Reflexive Images

 Anyone who has ever taken French 1 has had the pleasure of vous vous asseyez ("y'all sit yerselves down" is the best example of an English/Texan equivalent). The verb is reflexive and the action, in this case, is performed upon the same subject that is enacting (woah nelly!). Reflexive verbs refer back unto the subject and, in the same way, one can also have reflexive images or objects. Works of art that refer back unto themselves, either by their subject, material or function. Many moons ago I wrote about a tureen shaped like a cauliflower. It is likely that such a tureen might be used to serve a cauliflower soup or it might be reserved to serve other winter vegetables like turnips or parsnip dishes. Consider these other examples:

Dominique-Vivant Denon

Baron Denon and Mauzaisse, 1819

Lithograph on off-white wove paper

This print has been recently put on view (our works on paper are regularly rotated to minimize exposure to light and maximize exposure of he collection). It is a lithograph by Dominique-Vivant Denon illustrating a well-dressed lady demonstrating the process of lithography to a group of gentlemen (with the odd child and distracted and/or pensive lady in the background). In this doubly-pedagogical work, the subject is reflected in the process. Lithography is a print-making method where by one draws or transfers an image onto a lithography stone (usually the porous limestone) using an oily or waxy crayon or ink. Prints are pulled directly from the stone. One of the observable benefits of lithography is that the method retains the sketchy, immediately quality of a drawing but could be reproduced. In the 19^th century it became a quite popular medium for fashionable ladies. It was Denon himself who popularized lithography as an after-dinner amusement. Ladies would exhibit their skills for a crowd and friends and admirers could take home a souvenir of the evenings delights. So what would be more appropriate than to illustrate the merriment of lithography than with a lithograph! 

Charles Ray

Hinoki, 2007

Japanese Cypress (hinoki)

A favorite of many staff members and visitors at the Art Institute is a contemporary sculpture by the Chicago artist, Charles Ray. It gets it’s own gallery and guard. Measuring over ten feet long it is an inch-by-inch representation of a fallen tree that Ray came across during a hike in coastal California. Riddled with bugs, mildew and the decaying effects of time, the log was not long for this world. Struck by the deep hollow cavity and the  pocked texture the artist decided to preserve the object in a unique way. After sawing it into sections, Ray created molds of each section and traveled with them to Japan where he commissioned a small workshop of woodcarvers who specialized in large-scale Buddhas to recreate the tree using the same method used to create the religious sculptures. The wood chosen was a Japanese cypress, called hinoki, known for its hardness and, from what a Japanese visitor once told me, its lasting fresh aroma. The original log would have withered away by now but froze in its present state of decay it will remain that way for 400 years before it begins its own process of decay.

Perhaps one of the most delightful forms of reflexive art is when the function is reflected in the medium or form of the work. Think of 17^th century Dutch tulip vases that were shaped like tulips with little tulips decorating the surface. Woah! For what it’s worth, I’ve got a creamer that’s shaped like a cow. 

This form of reflexivity finds its most intense manifestation in medieval reliquaries, objects which contained holy relics, which could be bodily remnants, clothing, hair, or a particular object associated with the person (i.e. a fragment of the cross that Jesus was crucified on). Consider this reliquary casket from Leon, Spain dating from the 12^th century in the AIC’s collections. Around the sides it illustrates the martyrdom of Saint Adrian, a Roman soldier in Emperor Galerius’s army in Nicomedia (in present-day Turkey). After observing the demonstrated faith of a group of Christians he was moved to confess his own faith and was subsequently imprisioned where his wife, Natalia, secretly visited him ask for his prayers. He was martyred by dismemberment which is brutally depicted on the sides of the casket. Arms, feet, hands and head float in an empty space above the bodies. On a shorter side, one can see Saint Natalia carrying the hand of Saint Adrian back to Agryropolis. 

When the reliquary came into the Art Institute’s collection in the 1940s there were no relics contained within, or record thereof. However, I suspect that the original relic was some bodily fragment of Saint Adrian. Several medieval reliquaries survive today with relics intact and when the reliquary imagery refers to the life or martyrdom of a specific saint (or is even shaped like the saint) you can bet your bottom dollar on that what was inside was probably who was on the outside. Check out this reliquary bust of Saint Yrieix from the Metropolitan Museum of Art that is in the shape of the saint’s head and once contained a fragment of his skull. 

Louis Sullivan’s maxim of “form follows function” could be flip-flopped around when considering works of art where form is function!