In early August, a 340-ton boulder will be driven from a quarry in Riverside to LACMA to become art: Michael Heizer's Levitated Mass.
(See also the 200-ton BofA Plaza segmented chunk of Swedish marble.)
In 1969, I looked on as Heizer did the ur-version. Here is my previously unpublished account:
Alakali flats or dry lakes are smooth, isolated, canvas-colored surfaces that dot the deserts of California and Nevada. Snow covers some dry lakes in winter and turns them to chocolate pudding in spring, but most of them dried up forever 12,000 years ago and are now used, if at all, for joy rides, TV commercials, speed trials, and landing the X-15.
Since 1967, Michael Heizer (born 1945) has explored the possibilities of making art on these surfaces. He has sunk minimalist boxes and troughs, dug hug curlicues, zia zags, and depressions ("negative objects"), and even painted—with water-based dye—and done drawings—with a motorcycle.
At the simplest level, his art rejects the indoor, precious object, the portable commodity so conveniently handled by dealers, collectors, and museums. His desert pieces are quite obviously inaccessible. And they derive much of their beauty from this isolation.
"In the desert," Heizer says, "I can find that kind of unraped, peaceful, religious space artists have always tried to put in their work."
Heizer's move is out of the tightly circumscribed art world with its tiny, stuffy galleries into a near-empty situation so essentially artless it might even be called Nature. The grandeur of the setting—the clear hot air in a sky the color of Nevada's license plates, the silence, the faintly cracked, powered-milk mud walled in by scrubby brush and barren hills is undeniable.
As Robert Scull, who has commissioned two Heizer projects, said after one visit, "Nobody back there realizes how much fun—and how beautiful—this kind of art can be."
Still, Heizer is far from being a scenic tour guide or neo-romantic nature freak. His blasted vision of pastoral may seem appropriate in an age of lunar landscapes, but that is not his prime concern.
While many avant-garde sculptors are currently concerned with "process"—showing how the work is made—Heizer is not. His material is identical with its location, not transformed or performed. It falls within the great sculptural tradition of carving and modeling, the earth being treated as a monolith to be manipulated by shovels, bulldozers, and earthmovers.
Object-sculpture in general is also defeated because a Heizer piece is its location. No disengagement from the site is possible. The work is where it is, and the implicated space—or place—has no specific limits, the equivalent of the edges of the canvas. A piece on a dry lake is no more determined by the boundaries of that lake than it is by the ring of mountains that surround that lake.
Making his crude marks as far from civilization as he can—"my holes should be indeterminate in time and inaccessible in place"—Heizer returns sculpture to its primitive, archaeological roots, the way Andy Warhol, in his early films, returned cinema to the austere purity of Lumiere.
Much of Heizer's work an be traced through what might be called family background. There are mining engineers and geologists on both sides of the family. His father is a noted UC-Berkeley anthropologist/archaeologist, an expert on Indian rock drawings who recently discovered an important pyramid in Mexico.
See also Robert F. Heizer's "Ancient Heavy Transport, Method and Achievement," Science, August 19, 1966, which describes the means used by engineers in antiquity to move huge rocks—for obelisks, Stonehenge, and other monolithic monoments.
Robert Heizer's article might serve as the text for his son's most recent work—moving a 130-ton, 30-foot chunk of granite blasted from the Sierra Nevada above Lake Tahoe by construction crews.
The Heizer family has had a cabin at Tahoe for 15 years, and Heizer frequently uses it as base camp for his ventures into the desert. When he discovered this giant rock, he decided to move it and three lesser, 30-ton companions some 70 miles: past the former Mint in Carson City, past the ghost town of Dayton, past the century-old Sutro Tunnel (drilled to drain the silver mines of Virginia City), past a corral used for the movie, The Misfits, out a gravel road cut by the Break-a-Heart ranch and onto a dry lake nestled in a box canyon beneath Churchill Butte and the Pine Nut Mountains.
The giant rock would be dropped over a slot 15-feet deep, 30-feet long. And, because only the ends would rest on the banks, it would be called "levitated mass." The lesser rocks would be dropped into three lesser holes, to become "replaced mass."
The operation would require a blasting drill—to lop the giant down to manageable size—two cranes, three heavy equipment haulers, and a skip-loader. A real estate agent would be consulted because Heizer, who used to raid whatever dry lakes took his fancy, now feels he must own the land of which his art is deployed. "I'm reversing myself," he declares, explaining he could no longer be pleased that his works were temporary and unsaleable.
(The wood liners of one hole have been pirated for firewood; many of the unlined holes have been eroded to the point of disappearing.)
To help ensure saleability and permanence, Heizer would try to buy the lake. And he would make his holes into hardened silos, using high-quality concrete and reinforcing rods. Thus, he hoped they would even be capable of withstanding a nuclear attack.
"Artists have always been frightened by things like the Grand Canyon," fellow earthworker Dennis Oppenheim once declared. "These forms may be impossible to duplicate or rival, but they are important. And we have to take them on in their own ballpark."
How large, then, must a trench in a dry lake or a rock on a trench in a dry lake have to be to have massive scale? At one point, Heizer proposed digging a 30-foot "shaft," a mini-mine. But a 130-ton rock—as large as any the ancients were able to handle—would surely be big enough.
