Monsters of Modernity

It was about a year ago that I went downstairs to the packing department with our Museum Education Summer Interns. The packing department, headed by Johnny Mo, one of the biggest personalities at the AIC, is in charge of creating boxes, crates, foam supports and anything else needed to customize a container capable of handling and protecting its charge for shipment.

On an unassuming wheeled cart, lay an opened red crate. The interior was cut, molded and shaped into the perfect nest to hold a work that I knew but had only ever seen in print. It is a early 13th century limestone sculpture, a fragment of a head, that used to be on view but was taken down before my time here. But there it was. Though its temporary home (its carriage if you will) was by no means paltry, the experience of seeing a work of art in such a modest context, outside of the glass vitrines, dramatic lighting, laser alarms that BEEP! at you if you get too close was unnerving. I could even touch it were the terror of doing so not rending my feeble hands temporarily paralyzed.



It's about 17 inches tall. From a smooth elongated face, two almond-shaped eyes look out past you. The artist has chiseled in fine hairs to make up furry eyebrows but has given this head glossy-magazine-worthy hair that would be the envy of any one affecting the likes of a Hollywood version of a Mountain Man. From the widow's peak down to the beard, the hair spills down in curls and waves. But this is no Charlton Heston as Moses in the 1956 epic, The Ten Commandments, it's the lopped off head of an apostle from the west façade of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

It was no small beans to get to this state in the research, in fact, the story behind this decapitated don is quite a saga.

In 1944 the Art Institute of Chicago acquired this piece from a New York collector. It became one of the most important examples of Gothic sculpture in the museum's collection. But where did it come from before its jaunt in NYC? Legend has it that the cropped cranium was discovered in 1852 during an excavation of the crossing of the Boulevard Haussmann and Boulevard Malesherbes in Paris. From 1943 onwards Notre Dame cathedral underwent several restorations, many headed by the imaginative medievalist Viollet-le-Duc. Many were pleased to see the Gothic cathedral scrapped clean of grime. Others were more skeptical, as writes Bertrall from Le journal amusant in 1856:

At least Gothic monuments do not loose in this [restoration] their appearance of venerable antiquity, keeping their beautiful lines and elegant proportions, but what can one say of the restoration of the old statues that decorate them? The majority no longer have their noses; moreover, on these thin sulfurous, ecstatic dreamers have added the nose of the Apollo Belvedere [classical Greek sculpture unearthed in the 19th c.], this straight nose diving the face, this sensual nose, a pagan nose, a nose that would serve to damn this wise man who presents himself thus re-nosed at the day of judgment. And this newest nose that one could make stands out on the blackened faces [from pollution], strikes the eye, troubles the contemplative spirit, evoking goodness knows what idea of masquerade--Gothic with a false nose.

It would seem that our head did not meet such a fate. In fact, after the head was excavated it was transferred to the basement of Notre Dame for storage and there he snoozed until 1900. Little documentation exists concerning this excavation. Was it an excavation or was it unearthed during the extensive rebuilding of Paris led by the Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann (namesake of the Boulevard near the excavation site).

But we still haven't accounted for where it came from. One clue might be the obvious--it is just a head. Our beheaded beau may have suffered the same fate as the unfortunate statues of kings past who reigned in the King's Gallery above one of the main tympana on the facade. During the Revolution the Cathedral came to be seen as symbolic of monarchical power and the kings featured were the dynasties of French kings from Childebert I to Phillipe August. So along with the royals and nobles who marched up to the guillotine, the regal sculptures of Notre Dame were also cut short a head. The image to the right is an aquatint from 1804 by Louis Lecoeur depicting the coronation of the imperial kings at the site of Notre Dame. The squared structure in front is ephemeral architecture. It will be torn down after the ceremony. The print embodies the early 19th century association of the cathedral with French Royalty.

