Visual Culture: Art is Everywhere

Though I've yet to see a single episode of Dexter, it is next on my list of shows to stream while procrastinating which is why I stopped to read an article concerning this gritty Showtime series about a vigilante serial killer. I then interrupted my process of pre-procrastinating by becoming enraptured by the article's banner pic and began writing this article. Thus we are in the fourth dimension of procrastination here where space and time bend so far backward that you actually feel like you might be getting some work done.

Anyway, my internal dialogue upon noticing Dexter's promo poster (top right) went something like this: "He's holding his chin in his hand rather confrontationally. Wait a minute, that's not his hand; that hand is dead. Ew, gross he's holding his face with some dead guy's hand. Oh dear, he probably killed that guy. Dexter thinks he's God or something. OH MY GOSH IT'S COURBET!"

That last leap may have been a bit far for non-art historians so allow me to explain. In 1845-46 when he would have been in his mid-twenties, Courbet produced a self-portrait (top left), also known as Man with a Leather Glove. The key feature of this image upon which I intend to focus today is the hand that grazes Courbet's cheek as he wistfully looks out from the canvas looking downward just enough to miss eye contact with us, his viewers. Though it's difficult to glean from this small slide, in better images it's pretty easy to notice that the hand has a significantly more finished quality than Courbet's face or any of the other surrounding details. (Finished in this sense refers to an art historical term meaning the treatment of the pigment on canvas, basically whether it has a glossy, varnished, smooth look or a rougher, matte, more textured appearance.) The effect of this disparity between the face and hand is an eerie sense that though the hand clearly connects to Courbet's arm and then his body, it feels as if the hand is not his own or that it is separate from his personal identity.

The hand is also disproportionately large, as big as his own head, and at the center of the painting it becomes the focus rather than Courbet himself. This opens a conversation about the hand as the instrument of genius which creates his art (note that there is a secondary focus upon Courbet's other hand as well), and begs the question about where the separation lies between cosmic, external inspiration versus the internalization and execution of said magic by the artist himself. Is this hand a simple sign of Courbet's egotism, an indication of the relationship between talent and skill, or a complex combination of both? (This third option is the most likely candidate. Incidentally, other Amy has completed research on this painting so I look forward to her contribution to this discussion.)

That conversation for now is beyond the scope because the real interest for my current purposes is the evident connection between this 19th portrait and a very 21st century pop culture pic. The visual connection between the two - by virtue of the two men's poses alone - I trust is clear to my readers. And what's better is the obvious art historical allusion in that the hand cradling Dexter's face is equally dis-associated with his person as is Courbet's. It may at first seem like the connection ends there being that Courbet's hand conveys a personal connection to genius whereas Dexter's disembodied appendage mostly connotes his murderous proclivities. Thinking more critically though, don't the hands essentially argue the same thing? They both basically say, "I am the creator/destroyer. I can control what exists and what shouldn't. I produce my work, driven by inexpressible motivations, which are beyond judgment by you who are ignorant to such feelings."

I was imminently pleased with the producers and art directors of Dexter who subtly re-presenting this history for us in the promotional media for their show. And in a final twist indicating art history's imminent depth, Courbet's original image itself was lifted from Michelangelo's master work on the Sistine Ceiling. The final piece falls into place when considering this hand of God. Courbet directly referenced this item in his self-portrait which the creators of Dexter then quoted centuries after that. Yes, Dexter feels like God and so does Courbet. And what better way to visually prove that than by using images from the collective consciousness of visual culture? So the next time you pick up a TVGuide or watch that ad campaign for Magic Make-up Eyelash Blast Something-or-other remember that what you're seeing probably has more history than you think. One can never forget, art is everywhere.




Image credit: I put this one together myself with pictures from the public domain. My favorite part of this photoshop adventure was saving the .jpg to my desktop under the name "DexCour."

By the way, I've missed the last few weeks because I've been engrossed writing a lengthy essay on 1940s Memphis art and politics. Once that's uploaded to the web in about a month, I'll provide a link to it for my die-hard friends. Also, Amy's back in the country now which means she'll return soon to class this site up with a little archeo-ancient knowledge from Pompeii.