The central issue, though, is time. Ephemerality has become the standard in recent art: carpets of graphite laid down to be swept away; performances that are neither recorded nor repeated... Heizer, however, is after truly monumental art, something that will survive—monolithic, mysterious, and as durable as the Easter Island heads.
Heizer is very literal in his determination to outlast the holocaust he sees as imminent. "The only way to destroy this piece," he says, "is to bury it. And you can trust the empirical mind to find it again."
The audacity of Heizer's obsession can be measured in terms of its cost—not simply for transportation, real estate, or equipment rental—but in almost criminal danger and destruction. The day before the big move, he wiped out the underbelly of his rental car while reconnoitering the terrain near the rock. Coming to the job, one crane sideswiped a car and a camper-trailer. Later, the brakes of one hauler slipped, and it smashed into a truck. Later still, another hauler's fan belt broke, tearing its radiator apart.
Because of the delays—ultimately, the cranes were too weak to lift the giant—night fell before the lesser rocks arrived on the site. So the unloading was performed by half-moon and headlights. It was a scene from Wages of Fear, Yves Montand bouncing along with a truckload of nitroglycerin.
It seems strange, but necessary, to report that no one was physically injured.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Floors & Ceilings
Allegory of Faith
Music Lesson
Art of Painting
Concerning these three paintings, Daniel Arasse points out that Vermeer did "only three paintings with floor and ceiling...it is tempting to recognize in this disposition a type of presentation, of framing, that Vermeer would have reserved to the allegorical statement— for reasons which remain, however, difficult to understand."
Music Lesson
Art of Painting
Concerning these three paintings, Daniel Arasse points out that Vermeer did "only three paintings with floor and ceiling...it is tempting to recognize in this disposition a type of presentation, of framing, that Vermeer would have reserved to the allegorical statement— for reasons which remain, however, difficult to understand."
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Violence
Speaking of Vermeer's complex life, about which we know virtually nothing, Bryan Jay Wolfe, professor of American Studies and English at Yale, in Vermeer and the Invention of Seeing, in a chapter titled "Transgression" goes:
"Vermeer's private life was filled with violence. His maternal grandfather, who worked at one point as an engraver in a counterfeiting ring, later turned state's witness and provided testimony that led to the beheading of the scheme's two leaders. Vermeer's father, as a young man, had twice been involved in public brawls, both times with knives, one leading to the death of a soldier garrisoned in Delft. Catharina Bolnes, Vermeer's wife, came from a family traumatized by domestic abuse. Her father, Reynier Bolnes, once attacked his wife, Maria Thins, who was then pregnant, with a 'stick.' Reynier Bolnes verbally assaulted Maria Thins and forced her to eat her meals alone. She in turn sent several petitions to the magistrates at Gouda in an effort to secure a judicial separation. The sparring between husband and wife divided the Bolnes family into partisan camps. Maria received the support of her sister and brother (who was himself stabbed in a fight with one of Reynier Bolnes's brothers), while Reynier enlisted the assistance not only of his siblings but of his son, Willem, who consistently sided with his father.
"Years later, after the warring couple had separated, Willem came to lived with his mother in Delft—at the same time that Vermeer and his wife shared her home in the Catholic quarter of the city. Wellem's violent behavior toward his mother so frightened her—he called her, among other things, an 'old Papist sow' and a she-devil'—that she retreated to her room, where, in a sad repetition of history, she had her meals brought up to her. According to subsequent depositions, Willem also attacked his sister Catharina (Vermeer's wife), 'threatening on a number of occasion to beat her with a stick, although she was in the last stage of pregnancy.' Willem had previously beaten her with a 'steel-tipped stick.' Maria Thins eventually petitioned the Court of Delft to commit her son to a private house of correction. She won her suit; Willem, however, would later taunt the family with threats of marriage to a servant of questionable reputation who was employed by the house of correction.
"I wish to understand the constructed nature of Vermeer's serenities, the way that his silences incorporate rather than neutralized aggressions internal to the act of painting. If Vermeer domesticates the forces of history, if he renames truth as something mundane and housebound, then he also rewrites violence as more than the clash of armies by night. His painting reach into that inner violence, that heterodox mixture of love and aggression, that animates not only domestic life in burgher cultures, but those forms of painting that spring from domestic life."
"Vermeer's private life was filled with violence. His maternal grandfather, who worked at one point as an engraver in a counterfeiting ring, later turned state's witness and provided testimony that led to the beheading of the scheme's two leaders. Vermeer's father, as a young man, had twice been involved in public brawls, both times with knives, one leading to the death of a soldier garrisoned in Delft. Catharina Bolnes, Vermeer's wife, came from a family traumatized by domestic abuse. Her father, Reynier Bolnes, once attacked his wife, Maria Thins, who was then pregnant, with a 'stick.' Reynier Bolnes verbally assaulted Maria Thins and forced her to eat her meals alone. She in turn sent several petitions to the magistrates at Gouda in an effort to secure a judicial separation. The sparring between husband and wife divided the Bolnes family into partisan camps. Maria received the support of her sister and brother (who was himself stabbed in a fight with one of Reynier Bolnes's brothers), while Reynier enlisted the assistance not only of his siblings but of his son, Willem, who consistently sided with his father.
