Even More Modern than Today

Yves Bonnefoy's introduction to Gaeton Picon's book The Birth of Modern Painting suggests that among the significant accomplishments of Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe was to remove the authoritarian voice of meaning from painting.

The painting is thus the response, without anxiety, or even reflection, of the painter's sensibility to a mere bit of color in the light....followed his taste for first glances–perceptions untainted by prior knowledge–after which he worked, in the diverse moment's of the work's genesis, solely with immediate, unreasoning, but obligatorily total adherence to the suggestions of a an obscure, inner necessity....The result was a sudden silencing of the voice that until then, whether clear or confused, never stopped asserting through the intermediary of things the authority of an order of the world, of an a priori truth, of an orthodoxy of thought. 

Manet  painted what he imagined, whether it made sense or not. He did not try to place his nude woman at the picnic in a context that could in any way be interpreted allegorically. It is clearly not a historical painting. The work is a pure painting, as Bonnefoy calls it, an act of the imagination.

Seeing, in other words, the interest in perception that is nothing but itself, seems to replace vision, as Mallarmé was later to believe.

He explains that this leaves the painter with the brave task of meeting and trespassing onto the unconscious. Finding their own inner source of intoxication, painters must live and produce without support or refuge, painting the visual impact of their hermetic dismissal. He goes on to make a statement that I think might have equally significant value today if recommended carefully.

This is not only an intoxicating discovery, a clear direction, the positivity of Being regained after centuries of interpretation and theory always falling short of the presence of the world; it is also an unceasing incitement to venture into the unknown, and therefore, something that can be admired and appreciated, but just as easily feared.

French painting had been ruled by the Academy, and Felibien had established a hierarchy of painting that placed historical painting, and allegorical painting, at the top. Though the imagination was called upon, it was done within the constraints of a general knowledge base and accepted interpretive skills determined and reinforced by the Academy. David's perfect portrait of Lavoisier and his wife, shows his chemistry tools to evoke his experiments oxygen, gunpowder and the chemical composition of water. Symbols are intentionally placed; poses are struck to suggest meaning. Manet suddenly rejects all this to permit a strong, enveloping but also anti-idea image. The challenge is to appreciate it without trying to explain it.

And here is where I come today. Without necessarily backtracking to require today's artists to mimic some past form or style, would it not be possible to reconsider this "intoxicating discovery" of stepping away from thought? Though much conceptual art has offered something, has it not also produced an expectation that suddenly appears quite traditional, that is the requirement to think about the art-experience? I can hardly claim to knowing what such art might be today, or how it might be identified, but perhaps we might discover it in the effort of trying to look at art rather than think, read plaques, learn biography. We might begin seeing more.

Nautical Notes: Mari, Navi e Naufragi

A week has passed but I am still thinking of the delightful show I saw at Centotto Gallery last Friday. Like many others, I am often wary of art shows in super-hip, most up-and-coming art communities, particularly when the invitation uses self-consciously heightened language, with additional remarks in a foreign tongue. This usually suggests that I am to arrive as a connoisseur with a depth of understanding,  a facility with a type of terminology that in truth I do not have, nor believe is necessary for every viewer. Such shows then tend to make me feel uncomfortable, when I do go to them, as if I were not good enough for the work on view.

This is not the case with Centotto Gallery's current show Nautical Notes: Mari, Navi e Naufragi. The show is a pleasure to see. The curator Paul D'Agostino invited artists with good work and placed them in the small space to draw the viewer into each work, so that each work can be admired, while also enjoyed together. The works vary in style but are placed in relationship to each other so as to complement and enhance themselves and each other. There are traditional seascapes, photographs, whimsical sculptures, a massive drawing, but it does not feel like a forced attempt to mix media but rather an honest representation of a response to a topic by modern artists. The show makes no theoretical claims but rather permits each artist to present a piece in loose affiliation with the nautical theme.

Though the art works well together, any of them could be owned and enjoyed in one's home on its own. Sometimes group shows require the rest in order for the works to make sense, provide the pleasure they suggest. Perhaps due to the simplicity of the theme, each work in Nautical Notes can rise to achieve its own presence, anchored through their foundation but allowed to float on their own merit. I found these works to be a true pleasure and hope to return and see them again.

Some shows are worth the voyage there. Whether the L train is running or not, find your way to Centotto Gallery at 250 Moore St #108 (off the Morgan Ave L stop) and let the works by Harry Gold, Adam Thompson, Josh Willis, Alice Lynn McMichael, Tim Kent, Zane Wilson, Rebecca Litt, Joel Dugan, Chris Wyrick, Rachel Day, Warren Holt and Paul Bergeron sail you on your own imaginative journey.

Pinned

I do not often like museum captions because I find them either senseless or unnecessarily full of sense. Either I am told information that is obscure and uninteresting that does not help me engage with the picture, or I am told something completely obvious. Occasionally, however, the combination is reached to perfection. The following caption is reproduced from the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

Richard Hamilton, Pin-Up 1961

One of the founders of Pop art in Britain, Hamilton took his theme for this work directly from popular culture, using pictures from Playboy and other men’s magazines as his sources. While the work references these ubiquitous photographs of sex symbols, it is also a modern treatment of a conventional subject of painting—the odalisque, or reclining nude. Hamilton approaches this tradition through a variety of pictorial modes: the hair is a stylized cartoon, the breasts appear both in drawing and in three-dimensional relief, and the bra is a photograph applied as a collage. "Mixing idioms," Hamilton has said, "is virtually a doctrine in Pin-up."




