My Kid Could Paint That

Call Munch’s Amor and Psyche a representation of myth without the myth. Amor, more commonly known as Cupid, lacks any sense of godliness. He has no wings, no bow, and no arrow. Munch has also taken Psyche’s astounding beauty that gave her the ability to seduce a god. She merely looks tired and deformed.

Munch attacks his subject matter in an entirely different way than all other painters our class has examined this year. His post-impressionism seeks to represent more abstract ideas than the Renaissance styles. These painters focused on literal representation and their symbolism extended only so far as to include halos and chimeras. Now, you may say I am overlooking very important and big exceptions, but guess what? This is my blog post, and I am tired of looking at angels, saints, and Jesus. Now, you know your class has looked at way too many religious paintings when the Catholic kid says something like this. So buckle up and ride along with my gross, untruthful generalization. I miss my Munch, and I want him back for a day.

Metamorphoses describes the tale of Psyche and Cupid as thus. A princess named Psyche possesses such beauty that the goddess Venus becomes jealous. So she sends her son Cupid down to take care of the problem. Cupid’s mission is simple: make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest dude he can find. There’s only one problem. Cupid has kind of a soft spot for beautiful princesses. So instead he secretly marries Psyche, but does not allow her to know his true identity. Henceforth, Cupid only visits her in the dead of night. Finally, she gets fed up with this arrangement and lights a lamp. She then discovers Cupid’s godhood. Needless to say this causes some complications for their relationship, but it all works out in the end.

I’d call this a rather peachy story, but Munch rejects that interpretation. Instead he plays with the idea of darkness and the fragile structure of the mind within these godlike figures. Notice the heavy, black brush strokes over Amor. These are prison bars. They are on Psyche’s face as well. The background has similar brush strokes, but they are white. I imagine the whiteness represents Psyche’s turning on of the light. The light then begins to illuminate the two figures. It has reached all of Psyche’s body and Amor’s shoulders. In the myth, Psyche discovers Cupid’s godliness. In Munch’s painting, she discovers a lonely, naked man. Also, the beauty Psyche supposedly possesses does not seem apparent. She looks blurred and delicate. These two bigger than life figures are really fleeting ideas that can be repressed. Amor, or love, and Psyche, the mind, are illogical. Munch did not want these things in his life, along with God. I believe I have already written a blog post talking about Munch’s atheism, but to reiterate Munch thought the world too ugly of a place to be created by a perfect all-knowing entity. There are only people, and they create myths in order to explain the things they cannot understand, such as the mind and emotions. However in Munch’s time, Freud had dissected the mind. Myths were no longer needed and to Munch, neither was love or rationality.

Curator's Note: The Mother Liberty and Seducer story arc has come to a close. I now leave you with two stories of thematic importance.

Manet’s brush pushes against the canvas. Colors blend. Shapes take form. Sweat dribbles down the artist’s brow. He works with a mission.

We are going to get your voice heard, Berthe, he promises. There are worse artists out there prospering. Why should you have to starve because of your sex?

            
Manet hears a muffled reply.

Speak up, darling. I can’t hear you.

He does not make out the next gurgled cries.

Berthe, this isn’t going to work if you can’t sit still.

Manet’s portrait stands close to completion. He hopes for his painting to attract attention to his suffering sister in law’s art career. A woman can’t make it anywhere in the world, Manet tells himself. She needs his help. If he can show the world through his art that Morisot demands the critics' attention, she can make it big. Like him. His talent will be the tool she uses to foster her own.

          
I am almost done. I just need to complete the mouth.

Mother Liberty and the Seducer

Curated by Alex McDonald

Curator's Note: This is the fourth installment in a series of blog posts where I have presented short fiction based off the paintings in my collection. If, please go read my three prior posts. Thank you.

Melancholy by Edvard Munch does not refer to one particular work or medium. It began as a pastel drawing in 1891, in 1892 Munch painted several versions and added “Yellow Boat” to the title, and in 1896 he created a woodcarving. These works were set in Asgårdstrand, Norway, where Munch spent most of his summers between 1889 and 1906. The main figure is said to represent writer Jappe Nielsen, who suffered for his hopeless love of Oda Krohg. She is pictured with her newly-married husband, Christian, on the pier. Ironically enough Christian Krohg, Norway’s leading artist at the time, published an article giving the painted version much praise and attention.

