Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife

Fanny
John Singer Sargent, Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife, 1885

It is sometimes little uncanny to discover the most unexpected things could somehow intertwine. Couple weeks ago I saw this Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife in the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas. And now I’m writing about this portrait of certain Stevenson who turns out to be the author of one of my childhood favorites, Treasure Island. A little different from how I imagined him I have to say.

The composition is somewhat odd and the portrait of Stevenson as he fidgeting across the room and his wife Fanny in the back right is nevertheless strange too. As Stevenson himself put it, "it is too eccentric to be exhibited. I am at one extreme corner; my wife, in her wild dress, and looking like a ghost, is at the extreme another end...all this is touched in lovely, with that witty touch of Sargent's, but of course, it looked damn queer as a whole." Stevenson published his most celebrated work Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in 1886, just a year prior to this painting. So Stevenson might very well be working on his book at that moment--walking around chasing his thoughts in the room. 

 After the scandal of Madame X in Paris, Sargent retreated to England and had a hard time getting commissions. He depended on his friends for a while and painted them in their everyday life. Sargent met Stevenson in Paris in 1874 and remained friends for the rest of their lives. And it is here on this canvas that the artist captured a colleague in his most intimate and least self-conscious moment as he looks intensely into the viewer while dwelling deeply in his work.
  • 7:00 AM

Iberia and "Stray Birds"

Leo Yuan
Robert Motherwell, Iberia, 1958

 From Stray Birds
by Rabindranath Tagore

Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.

The grass seeks her crowed in the earth.
The tree seeks his solitude of the sky.

Man barricades against himself.

Your voice, my friend, wanders in my heart, like the muffled sound of the sea among these listening pines.

What is this unseen flame of darkness whose sparks are the stars?

A witness to the Spanish Civil War and its atrocity, Robert Motherwell later devoted a series of abstract paintings to the experience, revolving the theme of black and white, and the inexorable circle of life and death. Was he disappointed in humanity, faithless? As the black so overwhelmingly dominates the canvas. Or was there still hope? As light still shines through the corner. Were children the solution, whose innocence forces history to turn to a new page? Perhaps the answer is just behind the unseen flame of darkness. 

 Editor's Note: Students were asked to match a poem to a picture. They could do so with or without comment; they could be serious or playful. We will leave it to our dear readers to make the connection.

  • 7:00 AM

Bonjour Monsieur Courbet

Bonjour Monsieur Courbet
Courbet, Bonjour Monsieur Courbet, 1854

Following several of his previous realist masterpieces that were well received by the Salons, such as the Burial at Ornans, and Stonebreakers, Courbet here again depicted an everyday life scene with realist style. In the painting, Courbet himself, on the right, encounters two strangers in the countryside near his hometown Ornans. The two people, according to historians, the son of a banker, Alfred Bruyas, and his servant in brown suit, presumably just arrived after being dropped off by the carriage in the background. The casual encounter out in the countryside on a beautiful day, however, doesn't seem all that friendly.

While the rich son of the banker takes off his one of his glove and shows Courbet a greeting gesture, Courbet however tilts his head back and kind of “looks down” on the other party as pointed by his “keyed up” beard. It might shed some light on the situation given that Courbet loved and encouraged other artist friends to go out to the country and paint on the sight. The painting captures this moment as Courbet packs up and takes a trip in the country. He presents himself as a self-sufficient and well-prepared old hand of rough terrain, as opposed to the two city boys who got beat-up by travelling in the country. One might go as far as to say Courbet through this painting mocks the industrialized urban life and upholds the value of a life among the nature. Also, known as common people’s artist from works such as the Stonebreakers, Courbet is perhaps showing his disdain towards the “bankers” and those who make their fortune by exploiting working men.

But ironically enough, the death of Courbet was resulted from something he had done for the people, or at he thought he did. In 1871, as president of the revolutionary Paris Commune, Courbet ordered the removal of the Vendome Column. However, the political environment shifted greatly in the next two years. In 1873, the newly elected president Mac-Mahon wanted to resurrect the column, and Courbet was held to pay the expense, which amounted to 323,091 fr and 68 cent.

Courbet then fled to Switzerland to avoid bankruptcy and died from heavy drinking, just a day before the first monthly installment was due. In retrospect, one might look back to this painting and ask, was he so self-sufficient as he depicted after all, and would it hurt to have made friends with a banker? If he had shown little more friendly a gesture, he might not be in so much debt or drink later.

