The Art Chronicle

The Meaning of Life

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 12:53:34 -0600

Please look for this story in the December, 2012-January, 2013 issue of Arts + Culture:

http://artsandculturentx.com/the-meaning-of-life/

Diego Velázquez: Painter of Painters

Tue, 2 Oct 2012 14:51:16 -0500

Also in the October issue of Arts + Culture North Texas:

http://artsandculturentx.com/diego-velazquez-painter-of-painters/

Art + Advocacy

Tue, 2 Oct 2012 14:47:29 -0500

Check out the story I wrote about the Art + Advocacy auction that will be held later this month:

http://artsandculturentx.com/art-as-a-lifeline-to-healing/

What's been going on

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:51:38 -0500

Wow, it has been way too long since I’ve posted here. However, I have spent the past year writing away, mostly for Patron magazine and Arts + Culture Magazine. Here are links to stories in each:

For the story about Peter Doroshenko and the Dallas Contemporary, please go to http://patronmagazine.com/Archive/2011/Winter/editorial2.html.

For the story about this summer’s New Texas Talent, please go to
http://artsandculturentx.com/texas-got-talent/.

In the meantime, if you have not yet seen Dale Chihuly’s work at the Dallas Arboretum, run, don’t walk to see it. It will be up until November 5.

Giorgio & Me

Mon, 9 May 2011 14:40:58 -0500

For the past four months, I’ve been snuggled up with Giorgio. Before you gasp in horror that my husband might be reading this, rest assured that the Giorgio in question is Giorgio Vasari, a Florentine artist, architect as well as the father of art history, whose dates are 1511-1574. Hence the lapse in blog action.

While he might not be remembered for his art, his recounting of the other artists of his era make him a must-read for anyone looking for primary source material about the artistic life of 16th century Italy. How did he come to write such a work? My guess is that he complained to enough people that there should be a comprehensive treatise on Italian artists that someone finally said, “So why don’t you write it?” And so he did, giving us and posterity The Lives of the Artists. The first edition was published in 1550, followed by a second, revised edition in 1568. While the first edition did not include contemporary artists, the second one did.

Since this year celebrates his 500th birthday, I thought it would be a good time to teach a class on Vasari. As every art historian, I have read excerpts from Vasari from the day I started studying the discipline. However, I had never actually sat down with the Lives until planning for this course. When it arrived on my doorstep last September, my enthusiasm was somewhat diminished by its 500+ pages, written seemingly in 6 pt. print. However, with class filling up with students, it became clear in January that it was time to dive in.

It is impossible to not have an appreciation for Vasari’s endeavor. It was he who first coined the term Renaissance (Rinascente). And as this was written primarily for artists, his use of Italian was such that he played a crucial role in finally making the distinction between artist (artefice) from craftsman (artigiano). Prior to this, the two were considered one and the same. This means that a painter, such as Raphael, would have been accorded the same status as the artists who painted the foliage or faux marble in the same room at the Vatican. Not that the latter lacked talent, mind you. It was just a different specialty.

Part I is incredibly tedious. Take the chapter on Giotto, for instance. There is an incredible, as well as implausible story of how Giotto came to work with Cimabue. The latter came upon the lad in a field and, seeing his talent, asked the boy’s father if he could take the youngster with him to Florence to teach him to paint. The father agreed and the rest is history. Then there is the litany of every work done by Giotto and where to find it, with little other explanation. It also requires a back and forth with the endnotes as some of the work is no longer attributed to Giotto, etc. However, the fact that Vasari lacked any modern means, from decent transportation to Google to double check his facts, makes this work quite a feat. For the record, I did use Google in trying to track the images. It took 2 frustrating hours to read 2 pages.

The reward for slogging through Part I is reading Parts II & III, in which Vasari discusses the art of his day. Part of the joy of reading Vasari includes wonderful first hand accounts of what was going on, from the sublime, such as the little known but remarkably talented painter Antonello da Messina’s move to Bruges to learn oil painting from the master himself, Giovanni da Bruggia (Jan van Eyck), to the deliciously prurient, including details as to how the “brutish, licentious, and eccentric” painter Giovan Antonio came by the nickname that we all know him by, “Il Sodoma”.