I enjoy the pastel sketch the most of the three mediums because I believe that Munch’s ability to portray desperation and melancholy feeling touches the surface of emotion, but both leaves freedom for and encouragingly accepts the honest passionate reaction of the viewer. Jappe’s figure is the most finished portion of the work. Behind him, his memories begin as the canvas unfolds into color and dimension. A darker line extending from the tip of his nose, across the bay and toward the figures seem to connect the two. The characters of his lost love and her new husband seem too painful to remember, thus are barely touched. As is the ocean, which opens up a plethora of opportunities for Oda to sail away and never return.

I enjoy this painting for its external simplicity as well as its complexity of line and movement. The seemingly unfinished canvas leaves a plethora of emotional opportunities for viewers that all revolve around the melancholy Jappe.

At first glance, the blunt nudity of the two subjects is shocking. Never before have Corday and Marat been painted nude. Perhaps adding the infamous knife or sickly skin to Marat would allow the viewer to infer what is occurring in the painting. But without these tell-tale signs or class-defining garments to shroud the subjects, the viewer only sees two naked figures—one female, standing in the center of a room, one male, bleeding on a sheeted bed.

At closer inspection, one feels entrapped in a room of violent chaos. Long, hurried brushstrokes blur the composition. Each stroke escapes basic geometric boundaries, the muted reds and pinks of the coffee table extending past the round edge and into the space of the room. As the colors attempt to fill the entire composition, they are halted by a stark, ghost-like Corday. She halts all movement and pierces the viewer with her stoic gaze. To her left lies the ded Marat—a bleeding corpse tossed on a filthy bed. His arms and legs are fully extended as his head rests on his right shoulder, imitating Christ’s position at the Crucifixion. Munch’s decision to place him in this position further solidifies Marat’s “martyrdom.”

In an unusual yet intriguing depiction of the death of Marat, Munch plays with psychological aspects of art, conscientiously making the viewer feel trapped in a scene of violent bloodshed. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Edward Manet’s 1868 oil painting, The Balcony, was first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1869.  Obvious inspiration comes from Goya’s The Majas at the Balcony, which stems from the themes of class structure. Two intimidating male companions oversee two young and smiling upper-class women.  In The Balcony a stiff and awkward trio replaces the balanced quartette in The Majas at the Balcony. Manet also exchanges Goya’s sinister balcony setting for a spruced up minty green version. He seeks to express the life of the upper class, and succeeds in unveiling the rigidness beneath the poised façade.
The three polished subjects, who were all friends of Manet, seem disjointed, as if they were taken from other works and pasted together on the canvas. Berthe Morisot, on the left, sits like a romantic waiting for her suiter. Her piercing eyes are the most defined, but send gazes away from the viewer and off the painting. Antoine Gilement, a painter, displays a look of indifference and rigidity. Finally, a young violinist, Fanny Claus, seems completely uncomfortable with the entire situation. She stands holding her hand together and on her tiptoes as if she were to leave the scene at any moment. A small boy carrying a tray in the background is Manet’s son, Leon. Born out of wedlock to Suzanne Leenhoff, Leon, posed often for his father and was the subject in many of Monet’s paintings.

Adding Leon in the background of The Balcony slightly taints the sophisticated rigidity of the painting, but offers a connection to the artist that the viewer does not see within the subjects of the painting.

Édouard Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass stands out to me as one of the finest examples of impressionist era pieces because of Manet’s freshness, attention to his audience, juxtaposition of figures and setting, and willingness to paint the taboo. French citizens first got a taste of Manet’s thought-provoking, scandalous work in 1863. Two finely dressed gentlemen sit back comfortably, immersed in discussion, seemingly unmindful of the two naked women that encircle them.

The brilliance of this work, like most impressionist era paintings, stems not from the technical precision of the composition, line, perspective, form or figures like the classical masters delivered. Rather, the work's raw brushstrokes, harsh lighting and rough qualities seem to provoke and shock the viewer, who Manet intends to catch off guard.