Neil Harris in his book on J. Carter Brown’s directorship of the National Gallery (Culture Capital) explains how our nation’s capital came to be appreciated through graphic and literary presentations. Samuel F.B. Morse painted Congressional proceedings, but cartoonists provided caricatures of politicians that encouraged interest in the “farcical as well as tragic features of government” (Harris 40).
Films and plays, however, really helped rally interest in the workings of government with themes “reflecting attitudes toward partisanship, corruption, power, and pretension” (Harris 41). Before television, government was a largely mysterious affair, occurring at a great distance from most every day lives. Films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Born Yesterday, and State of the Union provided peeks into these places of power.
Television has changed some of that by providing us closer looks at Congress and the White House, but still we must remember how much we are influenced by what we see, or rather are given to see. There are parts of the world that I have never seen, but that I can describe because I have seen them in film and on television. We cringe at critical remarks in the 19th century about ‘exotic’ locales and people that are often derived from the Romantic imagery of the painters who visited, composed, and returned with canvases in hand. Art and stories do tell us something about a culture and a time, but sociological research also reveals those things that remained unacknowledged.
I feel compelled to mention this here because I am such an advocate for the role of poems and stories in encouraging interest in art and artists. I really do think we can use them to tell us about responses to certain works and movements over the years, why and how they have continued to appeal. There is a place in the history of art for the stories of art. BUT, all that being said, we must also remember that these are fictional accounts. They have dramatic requirements that allow them to warp evidence to the contrary. After all, as I’ve said before, why ruin a good story for want of a few facts?
A good story is a good story and over wine or on a Sunday night before a busy week ahead, that is what I want. I want drama! Give me House of Cards! But, Monday morning, don’t expect me to believe it. A peek into a place of power is not a good solid look. That requires more than sitting on the couch. It requires the hard work of investigative journalism, whose tales are far longer and more warped than any novel or film, and which we often ignore until it becomes entertainment…
All the President’s Men, Lincoln, The Butler, Selma.
These are fictions. But if well done, they might just make us wonder about what we’ve seen, what we think we see, what we might see if we looked more carefully.
Book Review: Capital Culture, J.Carter Brown, The National Gallery, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience by Neil Harris
Capital Culture is a detailed account of J. Carter Brown’s influence as Director of the United States National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., but Neil Harris’ fifteen chapters also offer a view of the changes that occurred in museum culture during the 23 years of his tenure. The book centers on the changes that Brown was able to impose during his time at the National Gallery, by using specific shows and internal situations as case studies for the transformations that helped turn the gallery into a world class museum. The blockbuster exhibitions that Brown spearheaded were often met with disapproval despite their public success. Harris is even-handed in presenting critical declamations, both aesthetic and political, alongside his archival research into the driving reasons for the National Gallery’s efforts into these shows.
The emphasis on museums as sites of cultural education rather than excited engagement stems in part from the origins of survey museums arising out of princely collections. Brown’s move away from this pedagogical tradition incited much criticism, and though such departures have grown common place, they are still treated with hesitation, attitudes which may not serve to encourage contemporary audiences who increasingly arise out of a culture of choice rather than instruction. J. Carter Brown was an innovator and the book argues on behalf of his successes, despite any failures, for making the National Gallery an important cultural center. Harris convincingly claims that Brown’s vision transformed the museum stage and readers will likely find inspiration in Brown’s dynamic belief in art for all.
A full review will be available at the Journal of Curatorial Studies in the summer of 2015.
CAPITAL CULTURE: J. CARTER BROWN, THE NATIONAL GALLERY, AND THE REINVENTION OF THE MUSEUM EXPERIENCE, NEIL HARRIS
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press (2013), 616 pp., Hardcover, ISBN: 978-0-226-06770-4, US$35.00
The emphasis on museums as sites of cultural education rather than excited engagement stems in part from the origins of survey museums arising out of princely collections. Brown’s move away from this pedagogical tradition incited much criticism, and though such departures have grown common place, they are still treated with hesitation, attitudes which may not serve to encourage contemporary audiences who increasingly arise out of a culture of choice rather than instruction. J. Carter Brown was an innovator and the book argues on behalf of his successes, despite any failures, for making the National Gallery an important cultural center. Harris convincingly claims that Brown’s vision transformed the museum stage and readers will likely find inspiration in Brown’s dynamic belief in art for all.
A full review will be available at the Journal of Curatorial Studies in the summer of 2015.
CAPITAL CULTURE: J. CARTER BROWN, THE NATIONAL GALLERY, AND THE REINVENTION OF THE MUSEUM EXPERIENCE, NEIL HARRIS
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press (2013), 616 pp., Hardcover, ISBN: 978-0-226-06770-4, US$35.00
Fashion in the Museum
I know that there are some who think that fashion doesn't belong in the museum and that there are others who mostly go to museums to see the fashions, whether on mannequins or in paintings.
