Torrents of Rain and Gusts of Wind

Jean-Francois Millet, The Gust of Wind, 1871-73, National Museum of Wales

It's disappointing that the Corcoran exhibition, From Turner to Cezanne, had to be taken down early as a precaution over environmental concerns......I was counting on going Friday, April 9, three days after it abruptly closed. What am I missing? A spectacular collection from the National Gallery of Wales, little-known paintings of well-known artists that are seldom seen in the US..................... Torrents of Rain and Gusts of Wind.....

Vincent Van Gogh, Rain, Auvers, 1890, from the National Museum of Wales

Vincent Van Gogh's suns, stars and flowers from sunny Provence express the intensity he experienced while living there. But in May, 1890, he moved north of Paris to Auvers-sur-Oise and painted Rain, Auvers in July. Van Gogh used such a heavy impasto of paint that this painting conveys a heavy impact of rain. Van Gogh had an uncommon ability to combine actual texture of the paint itself with the tangible, tactile sense of objects painted. I really wanted to see Rain, Auvers to experience the downpour. Exaggerated or not, Van Gogh has the power to create a reality that makes us feel its presence more keenly. But the rain in this painting, deliberate gashes to the canvas surface, warns of a downpour more powerful than rain, the artist's impending doom--he shot himself July 29th.

Even more than the Van Gogh, I was also looking forward to seeing paintings by Daumier and Millet, two mid-19th century French painters who are often overlooked, particularly in their gifts of great draftsmanship. Van Gogh seems to have admired them. One of Millet's paintings from this Davies Collection at the National Museum of Wales is The Gust of Wind, 1871-73. Millet conveys the full fury of a storm in the countryside. He captures the birds, leaves and branches with jagged, undulating brushstrokes. Along with the wind, his tree is uprooted and the birds, man (a shepherd whose sheep can barely be seen) and flock scatter in a fury, as the luminous colors of daylight poke through the background.

It is commonly understood that Van Gogh's paintings of The Sower were inspired by Millet's The Sower. No doubt Van Gogh knew many paintings by Millet and shared his appreciation for man's connection to the land. He adopted Millet's expressive lines, but thickened the contours and turned up the volume on color. Brandon, one of my students, was amazed to discover the wind that Van Gogh captured in The Olive Orchard, now on view in the Chester Dale Collection at the National Gallery of Art. Certainly Millet was one of Van Gogh's most inspiring teachers, along with the Japanese artist Hiroshige, whose woodcuts gave Van Gogh the motif of diagonal cuts for rain.

In May and during most of the summer, this exhibition travels to Albuquerque Museum of Art in New Mexico. However, while the O'Keeffe exhibition remains at the Phillips until May 9th, its worth seeing the weather photographs of Alfred Stieglitz and comparing them to paintings about weather.
Ando Hiroshige, Rain Shower on Ohashi Bridge, 1857

woodcut, at the Library of Congress. The rain, treated like gashes in the wood, influenced the gashes in "Rain,Auvers"

Van Gogh, The Olive Orchard, 1889, Chester Dale Collection,National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

detail, The Gust
of Wind, shows
how Millet's lines influenced Van Gogh

O'Keeffe exhibition at the Phillips is a gem

Series 1, No. 3, 1918, is from the Milwaukee Art Museum

Once again the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, has put on a splendid exhibition of an early modern master, Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction. Although I've seen O'Keeffe exhibitions in the past, there is always something new to be seen in her work. Several compelling images that I had not seen before, especially from the Whitney Museum, a co-organizer of the exhibition, and the Milwaukee Art Museum, are in this show.

O'Keeffe's abstract imagery is inspired by diverse subjects, more often natural than manmade--flowers, bones, mountains, aerial views, and the diverse places she lived, Wisconsin, Lake George, NY and New Mexico. Less well known is the fact that she lived in Charlottesville, Va., and some of her colors could easily be reflections of sunsets over the Blue Ridge Mountains. Even though a group of abstractions is inspired by music, one of the curators pointed out that Music, Pink and Blue, No. 2, resembles Natural Bridge, Va. The meaning of each single work is unique to the viewer; everyone who goes to visit the show is inclined to see something different and take their own inspiration from it.

