Intermission, part 4

The narrative began with Act 1, scene 1 on April 10, 2013.

To access all scenes, scroll to blog archive at the bottom of the page.

This intermission attempts to track the connected artistic 'lineage' of some influential painters, from the early 15th century to the present. To follow this thread and to see all images mentioned, 
go back to part 1 of this intermission.

El Greco, a native of Crete, then part of the Venetian Republic,  moved to Venice in about 1567 where he apparently studied under the aged Titian. El Greco's work was strongly influenced by Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese (as was the work of Velazquez, as we have seen). In 1570 El Greco moved to Rome, where the work of Michelangelo and the Mannerist painters impressed and influenced him, regardless what we know of the criticism El Greco is said to have directed toward Michelangelo's talent as a painter. He was particularly fond of the paintings of Parmigianino and Correggio. In 1577 he moved to Toledo in Spain.

El Greco's influence will skip a few generations of painters, and then re-emerge in the work of Manet, Cezanne, Picasso and others. (See Act 1, scene 9).

Staying in Spain however, Francesco de Goya (30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828), who incidentally had also travelled to Rome, picks up the thread of Venetian painting (as had El Greco) through Velazquez whose work he admired. His painting of King Charles was directly based on an earlier Velazquez. 

Francesco de Goya, King Charles III as a Huntsman, 1786/88

Velazquez, Cardinal Infante Don Fernando as a Hunter, 1632-33

With Goya, and the closing of the 18th century, we are about to enter one of those periods in the history of art, when artistic triumphs were often tied to political events. It might be argued that all three of the major movements of painting in the 20th century have their roots in this period. In over-simplified terms, these three movements could be described as (a) art that is logical and orderly, or (b) emotional and chaotic, or (c) a kind of inquiry into the realm of psychology. It would be a gross distortion to suggest that these three artistic directions were always mutually exclusive, as we shall see.

As well, it is indisputable that, as we more nearly approach the present day, documentation of all sorts is more readily available to those who look for it. Less time has passed when letters, works of art, oral history and other documents might have been lost or destroyed. One consequence of this wealth of information is that more evidence is available to those who disagree over the interpretation of events, biographical details, stylistic and technical aspects of visual art, etcetera. Documents can be found to support many points of view. Mine is just one.

With that disclaimer, back to Goya.

Political events toward the end of the 18th century were born of The Enlightenment. Philosophers of the time – Spinoza, Locke, Newton, and others had great faith in the power of logic. In France, logic dictated that the French people should free themselves from the tyranny of monarchy, just as the Americans had done in 1776. A number of prominent French revolutionaries had aided the Americans in that struggle, among them, General Lafayette (Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette), who had hoped to establish in France a constitutional monarchy similar to that in Great Britain – a government responsive to the needs of ordinary French people, still retaining a monarch as its titular head of state. The ideal gave way to a less logical and more emotional series of events by the time of Robespierre. His Reign of Terror (1793-94) may have been rationalized as logical, but the manifestation of what Robespierre claimed as logical was an extremely emotional bloodbath. Discussion and debate within a legislative body may be seen as logic in practice, but political instability, famine, war, and mass executions are indeed emotional for those affected. France suffered through all of these conditions around the time of the revolution, which began in earnest in 1789.

In 1789 Goya was comfortably salaried as the the court painter to the Spanish royal family of Charles IV. Soon however, he would be deeply affected by the unrest that spilled from the borders of France, throughout Europe.

Intermission, part 3

The narrative began with Act 1, scene 1 on April 10, 2013.

To access all scenes, scroll to blog archive at the bottom of the page.

For an explanation, and to see the complete set of images in this particular 'lineage' of artists, go back to part 1 of this intermission.

Colantonio's painting, The Delivery of the Franciscan Rule, the centre panel of an altarpiece dated about 1445, demonstrates the artist's mastery of oil painting – a technique developed in the north and fairly new to Italy, and one that would eventually replace (to a large extent) the traditional egg tempera technique that had been standard practice in Italy.

