Posted on 05/25/2005 6:27:04 AM PDT by Republicanprofessor
Well, now that exams are over, grades are in, I’d like to bring some Art Appreciation ideas to Free Republic. Unfortunately, as artists have become more and more abstract, it really does take some study and/or education to understand what their ideas are. One doesn’t always need a snotty PhD art historian to do so, however. Once a person learns how to look at artworks, one can make one’s own decisions about form and content. (One can't just "appreciate" the blue in a painting to really understand what the painting is about.)
Form and content: that’s what I emphasize in all my classes. What is the artist trying to say and what forms (colors, lines, shapes, etc.) does he use to convey that message? Another fun thing about abstraction is that different people can have different interpretations, that the pieces can work on different levels. I’m hoping we can have some fun discussions here on FR about these works. (I didn’t “get” all this stuff right away; I’ve been studying it for decades.)
So, here goes.
The camera was invented in 1839. While I am not going to deal with the history of photography, what’s important is that at this point artists are freed to go beyond realism. The camera can take normal portraits and all kinds of realistic images. The artists can begin to explore abstraction.
In the late nineteenth century, Maurice Denis said this “A picture--before it is a a war horse, a female nude, or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors in a particular order.” Thus the artist is now free to do what he wants on the painting. Whistler won a court battle for this at the end of the nineteenth century.
So let’s begin with Eduoard Manet (1832-1883) Here is his Olympia 1863 in contrast to the older (more realistic) image of Titian’s Venus of Urbino from the early sixteenth century.
Can you see the differences between these? What has Manet done to update Titian? He’s made the lady flatter and bolder; she is definitely a prostitute, and a rather successful one at that (judging by the flowers from an admirer).
Manet is a part of the movement called Realism from about 1860-75 or so. This includes Courbet, but I’m going to spare you his more socialist works. This does not mean that the works look “realistic,” but that they are exploring a new, more modern and flattened style of realism. What is real in this world? That question is discussed in this famous work by Manet, Dejeuner sur l’Herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) which is another reworking of another Venetian Renaissance work, this time by Giorgione Pastoral Symphony.
Manet Dejeuner and Giorgione's Pastoral Symphony
Notice that, in the earlier painting, these ladies are not prostitutes. Notice also, in Giorgione’s work on the right, that those men are not even paying attention to these ladies. That’s because the women are muses. The large, golden size is inspiring to the men as they compose music; one woman dips into the well of inspiration, while the other plays a flute-like instrument. This is also one of the first luscious landscapes, with a beautiful golden sky typical of artists from Venice.
Manet’s work has often bothered me. Why the larger, dressed woman who is bathing in the background? She actually completes a compositional triangle that has been seen frequently in art history. The other woman is blatantly looking at you, and is not looking slyly to the side as in Giorgione’s nudes. She is also not dressed, in contrast to the dressed woman who is bathing. And again the men are not looking at her. Why? One idea that I subscribe to is that the men (who are artists themselves) are discussing how to portray a nude. And one says he would paint her flatly, as if in real light, and not with the veiled allusions of the past. He would paint her directly and “realistically,” and voila, there she is. Manet is also saying that he can do whatever he wants in a painting. That means he can play with our heads, just like he does here and at the Bar at the Folies-Bergere.
Now I want to end by looking at Winslow Homer (1836-1910) our great American painter from the end of the nineteenth century and a contemporary of Manet. Manet has a tremendous world-wide reputation, but Homer is seen more regionally. But what do you think? Who is better?
Homer’s The Gale and Fog Warning
Perhaps Homer just appeals to me because I’m a New Englander, and I love the ocean and think he captures that life and death struggle of the ocean very well. I also like the way the “stories” of his paintings are open-ended. Will her husband return from the sea? Will the fisherman make it back to his boat?
These works will always move me more than Manet. And both men have a wonderful way with the brush. Things look nicely detailed from a distance, but up close you see just a sweep of a brush here and there. That brushwork, what we call painterly, is even more important in Impressionism and thereafter.
In her case, it appears possible but depends on the quality of the reproduction here. In your case, I don't know.
How do you know that Manet was "reworking" the earlier painting. Did he acknowledge that or is that speculation among art historians?
Isn't this the painting that Sargeant had originally shown the strap of the gown draping down her arm? IIRC, it was considered so scandalous that he had to change it as it is now. I'm thinking there's a lot of backstory to this painting which, of course, I can't remember! Then again, I could be thinking of a different painting. I saw the Sargeant exhibition at the National Gallery in 98 or 99. There were so many paintings and I may be getting some of them confused.
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I have had many students who had never seriously visited an art gallery before come back and write how moved they were by a ceratin piece and were surprised how much they enjoyed seeing serious art for the first time.
Spent a lot of time in the Caribbean as a kid. I have actually seen a turtle pound just like the one Homer painted.
Here is the painting as it originally appeared:
Yes, that's it! Thanks for the information. (And I am relieved to know my memory is not *that* bad :))
Ugly woman, though. Don't like her nose, although that seems to be a French thing.
Homer's watercolors are amazing. I saw a show of his at Yale years ago, and one watercolor had the smallest bits of paper showing through to give the effect of sunset light on the water. I could not see how he did it. The paper shining through seemed to be the size of pinpricks. It was wonderful.
On post 20 or so.
Sorry, you need bigger words. To decontexualize the post-structural re-composition of the late modernist tradition....blah, blah.
Actually, I understand that the woman in Olympia is black and wearing white because she is a transition between the black background and the white foreground. But I like what the previous poster said about prostitutes often having black maids.
If I had all the money in the world, I would have a VERY nice small art collection and a beautiful home to house it in . . . and Homer's watercolors would figure prominently.
I totally agree about her nose. Definitely a haughty French appearance.
So, why was lavender make-up considered to be so "bad"?
Did they have masking fluid back then?
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Sargent himself said it was the ugliest thing he had ever seen. He hated it because she had no skin tone (and he was very good at painting skin tone.) She laid it on very thick, he said she looked like a medicinal lozenge.
The young lady on the right seems to have higher ambitions than the field work. Her friend on the left seems to be thinking of just getting by for the day. I spent an afternoon one day drawing it, loving it.
That's Homer's work, btw.
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