"Years later, after the warring couple had separated, Willem came to lived with his mother in Delft—at the same time that Vermeer and his wife shared her home in the Catholic quarter of the city. Wellem's violent behavior toward his mother so frightened her—he called her, among other things, an 'old Papist sow' and a she-devil'—that she retreated to her room, where, in a sad repetition of history, she had her meals brought up to her. According to subsequent depositions, Willem also attacked his sister Catharina (Vermeer's wife), 'threatening on a number of occasion to beat her with a stick, although she was in the last stage of pregnancy.' Willem had previously beaten her with a 'steel-tipped stick.' Maria Thins eventually petitioned the Court of Delft to commit her son to a private house of correction. She won her suit; Willem, however, would later taunt the family with threats of marriage to a servant of questionable reputation who was employed by the house of correction.
"I wish to understand the constructed nature of Vermeer's serenities, the way that his silences incorporate rather than neutralized aggressions internal to the act of painting. If Vermeer domesticates the forces of history, if he renames truth as something mundane and housebound, then he also rewrites violence as more than the clash of armies by night. His painting reach into that inner violence, that heterodox mixture of love and aggression, that animates not only domestic life in burgher cultures, but those forms of painting that spring from domestic life."
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Lisa Vergara
How exciting to hear Lisa Vergara, who teaches at Hunter, articulate how Vermeer's "composition and rhetoric coincide," in "Antiek and Modern in Vermeer's Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid."
She speaks of how his "famous formal manipulations work expressively: for each painting he invented a special decorum of scale, space, color, light, focus, and touch, keyed to the figural subject."
And of his "devices—visual comparisons, echoes, rhymes, repetitions, concatenations, whatever we choose to call them..."
And, "the whole chiaroscuro arrangement, down to the floor of black and white tiles, confirms the densely plotted nature of the work."
Later, unfortunately, she goes a bit overboard, speculating that the picture "might represent on one level Vermeer's complex response to his own personal circumstances...aspects of Vermeer's life discovered through archival study and intimate social history...."
Namely, his financial instability, his living amongst Catholics, his many children, the illiteracy of his wife, his mother-in-law's "patrician income," his own rise from "the artisan class of his family...."
Lawrence Gowing felt differently: "Vermeer is well protected; little of life or personality ever pierces his armour. And when some disturbing experience does penetrate within the shell he proceeds to enclose it in a pearly covering of style until its sharpness is assimilated."
I go with Frank Stella: "What you see is what you see,"
although, unfortunately, in Stella's case, he saw less and less, and showed more and more.
She speaks of how his "famous formal manipulations work expressively: for each painting he invented a special decorum of scale, space, color, light, focus, and touch, keyed to the figural subject."
And of his "devices—visual comparisons, echoes, rhymes, repetitions, concatenations, whatever we choose to call them..."
And, "the whole chiaroscuro arrangement, down to the floor of black and white tiles, confirms the densely plotted nature of the work."
Later, unfortunately, she goes a bit overboard, speculating that the picture "might represent on one level Vermeer's complex response to his own personal circumstances...aspects of Vermeer's life discovered through archival study and intimate social history...."
Namely, his financial instability, his living amongst Catholics, his many children, the illiteracy of his wife, his mother-in-law's "patrician income," his own rise from "the artisan class of his family...."
Lawrence Gowing felt differently: "Vermeer is well protected; little of life or personality ever pierces his armour. And when some disturbing experience does penetrate within the shell he proceeds to enclose it in a pearly covering of style until its sharpness is assimilated."
I go with Frank Stella: "What you see is what you see,"
although, unfortunately, in Stella's case, he saw less and less, and showed more and more.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
What I Didn't See
When I was in the Rijksmuseum in early April, it was, of course packed, not like this. (be patient, this link takes a second to load up)
It's impossible to see, during the pan, but on the wall just after the Vermeers are three de Hooch's of ever-increasing complexity and depth, quite wonderful.
What I didn't see was the third Vermeer, Woman Reading a Letter.
I remember when I got home, leafing through a Vermeer book and wondering why the Rijksmuseum hadn't put up that great painting.
I suppose I was distracted by my absorption in its neighbors, Little Street and Milkmaid.
Or maybe I can blame the crowds.
I am absolutely sure I didn't see the Rijksmuseum's fourth Vermeer, Love Letter, which is one among many treasures in storage during the eternal restoration.
It's impossible to see, during the pan, but on the wall just after the Vermeers are three de Hooch's of ever-increasing complexity and depth, quite wonderful.
What I didn't see was the third Vermeer, Woman Reading a Letter.
I remember when I got home, leafing through a Vermeer book and wondering why the Rijksmuseum hadn't put up that great painting.
I suppose I was distracted by my absorption in its neighbors, Little Street and Milkmaid.
Or maybe I can blame the crowds.