Antonello da Messina was Colantonio's pupil. He may also have been influenced by another northern master, Petrus Christus (a follower of Van Eyck), with whom knowledge was perhaps exchanged – the Flemish technique for Messina, and Italian linear perspective for Christus. Messina's life is documented in Vasari's Lives of the Artists. In any event, oil painting and linear perspective come together in Messina's work.

In 1475, Messina spent a year in Venice (so central to our earlier fictive story – it should be noted that, in contrast to that fictional narrative, these details about the inter-relatedness of the artists are as historically factual as possible) where he was influenced by the paintings of Piero Della Francesca and Giovanni Bellini, to whom we next turn our attention with his masterful painting St. Francis in Ecstasy, c. 1480 (oil and tempera on panel). Bellini became a master of the northern technique of oil painting, probably introduced to Venice by Messina.

Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco; c. 1477/8–1510), along with Titian, was a pupil of Bellini. Vasari recorded scant and sketchy information about Giorgione, but other sources confirm his relationship with Titian, and that the early death (by plague) in 1510 of this great painter was one of art history's great losses. He was universally liked and respected. Giorgione apparently met and was impressed by Leonardo Da Vinci when that artist visited Venice in 1500. It's interesting that, although Florence is considered the birthplace of Renaissance art, with Rome assuming a leading role during the period referred to as the High Renaissance (roughly 1495 through 1525) Venice seems to have been a favourite destination for so many important artists from other parts of Italy as well as for influential artists from all over Europe. The resulting exchange of ideas and techniques (and this in addition to the regional flowering of painting that featured Bellini, Titian, Giorgione, Tintoretto and others) makes Venice an unquestionably vital European Renaissance centre, extending its influence well beyond the lagoon city itself.

Next in our line of succession are Titian and Velázquez.  In the interest of brevity, let us grant that, as mentioned above, Titian was a pupil of Bellini, a friend of Giorgione, and probably the one-time teacher of Tintoretto, who then began winning commissions in his own right, notably scooping the contract to decorate the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice. In a sense this brings us full circle, as San Rocco is where our partly fictitious story opened in Act 1, Scene 1.

Velázquez did indeed visit Venice on two occasions and was inspired by Tintoretto's work at San Rocco and did in fact make sketches there. (Follow the link to Carl Justi's book, and from there go to the chapter on Venetian painting.)

At this point (and at other junctures we shall see along the way), the threads of legacy extend in many directions, as do the lines of descent in any growing family. Michelangelo influenced a generation of artists from all over Europe, including Titian and Tintoretto, who as we noted, influenced Velázquez. Peter Paul Rubens was both a great artist and a diplomat who lived in the Spanish Netherlands (present day Belgium) and visited Spain as well as Italy (Venice, Florence and Rome among other places) and other countries in Europe. He was a friend of Velázquez, and had made plans to travel to Italy with the Spaniard, but was called away on a diplomatic mission instead. In Rome Rubens was impressed by the work of Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi or Amerighi da Caravaggio, 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), whose dramatic use of chiaroscuro (clear and obscure, or light and dark) along with his depiction of heroic characters as ordinary working class people, attracted the attention of new generations of artists. 

Velázquez, Rubens, and Caravaggio (who was at least a generation older) were sources of a kind of cross-pollination, drawing inspiration from many of the same sources (most notably from Michelangelo). The Venetian influence (of Titian and Tintoretto) seems to have confirmed, in the work of both Rubens and Velázquez, a tendency to looser brushwork as compared to the polish of Caravaggio.

Michelangelo da Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus; 1601-02

Peter Paul Rubens, The Consequences of War, 1637

Velazquez, Diego, Las Hilanderas (The Spinners), c. 1657

Intermission, part 2

The narrative began with Act 1, scene 1 on April 10, 2013.

To access all scenes, scroll to blog archive at the bottom of the page.

For an explanation, and to see the complete set of images in this particular 'lineage' of artists, go back to part 1 of this intermission.

Francisco Goya, The Second of May 1808 or The Charge of the Mamelukes, 1814

J.M.W. Turner, Dido Building Carthage, or The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire, 1815

Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapolus, 1827

Before continuing with more examples of work by these artists whose influences we are tracking, it might be a good idea to recap those relationships to this point, before losing the thread of this particular exploration of the notion of a legacy.