The exhibition is enhanced by O'Keeffe's charcoal drawings and the weather photographs of Alfred Stieglitz. One thing I recognized anew is the quality of O'Keeffe's brushstrokes and how they reflect the particular form of each abstraction takes. Although photographs may provide a glimpse at her subtle blending of colors, it is only through seeing the exhibition that one can truly enjoy the wonder of O'Keeffe's vision. It will be at the Phillips until May 9th, and then moves to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.







Music, Pink and Blue, No. 2, from the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Shrouded in Loss, Part II: Comparing Tomb Memorials

Before many monuments arrived on the national Mall in Washington, DC, the Adams Memorial in Rock Creek Cemetery was a major tourist attraction in the capital city. Because of its fame, I decided to visit it. I compared this monument to a tomb by Lorado Taft in Chicago, because I have always been quite moved by Taft's Solitude of the Soul at the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Adams Memorial is a seated bronze figure with an androgynous face and deep, textured drapery. Augustus Saint-Gaudens completed it in 1891. Its green patina and mottled effect beautifully contrast with the speckled pink granite base and block designed by architect Sanford White. By comparison, Lorado Taft's sculpture, erected in 1909, is starker; it takes the memorial concept further into 20th century abstraction.

Henry Adams, a 19th century historian and novelist, commissioned the Adams Memorial after his wife, Clover Hooper Adams, committed suicide in 1885. An amateur photographer of some note, Clover had suffered from depression before swallowing potassium cyanide, a chemical used in developing her photographs. Saint-Gaudens planned and executed the sculpture over 5 years. He loosely based the statue on Clover's appearance, the iconic qualities of Buddhist statues and the grandeur of Michelangelo, particularly his Sibyls on the Sistine Ceiling, striving to capture an eternal presence in a figure that will never be alive to Adams, or us, again.

Saint-Gaudens entitled this work the The Mystery of the Hereafter and the Peace of God that Passeth Understanding, but the public called it "Grief," a term Henry Adams never accepted. Adams, a grandson and great-grandson of US Presidents, was buried here when he died in 1918.

As I see it, the statue expressed Henry Adams' need to come to terms with his wife's death, an event about which he avoided speaking or writing. Yet the loss deeply affected him and whether there was guilt, regret or other unresolved feelings, he seems to have used the monument to make peace with those feelings. The intention was

to express a state of being which is neither joy nor anguish. The memorial avoids ideas about judgment and the hereafter, but evokes concepts of the divine feminine. Adams visited this grave statue often, but never met the state of peace the image portrays. (Yet the powerful female spirit appears to have influenced him long afterwards, as revealed in his books, The Education of Henry Adams and Mont Saint-Michel and Chartres.)

The bronze figure, its face and strong hands are powerfully reminiscent of Michelangelo. The drapery is very heavy, but the woman's face is not covered. She raises an arm and hand to intercept the veil, emphasizing that face. The eyes appear closed at first glance, but are actually open, looking downward. An earthly existence is vanishing but still present, as Henry Adams tried to keep her. And she is present to us in a timeless way, since the Saint Gaudens' statue tries to avoid the finality of loss so pervasive in the statues of Lorado Taft.

Eternal Silence is the appropriate name Lorado Taft gave the grave marker of Dexter Graves in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago. A heavily draped bronze figure pulls his robe over his mouth, snuffing out his presence in the world. Note that a hand deliberately covers the mouth, in contrast to the Adams' figure whose hand opens the veil like a curtain to reveal a face. Here the individual portrait is completely irrelevant; he is representative of an eternal truth, the finality of a life. Eyes are closed and, like most of the face, they are blackened.

Taft prefers broad, bold simplified shapes in sculpture, as opposed to the Adams Memorial's more nuanced drapery folds. The bronze's patina is a light green, in contrast to the black face. A nose pops out under the hood--also green. It's spooky. No wonder many tales about ghosts have come from those who have visited the statue. For the record, Dexter Graves died in 1844, after he had come to Chicago from Ohio with 12 other founding families of the city in the 1830s. He built a hotel in Chicago and his son Henry commissioned the monument in 1907.

The statue and sky reflect behind into black granite, the

same material used in the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial. Taft simplified the outer garment, barely suggesting a large masculine physique underneath. The figure stands erect, his silencing complete.

Taft -- like Michelangelo and Rodin -- was committed to using the human figure to express the greatest truths as he saw it, even if his ideas were quite abstract.

Shrouded in Loss: The Black Hawk Memorial

The Black Hawk Memorial stands nearly 50 feet tall and rises on a 77 foot bluff above the Rock River in Oregon, IL. It pays homage to the Chief of the Fox and Sauk tribes who fought against the United States in the War of 1812. Lorado Taft designed the statue in 1908, long after the memory of this chief -- who had controlled the region of the Mississippi and Rock Rivers until the 1830s -- had vanished.

Taft sheathed him in a blanket and simplified his form to focus on the face. The main ingredient is concrete, an interesting contrast to the wild environment, and to the more radiant granite and bronze of tomb memorials. Using a hollow core and iron tie rods, Taft and his student John Prasuhn created a broad sweeping column for the body leading up to the sad, heroic face.

Black Hawk died in 1838 and Native American culture also died, a fact not lost on Taft when he chose a generalized face rather than a likeness of Black Hawk. Taft considered this statue is the Eternal Indian, symbolizing grief on a monumental scale. The artist knew deep sadness continually resonates and he did not attempt to pacify its presence.

Simultaneously, he was working on Eternal Silence, a commission for Dexter Graves' tomb 100 miles away in Chicago. Black Hawk was Lorado Taft's own inspiration on the site owned by Eagles' Nest Art colony he had founded in 1898. When his funds ran short, the state of Illinois paid for the statue's completion in 1911.

Chief Black Hawk lost his land and was forced to move to Oklahoma in 1831, a resettlement which made it

possible for Graves and 12 other founding families to move to Chicago from Ohio. The artist must have known this irony when he was creating the statues. The memory of Black Hawk looms much larger and more specific than the memory of Graves; he commands a part of the environment.

Lorado Taft possessed a grand vision--equal to Black Hawk's, for his students and art, but his reputation as a sculptor seems to be regional. An influential writer and teacher at the Art Institute, he made a large Fountain of Time near the University of Chicago, The Blind at the University of Illinois in Urbana, and the Columbus Monument at the Union Station in Washington. An online group follows his work.

The Veiled Woman, Part II: In the Chapel of Love

My friend at Smashedpc.com sent me this photo of the Veiled Woman in Las Vegas, while another friend said she should be the Madonna in the Elvis Wedding Chapel.

What a combination, but hardly more ironic than using Raphael's Madonna of the Chair, right, in one of the interior settings of the Desperate Housewives' TV show, although the neighbors on Wisteria Lane hardly embody the ideals of Raphael's beautiful women.

As I'm thinking of it more and more, it seems that The Veiled Woman may represent Raphael's ideal for a perfect womanhood more than a real person, the same ideal behind his images of Mary at this time.  She looks like she could be the mother to Raphael's bambini Jesus of this time, also portrayed as the perfect chubby baby.   For example, the Madonna of the Chair, left,  has a similar face, but is almost in profile.

The Sistine Madonna, right, has the same face in a frontal view. Either the same model is seen in these three paintings or the artist used the same "ideal" features to  represents a concept of female beauty. During the Renaissance, it was thought that a virtuous woman of beauty could tame a man and make him a better person.

If Raphael painted his portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, author of The Book of the Courtier, as the ideal gentleman, the veiled woman is his match. Although his features are more specific than hers, they are in similar poses with large abundant sleeves and both wear a headdress. If he is unified in blacks and grays, she is unified in variations of white and beige, also in a brown background. Donna Velata is warm and approachable while Castiglione is self-contained. To me, he is dark and brooding, even sad; she is a more optimistic and outward-looking image.