I am absolutely sure I didn't see the Rijksmuseum's fourth Vermeer, Love Letter, which is one among many treasures in storage during the eternal restoration.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Morgan, Havemeyer, Oakes
Not to dwell unduly on provenance, but I was pleased to note that A Lady Writing was once owned by J.P. Morgan, and later by Henry Havemeyer, and, between them, by Sir Harry Oakes, who, according to Vermeer scholar Arthur K. Wheelock (and Ben Broos) was "apparently murdered [in 1943] by the Mafia, because he would not tolerate a casino on the island" of Nassau.
Actually, there are lots of versions of the murder: Novelist William Boyd, noting that the Duke of Windsor was governor of the Bahamas at the time [sent into exile because of his Nazi sympathies] has recently suggested a possiblity that was filmed by the BBC.
In any case, Oakes's daughter, Nancy, learned of her father's death from Merce Cunningham; she had been on her way to Bennington to study for the summer with Martha Graham.
Nancy's husband was accused of the murder (motive: for the money), but was acquitted. Deported to Cuba, they stayed with Hemingway.
Actually, there are lots of versions of the murder: Novelist William Boyd, noting that the Duke of Windsor was governor of the Bahamas at the time [sent into exile because of his Nazi sympathies] has recently suggested a possiblity that was filmed by the BBC.
In any case, Oakes's daughter, Nancy, learned of her father's death from Merce Cunningham; she had been on her way to Bennington to study for the summer with Martha Graham.
Nancy's husband was accused of the murder (motive: for the money), but was acquitted. Deported to Cuba, they stayed with Hemingway.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
The Glory or Shame of the Mauritshuis?
It's the masterpieces that make a museum great, but the unknown surprises, the stuff you didn't expect, are also essential.
For example, a painting the Mauritshuis puts on the wall, but doesn't bother to supply with an image on its website:
François Bunel II (attributed to)
title The confiscation of the contents of a painter's studio
period c.1590?
material panel
dimensions 28 x 46.5 cm
inventory number 875
Here it is, and here is a translation of the text (click on the "translate" button).
It's a little hard to read the image, but it shows the contents of an artist's studio being seized (for debt?) by porters schlepping off wrapped-up paintings, using wonderful carrying frames; the text details the paintings confiscated from the Jewish dealer Goudstikker by the Nazis and still in public collections.
The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco recently showed a selection of works from the Goudstikker collection.
Has the Mauritshuis been awarded The Confiscation, I asked the museum's Head of Public Affairs, who had earlier this month replied to my query about the terrible lighting of View of Delft et al.
She replied:
In answer to your question regarding The Confiscation, the answer is that at this moment we simply don’t have good quality images of all our artwork. We’re currently working on a project to digitalize our collection, as to ensure that in the future the whole collection is also available online.
With regards to the Goudstikker collection; it’s only the restitution commission who can answer that question, not the Mauritshuis.
If you search the website for the museum's holdings, 1575-1600, 24 paintings show up. The only one without an image is The Confiscation.
How ironic for a painting about confiscation.
For example, a painting the Mauritshuis puts on the wall, but doesn't bother to supply with an image on its website:
François Bunel II (attributed to)
title The confiscation of the contents of a painter's studio
period c.1590?
material panel
dimensions 28 x 46.5 cm
inventory number 875
Here it is, and here is a translation of the text (click on the "translate" button).
It's a little hard to read the image, but it shows the contents of an artist's studio being seized (for debt?) by porters schlepping off wrapped-up paintings, using wonderful carrying frames; the text details the paintings confiscated from the Jewish dealer Goudstikker by the Nazis and still in public collections.
The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco recently showed a selection of works from the Goudstikker collection.
Has the Mauritshuis been awarded The Confiscation, I asked the museum's Head of Public Affairs, who had earlier this month replied to my query about the terrible lighting of View of Delft et al.
She replied:
In answer to your question regarding The Confiscation, the answer is that at this moment we simply don’t have good quality images of all our artwork. We’re currently working on a project to digitalize our collection, as to ensure that in the future the whole collection is also available online.
With regards to the Goudstikker collection; it’s only the restitution commission who can answer that question, not the Mauritshuis.
If you search the website for the museum's holdings, 1575-1600, 24 paintings show up. The only one without an image is The Confiscation.
How ironic for a painting about confiscation.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Hitler's Art of Painting
Vermeer's The Art of Painting has an almost impeccable provenance: the artist's widow (!) transferred it to her mother, who sold it at auction in Delft in 1676.
In the 18th century, however, it disappeared and, in fact, came to be attributed to Pieter de Hooch.
It was as a de Hooch that a prefect in the Imperial Court Library, Vienna, bequeathed it to his son, who sold it to Count Johann Rudolf Czernin in 1813.
It was reattributed to Vemeer by Thore Burger in 1860.
Hitler bought it in 1940 for $660,000.
The ensuing story is complicated, but fascinating...
In short, Hitler's "Nero" order to blow up the German intrastructure was disregarded by engineers at the salt mine where it was stored as the war seemed lost, because they saw no reason to destroy a good asset (the mine)...and instead just blew up the entrance....
After the war, Count Czernin's great-grandson Jaromir Czernin tried for 15 years to get the painting back. He died in 1966, and his heirs continued the battle. To no avail. The courts have recently ruled on their last appeal that it had not been sold it under duress.