  • 7:00 AM

The Fifer

Impressionism
Edouard Manet, The Fifer, 1866

A whopping 161 x 97 cm in size, just to portray an ordinary boy, presumably of the military marching band, playing a fife—in his early work The Fifer, Manet here takes a truly modern, unconventional stand that was not particularly appreciated by his contemporaries. One would find it puzzling about what had prompted Manet to pay such close attention to a nameless boy and to paint this sizeable work against the popular taste without seeing Velasquez’s earlier work Pablo de Valladolid. Following a trip to Spain, Manet found himself deeply interested in the style of Spanish painters. Similar to Velasquez’s Pablo de Valladolid, Manet places the boy in a plain, stark setting, surrounded only by the thin air. He employs the impasto technique—the solid black jacket, the thick red pants with a black contour line, and a little shadow—to create a flatness that was unprecedented to French critics. Further more, devoting the entire canvas to a working class boy upset the established “hierarchy of representation.”  The painting was rejected by the Salon of 1866 despite Zola’s strong support. Zola, in his L’Evenement, defended that he sensed a “truly modern feeling” in the work of this early impressionist giant.
  • 7:00 AM

Summer Scene

Bazille
Jean Frederic Bazille, Summer Scene, 1869

Frederic Bazille, a short-lived, early impressionist painter, painted the Summer Scene in 1869, just a year before he was killed in Franco-Prussian War. A close friend of Claude Monet, Bazille was among the few forerunners of the Impressionist movement. However, unlike Monet, who devoted himself entirely to his art, Bazille never applied himself completely to a career as a painter. Perhaps due to the finical support from his father, art merely remained a hobby to him, never something to pursue relentlessly. Nevertheless his work, which centered around the emerging idea of “modern” then, represented the cutting edge of the yet-to-coin Impressionist movement.

The subject matter of the painting was familiar yet unusual at the time. Its familiarity lies in the popularity of the theme picnic, or Dejeuner sur I’Herbe, that was frequently depicted by contemporary artists. In fact, Bazille posed for Monet in one of his Le Dejeuner. However, Summer Scene reflects something more than just the idea of modern leisure and the interactive relationship of men and nature. The subject matter of a group of male bathers in a world where female nudes dominated the body discourse, was rare and little-recognized. The depiction of bathing scenes makes it guiltless and acceptable for the viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism without necessarily associating its nudity with sexual act. Robert Brettell says, “Bathers are nude because they have to be; they are merely engaged in a cleansing ritual.” Similarly, the borrowing of classic poses for his modern figures allows Bazille to access the subject of male nudes without violating the conventional bourgeois morality. The modern Saint Sebastian in the foreground, and the wrestling nudes in the background which recalls traditional Greek gymnasium, suggest viewers that this is a modern form of Arcadia, an idealistic life of brotherhood that resembles the ancient Greeks, not necessarily a depiction of homosocial (or sexual) discourse.

The painting was well received and accepted by the Salon of 1870. To me it presents something unique and inspiring comparing to his contemporaries. If Bazille weren’t killed in the following year, he might find his own direction and certainly add variety to the gallery of 19th century paintings.

  • 7:00 AM

Bathers at Asnieres and Fantastic Mr. Fox

cartoon

Georges Seurat, Bathers ar Asnieres, 1884






I came across an article about quirk culture on the Atlantic website the other day that claimed, “We’re drowning in quirk...an embrace of the odd against the blandly mainstream, that quickly becomes exhausting.” Of course Wes Anderson’s name is mentioned, among many other filmmakers and performers whose work I personally enjoy very much. Giving the writer his credit for providing critiques and challenges for higher aesthetic values (whatever he says that is), I find a familiar hostility, a reluctant appreciation/acceptance of those who uphold the subjectivity of their work and keep a healthy distance from the mainstream. A similar bitterness can be seen in the early days of impressionism, where author Richard Brettell argues it first recognizes the artists “as a character in the drama of representation.” We see a mannered style, an indie sensibility, art that's self-consciously elaborate; it’s no coincidence that those words apply well to works of artists like Georges Seurat and directors like Wes Anderson.

Unlike those old masters, who scarcely leave their traits and their stylistic narrative on their work, Seurat make it all personal and stylistic by employing pointillism, and Wes Anderson by unique camera movement, dialogs, motifs. In a word, they each love quirk.

When I see Bathers at Asnieres, the red hat of the boy on the right reminds me of Max Fisher in Rushmore, who also wears a red beret (a reference to The Cather in the Rye, according to Wes himself). In the painting, the working class kid seems to be calling to the bourgeoisie on the right side of the bank, whose life Seurat later depicted in his most famous A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. For me, it seems like Wes is calling to the commercially-oriented, mainstream-filmmakers and boring critics on the other side - "I’m right here, telling my story, in my way."