Potter Pals and Paintings

In honor of the final Harry Potter flick which opened this week, I've been trying to think of a way to talk about the series on this blog, and an idea finally struck last night. Admittedly through a stretch I realized that the major contribution art plays in the adventures of Harry, Hermione, and Ron is the talking paintings dressing the walls of Hogwarts and the rest of the wizarding world. So what might happen, do you think, if our real life muggle paintings were gifted with the same type of animation as their fictional, magical counterparts?

First of all, religious works would be far more precious and valuable. Consider the doctrinal conflicts we could resolve if we just took those issues straight to the source. I wonder if a Byzantine icon Jesus would disagree with Leonardo's Christ in the Last Supper. Or what would both of those two say to the Early Christian good shepherd?

And what about modern painting/portraiture? The talking heads in Harry Potter all appear to ambiguously date to be 18th or 19th century English portraits, but surely my imagination game can stretch those boundaries a bit. Consider Braque's Man with a Violin or just imagine what Picasso's Desmoiselles d'Avignon would say to us. I already cover my ears instinctively to fend off their taunts and expletives.

But the painting I'd be most curious to have a conversation with is Manet's Olympia, that straightforward prostitute, undaunted by your leers prepared to offer you a bargain as long as the price is right. More than that, Olympia is also imbued with centuries of art historical allusion (from a direct reference of Titian to addressing general themes of the nude in art) of which I believe she is keenly aware. So in this mythical conversation, after after I've dissuaded Olympia of my potentially illicit intentions (and perhaps after her handmaid brought her a cover-up), I'd want to shoot the breeze with this petite intellectual who has overcome a repressed life by mastering the world's oldest trade. Constantly objectified yet perennially in control of what her audience sees, I think Olympia would have deeply personal insights into the idea of art itself.

In all honesty, if I had the gift of magic like Harry and friends I'd probably cast a few other spells before bringing my paintings to life (pick-up Quidditch anyone?). Still, don't you think a conversation with the Mona Lisa would be pretty damn cool?

What painting(s) would you talk to if you could?

Thanks to Wikipedia, Artchive, and some clever kid on photobucket for the images.

Arkansas?

On November 11th of this year, Alice Walton of the Walmart family fortune will open the doors of her dream child, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The multi-million dollar investment will house some of America's most valuable artworks from the likes of John Singer Sargent, Jasper Johns, and Norman Rockwell (see his iconic Rosie the Riveter below) in a collection of about 600 canvases. It will, no doubt, be a formidable and significant museum based upon this early press alone, even before Walton has released information about the other 90% of the museum's holdings. Naturally, a museum of this stature will be located in heart of American arts culture - Bentonville, Arkansas.

Huh? If you've never heard of Bentonville, it's located in northwest Arkansas near the slightly larger township of Fayetteville, both of which are about three hours from Little Rock. Bentonville's previous (and only other) claim to fame is as the hometown of the original Walmart, hence Alice Walton's affinity for the locale. Unfortunately for her, very few members of the art world share Walton's affection for the small-town setting. Since announcing her plan in the early 2000s, the East Coast has balked at the idea of relinquishing canvases destined for Crystal Bridges. The establishment seems to believe that selling art to Walton and her museum is like sentencing the American masterworks to a slow death in a mid-Southern oblivion. They parallel this museum with the same criticisms which have been leveled at Walmart, as if large, laboriously gathered art collections are in any way related to depreciation related to mass production. One particularly sour critic, Rebecca Mead of the New Yorker calls Crystal Bridges "Wal-Art." Evidently, entrenched detractors find it offensive that the heartland dares claim a stake in Americana which is as much a part of the East Coast as it is part of the rolling central plains.