And yet, consider the extenuating circumstances: Jaromir's brother-in-law was the (anti-Nazi) chancellor of Austria from 1934 until the Anschluss (at which time he was imprisoned and held until after the war). Jaromir's wife, the granddaughter of a Jewish banker named Oppenheim, was persecuted. For further details, see this by one of the heirs attorneys.
Hitler owned another Vermeer, The Astronomer, which he seized from (the Jew) Edouard de Rothschild.
He also acquired the Ghent Altarpiece and the Bruges Madonna.
All for his never-realized museum in Linz.
Perhaps there's a potential blockbuster to be had in reassembling his collection.
In the 18th century, however, it disappeared and, in fact, came to be attributed to Pieter de Hooch.
It was as a de Hooch that a prefect in the Imperial Court Library, Vienna, bequeathed it to his son, who sold it to Count Johann Rudolf Czernin in 1813.
It was reattributed to Vemeer by Thore Burger in 1860.
Hitler bought it in 1940 for $660,000.
The ensuing story is complicated, but fascinating...
In short, Hitler's "Nero" order to blow up the German intrastructure was disregarded by engineers at the salt mine where it was stored as the war seemed lost, because they saw no reason to destroy a good asset (the mine)...and instead just blew up the entrance....
After the war, Count Czernin's great-grandson Jaromir Czernin tried for 15 years to get the painting back. He died in 1966, and his heirs continued the battle. To no avail. The courts have recently ruled on their last appeal that it had not been sold it under duress.
And yet, consider the extenuating circumstances: Jaromir's brother-in-law was the (anti-Nazi) chancellor of Austria from 1934 until the Anschluss (at which time he was imprisoned and held until after the war). Jaromir's wife, the granddaughter of a Jewish banker named Oppenheim, was persecuted. For further details, see this by one of the heirs attorneys.
Hitler owned another Vermeer, The Astronomer, which he seized from (the Jew) Edouard de Rothschild.
He also acquired the Ghent Altarpiece and the Bruges Madonna.
All for his never-realized museum in Linz.
Perhaps there's a potential blockbuster to be had in reassembling his collection.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Full Moon
We interrupt these musings to bring you this mini-anthology of moon art, since there's a full one tonight.
Actually, we came upon it while investigating Aert van der Neer,
who led us to his son, Eglon van der Neer, a much more bourgie contemporary of Vermeer's, to whom was attributed, for a moment, Lady Standing at a Virginal, and whose own work might seem similar to Young Woman with a Water Pitcher.
Actually, we came upon it while investigating Aert van der Neer,
who led us to his son, Eglon van der Neer, a much more bourgie contemporary of Vermeer's, to whom was attributed, for a moment, Lady Standing at a Virginal, and whose own work might seem similar to Young Woman with a Water Pitcher.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Reproduction
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. and I disagree about Vermeer.
In his article, "The Appreciation of Vermeer in Twentieth-Century America," he writes:
"Vermeer's images are so distinctive that once seen, they are never forgotten, and that is true of works as varied as the View of Delft and The Girl with the Red Hat. With knowing one, there is this powerful urge to see another, and yet another, for one can never tire of the beauty of his light and color, or the sense of peace that his works bring. As only about 35 paintings are know to exist, it is easy to build a repertoire of the images in one's mind and even to imagine that it might be possible to see them all and undertake the sort of pilgrimage first traveled by Thore in the 1860s....
[I agree with him so far.]
"Still, the question exists, how is it that Vermeer's genius, once seemingly appreciated by only a small group of collectors and connoisseurs, has entered into the mainstream of cultural life? Certainly, color reproductions of his painting have brought them to a wide public and have helped make Vermeer's art known to many who have never actually stood in front of one of his works. Vermeer's paintings reproduce remarkably well. While printed reproductions rarely capture the impact or scale and texture, they effectively convey the clarity of his compositions, the purity of his light, and his distinctive yellows and blues."
Well, yes, you can get the general idea from a reproduction, but God is in Vermeer's details (texture) and in his scale.
In his divine touch.
In the aura his pictures generate.
And it is demagogic to suggest that the public can have any true sense of Vermeer in reproduction.
Wheelock put together a hugely successful blockbuster at the National Gallery in 1996.
There was another American blockbuster at the Met in 2001, by the other great American Vermeer scholar, Walter Liedtke.
I can't imagine a worse way to experience Vermeer than in the midst of such crowds.
It's bad enough on an ordinary day in the Mauritshuis or the Rijksmuseum. (Try looking at Night Watch, these days
worse than ever.
In his article, "The Appreciation of Vermeer in Twentieth-Century America," he writes:
"Vermeer's images are so distinctive that once seen, they are never forgotten, and that is true of works as varied as the View of Delft and The Girl with the Red Hat. With knowing one, there is this powerful urge to see another, and yet another, for one can never tire of the beauty of his light and color, or the sense of peace that his works bring. As only about 35 paintings are know to exist, it is easy to build a repertoire of the images in one's mind and even to imagine that it might be possible to see them all and undertake the sort of pilgrimage first traveled by Thore in the 1860s....
[I agree with him so far.]