Towards the end of Fantastic Mr. Fox, a wolf appears up on a cliff. Mr. Fox waves to him, tears in his eyes. To me, it's a compromise one has to make in real life. After all, at least to a filmmaker, a great movie doesn't guarantee a great box office. However, you don’t see scenes like this in Spielberg’s films. Perhaps it’s just too personal, too quirky.  

  • 7:00 AM

Portrait of Jeanne Hebuterne and Pale Blue Eyes

Amedeo Modigliani

Amedeo Modigliani, Portrait of Jeanne Hebuterne, 1918





If there were a song to describe the relationship of Modigliani and his dearest lover Jeanne Hebuterne, it would be Pale Blue Eyes by the Velvet Underground.

Born in Italy in 1884, Amedeo Modigliani was stricken by illness throughout his life. Since pleurisy and typhoid had made it impossible for him to go to school, by the age of fifteen, Amedeo Modigliani was studying painting in Guglielmo Micheli's studio. Modigliani left for Paris in 1906, and joined a circle of artists like Picasso and Gino Severini. But instead of Cubism or Futurism, Modigliani took his inspiration from works of early Renaissance, such as that of Duccio and Simone Martini, and other oriental cultures. In 1917, he met the love of his life, then 19-year-old Jeanne Hebuterne. For the next two years, he seemed never get tired of painting her. And he would carry on if wasn't struck down by illness. In 1920, tubercular meningitis took his life. Jeanne committed suicide the next day, nine months pregnant with their second child.

Finding a painting to go with a piece of good music is not easy when you are little short on knowledge about either music or painting. But it all becomes very easy when the mild tune of Pale Blue Eyes finds the lazy, curving lines of Modigliani's portrait of Jeanne Hebuterne. A certain gentleness flows along the soft lines of her almond-shaped face, through the sloping shoulder and slender arm, to be picked up by her gently pressing left hand. A similar gentleness can be heard with every touch of the string and every line of the lyrics in the song. And I find myself "lingering on her pale blue eyes."

As the lyrics progresses, the song seems to be at even more resonation with the story of Modigliani's and Jeanne. Born in a Catholic family, Jeanne was renounced by her family for her relationship with the painter. It did not stop her from falling in love with him. After Modigliani's unsuccessful exhibition in Paris, they moved to Nice, where they had their first child. The sad tone of both the song the their story gives the whole thing an undercurrent of inevitable loss and tragic beauty. As Lou Reed sings, "It was good what we did yesterday, and I'd do it once again." I wonder if Jeanne Hebuterne thought the same when she threw herself out of the balcony. And I really hope she did.

  • 7:00 AM

The Forge

Goya
Francisco de Goya, The Forge, 1817

The experience of viewing Goya’s work has not been a pleasant one. First knowing him from The Third of May, I was blown away by his composition and ability to create mood and capture emotions. However, it seems rather hard to delve further into his art without getting creeped out by certain elements of his work that seem to work at a subconscious level. It becomes easier knowing his life story and the historical context. However, something else then arises in the appreciation of his work. Even though Goya’s composition and choosing of color to suggest mood are beyond criticism, and his subjects are always poignant and incisive, I was not entirely convinced by his skills of actually putting the brushes to canvas. It already sounds very presumptuous to say so, but I think it's fair to say that his figures are of some distance from those of neoclassicism’s painters and even periods previous to that. They seem unfinished and lack certain refinement. Though “refined” works are not necessarily - sometimes even the opposite of “good” works - Goya, nevertheless, took quite a leap from his predecessors. I am not sure if he had done so in better serving what he wanted to achieve through the entire work as a whole, just like those of El Greco and maybe later Picasso’s. But I wouldn’t be surprised and take them seriously, especially some of his etchings, if I saw them among the illustrations for books such as Oliver Twist. Perhaps I have to see his works up close to let brushworks and pigments reveal more about their significances. 

Enough of my ignorant questioning. The Forge demonstrates a similar style of The Third of May, and is recognized as a paradigm of his late work. The painting largely reminds me of Velazquez's Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan. However, despite a similar subject and composition, Goya turns the religious theme to a secular one. The god is removed, we are left with the down-to-earth, hardcore labor of the time: three muscular men soaked in sweat form an unshakable pyramid, hammering out the future of the nation. Set in plain and ambiguous surroundings, the painting becomes more symbolic than just a close observation of the lower class. Knowing that the painting was done at around the same time of the creation of The Third of May, it picks up another tone of depicting people's resistance to Napoleon's invasion. While the painting was dominated by black and gray, the red blazing metal and the white shirt attract the most attention, a similar method that was used in Third of May. With his back turning on us, we can't tell if they are the same guy. Perhaps Goya hoped that he had resurrected after being "crucified" by the French army, and joined the making of the future. 

  • 7:00 AM