In my mind it perfectly balances an explanation of the artist, his period, interest and approach. I learn a little about how the picture is constructed (cartoon, photograph), I am also left with enough curiosity to wish to seek out more information; what does he mean by mixing idioms is a virtual doctrine in Pin-Up? Does he mean for pin-ups as a form in general or just this picture? Why would one picture have a doctrine? Is it only particular to this picture or to his others as well? These are questions with answers that I can only learn by continuing to find out about him...either through looking at more examples of his work, or reading about him and his work, or, ideally, both! How wonderful to have a museum provide a picture and text that would engage me. Well done MoMA, and since Hamilton died last month kudos for managing to bring another person into relationship (for whatever length, since sometimes more information dispels the initial allure, like a second or third date) with his work!

Morisot, Manet and Mallarme, Part 3

There are women who seem able to do it all. Whether with the benefits of financial support, psychopharmaceutical aids, or some inherent grace beneath it all, these women can do what the rest of us can not. We may seek to ridicule them, present their hidden anxieties, reveal their personal crises, but in truth, we all know, that some women–in the words of possibly the greatest advertising campaign of all time–just do it.

In Mallarmé's piece on Morisot what becomes most apparent to me is his admiration for her ability to manage so many roles, of which the two most important are clearly her studio time and her social requirements. He sees her as the well-respected painter, the considered and considerate hostess of a Salon, a mother, the sister-in-law to the sometimes difficult Edouard Manet whose paintings also adorned her home, a sister to whom she remained intimate even when her sibling abandoned painting upon marrying, a considerate friend, an avid letter writer (as they all seem to have been! Though I guess we write emails), and, dare I say it, a beautiful home-maker.

Perhaps because we live in such a competitive age, or perhaps because we fear difference after the Social Revolution of the 60s and 70s, whatever the reason we seem disinclined these days to recognize, respect, or revere greatness. Whether in our civic leaders, our friends, or larger peer group, I see a disposition interested in finding the flaw. Is it not obvious that undoubtedly it is there? Is it necessary to highlight it?

I have said nothing here about the quality of Mallarmé's writing most commonly termed obscure because it has been discussed at such length in so many other places. He is notoriously difficult, known to have written his prose then gone back and deleted words so that what remained was a spare, almost terse, presentation of his object of focus. No matter how obscure he might be, however, that he admired her is clear. And he does not hesitate to state all the ways in which she was great. We could perhaps be encouraged to do the same, not necessarily of our immediate circle–who may in truth not be "great" with that in no way diminishing their wonderful and important place in each of our lives, though we likely each know at least one truly great person–but perhaps of those celebrities, politicians, and other luminaries whose lives we permit to have plastered across our screens and papers to feed some longing that we need not indulge.

Some people are great. Let's let them be.

Stepping back

Willa Cather once said though I know not where:

"Beauty is not so plentiful that we can afford to object to stepping back a dozen paces to catch it."

Today, again at the library, working again to know sufficient Italian to pass an upcoming exam, I could not stop myself from taking the time to walk through the Century of Art exhibit at the New York Public Library Schwartzman building on the top floor, the corridor leading to the Rose Reading Room. I felt vaguely guilty, dawdling among the pictures on my way to or from the Women's Room–I really ought to spend each moment translating, vocabulary building–but I could not resist looking at this, then that, liking it more or less with additional viewing time.

So I stepped back a dozen places from my academic activity to notice a work of art, and my life was made more beautiful for that pause. Why should I feel guilty and object to such time spent?

I hope you don't.

Morisot, Manet and Mallarmé, Part 2

Through her salon, through Mallarmé's untiring interest in anyone interesting, Morisot and Mallarmé became good friends. A book of their corrrespondence was eventually published. These letters indicate their mutual appreciation for fine music, their pleasure at each other's conversation.

In March of 1896, Mallarmé wrote the introduction to the catalogue of her retrospective Durand-Ruel. This first portion is often reprinted in Mallarmé's writings, including in Divagations. The rest of this will be a translation of his piece, with some comments provided in brackets, but a more considered discussion offered tomorrow. His writing is intentionally halting, slow-paced where a familiarity with the cuts of Emily Dickinson, for example, can provide a guide as to how to read him. He is always difficult but there is satisfaction in time.

The translation by Jill Anderson in Mallarmé in Prose edited by Mary Ann Caws is beautiful and clear. She does an amazing job of maintaining qualities of his style while also making it comprehensible in English. Since English does not have gendered nouns, or have verbs that agree in gender, keeping all the tangents that Mallarmé allows makes much of the sense disappear in English. It is necessary to alter his phrasing or order a little in order to permit the English reader to enjoy what he is saying. On the other hand too loose a translation could reduce the forcefulness of his language. She balances it perfectly. She begins:

Such a profusion of bringt, iridescent paintings, assembled here, precise in detail, exuberant, impulsive, patiently awaiting future acclaim...