"Still, the question exists, how is it that Vermeer's genius, once seemingly appreciated by only a small group of collectors and connoisseurs, has entered into the mainstream of cultural life? Certainly, color reproductions of his painting have brought them to a wide public and have helped make Vermeer's art known to many who have never actually stood in front of one of his works. Vermeer's paintings reproduce remarkably well. While printed reproductions rarely capture the impact or scale and texture, they effectively convey the clarity of his compositions, the purity of his light, and his distinctive yellows and blues."
Well, yes, you can get the general idea from a reproduction, but God is in Vermeer's details (texture) and in his scale.
In his divine touch.
In the aura his pictures generate.
And it is demagogic to suggest that the public can have any true sense of Vermeer in reproduction.
Wheelock put together a hugely successful blockbuster at the National Gallery in 1996.
There was another American blockbuster at the Met in 2001, by the other great American Vermeer scholar, Walter Liedtke.
I can't imagine a worse way to experience Vermeer than in the midst of such crowds.
It's bad enough on an ordinary day in the Mauritshuis or the Rijksmuseum. (Try looking at Night Watch, these days
worse than ever.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Reading the Art of Painting
Art historians produce words, so they tend to "read" paintings.
Thus, Hessel Miedema, the great authority on Karel van Mander, who wrote The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters (1603), looks at The Art of Painting (1666) as if it were a matter of iconography, an exemplum of the ars rhetorica...
and he apparently doesn't see the light that emanates from the canvas the artist is just beginning to work on, a bluish-gray light that shoots across toward the model—
and which you can't see in reproduction, but which smites you if you've approached on a counterclockwise tour of the outer galleries of the Kunsthistorishes Museum (skirting the central ones that contain Rubens and Breughel),
and made your way past the two stunning works by Geertgen tot Sint Jans (and this one),
and come at The Art from the far right.
The painting, in a far dark corner, needs to be seen from a distance, at least at first, precisely so you don't read the iconography and don't read from lower left to right (like a book, the way Miedema says we're trained to do),
but you see the whole painting as a whole.
And then you see that the art of painting is "about" the light from the model that the artist captures on the canvas.
The best image I can find is this, but it falls way short of what I saw. (This is also some indication.)
Daniel Arasse got it: If in the Art of Painting, the painter's "demonstrated knowledge" is that of light..."
Thus, Hessel Miedema, the great authority on Karel van Mander, who wrote The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters (1603), looks at The Art of Painting (1666) as if it were a matter of iconography, an exemplum of the ars rhetorica...
and he apparently doesn't see the light that emanates from the canvas the artist is just beginning to work on, a bluish-gray light that shoots across toward the model—
and which you can't see in reproduction, but which smites you if you've approached on a counterclockwise tour of the outer galleries of the Kunsthistorishes Museum (skirting the central ones that contain Rubens and Breughel),
and made your way past the two stunning works by Geertgen tot Sint Jans (and this one),
and come at The Art from the far right.
The painting, in a far dark corner, needs to be seen from a distance, at least at first, precisely so you don't read the iconography and don't read from lower left to right (like a book, the way Miedema says we're trained to do),
but you see the whole painting as a whole.
And then you see that the art of painting is "about" the light from the model that the artist captures on the canvas.
The best image I can find is this, but it falls way short of what I saw. (This is also some indication.)
Daniel Arasse got it: If in the Art of Painting, the painter's "demonstrated knowledge" is that of light..."
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Lou in the Shade
I don't think I would have taken this photo of a photo, much less noticed the original on the west wall of the Noah's Bagels on Bush at Battery, if I hadn't been turned on by Vermeer to the possibilities of shadow and shade.
So I saw DiMaggio, beautifully lit by sunlight streaming in from a window on the left, eclipsing Gehrig.
And then, googling "Gehrig DiMaggio," to see when they played together, I found Gehrig's homepage.
That's how art history, at its finest, works.
BTW, only two players in modern baseball ever led the league in both homers and steals. Chuck Klein was one. You'll never guess the other one.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The Shame of the Mauritshuis
On 18 April, I wrote the director of the Mauritshuis, who happens to be an American:
Dear Ms. Gordenker:
Granted your space is problematic, but it is inexcusable that "View of Delft" is not perfectly lit. The shadow that runs along its top, however, is peanuts compared to the shadow that obscures the top of the Averkamp.
For example.
Meanwhile, it is a dumb curatorial idea to flank the "View" with two pale Saenredams. "View" deserves a wall of its own, not a phony triptych.
And the Goldfinch should not be put on a slanted wing, where it is bleached out when the shutters are opened.
And, finally, you must institute some kind of crowd control.
Perhaps start by forbidding tour guides to lecture. There is no reason for their groups to mass in front of "View" for ten minutes. If tourists needs some potted art history, let them use your audioguides.
And perhaps set aside an hour a day (maybe 4 pm to 5 pm) when groups would be excluded, allowing "connoisseurs" who would pay an extra 20 or 50 Euros to get a decent, crowdless chance to look at your wonderful collection.
On 9 May, the museum's Head of Public Affairs replied:
Dear Mr. Junker,
Your email addressed to Dr. Gordenker was passed to me for reply.
Thank you very much for your detailed comments about the display at the Mauritshuis. We truly appreciate this type of reaction – whether positive or negative – because it keeps us on our toes.