In the end, are the portraits of the Donna Velata and Baldassare Castiglione two parts of the same coin, a reconciliation of masculine and feminine as well as other opposites of human nature? Is she the hopeful and calming influence needed by this gentleman in the same way this loving, brown-eyed woman can tame desperate housewives, casinos and neon-studded venues in the American west?

The Veiled Woman - Who is She?

Over a Thanksgiving trip to Portland, Oregon, I came upon a pleasant surprise, Raphael's Donna Velata, was visiting the Portland Art Museum for a one-painting loan exhibition. One of my top 10 favorite paintings, I had last seen the veiled lady at the Art Institute of Chicago 10 years ago, when two Renaissance portraits had been sent from Florence in exchange for five Monets.

Who is this Donna Velata, this remarkable woman, who is succeeding in the quest to bring crowds into smaller regional museums? How can she capture so much attention? She is not as well known as the Mona Lisa, but most of my students past and present have stated a preference for the kinder, gentler vision of womanhood presented by Raphael over the all-knowing, godly woman of Leonardo.

The white lady wins over the shadows of Mona Lisa. Donna Velata's dress is luxurious, full, silky and lined with gold. The sleeves are voluminous. An elegant necklace doesn't detract from the welcoming gaze from that lovely face where the eyes alone can hold our attention. Invisible lines between the eyes' inner corners lead directly downward to where her fingers point between the breasts, perhaps a suggestive motif, however subtle. We are quickly pulled back up to those captivating eyes.

Certainly Raphael put a great deal of love into this portrait and she appears to be the image for Raphael's Madonnas of the same time. Giorgio Vasari, seeing the painting 1550, wrote that the subject was Raphael's lover. Some scholars claim similarities in appearance to the slightly later portrait of La Fornarina, a bare-breasted, more provocative image with a harder finish and less appealing mouth and chin. Either woman could be Margherita Luti, whom the artist appears to have loved but never married, as he provided for her in his will when he died prematurely at age 37.

When the Art Institute exhibited the painting, its literature argued that the portrait may have been someone's wife, because the veil was a convention of married women in Rome when it was painted, probably between 1513 and 1516.

Regardless of its meaning, the veil brings harmony to the composition and unifies the color, a balance of mainly whites, neutrals and small touches of warmth. The beige of the veil blends with the white of flesh, a tiny but luminous pearl and the sparkling dress. Unity and perfection are goals of both the Donna Velata and the Mona Lisa. Raphael explained his perceptions in a letter: "I do make with a certain Idea that comes into my mind" Raphael's Idea is an idea of beauty something more beautiful than can be found in one woman, and must be searched for in many and then portrayed through the mind's eye. Certainly Raphael's Idea evolved over time in his career, as hair changed from medium tones to dark brown, eyes grew larger and face became rounder, lips fuller.

No reproduction can capture her beauty, as shadows in photographs tend to harden her real softness. Her eyes--deep, brown and open--engage the viewer, inviting us into her warmth and love. She is kind, generous, forgiving, indeed an ideal of womanhood and all humanity. Furthermore, as we are directed to her face, unadorned with makeup and framed by simple, pulled-back hair, we note a lack of pretense and utter earthiness. The clothes and necklace are unnecessary for the real drawing power of this natural beauty. If we think she is too perfect and that humans cannot achieve this state of being, I noted one imperfection--a dangling hair out of place, seldom seen in photos. She is mother to all, a person we can aspire to be. You must see her in real life to become fully immersed in her warmth and love. It is not who she is that is so important, but the aspiration for what humanity can become that she represents.

Portland, Milwaukee and Reno, Nevada will have the opportunity to see her. Whether or not she can compete with the attention given to casinos in Nevada remains to be seen. It is ironic that her simplicity and grace will be so close to the glare, glitter and aesthetic overkill of Las Vegas, not to mention greed and debauchery--the latter which call to mind one theory that fine art can bring moral improvement. Is this a case where art's purpose is to morally uplift us where and when it is needed most?