Fortunately she is now well recognized, written about, thought about, and she remains for me a wonderful example of what is possible, as a woman and as a creative person.

Morisot, Manet and Mallarmé, Part 1

Edouard Manet, Stephane Mallarmé 1876

Mallarmé wrote a typically difficult, but lovely, introduction to the catalogue of Berthe Morisot's work in 1896. She had died the previous March, leaving her daughter Julie, to his educational guidance. He writes about her work "So many clear canvases iridescent, here, exact, impulsive, they can wait with a future smile" and goes on to discuss how little she was known though she balanced life and art, her Salon and her painting, always welcoming, admirable. His language requires a slow pace, and knows his reader would know her all too well, visiting this retrospective of her work.

After she and her sister had shown a keen interest, a passion even, for painting, their surprisingly liberal mother for that time, allowed them to continue studying painting under Corot. Through his guidance she had a painting shown in the 1864 Salon and thereby came to know Manet in 1867, sitting for his next Salon submission Balcony, her mother often accompanying her so that her reputation would not be questioned by being in an artist's studio, alone.

Edouard Manet, Balcony 1868

Le Repos 1870

Berthe Morisot 1869

Manet would produce several more paintings of her, which contributes to the gossip that they were amorous of one another, although she married his brother. She and her sister are known to have burned some of their letters to each other, which fact is used to suggest they were hiding some encounter, and both young ladies admit in letters that they kept to have found Manet attractive, if slightly crazy. Whatever romance may have been there was kept secured from the public, then and now, so we do better to appreciate the friendship between the two artists, their attention to each other's work, than to our own lascivious imaginations.

Berthe Morisot with a Fan 1872

The portrait most often reproduced is the one where she is in mourning. It is often used to represent her though she also did a self-portrait.

Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot with Bunch of Violets 1872

Berthe Morisot, Self-Portrait 1885

 She mostly preferred to have her daughter in any self-portraits. These portraits with her daughter provide the warm scenes of domesticity that women of her time were permitted to paint.

This interior landscape is one of the reasons that Morisot can seem banal, pastel in color and emotion. Her paintings show women reading, chasing butterflies, sitting in gardens or on balconies. They avoid city streets and the outside world of the flâneur, the wanderer in mind and heart and spirit. They are content within the safe enclave of the privileges accorded a bourgeois woman, who is nonetheless permitted to paint. She is undeniably an Impressionist, but as the next post will show, Mallarmé was able to appreciate her in full.

Berthe Morisot, Lady at her Toilette 1885

Quotable Quotes Unquoted

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
-- Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)

Occasionally I receive one of those funny forwards filled with quips and quotables, many of which come from Mark Twain, and some others as well. Recently one arrived with the quote above and given my interest in art, I decided to find out who this Edward Langley was, what kind of art he produced, and how he came to be sufficiently interested in politics to have become quotable.

Apparently, "What the country needs is more unemployed politicians” was credited, in 1982, to artist Edward Langley (1928-1995), claimed one website that I found though it could not provide me additional information on the man or the occasion for the quote. It continued to say that in 2000, political activist and professor Angela Davis used it citing an unspecified “1967” speech–thus suggesting that she was not properly referencing her sources. At any rate, all seem to credit Edward Langley. But who is Edward Langley?  

He is not Edward Marion Langley born in London on March 27, 1870, who died in Los Angeles on May 11, 1949. This artist was abandoned by his parents in Australia, made his way to Canada, and travelled by canoe to the Gulf of Mexico! This information and the rest from Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes. He became a US citizen in 1904 while working in Chicago with William Selig, developing the motion picture camera! He moved to Hollywood in 1917 where he became an art director for Thief of Bagdad, Three Musketeers, and Mark of Zorro among others. Edan Hughes says: "From 1921 until 1934 the Langley home in Los Angeles was a gathering place for artists and the film colony. When not busy with the movies, he was active in the local art scene. As a lecturer at local women's clubs, he used his paintings and special lighting effects to show the moods of the desert." Langley was painting in Japan when war erupted and was a prisoner there until 1943. He returned to California, lived in Salinas, Laguna, and La Jolla teaching painting classes until he died.

Interesting enough. Pictures are fine. But this is not our quotable man.

Well, so far as I can find, there is no Edward Langley who was an artist, living on the planet from 1928-1995. Any Edward Langley who is not an artist alive during those years does not show up either. Anything you find on this quote on the internet links it to this fictional Edward Langley who was an artist. Well the obvious next step in research is to go to an actual research location, like a library and dig deeper than Google, Google scholar, or even my university online library will permit me. But I shalln't do that because that is an excessive amount of work for a simple quote that if accurately cited should have become apparent fairly quickly.

Moral of the story? There isn't really one besides the fact that much of what you get in forwards is inaccurate, albeit fun, and deceptive–no matter how many people you forward it to there will be no, repeat no, financial windfall arriving in 3, 7 or 31 days. Enjoy what you read, but remember what Douglas Adams said, “Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.”

At least, I think he said it.