As I am sure you will appreciate, the nature of the historic building does not always give us the flexibility we need to display our collection optimally. The small scale and historic interior of the building make it difficult to fine-tune lighting, ‘crowd control’ and the number of works we can display (so accordingly the amount of ‘wall space’ we accord to individual works), as well as other important issues. Please be assured that we are working on a solution to some of the problems: we will be renovating and expanding the museum from 2012-2014, which should help improve issues such as crowding and lighting. Unfortunately, the challenges posed by the historic nature of the building will always remain, but we hope that its unique character goes some way to compensating for the shortcomings.
I hope that you were able to enjoy your visit to the Mauritshuis in spite of your disappointment at some aspects of the display.
Best regards,
Barbara Sevenstern
Hoofd Publiek / Head of Public Affairs
070 302 3433 / + 31 (0)70 302 3433
Dear Ms. Gordenker:
Granted your space is problematic, but it is inexcusable that "View of Delft" is not perfectly lit. The shadow that runs along its top, however, is peanuts compared to the shadow that obscures the top of the Averkamp.
For example.
Meanwhile, it is a dumb curatorial idea to flank the "View" with two pale Saenredams. "View" deserves a wall of its own, not a phony triptych.
And the Goldfinch should not be put on a slanted wing, where it is bleached out when the shutters are opened.
And, finally, you must institute some kind of crowd control.
Perhaps start by forbidding tour guides to lecture. There is no reason for their groups to mass in front of "View" for ten minutes. If tourists needs some potted art history, let them use your audioguides.
And perhaps set aside an hour a day (maybe 4 pm to 5 pm) when groups would be excluded, allowing "connoisseurs" who would pay an extra 20 or 50 Euros to get a decent, crowdless chance to look at your wonderful collection.
On 9 May, the museum's Head of Public Affairs replied:
Dear Mr. Junker,
Your email addressed to Dr. Gordenker was passed to me for reply.
Thank you very much for your detailed comments about the display at the Mauritshuis. We truly appreciate this type of reaction – whether positive or negative – because it keeps us on our toes.
As I am sure you will appreciate, the nature of the historic building does not always give us the flexibility we need to display our collection optimally. The small scale and historic interior of the building make it difficult to fine-tune lighting, ‘crowd control’ and the number of works we can display (so accordingly the amount of ‘wall space’ we accord to individual works), as well as other important issues. Please be assured that we are working on a solution to some of the problems: we will be renovating and expanding the museum from 2012-2014, which should help improve issues such as crowding and lighting. Unfortunately, the challenges posed by the historic nature of the building will always remain, but we hope that its unique character goes some way to compensating for the shortcomings.
I hope that you were able to enjoy your visit to the Mauritshuis in spite of your disappointment at some aspects of the display.
Best regards,
Barbara Sevenstern
Hoofd Publiek / Head of Public Affairs
070 302 3433 / + 31 (0)70 302 3433
Monday, May 9, 2011
Vermeer's Shade
I was stunned the first time I saw View of Delft, on my postgraduate Grand Tour, in 1961.
I turned a corner in the Mauritshuis and there it was. I had never seen a painting that projected such an aura.
View has remained a touchstone for me of how powerful a painting can be, but what struck me this time about View of Delft was its shade.
Not the shadows, but the dark swatch of the town, which is not being raked by the early morning light, but momentarily shaded by a big (blackened, since the light is behind it) cloud.
(A detail you can't easily see in reproduction, but can if you use the "hotspot" here, by placing your cursor over the tower on the left—the Schiedam Gate: a clock indicates that the time is 7:20 or so; the position of the big hand is ambiguous.)
Everyone talks about Vermeer's use of light, but I have yet to come across a discussion of Vermeer's shade.
Or the vast size of the sky. Or those blackened clouds.
There is a hot spot for the clouds, which cites a Jacob van Ruisdael, painted some ten years later, as typical of "imaginative" Dutch painters spectacular sky effects.
I was disappointed in the Mauritshuis version of van Ruisdael's View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds; he did 15, the most impressive, apparently, being the one in Zurich.
I turned a corner in the Mauritshuis and there it was. I had never seen a painting that projected such an aura.
View has remained a touchstone for me of how powerful a painting can be, but what struck me this time about View of Delft was its shade.
Not the shadows, but the dark swatch of the town, which is not being raked by the early morning light, but momentarily shaded by a big (blackened, since the light is behind it) cloud.
(A detail you can't easily see in reproduction, but can if you use the "hotspot" here, by placing your cursor over the tower on the left—the Schiedam Gate: a clock indicates that the time is 7:20 or so; the position of the big hand is ambiguous.)
Everyone talks about Vermeer's use of light, but I have yet to come across a discussion of Vermeer's shade.
Or the vast size of the sky. Or those blackened clouds.
There is a hot spot for the clouds, which cites a Jacob van Ruisdael, painted some ten years later, as typical of "imaginative" Dutch painters spectacular sky effects.
I was disappointed in the Mauritshuis version of van Ruisdael's View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds; he did 15, the most impressive, apparently, being the one in Zurich.
