How art ought to be written.

Writing about the man in the back of the picture:

Even so, there is a difference [between him and the figures reflected in the mirror]: he is there in flesh and blood; he has appeared from the outside, on the threshold of the area represented; he is indubitable–not a probable reflection but an irruption. The mirror, by making visible, beyond even the walls of the studio itself, what is happening in front of the picture, creates, in its sagittal dimension, an oscillation between the interior and the exterior. One foot only on the lower step, his body entirely in profile, the ambiguous visitor is coming in and going out at the same time, like a pendulum caught at the bottom of its swing. He repeats on the spot, but in the dark reality of his body, the instantaneous movement of those images flashing across the room, plunging into the mirror, being reflected there, and springing out from it again like visible, new, and identical species. Pale, miniscule, those silhouetted figures in the mirror are challenged by the tall, solid stature of the man appearing in the doorway.

Writing about art.

Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas, 1656, Museo del Prado

Paintings such as this makes one wonder, “How did he think of doing that?”

From The Order of Things:

A teaser about the odd relation between painter and beholder:

“The painter is looking, his face turned slightly and his head leaning towards one shoulder. He is staring at a point to which, even though it is invisible, we, the spectators, can easily assign an object, since it is we, ourselves, who are that point: our bodies, our faces, our eyes. The spectacle he is observing is thus doubly invisible: first, because it is not represented within the space of the painting, and, second, because it is situated precisely in that blind point, in that essential hiding-place into which our gaze disappears from ourselves at the moment of our actual looking.

…And here the great canvas with its back to us on the extreme left of the picture exercises its second function: stubbornly invisible, it prevents the relation of these gazes from ever being discoverable or definitely established. Because we can only see the reverse side, we do not know who we are, or what we are doing. Seen or seeing? As soon as [the painter’s eyes] place the spectator in the field of their gaze, the painter’s eyes seize hold of him, force him to enter the picture, assign him a place at once privileged and inescapable… He sees his invisbility made visible to the painter and transposed into an image forever invisible to himself.”

Few favorites from l’Orangerie.

Visited musée de l’Orangerie today! It was fabulous, both in terms of the artists displayed, and the size and feel of the museum. It was quite small, therefore actually manageable. Found myself introduced to artists I’d never previously encountered, and was pleasantly surprised to see paintings by familiar artists painted in unfamilar styles (think: Matisse). I don’t have pictures of it, but l’Orangerie also had two large rooms displaying Monet’s Waterlilies. There was also a fascinating little exhibition on Paul Klee. Here are a few of the favorites:

Marie Laurencin (1883-1956)_Portrait of Mademoiselle Chanel (1923). That dive-bombing bird aimed at her neck strikes me as awfully threatening. But who knows.

l'Orangerie_Paul Cézanne_La Barque et Les Baigneuse (vers 1890). Lots of pyramids.

Cézanne_Fruits, serviette et boîte à lait (1880 - 1881). I really liked this one. It's funny because the wallpaper seems a bit like a grid which on the whole composition is laid out.

Amedeo Modigliani_Paul Guillaume, Novo Pilota (1915).

Maurice Utrillo_La Mairie au drapeau (1924). Triangle/inverted triangle.

Chaïm Soutine_Arbre couché (1923-24). See the two tiny people dwarfed by the tree?

Henri Matisse_Femmes au canapé ou Le Divan (1921). Not one of my favorites, but works with the one that follows. Viewer pulled straight back to the open window and the sea beyond.

Henri Matisse_Le Boudoir (1921). This and the Marie Laurencin 'Portrait of Mlle Chanel' were probably my two favorites. Like previous, floor pattern plus angle of furniture draws one to window, but this time, window is closed and blocked by the plant. Found it rather amusing because it's like one's bounced back into the room. I feel like an intruder.

Painting List: Hold your Horses video.

Hold your Horses video:

Paintings in the video after jump (couldn’t identify them all).

Hold your Horses.

So amusing. Identify them all?

On erasing art.

Speaking of erasing, that reminds me of something I found on Youtube yesterday:

Robert Rauschenberg on erasing de Kooning:

On what I did today.

Here’s a post for those who think that I talk too much about what I’m thinking/reading instead of what I’m doing 🙂

I’m excited! Today, I went to two bookstores, one at the end of the street where I live, the other near school, and found four books.

Why so exciting? First of all, American bookstores don’t tend to carry many art/art history books. Second, I want to read these writings in the language in which they were written. Third, the lettres of Cézanne! I’m especially interested in his letters to Zola. During the school year, I skipped my Politics in China class to read Camille Pissarro’s letters to his son, Lucien. In them, he sometimes referred in passing to ‘a recent exhibit by Ms. Cassatt’ (that wasn’t terribly successful among critics), some purchase by Degas of Gauguin’s works, Gauguin’s mad dash to Tahiti, his own days painting, and always, he encouraged Lucien (who was in London) in his printmaking. I think that letters rank very highly among the things I enjoy reading.

1. Paul Klee- Théorie de l’art moderne

Paul Klee, I’ve never been a huge fan of his works, but he taught at the Bauhaus (with Wassily Kandinsky!) and was, therefore, rather articulate about modern art. I was sorely tempted to buy his Notebooks, which contain his lectures at the Bauhaus, but it was 30 euros. Here’s a painting by Klee, at MoMA:

Paul Klee, Twittering Machine (Die Zwitscher-Maschine), MoMA, 1922.

2. Gustave Flaubert- La Tentation de saint Antoine

Julian Barnes wrote a book called Flaubert’s Parrot, in which Barnes quotes Flaubert extensively, thus I’ve wanted to read something by Flaubert for some time now. I was tempted to buy a book of Barnes’s letters, but I’d rather find an English version. They had a larger collection of Julian Barnes than has had any US bookstore that I’ve frequented. Anyway, back to Flaubert. The other reason that I bought this book was because his subject is one that was popular among painters, including Hieronymous Bosch and (followers of?) Pieter Brueghel the Elder, the latter of which I saw at the National Gallery in DC. Here’s are two, first by Bosch, second by followers of Brueghel:

Hieronymous Bosch, la Tentation de saint Antoine.

Follower of Pieter Brueghel, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, c. 1550/1575

3. Paul Cézanne- Correspondance

Correspondances of Cézanne. Enough.

4. Ambroise Vollard- En Écoutant Cézanne, Degas, Renoir

Vollard was an art dealer who supported the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists while most critics were still shredding apart their works, figuratively. His book is a biography based on his encounters with the three painters. Here’s a portrait of Vollard by Cézanne that’s in Paris:

Paul Cézanne, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1899.

I’m not the biggest fan of Renoir, but Degas and Cézanne are probably my two favorites in that group. Very different. I haven’t visited the Musée d’Orsay because I want to begin to understand Cézanne before I go. I think I’m beginning to, I spent most of yesterday on him. I have d’Orsay scheduled for Wednesday.

And just because this makes me laugh:

Edgar Degas, Dancers Practicing at the Barre, 1877, Met Museum

I’m discovering that Cézanne less-explicitly does this more often, with a plateful of apples, that’s mimicked by the arrangement of the tablecloth, or wallpaper design that mimics the lapels of a man’s suit. What’s this? According to the label for this painting at the Met, Degas put the water pitcher to explicitly show the similarity between it and the pose of the girl on the far right. He later wanted to erase the water pitcher from the painting, but the owner wouldn’t allow it.