A few pages back, at the opening of Act 10, scene 3, we began with a painting by Barthélémy d'Eyck (fl. 1444-1469), an  Annunciation. D'Eyck, or possibly Van Eyck (he may have been related to Jan Van Eyck, widely regarded as one of the early Flemish masters of oil painting). Barthélémy d'Eyck was apparently in Naples around 1440, likely at the behest of king Alphonso V of Aragon who had brought  together in that city a number of artists from all over Europe. It was here that our next painter, Niccolò Antonio Colantonio met and studied with D'Eyck and incorporated Northern European techniques (among others) in his own work.

Intermission, part 1

The narrative began with Act 1, scene 1 on April 10, 2013.

To access all scenes, scroll to blog archive at the bottom of the page.

For an explanation, and to see the complete set of images in this particular 'lineage' of artists, go back to part 1 of this intermission. 

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, God Dividing the Waters (Sistine Chapel Ceiling), 1509 

Jacopo Robusti Tintoretto, The Miracle of the Slave, 1548

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Supper at Emmaus, 1601

Peter Paul Rubens, Castor and Pollux Abduct the Daughters of Leukyppos. c.1618.

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Feast of Bacchus, 1628-1629.

Act 3, Scene 10

The narrative began with Act 1, scene 1 on April 10, 2013.

To access all scenes, scroll to blog archive at the bottom of the page.

In the small campo outside the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, where our narrative began last April, a frazzled  photographer tries to direct a rather unruly group into some semblance of order, posing them for a group photo.

http://www.travelsignposts.com/Italy/sightseeing/tintoretto-art-at-the-scuola-grande-di-san-rocco-venice

Photographer, loudly, in very apparent frustration:

OK everyone (claps his hands in an attempt to gain the attention of the 20 or so he has been asked to photograph), tall people in the back row please, about 8 in the middle and four or five in the chairs at the front.

Moving with glacial speed, and gradually breaking off their lively conversations, the artists make a show of complying. Only one or two give a damn about the group photo, or the photographer. Earnestly these few nudge shoulders and assist with the placement of tall and short participants. Someone is overheard saying, "For god's sake don't let Michelangelo anywhere near El Greco. He'll tear him apart."

Photographer

Listen, people! This is what your host calls a legacy shot. So, as much as possible, you should be beside or close to some artist who influenced you. But still, try to keep the taller people in the middle at the back, thank you. Signore Da Vinci to the very centre of the back row, thank you. And M. Picasso on the chair, centre front row, please. No, no, no. Wait a minute – you should be standing at one end, sir. The chairs can be for anyone. So if you are tired or hung over, take a chair. OK, here we go, people. Let's hold those thoughts for a few minutes – no conversation just now, thank you. (limited success)

This group includes one of many "family trees" that illustrate clear lines of influence from one artist to another. These are artists who are directly tied to one another through their work, often as teachers or students. Each of these painters has been influenced by someone in this group (as well as by others who are busy with other group photos elsewhere). In an effort to "join the dots" for the reader, what follows is a lineage, an evolution in painting, beginning in the quattrocento (the 15th century) and culminating in the present day. This is not an exhaustive sampling of artistic influences from one generation to the next; that would be far too complicated. However, the interdependent influences described below will offer at least one path of investigation, featuring connections acknowledged by the artists themselves. A chronological list of these artists follows the examples of their work, which also appear chronologically where possible. 

Annunciation, Barthélémy d'Eyck (fl. 1444-1469) 

Saint Francis of Assisi Gave the Canon to Franciscan Orders Niccolò Antonio Colantonio (ca. 1420-1460)

Virgin of the Annunciation, Antonello da Messina, (c. 1430 – February 1479)

Bellini, Giovanni St. Francis in Ecstasy, c. 1480, Tempera and oil on panel

Giorgione. The Tempest. c.1506-9

Titian, Bacchanal of the Andrians, 1523-5

Act 3, Scene 9

The narrative began with Act 1, scene 1 on April 10, 2013.

