio of the Valencian painter who befriended Zorn and Sargent.
- El Escorial: The country palace of Spain’s Hapsburg Royalty, which contains major works from their collection
All this coming over the next week in a series of posts.
Pursuing Lost Painting Methods: An Excellent Article from the NY Times
Titian (Venetian, a. 1506-1576) Bacchus and Ariadne (1520-23) Oil on canvas. 176.5 BY 191CM. National Gallery, London.
In the upcoming exhibition, “Benjamin West and the Venetian Secret,” (beginning September 18) Yale’s Center for British Art explores an obsession with recreating the methods of Titian. The Sunday New York Times dedicates an excellent article to the topic.
Benjamin West (Anglo-American, 1738-1820) Cicero Discovering the Tomb of Archimedes (1797) Oil on canvas. 124.5 BY 180.5CM. Yale University Art Gallery.
Benjamin West (Anglo-American, 1738-1820) Portrait of artist posing as President of the Royal Academy.
West had served as President of the Royal Academy (1792-1805; 1806-1820) and was particularly interested in the works of the Venetian painter Titian (Venetian, a. 1506-1576), and his ability to achieve high intensity color in his paintings.
So when an artist named Ann Jemima Provis and her father, Thomas Provis, approached West and told him they had found a copy of an old manuscript that explained how the Venetians achieved their distinctive style of painting, he jumped at the chance to learn more. Eager to incorporate the methods in the manuscript into his own work, West began experimenting with them.
There was only one problem.
“The story was an absurd invention, and the manuscript was a fake,†said Angus Trumble, senior curator of paintings and sculpture at the Yale Center.
In addition, to the manuscript Ann and Thomas Provis offered demonstrations of the Venetian technique. These included a new approach to painting grounds and using Prussian blue.
(Prussian blue was invented by Heinrich Diesbach and Johann Konrad Dippel in 1704 or 1705, more than 100 years after Titian’s death. In his own paintings, Titian used lapis lazuli (a.k.a ultramarine); therefore, the “rediscovered” method was clearly not Titian’s.)
(From “Be An Old Master, for 10 Guineas” by J. D. BIERSDORFER, August 29, 2008. New York Times.)
Painters working under the instructions of the Provises did not have the same results as the Old Masters, which led to suspicions regarding the Provises’s claims. The Provises were discovered for their hoax, and a number of artists who had paid for their advice were discredited in the press and at the Royal Academy. West, especially, was criticized for not having seen the hucksters for what they were.
The Paris Salon or “Exhibition of Living Artists”
Francois Joseph Heim (French, 1787-1865) Charles X Distributing Awards to Artists Exhibiting at the Salon of 1824 at the Louvre (1827) MuseÌe du Louvre, Paris
In his book, The Judgment of Paris, Ross King compares Salon attendance to today’s most visited museum exhibitions:
[The Salon was] one of the greatest spectacles in Europe, it was an even more popular attraction, in terms of the crowds it drew, than public executions. Opening to the public in the first week of May and running for some six weeks, it featured thousands of works of art specially—and sometimes controversially—chosen by a Selection Committee. Admission on most afternoons was only a franc, which placed it within easy reach of virtually every Parisian, considering the wage of the lowest-paid workers, such as milliners and washerwomen, averaged three to four francs a day. Those unwilling or unable to pay could visit on Sundays, when admission was free and the Palais des Chaps-Élysées thronged with as many as 50,000 visitors—five times the number that had gathered in 1857 to watch the blade of guillotine descend on the neck of a priest names Verger who had murdered the Archbishop of Paris. In some years, as Many as a million people visited the Salon during its six-week run, meaning crowds averaged more than 23,000 people a day*
*To put these figures into context, the most well-attended art exhibition in the year 2003 was Leonardo da Vinci: Master Draftsman, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Over the course of a nine-week run, the show drew and average of 6,863 visitors each day, with an overall total of 401,004. El Greco, likewise at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, averaged 6,807 per day during its three-month run in 2003-4, ultimately attracting 574,381 visitors. The top-ranked schibition of 2002, Van Gogh and Gaugin, at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, drew 6,719 perday for four months, with a final attendance of 739,117.
(Ross King. The Judgment of Paris. New York: Walker and Company, 2006. p. 17)
Comparing the Paris Salon to modern-day museum exhibitions is probably unfair. In the nineteenth century–before the advent of photography, radio, and movie theaters–painting was truly the most public art form. A more appropriate comparison would mostly likely be comparing Salon attendance to movie ticket sales. (How about comparing Ernest Meissonier’s painting Friedeland, the painting sold for the highest price in the nineteenth century and a Salon blockbuster, with Batman Begins?)
Ernest Meissonier (French, 1815-1891) 1807, Friedland (c. 1861-1875), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
If that is true, it would also be appropriate to consider the Paris Salons as some of the most culturally significant and telling events of the nineteenth century. Recently, while undertaking a research question, I was surprised to learn that there is little published about the Salon as an intitution previous to or after the Salon de Refusées in 1863.
The Poetry of Silence: Vihelm Hammershøi at the Royal Academy in London
Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. The exhibition, Vilhelm Hammershøi: The Poetry of Silence, at the Royal Academy in London displays more than 60 of Hammershøi’s works and runs until September 7. (It will then travel to Tokyo.)
Hammershøi received training at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and produced a number of landscapes early in his career. After graduating he submitted a number of portraits to the Royal Academy’s annual exhibition, but was regularly rejected.
Portrait of the Artist’s Sister (1887) Oil on Canvas.
Instead of challenging the system, beginning in the 1890s Hammershøi began painting interior scenes of his home that usually featured his wife, Ida. These paintings were generally sold directly to patrons and only occasionally on public view.
Vilhelm Hammershøi. Interior with Young Woman seen from the Back (c.1903–04) Oil on canvas. Randers Kunstmuseum.
Vilhelm Hammershoi’s Palette.
Vilhelm Hammershøi. Sonnige Stube (1905) Oil on canvas, 49.7 x 40 CM. Nationalgalerie Berlin.
Vilhelm Hammershøi. The British Museum (c. 1905-1906). Oil on Canvas.
Thinking of the title of the exhibition, The Poetry of Silence, I was reminded of a poem titled Silence by Billy Collins:
There is the sudden silence of the crowd
above a motionless player on the field,
and the silence of the orchid.
The silence of the falling vase
before it strikes the floor
the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.
. . .
The silence before I wrote a word
and the poorer silence now.
(Excerpt from Silence by Billy Collins. The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems.)
For an antidote to the ever-busy lifestyle we all lead, I highly recommend finding a Hammershøi painting and sitting in silence for a time.