The New York Times at least takes a kinder approach by pointing out that the museum will be located in an unexpected location, but then dedicates the rest of its article to explaining Walton's intentions behind her choice. It was primarily this article which convinced me of Walton's sincerity and competence as an art collector. It seems Walton has been interested in art for 25 years, during the last 10 of which she was specifically collecting works with the museum in mind. She has surrounded herself with expert art historians who have also guided her choices and helped shape to museum from a formally educated perspective. And in terms of situating the museum in Bentonville, I think it's a bold and magnanimous move.

The act parallels to me the move that Samuel H. Kress undertook in the 1950s. Though nowadays Kress is largely unknown, he and his low-price, high-volume convenience stores used to be a household name in America. Like Walton and her family, Kress became a millionaire off of his popular market shops and eventually returned the favor to America by donating the artworks he had collected via the nickels and dimes of Kress store patrons. Though Kress's collection of art was largely Italian and he dispersed his works to museums throughout the U.S., I applaud Walton's decision to gather American art and to display it in middle America among the original consumers who made her dream possible. I think New York and the East Coast need to recognize that arts culture can and should exist outside the purview of elites in high-rise lofts. There are drawbacks to any museum in every location, but art can be appreciated anywhere - yes, even in the backwaters of rural Arkansas. It's touching that the objects in Crystal Springs will get to live in a uniquely American setting, and I hope even the city-slickers from back East will be able to make the trip come November to witness the manifestation of an American legacy.


Sources
BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/ideas/39056
The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/06/27/110627fa_fact_mead
NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/arts/design/alice-walton-on-her-crystal-bridges-museum-of-american-art.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4&ref=arts

Impressionist Exhibits! Go! Go! Go!

The Impressionists are making quite an “impression” in the south this summer. Impressionism is easily one of the most recognized and loved of the modern art movements with well-known artists such as Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Cezanne decorating the white walls of museums. These artists captured the world with new waves of light, color, and paint application that changed the course of modern art to this day.

Until June 29 the Arkansas Art Center has a fantastic exhibit of Impressionist art titled “The Impressionists and their Influence.” Additionally Memphis’ Brooks Museum and Dixon Art Gallery are collaborating in their own Impressionist ventures to highlight a similar display of high quality pieces from the art movement.

If you’re in Arkansas or Tennessee, please try to support your local art galleries. These exhibits are high quality shows that rival big city museum displays, so take advantage of the close proximity and low cost of admission.

Ernest C. Withers Worth Remembering

A recent visit to Beale Street in Memphis with some friends led me to the gallery of Ernest C. Withers, one of history’s most prolific photographers of African American history in 20th century America. Having taken many art history and photography classes, I’ve run across Withers’ work numerous times, but this particular visit finally brought his work to life for me.

In late December of last year I was devastated to read that the famous civil rights photographer had been a covert FBI informant in Memphis. Withers provided a first hand visual account of southern civil rights movement: the murder of Emmett Till, the Montgomery bus boycott, the crisis of the Little Rock nine at Central High School, the integration of Ole Miss, the Memphis sanitation strike, and eventually the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.

One of his most famous photographs is of Martin Luther King, Jr. at the funeral of Medgar Evans, a man who literally fought to the death for the abolition of the Jim Crow laws. Withers captured the tireless hardship of the fight against segregation, shown clearly in the pain and stress apparent on King’s face.


Though it has been proven through a series of investigations that he was in fact working for the government during the time he spent with King and his contemporary revolutionaries, does the value of his work diminish? I think not. He managed to document one of the greatest movements in American history and despite his reasons, he gave us some of the most incredible examples of documentary photography in photographic history. The Ernest C. Withers Gallery remains open on Beale Street in Memphis, TN if you are willing to visit and make your own judgments of the photographer's merit.

Thinking with the Wrong Head

Before you even read my post, the article here deserves primary interest. I owe all credit to the geniuses at BigThink.com for relating Rep. Anthony Weiner's recent public debacle to an art historical precedent.