For about 40 years art historians battled it out over the origins of this head. Some believed it to be from Sens, others Chartres, others were hesitant to anything more specific than the Il-de-France. One postulated that it wasn't architectural at all but rather from a sarcophagus from Lisieux. Comparisons were brought in. In situ survivals were analyzed and still no one was in agreement.

Enter nuclear science.

Specimens from Notre Dame, Sens and others along with the head underwent Neutron Activation Analysis. This is a process whereby samples are irradiated in a nuclear reactor. A chemist can then analyze trace elements of the stone's mineral composition. The results? The head matched samples from Notre Dame.

The head is presumed to be the head of an Apostle from the Last Judgment Portal. With the 19th century replicas in place it is near impossible to localize which body our head would have capped. But now we know that he did look on to passers by from about 1210 to the last years of the 18th century from the cathedral along the Seine. He missed the Baron Haussmann's digging up and wheel-barrowing away the medieval Paris he once knew. His resurfaced life has been a well traveled one though. He recently got to fly back over Paris on his way to Magdeburg, Germany to appear in an exhibition at the Kulturhistorisches Museum. I, for one, know he traveled first class to get there in his red crate.

A Few of My Least Favorite Things

Audience members frequently hear me swoon over a number (usually all) of the works I feature in my gallery talks and lectures. I tell them anecdotes, histories and gush over a Rococo curve or particularly charming blush in an 18th century cheek. I read them dramatic excerpts of contemporary poems, Abbot Suger, and sometimes a scathing Salon review.

So I thought it might be interesting to be upfront about a few of my least favorite things. It should be noted that this is entirely subjective (you'll see just how so!). I readily admit that. It's also not to say that these works don't have critical, aesthetic and historical value. It's everything from the Old Masters, Impressionists to very important works in the trajectory of the Avant-Garde. So here goes with none of the charm of Julie Andrews:



1. Pierre-August Renoir, Lucie Berard (Child in White), 1883, oil on canvas

In gallery 201 of the AIC are the masters of high French Impressionism. From Caillebotte to Pissaro to Monet. And in the middle is Lucie Berard, staring vapidly out at the gallery, slightly bored. At age 3 she must have seen so unimpressed by the visitors and masterworks alike. Lucie was one of Renoir's favorite of the Berard children to paint. The youngest daughter of a Parisian banker, she was betrothed to a civil engineer at the age of 25 and one of her sons became an influential Surrealist poet. And she lived a long life, dying just before her 97th birthday in 1977. Yet her image in mottled ultramarine blue, splotched with peachy pinks belies any charm intended by the bubblegum color palette. Looking more like an alien wearing the mask of a child and puppetting a chemise, the Child in White will always make me uneasy.



2. Joos van Cleve and Workshop, The Infants Christ and Saint John the Baptist Embracing, 1520/25, oil on panel

The scene of the Holy Infants Embracing is a typical subject for Netherlandish panel painting in the 15th and 16th century. The subject derives from the biblical narrative when St. John the Baptist and the infant Christ meet outside of Egypt after escaping the Massacre of the Innocents. There are so many things I enjoy about this work: the delicately brushed landscape in the background, the lamps of carved sardonyx, the delicate gems that hang from the red silk canopy, even the feathered griffin feet supporting the architectural frame. But I don't know what Joos van Cleve or one of his assistants were thinking when they mucked up the shadows of what should be fleshy baby fat with an overzealous amount of burnt umber. The used so much there must have been none left to shade in the holy infants' coifs. Where one is used to seeing wispy curls of blond one is met with awkwardly gelled pincurls of out-of-the-box red hair. Those who have left ammonia hair color in their hair too long (or not long enough) recognize that shade of orange. I speak from experience and it's not the kind of experience I want associated with what should be a charming devotional panel painting.