To access all scenes, scroll to blog archive at the bottom of the page.

By this time, a small crowd of curious tourists has gathered to enjoy the commotion. Glancing around, Whiten instinctively throws a protective arm around the pathetic Dugh – after all, how different is this situation from the many that have involved artists of her acquaintance at home and elsewhere? – a few  of whom could be labelled eccentric only as a kindness – men and women artists of varying degrees of physical and mental health, and cleanliness too. To be an artist is to embrace differences.

Murmuring comforting words, she and Boyle shepherd Dugh to a bench in the shade of the pavilion. 

Whiten

Dugh, are you here alone? 

Dugh (wiping his eyes with the back of a hand)

Woman is here. She makes carved pictures in cave. I make pictures with burnt sticks and coloured earth. But woman, Maaah, is with other man. Man in big hat shows woman box that makes many pictures, says he will buy food and drink. She is with him drinking wine, getting loud, speaking in strange ways. I know of chewing sweet plants to feel good, but I do not know wine. This is too much for woman. (moaning loudly) AAaaaaah. Dugh and Maaah must go home. Too many people. All strange. Buildings, boats, noise, everything hurts! I want to show artists how to make beautiful pictures in caves, but there are no caves, no walls. Only caves are in big buildings you call church, and no one lets Dugh and Maaah into these caves.

Saharan rock carving depicting a lying antelope or gazelle, petroglyph in Southern Algeria

Altamira, Spain

Whiten

You can go home anytime you wish, Dugh. We are all here in a kind of dream, a "what if?" kind of story. You know about dreams. All you have to do is wish not to be here, but at home instead, and that will be your reality. That's where you'll wake up. Go home now, and you'll find things as they were, and Maaah will be there too.

Dugh's eyes widen; his tears dry; and as suddenly as he first appeared, he is gone.

Boyle
Well that was weird. Poor guy. Can you imagine the disorientation if the situation were reversed?

Whiten
Whew! Poor guy is right. I hope he's as happy to get back home as he thought he'd be. I'm sure it's not a time or place that I would choose. But you know, he made me think of the legacy that stretches back as far as Dugh's time at least ... all artists linked somehow by the passion to make things. There's one more question I want to ask you about this, Shary. It's about newness, invention. 20th century artists seem to have been obsessed with approaching their art in ways that they felt were entirely new. I suppose there's an argument to be made that this passion for inventiveness began as far back as Duccio and Giotto. And I think it's fair to say that most artists of my generation keep looking over their shoulders to see which artists from the past might complain that they are merely quoting earlier achievements, that we have nothing new to say; and they may be right about that. So, for example, although I think that my early work was entirely fresh and new, and certainly it's intent felt distinct from the work of other sculptors, there were those who thought they saw the American, George Segal's work in my plaster casts of body parts. Nonsense, I said to myself, and I was confident that my work was different from his and everyone else's. My point is that artists my age think about this, whereas many young artists I know seem not be concerned in the least with what's been done by others. Appropriating and quoting are quite comfortable aspects of a studio practice now, don't you think? How does that work? I mean how can one happily trundle along making art, not being concerned with the past? What do you think?

Boyle (smiling broadly)
Ah. Well, I don't think you can paint an entire generation with that brush, ha ha. Not every artist my age is totally detached from history, but it's probably fair to say that there has been an attitude shift. Here's how somebody explained the generational difference to me – maybe this is a piece of the puzzle anyway.

You guys grew up being taught to respect your elders, to appreciate what had been done by your parents and grandparents to give you the fabulous material things you were given, the opportunities, the education and so on, right? (Whiten nods)

So, if you didn't feel all that appreciative, or if in fact your elders were not the saints they were supposed to be, this heavy burden of guilt and responsibility kept you from complaining much, at least until the 60s. Your whole culture was about looking back, either in appreciation, or with envy or outright disdain – didn't matter, you measured yourselves against the past. Naturally, that was part of your experience of art too. Your teachers sat you down, showed you slides of paintings by Cezanne, and told you that this was something to bow down to.