As Bob Duggan says in his BigThink post, Congressman Weiner's misguided digital communiqués pick up upon a tradition that has been prevalent in visual media essentially since the dawn of time when men decided that they ran the world (though we'll leave the specifics of that debate up for discussion). In short, men have always believed that bigger is better - and you better make it known who's the cock of the walk, so to speak. Duggan cites the infamously challenged progenitor King Henry VIII's portrait by Hans Holbien the Younger. The King here was trying to prove visually, before he had proved physically, that he had the might to produce a male heir. Duggan also goes on to smartly note that phallic symbols not only connote material power, but spiritual right as well with Leo Steinberg's thesis that "many images of Jesus Christ as an infant emphasized his genitalia." Thus the purely visceral concept of human sexuality and passion transcends into the religious realm of divine authority manifest in, of all things, a penis.

So where does this art history put us in regards to the contemporary world? Well, far from the divine rights of kings I'd say. I understand and very much enjoy Duggan's perspective on the male desire to visually prove to us what apparently eludes verbal description. But it's also important to note that Anthony Weiner was not, in any way, deliberately tapping into this art historical tradition. For one thing, his tweets or e-mails were intended for private communication, and even so the accompanying text with the images were of a nature decidedly less high-brow than the potentially lush spiritual metaphors of a gift bestowed from God. The argument remains, however, that for centuries even before written history (see inset of the erect bird-man from the Lascaux cave paintings circa 15,000 BCE), men and their phalluses have had the insatiable urge to demonstrate visual virility to an audience with or without our pre-approved consent.

Perhaps we should all just bite the bullet and, ahem, head-off (apologies) the inevitable sex scandals a la Weiner and Schwarzenegger by allowing powerful men to display at the forefront of their public persona their magnificent, proud arsenals in the way of King Henry VIII. On the other hand, I may just prefer to swallow that bullet instead.

Source: http://bigthink.com/ideas/38836

Iconography: Textual or Visual?

I'm reading a book on biblical literalism which reminded me of a question I thought up a few years ago. Which books, literally which versions of the Bible, were artists consulting when creating works of religious art?

This might as first seem like a trivial query since you would expect all Bibles to generally say the same thing, but historically that's not completely true. The Holy Book developed over several centuries and has been inadvertently and deliberate changed up until very modern times. (Thomas Jefferson in fact wrote his own version of the Bible in the early 19th century, radically removing all miracles from Jesus' history and privileging only his spiritual teachings.) Also, the text of the Bible can significantly affect art; Moses' horns in Michelangelo's famed

statue of the Old Testament father are a result of a translation error meant to describe rays of light emanating from Moses rather than actual horns coming out of his head. Nonetheless, the biblical text said horns and so began a recurrent art historical motif.

Dependence on biblical text (or lack thereof) can most easily be seen in early Christian art when iconographic stereotypes nor the Bible itself were completely established. Typical Christian stories hadn't yet emerged so the iconography is infinitely more difficult to read. In fact, scholars have already noted that early Christian art was more influenced by the visual culture of the Roman world rather than upon source material from any common book. In this case it's because the common book itself which could have provided more homogeneous iconographic programs was fragmented and not yet fully canonized.

But even in later eras, I wonder which sources artists referenced to guide their work. Each Bible, especially before the advent of the printing press, was a highly individual, unique object which had been copied (always with a handful of errors) by a monk or scribe. When do errors like these affect the art? And during the Reformation when the Protestants opted to toss out an entire section of the Old Testament (now referred to as the Apocrypha), how did that affect the imagery of religious Protestant art? Albrecht Durer was born and died as a Roman Catholic, though he has been suspected of sympathizing with Martin Luther. Close examination and research into his iconography as it relates to biblical texts, I think could shed some light on his personal preferences.

And then there's the last question which is equally significant and dismantling to this idea; how much have artists relied on Bibles versus simply looking at iconographic tradition for their motifs? Any six year-old today who's been to three days worth of Sunday school could probably draw a decent creation scene without checking the Bible first, so naturally the greatest artists in history could do the same. Textual significance of religious iconography actually opens up a larger question of what most significantly influences artistic development: literary source and critique or inspiration from visual data?


For more on biblical literalism (not related to art history), read A Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs.