Michael Willmon, Cemetery Mardi Gras, 2003

Michael Willmon’s meticulously painted skeleton miniatures articulate lively thoughts about the life of New Orleans’ famous cemeteries. In Cemetery Mardi Gras of 2003, Willmon depicts the dead as having a Mardi Gras almost identical to that of the living. Like many New Orleanians, Willmon sees the dead as an integral part of the city; his skeletons rise from their graves and party through their cemeteries. The Times Picayune called his Carnival scenes romantic and traditional and referred to his fiery monochromatic palate as “Sodom and Gomorra orange.”

Though painted two years before the storm Cemetery Mardi Gras (amongst other festive and apocalyptic skeleton scenes) seems eerily post-Katrina. In reflecting on New Orleans’ life after death, the Cemetery Mardi Gras is a perfect portrayal of the resilience, hope and future of such a badly beaten city.

Willmon's post-Katrina pictures continue the interactions of his skeletons parallel to that of living New Orleanians. In The Great Katrina Flood (2006/07) we see them in and out of their cemetery - paddling through the soft blue water, being rescued off roofs by helicopters, and averting alligator attacks. One robed skeleton is even walking atop the flood waters. In Willmon's art, the differences between life and death, skin and bones, are scant.

References:

arthurrogergallery.com. 

Bookhardt, D. Eric. "Beauties and Beasts," Gambit Weekly, March 2005.
MacCash, Doug. "Baseball and Carnival: The Signs of a Great Civilization," Times- Picayune, 21 Janurary 2000.
MacCash, Doug. "Painter at Crest of Success," Times- Picayune. 16 August 2002.

Art:

Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans

Andrew Wyeth, Christina's World, 1948

Andrew Wyeth was inspired to paint Christina's World (1948) after witnessing his friend and neighbor, Christina Olson, crawl across a field.  Christina suffered from polio which paralyzed her lower body.  Though Christina was Wyeth's inspiration, his wife Betsy modeled for the painting (Christina was in her 50s when this was painted, Betsy in her mid 20s).

This emotional intensity is not uncommon in Wyeth's work, which took on a particularly introspective and melancholic atmosphere after the death of his father in 1945.  His father was N.C. Wyeth, a famous illustrator who taught Andrew how to paint at a young age.

Christina's World is painted with tempera paint, a craft Wyeth was taught by his brother in law, Peter Hurd, who was a participant in the revival of tempera painting in the United States in the 1930s. Tempera is a fairly involved process; Wyeth liked it for its required craftsmanship and its lasting high quality results.  Tempera paint dries quickly and allows the artist to layer color without blending it, an effect seen in the highly detailed blades of grass surrounding Christina's limp body.

Though the initial critical response to Christina's World was quiet, the curator of the Museum of Modern Art (New York) purchased it almost immediately after its creation for $1,800.

Art:
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Ed Saavedra, Milk, 2009

Sorry to skip Christmas Eve! My lamb roast required undivided attention...

I had wanted to share this intriguing painting by Ed Saavedra that I saw yesterday at the San Antonio Museum of Art.  A humanizing and heroic painting of Harvey Milk - the first openly gay politician to hold office in California.

David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York, 1978-79

David Wojnarowicz's collection of photographs Arthur Rimbaud in New York (1978-79) document his own life through a construction of Arthur Rimbaud’s.  Considering himself on the margins of society (as a gay man emerging from a troubled childhood), Wojnarowicz chronicled his own history through a fictive account of Rimbaud’s interactions in New York.  Appropriating Rimbaud’s identity (via a bag like mask) united him with a fellow outsider and allowed him the freedom and the confidence to both examine himself, as well as put his life before the public eye.  Through Rimbaud’s caricature, Wojnarowicz was able to confront his past, as well as his anxieties about his future, from a comfortable distance.

By representing Rimbaud with a masked, static face atop a living body, Wojnarowicz parodied the comparison between himself (as the contemporary outsider-artist) and his predecessor.  Wojnarowicz is reminding the viewer that this construction of Rimbaud is merely a prop for the telling of his personal story.

Through Rimbaud, Wojnarowicz has justified his place on the margins of society – paying homage to the great poet while reflecting on the similarities in his own life.  His Rimbaud-mask does not negate or protect his existence (his own skin is all too present in many of the photographs); through Rimbaud, Wojnarowicz has simultaneously concealed and exposed himself.

References:
Mysoon Rizk, "Constructing Histories: David Wojnarowicz’s 'Arthur Rimbaud in New York,'” in The Passionate Camera, Photography and Bodies of Desire, ed. Deborah Bright. London: Routledge, 1998.

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Blinding of Samson, 1636

Rembrandt's Blinding of Samson is one of many by the artist that create a particularly evocative experience for the viewer.  Samson, whose grimace and kick contain such strength and doom, is completely helpless to his situation. We see Delilah running out of the cave with Samson's source of strength, the hair that she cut from his head.  A beam of light shines down on Samson and his predicament is forced upon the viewer.

Many viewers have recorded experiences of simultaneously having trouble looking and having trouble looking away.  I attribute this not only to the violence of the picture, but also to the fact that as a painting is an object that is created specifically to be looked at, the viewer is engaging the very sense that he/she is observing Samson having obliterated.  The act of using your eye to watch the violent destruction of someone else's eyes is unsettling, to say the least.

Upon viewing Rembrandt's Blinding of Samson, the Bulgarian writer Elias Canetti had an unforgettable reaction...

It was Rembrandt's huge painting The Blinding of Samson that terrified me, 

tormented me, and kept me on a string.  I saw it as though it were taking 

place before my very eyes; and since it was the moment when Samson lost 

his eyesight, I bore witness in the most horrible way.  I had always been 

timid about blind people and never looked at them to long, even though they 

fascinated me.  Since they couldn't see, I felt guilty toward them.  However, 

this canvas depicted not the condition, not blindness, but the blinding 

itself...it is impossible to look away: this blinding is not yet blindness; it will 

become blindness, and it expects neither leniency nor quarter.  This blinding 

wants to be seen; and everyone who sees it knows the blinding and one sees it 

everywhere.

References:

Bal, Mieke. Reading Rembrandt: Beyond the Word-Image Opposition.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Canetti, Elias. The Torch in My Ear.  Trans. Joachim Neugroschel.  New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc., 1982.

Art:

Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Duane Hanson, The Shoppers, 1976

After beginning his career with highly charged sculptures addressing large social issues (namely the Vietnam war), Duane Hanson switched his approach to a more mundane and less obvious social critique.  He became involved in the Super Realist movement, taking on a style that allowed him to display an affecting reflection of what he was seeing in American culture.

Cast from live models, his highly realistic sculptures depict typically overweight people who appear particularly bored and disenchanted.  Often seen shopping, eating, lounging or working, the sculptures are both very humorous and startlingly disheartening.  In The Shoppers of 1976, we see particularly dazed looks on two gaudily dressed consumers.  It is evident that their material purchases are not bringing them a great deal of joy.

References:

Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History: Volume Two (Second Edition). New York: Abrams, 1995.

Art:

Cast vinyl, polychromed in oil with accesories. Nerman Family Collection.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser, The Five Skins of Man, 1998

Friedensreich Hundertwasser's ink drawing of 1998 (above) reflects his long standing philosophy regarding human being's five layers of skin.  His structuring of these layers, and utilization of them, gave poignant clarity to his messages of social and environmental justice.  

The first layer is our physical skin (epidermis), followed by our clothing, house, social identity and the earth.  Hundertwasser continuously made specific references to the layers in his art and manifestos.  He stripped himself of his second skin (clothing) in order to give a radical nude speech on the third skin (architecture) in 1967.  

Arguably, Hundertwasser's most important work is his architectural ideas and constructions.  Mostly interested in spirals and labyrinths, as well as the presence of trees and nature within the city and the house, Hundertwasser declared straight lines to be immoral.  Hundertwasser's last design (completed just after his death in 2000), the Waldspirale in Damstadt (below), exemplifies his interest in the integration of nature and architecture, as well as the layering of our existence.  

References:

Restany, Pierre. Hundertwasser: The Painter King with the Five Skins. Taschen, 1998.

Art:

The Five Skins of Man, ink drawing, 1998, Vienna

Waldspirale (forest spiral), Darmstadt, Germany

Jan Steen, In Luxury Beware, c. 1665

Jan Steen’s In Luxury Beware, is not very ambiguous in how it addresses the tensions between wealth and morality. In the 17th century Dutch world, wealth was perceived to be a “moral agitator;” it was necessary for the economic success of society as a whole, but dangerous in its ability to engineer the downfall of Dutch morality. The abundance of useless and dangerous objects in Steen’s painting address this idea of the dangers of wealth. It is precisely the excessive wealth of this household that brought about this promiscuous scene. Gone is the hardworking, closely knit Dutch family that was so important in structuring their culture. With this abundance of wealth comes unnecessary consumption; too much food, drink, luxury and sexual promiscuity. The fear of wealth being the agent of the society’s downfall is shown here through the moral downfall of this household. Seymore Slive emphasizes Steen’s painting as an art that “revels in profusion,” this profusion of material objects emphasizes the negative nature of the wealth that is shown here. Too much of anything, it seems, can't be a good thing.

While the content of the picture seems to be a well-intended moralizing lesson on the dangers in wealth and over-consumption, the fact that the painting in itself is a luxury object of value somewhat contradicts this. However, although paintings are luxurious objects, they are a craft produced by the humble artist to enhance his culture, and are therefore more virtuous than other material objects. With its abundance of everything else it is noteworthy that this house does not contain any pictures on the walls. Although the contemporary reports are few, they indicate that Dutch homes were filled with paintings. If this be the case, than this particular Dutch home’s lack of art would indicate its lack of culture, or it’s refrain from embracing Dutch culture. If this family could afford everything else present in this room, it seems they surely could afford art as well as well. The lack of art then, as a deliberate omission by the artist, might further represent a lack of culture on behalf of this morally agitated household.

References:

Jansen, Guido (ed.). Jan Steen: Painter and Storyteller. Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1996.

Schama, Simon. The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age. Vintage, 1997.

Slive, Seymour. Dutch Painting: 1600-1800. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.

Art:

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Berenice Abbott, Pennsylvania Station, 1937

Berenice Abbott was a passionate photographer of New York City. Inspired by the speed of New York's skyscraper boom and ever changing landscape during the early 20th century, Abbott was able to document the monumental scope of architecture and the excitement of existing beneath those structures.

Inspired by the Roman Bath's of Caracalla and set to the scale of St. Peter's in Rome, the original Pennsylvania Station was a great temple to modern life and transportation. In her capturing the vastness of the steel arches coupled with the minuscule humans beneath, Abbott engages her viewer with the breathlessness that must have been felt in this great hall.

References:
Yochelson, Bonnie. Berenice Abbott: Changing New York. New York: The New Press, 2008.
Art:
Print, 1983. Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of Morton and Marlene Meyerson.

Prins Eugen, The Forest, 1892

As the youngest son of King Oscar II (of Sweden and Norway), becoming an artist was a significant proclamation for the 20 year old Prins Eugen Napoleon Nicholas. He was studied in plein-air landscape painting, and typically favored the dramatic light of the Nordic summer, and its effect on vast landscape compositions. This painting, The Forest (1892), is fairly unique in his oeuvre for its nearness to abstraction. It is one of several paintings of the deep forests in eastern Sweden, where Eugen spent some time in 1892. The density of the woods, with only a few distant stripes of orange sunlight, makes this version the most ominous and majestic of Eugen's paintings of this period. The thin and amply textured trees make for an almost abstract rendering of vertical lines.

The presence of the forest is huge within Nordic folklore; it exists as an important fixture for Nordic identity, which is often closely linked to the intense nature that is their unique landscape and heritage.

References:

Varnedoe, Kirk. Northern Light: Nordic Art at the Turn of the Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.

Art:

Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Gothenburg.