Vasari also shatters many sacred cows. Rome in the 16th century was a mostly male administrative center rife with rivalries, jealousies and grudges. With renovations and additions going on at the Vatican and elsewhere artistic competition was extremely fierce. As Vasari had been a student of Michelangelo, much of these last two parts is a paean to this master. But the story Vasari tells of Michelangelo’s commission to paint the Sistine Ceiling is particularly harrowing and somewhat dampens my enthusiasm for Raphael. Donato Bramante oversaw the art and architecture at the Vatican. It was he who brought his relative, Raphael Sanzio, there to work. There was such concern between the kin that Michelangelo would become Pope Julius II’s favorite artist that they were the ones who pushed to have Michelangelo painting the ceiling, in the hopes that he would embarrass himself thereby making Raphael the favored artist. When the Pope summoned Michelangelo and handed him this assignment, Michelangelo protested, arguing that he was a sculptor, not a painter. He suggested Raphael for the job. With Bramante in the background telling the Pope not to take no for an answer, Michelangelo was forced into the commission. Now here’s the kicker. During one of Michelangelo’s famous snits, where he would return to Florence to lick his wounds, Bramante and Raphael snuck into the Chapel, explicitly against Michelangelo’s wishes, to see how he was progressing. They were so overwhelmed by his work that Raphael immediately redid his Isaiah in a chapel at Sant’Agostino in this new style. You can imagine, this did not sit well with maestro Michelangelo. More sulking, continued soap opera at the Vatican. Better than fiction.

The other surprise was the (short) chapter devoted to Properzia de’Rossi, a sculptress from Bologna who famously carved fruit pits before landing a commission in marble San Petronio in that city. The chapter includes several odes to women, including a long paragraph on all the accomplishments made by women in the arts, economics, warfare, etc. He also includes two other female painters, Sister Plautilla (Nelli) and Sophonisba Anguissola, who eventually becomes a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Spain. The inclusion of these talented women is remarkable for the time.

Suffice it to say that by the time the course was over, all roads, as well as all conversations, seemed to lead to Vasari. And yes, my poor husband suffered through those long months. He graciously endured it when, at every gathering, the opportunity seemed to present itself, “You know Vasari talked about just that. . . . “ I’ll let you know if I catch him reading The Lives with the same admiration that I now have for it.

Salvator Rosa

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:39:59 -0600

While I appreciate contemporary art, I am still an art historian at the core. And so it is that I am always thrilled to see exhibitions focusing on art prior to 1700. Many thanks to the Kimbell for hosting this exhibition of Salvator Rosa (1615-1673), the first of its kind to be seen in the United States.

Painting in the mid-17th century, Rosa was a bad boy in the tradition of Caravaggio, the memory of whom was still very much alive in the Italian peninsula. Rosa wooed the art cognoscenti of his time while spurning them privately. Perhaps it is for this reason that most of his portraits are allegories as opposed to actual likenesses. And maybe this is also why the major commissions he sought alluded him.

Born in Naples, Rosa studied with Jusepe Ribera, among others. The influence of Ribera’s brooding, emaciated figures can be seen in Rosa’s work for much of his career. By the 1630s, Rosa was in Rome, soaking up both the art as well as the commissions during that fervent time of artistic patronage. In an effort to pursue the big commissions, his subject matter tended towards the unorthodox. As the exhibition title alludes, he painted witches at the craft, bandits at their work and animals at their trough. The latter was actually an allegory of papal corruption. As he paints in Fortuna, the Church enjoys the fruits of the horn of plenty, including the visual, literary and performing arts (Rosa was also a poet and playwright) but are too obtuse to appreciate them. He ultimately had to apologize for the depiction. Yet the painting remains. Had he painted it a few years later, during the Council of Trent, it probably would have been destroyed as heretical.

Fortuna, c. 1659, oil on canvas. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

While these images of humanity living on the fridges of society are some of the most interesting works in the exhibition, there is also a large body of Rosa’s landscapes, a genre for which he was particularly well known. Rosa frequently traveled the roads between Naples, Rome and Florence and he captured their essence in these works. While there is some human presence, such as the hermits in various Landscape with Hermits, their natural surroundings not only dwarf them but clearly take precedent over their earthly beings. They are of seen as precursors to the paintings of the sublime so popular during the Romantic era of later centuries.

There are only 36 paintings on view in this exhibition, which might beg the question Is it worth the drive from Dallas? Absolutely. If you enjoy great painting and want to see an unusual side of the 17th century, replete with witches, bandits and general wilderness, then this is an exhibition to see.

David Brown, Yrjo Edelmann, Marla Ziegler

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 13:40:29 -0600

This is one of the best gallery exhibitions I have seen in ages. It is always a tricky bit of business to find three artists whose work is both compatible and harmonious when seen along side one another. Often one artist is stronger than the others. Rarely are all three breathtaking. In Craighead Green Gallery’s current exhibition, they are.