3. Ferdinand Hodler, Day (Truth), 1896/98

Part of me feels that I should not be legally allowed to post this on the internet. The reason for this uneasy feeling is the very reason why I despise this work. Displayed below and around this work are some exquisite examples of fin-de-siecle and turn of the century decorative arts which I cannot enjoy because of their mere proximity to this piece. I cannot admire the lines and craftsmanship of the art nouveau Austrian side chairs for fear that I will accidentally look up at this piece, and even worse, someone might catch me looking at this piece. The model, Berthe Jacques, would be the fourth in a line of model-mistress-wife's in the artist's career. A deeply Symbolist painting, it surely captures that maxim of the "ugly truth."



4. Antonio Mancini, Resting, c. 1887, oil on canvas

Resting. Yes, we're all sure of that. Though, I can't tell if it's from a recent bout of scarlet fever or consumption (tuberculosis) or something more lewd. The smutty, thick paint echos the stale heat of the sick room she lies in. I can only imagine that the various glass bottles must contain horrid 19th century potions. Whatever she has just experienced, it seems to be ignored by the swooning and adoring sighs people let out when they see it.

Before and After

Museum Educators, when not educating others, educate themselves. So I conceived for this blog the idea that I would post about objects I knew about in the galleries but how fun to mix it up from the beginning. One thing I often tell first-time visitors to the museum or people uncomfortable interpreting art on their own is that you already have the tools and skills to understand and interpret works of art. Keeping in mind that there is no one definite conclusion about artworks, it's a great thought to plant in people's minds to make them more comfortable in galleries where the artworks can be more challenging and difficult to penetrate.

So I wanted a taste of my own medicine. At the Art Institute of Chicago an exhibition of Contemporary Art, the Collection of Donna and Howard Stone, recently went on view. I wanted to select a work that I had no prior knowledge about and record my observations before and my findings after some research.




Before

It is made of cut black felt. Cut very precisely. It hangs on the wall and takes up the entire wall space. It reminds me not just of drips of paint but controlled drips of paint very much like Jackson Pollocks action paintings from the 1950s. Perhaps it's a modern take on the Abstract Expressionists who attempted to free painting from any real-world reference or narrative or subject. Instead they tapped into their individual emotions and even subconscious (many were either reading Freud and Carl Jung or knew them in pop-theory).

This in fact may be the opposite of that. While Pollock gestured wildly, stepped all over his canvas, poured, slung, splattered and dripped paint across the surface this is meticulous. It's slow, careful and calculated. (Don't run with scissors!)

I even wondered if this was a 1960s female artist. A comrade of Eva Hesse? There was a generation of female artists in the 1960s and 70s who challenged the AbEx'ers, their masculine gestures and intuition, by using materials traditionally associated with women (fabrics and weaving).

I wondered if it ever had to be de-linted in the show. Black felt must attract a lot of dust.

Time to read the label:

Arturo Herrera (Venezualan, b. 1959), Let me Go, 2000, wool felt

After

Ok so kind of off. And Arturo Herrera is a pretty big name in contemporary art. The kind of name that makes me go "Oh yikes...should I have known that?" He's a name I know but know little about I will admit. And an intriguing title as well. "Let me go" is unexpected. Looking at it a bit longer I see that the "drips" I saw before look like dappled light coming through a thick forest. So it's time to hit the files.

Arturo Herrera is a contemporary artist interested in abstraction, particularly finding forms which are unrecognizable and with no specific meaning. His works not only relate back to the drip and action paintings of the Abstract Expressionists (who also wanted to eliminate recognizable subjects in their works) but also to the Pop Artists of the 1960s (Roy Lichtenstein has a painting of a splatter at the Art Institute looking as if it were printed rather than painted or actually splattered). Hi works are carefully conscious of form in terms of formal aspects such as line, color, balance and an overall sense of composition. (Look at the heavy, more dense left side of the work compared to the spindly, detailed areas in the middle).

But we are able to bring our own conclusions to this work. "It’s a bridge, but it is paved with the viewer’s own references and associations," the artist says of his own work.

He looks at graphic design of today, particularly comic books and big billboard advertisements (think of the large scale of this piece). But these examples of graphic design are all about specific ideas ("Buy this product!" or in the case of comic books "Swoosh!").