The Boston MFA has placed costumes from Hollywood’s Golden Age on display with a wall showing clips from the films where the costumes were worn. The costumes appear remarkably different in person from the screen. In person, I noticed the dresses’ beadwork and color, but saw them for their structure and movement in the black and white films. If museums serve to help us become more visually aware, then this show reminds us that what we see on screens, film, television, or computer, may not be what we would experience in person.
No bad thing in that.
As I attend a talk at the National Arts Club (tonight, Friday 1/23 7pm) on the fashion designer Bill Halston, I will also confront the club’s own uncertainty about the committee. They often organize some of the more popular events, and yet they are derided as a “light” committee, unconcerned with real art. Almost all the clothes that we wear do not constitute art, but I would be hard pressed to reject all fashion across time as having no place in a discussion of art.
Fashion is intimate and it most obviously accepts our superimposed desires, but is that truly reason to dismiss it? Hasn't other art done the same?
The Boston MFA has placed costumes from Hollywood’s Golden Age on display with a wall showing clips from the films where the costumes were worn. The costumes appear remarkably different in person from the screen. In person, I noticed the dresses’ beadwork and color, but saw them for their structure and movement in the black and white films. If museums serve to help us become more visually aware, then this show reminds us that what we see on screens, film, television, or computer, may not be what we would experience in person.
No bad thing in that.
As I attend a talk at the National Arts Club (tonight, Friday 1/23 7pm) on the fashion designer Bill Halston, I will also confront the club’s own uncertainty about the committee. They often organize some of the more popular events, and yet they are derided as a “light” committee, unconcerned with real art. Almost all the clothes that we wear do not constitute art, but I would be hard pressed to reject all fashion across time as having no place in a discussion of art.
Fashion is intimate and it most obviously accepts our superimposed desires, but is that truly reason to dismiss it? Hasn't other art done the same?
What Do You See?
Charles Sheeler’s View of New York (1931) is obviously not a view of New York City.
It is an interior painting of his studio, with a window through which we see a blue sky outside. Inside, an empty chair, an unlit lamp, and a covered camera are not only signs of the artist not working, but are made dismal by the gray walls and tone that cover the main body of the painting. The covered camera was indicative of Sheeler’s work as a photographer, though he was switching to painting. I am amused by the window centerpiece with the blue sky outside because of the fact that artists so often sense that their worlds trapped inside a studio are gray and lifeless, where outside, where they cannot be, is full of color and vibrancy. Those of us on the outside might not always agree, but Sheeler’s painting highlights that narrative to an amusing degree.
Sowing Victory
Mostly from the United States, the posters also include some from France, England, Russia and Germany. They urge citizens to buy bonds in support of the war cause, but some also encourage men to enlist, often using guilt to pressure. A picture of a father with children on his lap and a caption that reads “Daddy, what did you do in the war?” or a picture of several hats (fedora, straw, ad so forth) with a navy cap in the center and the question “Which hat will you wear?”
Most intriguing to me, however, were the posters about rationing, and self-subsistence by planting “Victory” gardens. Somehow, support of the country has shifted away from the notion that we be careful about our consumption. Since Ford decided to recall troops from Vietnam in TK to suggest the end of the war there, even though United States presence continued for a while, as a nation we have been adverse to military engagement unless quick and easy. This is understandable, but it means we delude ourselves that we are not at war, as say our continued military engagement in Iraq for over a decade should be considered. Since we are not at war, we do not think of ourselves as having to minimize or economize as if we were at war. Our economy depends on excess spending, I understand that, but unfortunately, it makes us wasteful and inconsiderate of the real costs of sustained success. You an’t win a war you aren’t fighting. You can’t avoid waste if a surplus is assumed. We are at war, and I’m struck by the ease with which we live our lives. I’m not sure that planting gardens, or rationing meat and flour and sugar, would do anything for our troops or the military, but these posters did make me note how the two were once linked.
The Change You Want To See In The World
In the Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott exhibit currently at the MFA, through September 13, 2015, I heard a woman my age explaining to a little girl, maybe around six years old, that these pictures depict a time when kids of different color had to go to separate schools.
"Separate schools?" Incredulity mingled with confusion as the adult sighed, "Yes."
But the little girl looked perplexed rather than upset, and I was glad that she found it odd and attached no personal significance to this fact.
She was the change that many in the exhibit had hoped for. Elderly couples walked hand in hand looking at the photographs that Gordon Parks took in his hometown of Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1950. They show the way racism and segregation still quietly defined the life of those he knew. That would change soon, but not soon enough. The photographs were supposed to be published in Life magazine in 1951, but were suspended. The 42 photographs on display have never been seen before. The exhibit includes examples of his typewritten pages from his novel, The Learning Tree (1963). Parks confronted racism at every stage of his career, working in Chicago, but then also during his fellowship for the Farm Security Administration in segregated Washington DC, no better at the war office, and certainly not once he left those bureaucracies and tried fashion photography, though he was able to get freelance work from Vogue.