David Brown’s colors are the first visual lure. Scarlet reds, royal purples and golden yellows dominate the panels that comprise his work. Of the larger work two dozen individual, enameled squares are placed together to create a visual whole. The effect is of a large golden disk floating over a field of color. But upon closer inspection, the reality is that within the yellow orb, Brown has painted millions of golden spirals that create a pulsing rhythm. He uses this motif repeatedly, each time creating a different visual effect. The smaller works on paper, 25 of them in each installation, that have the same energy. But in these, the spirals are painted with silver gel ink on paper. He is equally adept working in black and white. In the bifurcated America of today, there is a map showing all the states, each formed by Brown’s black spirals - refreshingly not a red, blue or purple state in sight. This is his first exhibition at Craighead Green. I look forward to watching his work for a long time.

David Brown, Yellow Oval, 114 x 80”, enamel on panel

Both Yrjo Edelmann and Marla Ziegler are gallery veterans. I have always liked their work and both artists have brought renewed energy to this exhibition. Edelman has always specialized in painting wrapped packages. That he can paint paper and twine with amazing skill is a well known fact. In this show he adds the elements of shaped canvases as well as foreshortening that would make Manet cry. And his palate is extraordinary. Silvery grays, shiny pinks, and the mintiest of greens captivate viewers as they walk into the gallery.

Marla Ziegler’s work has probably taken on the newest direction. This body of work highlights her incredible facility with clay, a medium in which she has excelled for years. Some of the works, such as “Hush of Night” are recognizable to anyone who has been following her career. But then we walk into “Twilight Tide”, in which 40 “waves” undulate across the gallery. In “Winter Tale”, rods of twisted clay tumble across another wall. And could “Endless Bounty” augur a completely new direction? In it, balls of clay, somewhat resembling shelled walnuts, are installed seemingly at random across the wall and then connected by pencil lines. It is controlled and free at the same time. It will be interesting to see where this path leads.

Marla Ziegler, Winter Tale, installation specific, 72 x 72 x 10”, bisque clay

Art is a perfect antidote to the frenzy of the holiday season. This exhibition, as well as others in the Design District, will be up through December. Come down, breathe and be engulfed by the really magnificent work of each of these artists.

Spanish Muse: A Contemporary Response

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 09:53:30 -0500

After teaching about Philip the Good, last week I had a few minutes to rush through Spanish Muse. It is a show to which I will definitely return before it closes in December.

So some musings about Muse. The exhibition honors the Museum’s 45th anniversary of its outstanding Spanish collection. In addition to bringing out many of the Museum’s treasures that haven’t been up in years, work by contemporary artists inspired by Spanish masters are interspersed throughout the exhibition.

I hurriedly darted through the galleries but here are among some of the things that caught my eye. For starters, it was wonderful to see Pantoja de la Cruz’s portraits of the Archdukes Albert & Isabella Clara Eugenia. Isabella and I go back a long way. I wrote a paper about her in graduate school. I’ve taught around her peripherally in classes about Spanish art and spoken about her specifically when teaching about Peter Paul Rubens, who served as her confidante and diplomat. SInce Flemish and Dutch art are among my favorites, I’ve always appreciated the love she had for the area and its inhabitants, unlike the contempt her father, Philip II of Spain, had for these subjects. This particular portrait shows her looking straight out at the viewer, seemingly about to engage in conversation. Her crisp white collar and jeweled outfit are as spectacular now as they must have been in the 16th century.

Juan de Juanes’ Christ being supported by two angels is also a favorite. Christ draped in the angels’ arms is framed so close to the picture plane that it is as if the viewer is part of this tight circle of mourning. Magnificent.

However, this is the work familiar to many devotees of the Meadows. What about the contemporary work that is being shown along side it? It is fantastic. José Manuel Ballester riffs on Bosch’s Garden of Delights in El Jardín Deshabitado. The Bosch has been part of the Spanish royal collection ever since Philip II bought it at auction in 1593. Bosch was odd and Philip II loved his work for that. In the Bosch painting, the Garden is a mythical, Dr. Seuss-like landscape inhabited by hundreds of naked souls. Some are reading, some are eating, some are doing unusual things, some are involved in erotic activity. There is a lot happening. Ballester has stripped it of the humanity, leaving the landscape intact. It looks so benign this way. Its calm is the antithesis of the frenzy that Bosch painted.

Another treat to have locally is the video installation by Eve Sussman|Rufus Corporation, 89 seconds at Alcázar. This 10-minute video performance piece puts viewers in the same room simultaneously with those portrayed in Velasquez’s Las Meninas. It is atmospheric, ethereal and stunning.

There is much more to see and explore of both the permanent collection as well as the contemporary work on loan. We rarely have an opportunity to see the work of contemporary European artists in Dallas so this is a rare treat. I’m planning on going back to take it all in. I hope you will get there to see it, too.