Friday, May 6, 2011
My Voyage in the Low Countries
On April Fools Day, I flew to Amsterdam nonstop on KLM (Royal Dutch), which is now joined up with Delta (and Air France and Northwest), which seems appropriate since Holland/Belgium is the delta of the Rhine, the Meuse, the Scheldt...
After a couple of days at the Rijksmuseum, I took a train to the Zuiderzeemuseum (think the poor fisherman's Williamsburg), a train to Naarden (the best preserved Vauban-style fortress in Europe), then flew to Vienna for a day to see the Brueghels—and The Art of Painting.
Then a train to The Hague to join a tour sponsored by Amherst (after all, it's my 50th reunion this year), Harvard, Bryn Mawr, and the Met.
We took a bus to Haarlem and the Keukenhof tulip fields, and then to Delft, where we boarded a 110-meter, barge-like cruise ship to Veere, Ghent, Bruges, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Arnhem, and Amsterdam.
It was intense. I often thought I should have gone by myself and thus been able to linger...but having the logistics taken care of was great. And moving quickly and efficiently from masterpiece to masterpiece was also thrilling.
After a couple of days at the Rijksmuseum, I took a train to the Zuiderzeemuseum (think the poor fisherman's Williamsburg), a train to Naarden (the best preserved Vauban-style fortress in Europe), then flew to Vienna for a day to see the Brueghels—and The Art of Painting.
Then a train to The Hague to join a tour sponsored by Amherst (after all, it's my 50th reunion this year), Harvard, Bryn Mawr, and the Met.
We took a bus to Haarlem and the Keukenhof tulip fields, and then to Delft, where we boarded a 110-meter, barge-like cruise ship to Veere, Ghent, Bruges, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Arnhem, and Amsterdam.
It was intense. I often thought I should have gone by myself and thus been able to linger...but having the logistics taken care of was great. And moving quickly and efficiently from masterpiece to masterpiece was also thrilling.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
International Tribunal
You might think Vermeer of little contemporary relevance, but one of the docents on my cruise, Lawrence Douglas, teaches law (and creative writing!) at Amherst and has written extensively on the Nuremberg, Eichmann, and Barbie trials, and is now covering the Demjanjuk trial.
He was supposed to lecture us one night on how Osama bin Laden might fare if brought before an International Tribunal.
I might have been a bit drowsy that night, having been exhausted by the day's esthetic experiences, but it seemed he never got past the historical precedents to deal with what, at that moment, cruising through Holland, seemed an absurd hypothetical.
Yesterday, Benjamin B. Ferencz, a prosecutor at Nuremberg, had a letter in the NY Times, which expresses my sentiment exactly:
"Your superb report 'Behind the Hunt for Bin Laden' leaves key questions unanswered. Jubilation over the death of the most hunted mass murderer is understandable, but was it really justifiable self-defense, or was it premeditated illegal assassination?
"The Nuremberg trials earned worldwide respect by giving Hitler’s worst henchmen a fair trial so that truth would be revealed and justice under law would prevail. Secret nonjudicial decisions based on political or military considerations undermine democracy. The public is entitled to know the complete truth."
Some things I would like to know:
He was supposed to lecture us one night on how Osama bin Laden might fare if brought before an International Tribunal.
I might have been a bit drowsy that night, having been exhausted by the day's esthetic experiences, but it seemed he never got past the historical precedents to deal with what, at that moment, cruising through Holland, seemed an absurd hypothetical.
Yesterday, Benjamin B. Ferencz, a prosecutor at Nuremberg, had a letter in the NY Times, which expresses my sentiment exactly:
"Your superb report 'Behind the Hunt for Bin Laden' leaves key questions unanswered. Jubilation over the death of the most hunted mass murderer is understandable, but was it really justifiable self-defense, or was it premeditated illegal assassination?
"The Nuremberg trials earned worldwide respect by giving Hitler’s worst henchmen a fair trial so that truth would be revealed and justice under law would prevail. Secret nonjudicial decisions based on political or military considerations undermine democracy. The public is entitled to know the complete truth."
Some things I would like to know:
- Where was the DNA lab that could do such a quickie match? Is that normal frontline equipment, or had it been set up in anticipation of...? Or was it not really done at all?
- When were all the Muslim countries queried about their willingness to accept bin Laden's body (in keeping with Muslim belief that burial must be in the ground, not at sea)?
- How and when did the body get to the Carl Vinson from, presumably, Jalalabad?
- Had provisional arrangements already been made to receive a dead bin Laden?
- How did the Seals, looking through night vision glasses, know they had found bin Laden? Had they been supplied with a "recent" photo of him?
- Did bin Laden really live in such squalor? Or did the Seals strip and wreck the place? Or is the video that tracks around the blood stain a fake?
- Why are people who call for "evidence" being characterized as "conspiracy theorists"?
- Wouldn't bin Laden have been worth infinitely more alive than dead?
- If Saddam was given a trial, didn't bin Laden deserve one, too?
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Chatter
I want to chatter about Vermeer in order to keep alive my experience with his masterpieces in early April:
- View of Delft and, on the opposite wall of the Mauritshuis in The Hague, Girl with the Pearl Earring
- The Little Street, and next to it in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, The Milkmaid
- The Art of Painting, in a far corner of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
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