My Kid Could Paint That

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913

The world became increasingly chaotic. As Kandinsky settled down to paint Composition VII, argued by many to be his most important pre-Great War, a collision of social, cultural, and political ideologies occurred.

Composition VII, a complicated and tiring work, contains nods to the futurists, the fauvists, Picasso, and countless others. The shades of gray and black work into a mechanical representation of the world. This not only reflects the rapid industrialization of pre-war society, but also an interest in the futurists, a group of men obsessed with fire and machines. The color is undoubtedly a fauvist element. The pinks and purples contrast with the whites and yellows to create further chaos and lay a stark contrast. The Kandinsky lay within the shapes and the drawings. The main drawings in the painting sit in an oval shape dead center in the frame. Art historian Mark Harden argues that the oval operates as the center of a compositional hurricane.

As I thought about the "compositional hurricane," I became more and more angry with Harden. To suggest that the entire center of the painting can be boiled down to the eye of a storm is overly simplistic and frankly cheats Kandinsky of the recognition he deserves. After months of preparation, it took the painter a mere four days to create a painting that is arguably the most important pre-WWI painting of his time. The painting should not be reduced to the parts of a storm, unless it was as a prescient warning of the iron thunder that would become The Great War.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, John Singer Sargent, 1885-1886

John Singer Sergeant, an Italian-born painter, considered himself an American artist. The day before the Paris Salon of 1884 began he sat in a café imagining how his fame would skyrocket after the showing of his most famous work Madame X. Unfortunately for Sargent his portrait was not well-received and his obsolesce began. In the underwhelming wake of Madame X Sargent left for London, where he spent the summer rebuilding his image and career.

During his sabbatical in England, Sargent spent a considerable amount of time painting children playing in the summer. The outcome, of the months of contemplative and emotional time he spent observing the children, was his redeeming work Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. Sargent, who had established himself as a portrait painter in France and other parts of Europe began a departure form the norm in Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. In the present day Sargent’s style varies widely with a display of incomparable talent in each work. However, in 1887 when he showed the work at the Royal Academy in London, it was the beginning a massive display of technical range that we now associate with John Singer Sargent.

The painting radiates innocence. The two girls light lanterns in the early evening of a summer day in the English countryside. The flowers and their white dresses speak to a softer more vulnerable side of Sargent. While the Madame X painting rose to fame through its sexual undertones and dark colors, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose took a different path. Sargent was in a state of confusion. He expected to be making thousands for his portrait servies, but instead found himself in social and cultural exile hiding from the disgust and shock that followed the 1884 Salon.

From Sargent's shame and vulnerability came one of his most beautiful works. The flowers, the colors, and the aura the painting displays creates an experience rather than just a painting. Furthermore, Sargent’s emotional state while creating this masterpiece facilitated a more emotional and open painting. It is rare to see an artist with his guard down.

The Card Players, Paul Cezanne, 1890-92 (The First)

Things are not always as they appear – a fact, which is evident in Paul Cezanne’s The Card Players. The painting is simple and beautiful, the colors are captivating, and the composition uses simple lines to create shapes and order in the painting. There are two different versions of The Card Players. The first and simpler version lacks the detail that the second does. It lacks the painting on the wall and the shelf with the vase. There is a young boy present in the second painting that is not in the first.

The Card Playrers, Paul Cezanne, 1890-92, (The Second)

The second painting is better. The colors are far more inviting and the wall makes the painting seem more full. This feeling of fullness contrasts with the child’s empty look. In the second painting the curtain takes on a larger compositional role. The first painting is clearly an unfinished work. Not only are there compositionally necessary parts missing, but also the young man who completes the story that the painting is telling is not present.

This young boy looks substantially different from the other three men in the painting. His skin is far more pale, and his clothes are not as worn. Cezanne included this boy to create a full circle. Compositionally the boy sits outside the group of men playing, his skin is less worn than the others and he stands out from the background.
He is the predecessor to the lives that these men lead, much like the painting
 without the background and without the wear is the predecessor to the one
with the background and wear.

Camille Pissarro, The Garden of Les Mathurins at Pontoise, 1876

Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist painter. Although he was born on St. Thomas, an island in the US Virgin Islands, he moved the Venezuela at the age of 21. The Garden of Les Mathurins at Pontoise was painted in 1876, while Pissaro was living in France. This painting is primarily a landscape, noted for its definitive division of color. Joachim Pissarro, Camille Pissarro’s great grandson is a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. With regard to The Garden of Les Mathurins at Pontoise he stated, “Essentially complex, his work made use of a phenomenal imagination, an unusually rich, innovative visual mind, a vast curiosity about techniques of all sorts, a profound poetic sensitivity, and an unquenchable passion for painting, as well as a strongly defined set of intellectual positions.”

Pissarro had a unique set of interests and talents that are all apparent in The Garden of Les Mathurins at Pontoise, the most interesting of which is his imagination. This scene is breathtaking, the use of color, and the whimsical nature of the subject matter all allow the viewer to be swept into a world of wonder and beauty. The woman who stands in the right half of the painting twirls what seems to be a fan. This is the most captivating part of the composition. The mystery that it creates in the painting kept me sitting in front of it at the Nelson for hours. It could be simply a fan that shows the woman’s status in society, or it could be a ball that symbolizes the mystery of 19th century French life. The circle glows and creates an aura around the woman that is paralleled in the sky, which only adds to the light feeling of the painting.

It seems that at any moment the woman could place the mysterious circle above her head and fly away, leaving all her worries behind. Her feeling of freeness and serenity in the moment of flight would be much like the feeling of calm and relaxation I felt sitting with this work.

Eugene Delacroix, Dante and Virgil in Hell, 1822

Casper David Friedrich, Wanderer Above Mist, 1818

During the reign of Napoleon, the Romantic Movement rooted itself in European culture. As other European nations forged alliances to protect themselves from growing French nationalism and Napoleon’s conquest for domination continued, artists and philosophers moved away from the Enlightenment thought that, in their eyes, brought on this conflict-filled period.