Anyway, here's where this guy's idea distinguishes my generation from yours. We were told not to be intimidated by our elders or by authority figures, and all the news about the various kinds of abuse of children explains that attitude shift. We were supposed to stand up for ourselves if some nasty wanted us to do things that we knew weren't going to turn out well. The good news there is that it got harder for these assholes to target kids who'd just tell them to fuck off. But the flip side of that coin is that sometimes we got harder to control – I hate that word, but you know what I mean. Kids I went to school with would think nothing of telling perfectly nice teachers to fuck off. All authority was something to buck against. So, if you think that you are precisely as important as anyone who's older, anyone who has achieved something, then artists of previous generations have no power to intimidate.

And there are other factors that feed into this too. Look how pervasively the digital world has made everything about immediacy. That's new, for you at least. History? What's that, and who cares? Have you heard of this new book The Big Disconnect, by Giles Slade? Part of his argument is that although we may be connecting with more and more people, the actual connections are shallower in nature, and that we are becoming lonelier than ever – maybe another reason to care about yourself in the present (as you tweet 50 "friends" from your smartphone), rather than about others, or what they think.

So, my friend's take on this is that if you ask a young artist if he or she worries that their work has already been preempted by some older artist, they'd just laugh and say "Who cares? Why would you choose to worry about that? I just do what I do."

Whiten
Hmmm. Well, that's food for thought.

Act 3, Scene 8

The narrative began with Act 1, scene 1 on April 10, 2013.

To access all scenes, scroll to blog archive at the bottom of the page.

Boyle

Yeah, sure. I'm hungry too. There's a good place not far away where we can get panini or pizza, if that sounds OK.

Lost in conversation, Whiten and Boyle nearly stumble over a man just outside the pavilion. He is intent on juggling the various objects he tries awkwardly to hold onto while at the same time reaching for something he has dropped on the pavement. Surprisingly, his clothing consists only of what appears to be a deerskin loin cloth. 

Whiten reaches for Boyle's arm to avoid tripping, and feels something crunch underfoot. Looking down, she sees that she has crushed several charred twigs.

Man
STOOPID WOMAN! Move! Go away!

Whiten is truly remorseful; however, she has also noticed an unusual pungency that hangs in the air around the man. She sees that he is carrying charcoal, some sharp-looking stones, and a crude wooden or bone bowl containing powdery, rust-coloured dirt. 
Oh! I am so sorry. I didn't see you there; please let me help you with your things. You're an artist I see – here for the last weeks of the Biennale? I am Colette, and this is Shary; it's Shary's work in this pavilion behind us.
This is all spoken rapidly as the three try to reassemble the man and his belongings. The general scuffle is punctuated by a stream of muttered obscenities issuing from the man's snarling lips.

Man, now finally in possession of all his things, stands and glowers at the women. He is breathing heavily, his eyes  – the women step back out of range of the sour breeze he exudes.
Stoopid women! I am Dugh. I go in cave to make beautiful picture. Get out of my way.

Boyle, stepping protectively in front of the entrance to the pavilion, blocking the man's progress.
Wait a minute. What do you mean you're going into the cave to make art? This isn't a real cave! You can't just walk in and deface the walls; this is my art!

Dugh, stunned by the authority in Boyle's voice, and suddenly deflated. His face contorts from angry grimace to wide-eyed amazement, and finally to an expression best described as pathetically sorrowful. He looks like a kid whose kitten has just been run over by a passing car. The transformation is so rapid that Whiten and Boyle are taken aback, especially when they see tears emerge from the big, sad eyes, and hear a barely audible whimper rising in Dugh's throat.
No cave? Ahhnnn, mmmmm (moaning). No cave. I look everywhere for cave, for wall to paint anywhere. No caves. No walls. People stop Dugh from making art on walls here. I look everywhere. All artists, they say Dugh is important, Dugh is grandfather, Dugh is first artist. But there is nowhere for Dugh to make art.
At this point, he quietly collapses, dropping his belongings again, and slumping to sit, utterly dejected on the pavement at the feet of the two women.