The Mourners

Wed, 6 Oct 2010 14:16:01 -0500

As a closet medievalist, I was ecstatic to hear that The Mourners was coming to the Dallas Museum of Art. This never happens. Dallas is just not a hub for medieval studies. And that it is such a significant exhibition is icing on the cake.

At their home in Dijon, these Mourners, or pleurants, meander through an architectural setting holding up the tomb of John the Fearless, the second Duke of Burgundy (see above). His father, Philip the Bold, was the first to have this unique artistic convention as part of his tomb. In Philip’s case, in many ways echoed his real passing from this world to the next.

As the 4th son of John the Good, King of France, Philip was granted Burgundy as an apanage, a territory that technically belonged to the French crown but was otherwise his to watch over as long as he produced a male heir. Through his own successful marriage to Margaret of Mâle and those of his children, he parlayed this parcel of land into an empire unto itself that ultimately included most of modern day Belgium and Holland. Though his official residence was in Dijon, in present day France, he spent a good deal of time in Paris and throughout his realm. And as any proper noble of the time, he commissioned the best artists to work for him. Philip and his brothers, among them Jean, Duc de Berry, showed a preference for the kind of realism that was being produced in his northern territories of Flanders and Holland.

One of the artists working for him in Dijon, Claus Sluter, created elegant figures swathed majestically in voluminous textiles, the very material that helped make the Low Countries an economic powerhouse of the 14th & 15th centuries. While Sluter is best known for the Well of Moses commissioned by the Duke for the Chartreuse de Champmol, it was the tomb that he created for Philip for the same monastery that made a mark on funerary sculpture for the next century.

Philip died at Hal, near Brussels. While his viscera remained in the church at Hal and his heart was sent to the royal burial church of St. Denis in Paris, the rest of him went via long cortège back to Dijon. It is precisely this procession that Sluter captured in the tomb figures that surround the base of Philip’s tomb. Meandering through an architectural framework, the figures reflect sorrow, contemplation and reverence for the duke. Sluter himself died in 1404, before the tomb was finished. His nephew, Claus de Wevre, took over his workshop, completing the work in 1414.

Philip’s son, John the Fearless (Jean sans Peur) was an equally able ruler and further expanded the Burgundian Empire. He not only shared the family’s aesthetic sensibilities but he also wanted to follow the traditions set forth by his father, thus shaping a dynastic style. And while he wanted “a sepulcher similar to the one of my late father”, it wasn’t until long after John’s murder in 1419 that the commission was finalized by Philip the Good, the third Duke of Burgundy.

Ultimately, it took until 1443 for Philip the Good to finalize a contract with Jean de la Huerta for the making of the tomb. We know that De la Huerta left Dijon in 1456, with the tomb near its completion. While he executed many of the mourners seen in this exhibition, another sculptor, Antoine le Moiturier, had the task to “finish, polish and complete the mourners”. The completed tomb was finally installed in 1470, over a half century after John’s passing.

It is impossible to discern the hand of De la Huerta from that of Le Moiturier, especially since a few of the mourners are direct copies of the ones executed by Sluter for Philip the Bold’s tomb. Given their parameters, these two talented sculptors did not have the opportunity to unleash their creativity. The irony is that while one commission was so innovative and original, the next, was, by design, planned to be conservative.

Having said that, however, there is nothing boring about this exhibition. Each mourner is unique. Some wear purses and belts over their sumptuous alabaster cloaks while others wear only their grief. Some carry gilt edged books, others walk solemnly through the centuries. It is a magnificent exhibition.

I saw the exhibition in New York this past spring, when it was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There, the mourners walked double file along a single plinth, in the middle of the cavernous main medieval gallery. This area is also on the path from the Museum’s main entrance to the cafeteria so I am sure far more people saw it than had planned to. People did stop to look carefully at each figure. However, it was hard to achieve a feeling of solemnity in such a bustling space.

The DMA’s installation is far more successful. In its own gallery, there is a greater air of sanctity for these figures. While there is still a plinth with several figures on it, it lacks the same monolithic feeling of the New York installation. Here, other figures are clustered three or four on pedestals throughout the gallery, interacting with each other and the viewer. The gallery is in low light except for the spotlights on the figures. Truly breathtaking.

Dallas is also fortunate to have this exhibition during the fall, when life goes from chaotic to hyper-chaotic through the holidays. Let this exhibition give you a respite from busy schedules, deadlines, and e-mails. Contemplate, enjoy and come away from it feeling serene.

New Texas Talent 2010

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:44:52 -0500

This is a first attempt at a video blog so apologies for the low production qualities. But the content is good. . . .