His work is an implied indictment of racism by showing the humanity of those so rudely dismissed. Given the racism the United States that still confuses the United States, the show could not come at a better time.
"Separate schools?" Incredulity mingled with confusion as the adult sighed, "Yes."
But the little girl looked perplexed rather than upset, and I was glad that she found it odd and attached no personal significance to this fact.
She was the change that many in the exhibit had hoped for. Elderly couples walked hand in hand looking at the photographs that Gordon Parks took in his hometown of Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1950. They show the way racism and segregation still quietly defined the life of those he knew. That would change soon, but not soon enough. The photographs were supposed to be published in Life magazine in 1951, but were suspended. The 42 photographs on display have never been seen before. The exhibit includes examples of his typewritten pages from his novel, The Learning Tree (1963). Parks confronted racism at every stage of his career, working in Chicago, but then also during his fellowship for the Farm Security Administration in segregated Washington DC, no better at the war office, and certainly not once he left those bureaucracies and tried fashion photography, though he was able to get freelance work from Vogue.
His work is an implied indictment of racism by showing the humanity of those so rudely dismissed. Given the racism the United States that still confuses the United States, the show could not come at a better time.
Goya: Order and Disorder, Boston MFA
On one hand he is known for his portraits of aristocrats, such as the full length Duchess de Alba in a lace mantilla and wearing traditional Spanish clothes as she points down to the sand at her feet where “Sole Goya” is written. Shockingly similar to that painting is the seated portrait of an actress, Antonia Zarate y Aguirre, also wearing black, also covered in a lace mantilla (though not quite as delicate or ornate), and placed against a brown and gold background. Eavesdropping on two conversations in front of the piece, I heard different objections to it. One was dismayed that the silver ribbon at her rib cage clashed with the gold background, as did the black and brown. This on the principle that you do not wear silver and gold or black and brown together. The other objection found that a curl of hair on her forehead appeared to extend her already bushy eyebrow, made worse by the fact that some skin had been painted visible through the curl and looked like an unfortunate beauty mark. “I wouldn’t like it if it were me,” exclaimed the woman to her friend.
There are many ways to criticize art, and this personal approach is one. A friend who had seen the show objected to the lack of biographical material, as he was left wondering more about Goya. To my mind, this is the show’s success, building interest in an artist such that visitors would seek out information on their own. Biographies are both accessible and easy to find for the common museum audience, where the type of information the show relayed about technique required visual examples to explain. Goya’s work also required some historical contextualization since Goya’s presence as Court Painter made him a witness to the rise and fall of courtiers, while the Napoleonic invasion during the Peninsula War are significant to his posthumously published Disasters of War print series.
The etching They Do Not Want to (No quieren, Plate 9 from Disasters of War) depicts a soldier attempting to rape a young woman with an older woman coming from behind to stab him. The rape and pillaging of towns devastated Spain and Goya knew much about it from his own countryside visits, including to his home village. The lines marking the left side of the crone’s skirt emerge out of the wall behind the figures, while the right front side of her skirt sweep down to connect with the ground lines beneath the two struggling figures. Her strength comes not only from the presence of the knife but also the way Goya has her circling the environment of the two central figures. The contour lines around the soldier make him stand out, and provide a dark background against which the young woman has all the innocence of mostly untouched blank paper (with only the required lines to depict her form). The crone is all shading that, I will go so far as to suggest, gives her the ambiguity of wisdom, the gray tonality that accepts both black and white, murder as protection.
This woman made me realize the deep respect that Goya shows for aged women, whether as witches or protectresses. The show explained in a wall text that old age was associated with vanity, avarice, and lust, but that is far better seen in his depiction of old men. They are swinging, a metaphor for sexual license, gorging themselves on food in the dark, and generally foolish. I did not spot a work that presented old men as wise in the Goya show, and remain intrigued by the lack of imagery and tales in general presenting men as aging gracefully.
The show was divided thematically, with walls dedicated to youth, old age, power, allowing the curators to combine paintings and prints. One large room was dedicated to his portraits, including one with questionable attribution thereby allowing viewers to witness the challenge of certainty. The show culminates with a freestanding wall of prints from Disasters of War, though the room behind it includes several more works. Goya’s prints of war, madness, and nightmares contrast to his polite portraits. As Enlightenment philosophy gained strength, ridiculing the superstitions of religion, it must have been all the more horrifying to see the savagery of the revolutions, the dismantling of governments, the massacres that followed. How could this mankind espouse reason on one hand, and yield such violence with the other? The question remains for us as we declare ourselves a global community and witness human violations on mass scales around the world.
Goya was brilliant not simply for his technique, but for his ability to draw what we still refuse to see.
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