Herrera notes "the graphic has specific messages—it’s political, or it’s advertising. It is successful if it gets its point across. My work actually tries to discourage a specific message. It tries to free a place up, to clarify through ambiguity. I use strategies of design and placement to enable the viewer to access the image."


Let me Go

So this sheds some light on the subject. "Let me Go!" almost rings like a phrase from a comic book or even...a Roy Litchenstein painting.
(Roy Litchenstein, Ohhh Alright, 1964) The phrase has the same curtness that suggests it's a part of a larger dialogue or narrative but we as viewers don't know the before and after. Who is saying "Let me go?" Is it a "Let me go!!" or a "please...just let me go now." Now its up to us to bring our own baggage to the table.


It lingers somewhere between painting and sculpture. It looks like paint but is sculpted felt dangling off the wall. It's very flat but it isn't 2-D. Several areas buckle off the wall. And I found that with this work especially, its ok if you don't have the answers. You have it all in your back pocket. How appropriate for a work about letting the viewer vacillate between knowing and not knowing, wanting to know more and filling in the gaps.

The other Saint Bacchus

Designer: William Burges, 1827-1881
Painter: Nathaniel Hubert John Westlake, 1833-1921
Maker: Harland & Fisher
England, London

Sideboard and Wine Cabinet, 1859

Pine and mahogany, painted and gilded; iron straps; metal mounts
126.5 x 157 x 58 cm (49 3/4 x 61 3/4 x 22 3/4 in.)

In the European Decorative Arts gallery at the Art Institute of Chicago is a wine side board, a cabinet for storing wine and wine accessories done in the latest fashion. The 19th century witnessed a trendy taste for the gothic. Artists and writers turned towards the middle ages and incorporated window tracery, stained glass, gargoyles and romance characters like Tristan and Isolde into their homes, theatres and galleries.

The artists here, Nathaniel Hubert and John Westlake, looked to medieval manuscript illumination and its brightly colored, flat and graphic style to add a stroke of the past to this cabinet. As if taken directly from a manuscript, richly ornamented architectural designs frame scenes from the life of Saint Bacchus. Something we might expect to see in an illustrated haigiography, or written account of the life of a saint, from the middle ages. In the first two scenes we see followers venerating the saint. They bring him alms, kiss his hands and sing his praises. In the next scene we see the martyrdom of Saint Bacchus. He encounters a band of ill-meaning folk who shove him into a wine casket. His story ends with a perhaps unassuming man taps the casket for a glass of wine and instead of drawing wine, draws the blood of the saint.



Seemingly appropriate subject matter, and tempering as well, for a wine cabinet save for one small problem. This was not the life of Saint Bacchus! Saint Bacchus was a third century military saint, an officer in the Roman army who refused to enter a Roman temple and pay homage to Jupiter. He, along with his companion Sergius, were chastised by being paraded around town in womens clothing (I imagine something from Monty Python's Flying Circus) and eventually executed. Together, St. Sergius and St. Bacchus were highly venerated saints particularly in Byzantium where a church still stands next to the train tracks along the sea in Instanbul (now called Kucuk Aya Sofya).

So it turns out that Misters Westlake and Hubert were a bit clever in their rending of the Saint's life. If that wasn't enough to give the to-be wino a hearty laugh maybe the cartouches, or roundels, around the second register might. We have the portraits of several noble-looking folk, perhaps knights and ladies. The artists did their homework and rendered these chivaric faces against red and blue backgrounds and labeled them with abbreviated lettering as one finds in latin and greek medieval inscriptions. Sounding them out, we find that not only are they in English but they bear familiar names: PORT, SHRY, BRGNDY or rather port, sherry, burgundy the names of wines one might hope to find in the cabinet. If that isn't clever enough, the artists paired the color of the hair to the darkness of the wine they represented.

Its an extremely fun and unusual object indeed. It featured in the 1862 International Exhibition in London was was presumed to be lost for quite some time. It now rests next to a model chalice by the neo-gothic proponent, Pugin.