Art School à la Chardin

"[We] crouched over our portfolios a long time..."

For this edition of "Permanent Collections," let's contemplate art school circa 1738, brought to us by Jean Siméon Chardin and the Kimbell Museum of Art in Fort Worth, Texas.

Opened to the public in 1972, the Kimbell's small yet impressive collection includes paintings by Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini, Michelangelo, Titian, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Goya, Corot, Courbet, Manet, Monet, Cezanne, and Matisse. All these works by master artists are housed in a building by Louis Kahn that is considered a masterpiece of modern architecture.

One of my favorite works at the Kimbell is the painting above, Young Student Drawing. It is typical of Chardin's pictures of daily life in 18th-century France, which often depict a single person engaged in an activity, usually domestic chores or leisure-time pursuits.

What sets Young Student Drawing apart from Chardin's other genre paintings is not only its academic setting, but also its mystery. Many of the details in this little painting (it's only 8-1/4 x 6-3/4 inches) seem intended to provoke conjecture. First of all, we can't see the student's face. How old is he, I wonder. I know he's young; he's a student after all. But how young? A pre-teen? A young teen?

I also wonder about his emotional state as he draws. If I could see his expression, would it show strain? Would it show confidence? Or would it merely show concentration and not betray the difficulty of his task? If I could see his grip on the chalk holder he uses, would it suggest tentativeness?

It is also unclear what the student is drawing. I guess he is copying the figure study on the wall in front of him, but it's hard to tell for sure. And what about the works inside the portfolio on the student's lap? If I could peruse these drawings, what would I see?

The blank canvas at the right of the picture also adds to the mysterious air. I assume that once the student has mastered rendering with chalk--a task that could take years to accomplish--he will graduate to canvas and take on his subject in oil. But we have no idea how well he will do with a brush and paint, just as we have no idea if the student will succeed as a professional artist. Like the blank canvas, his future is unknown.

Chardin himself had once been a young artist with an uncertain future, struggling to develop his craft. In conversations with Denis Diderot, Chardin described the many-years-long, rigorous education he endured. "The chalk holder is placed in our hands at the age of seven or eight years," he said. "After having crouched over our portfolios for a long time, we're placed in front of....masterpieces by Greek artists." Chardin and his fellow students were then told to draw the ancient works. "[Y]ou've never seen such tears as those shed over the Satyr, the Gladiator, the Medici Venus, and the Antinous," he recalled.*

Young Student Drawing clearly shows that the young Chardin did not struggle in vain. Indeed, the technical skill he displays in the painting is what makes the work truly noteworthy.

I feel a bit uneasy making such a definitive proclamation--I've never seen Young Student Drawing in person. However, the Kimbell's website provides a copy of the painting that seems large enough and sharp enough for us to appreciate Chardin's skills.

Look at the carefully built-up impasto texture that suggests a slow, deliberative process. A process that allows Chardin to give his painting a richly subtle composition of colors. He has distributed reds along with vibrant blues and browns in a harmonious way that makes Young Student Drawing a treat to look at, even online.

For example, consider the blank canvas to the right of the student. Chardin has added dabs of blue among its clay-like gray hue. No real, untouched canvas would be this mix of colors. However, the blue gives Chardin's blank canvas a quiet vibrancy that, coupled with the tactility of the impasto, makes it seem more real than if the canvas were merely a uniform gray.

Also take a look at the bit of sienna-brown shirt peeking out at the left of the student's jacket. It stands out in contrast to the charcoal coat and the relatively dull, red-brown figure study on the wall. Some more of this brown peeks through the slit in the coat's bottom and through a hole that punctuates the back of the coat.

Together these three areas of brown make up the eye-catching points of a triangle, a shape which is echoed in the student's tricorn hat, in the three-sided form defined by the student's head and flared coat, in the triangular part of the stretcher frame behind the blank canvas, and elsewhere in the painting. This proliferation of triangles produces a complexly balanced composition that reinforces the harmonious color of Young Student Drawing.

I'm always impressed by a small painting that provokes the kind of consideration I have given Young Student Drawing. Chardin's remarkable little painting hangs in the Kimbell Art Museum amid a collection that includes works by Francois Boucher and other great contemporaries of Chardin. I wonder if those much larger paintings could also hold my attention so strongly.



*From "The Salon of 1765," as translated by John Goodman in Diderot on Art, Volume 1, p.4, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1995.

First a Car, Then a Bike, Now Some Boats

This is the kind of painting that I would have overlooked when I was much younger. Too gray and too boring, I would have thought. Its subtleties would have been lost on me.

But not any more; today it's one of my favorite paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and so it is the subject of this edition of my series, "Permanent Collections."

Painted around 1679, Rough Sea depicts boats struggling to sail violent waters off the coast of Amsterdam. It is one of a handful of seascapes painted by Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael, who is regarded as one of the greatest Dutch landscape painters of the 17th century. (Take a look at the MFA's View of Alkmaar, and you'll see why Ruisdael's landscapes are so esteemed.)

I remember first seeing Rough Sea nearly twenty years ago, shortly after I had returned to Massachusetts after living elsewhere for a long time. I think I was initially struck by the subject. I saw no other painting in the MFA's Dutch gallery that depicted the ocean, which seemed odd, considering the importance of the sea to life in the Netherlands. As the MFA's website states, "The sea was an integral part of Dutch life and landscape; a powerful navy and ships that traded as far as Asia and the Americas made this small nation one of the wealthiest in Europe."

After considering the scant presence of the sea in the room, I looked closely at the painting's choppy waves, tilting boats, and flapping flags. Ruisdael depicts these elements with such compelling precision, that I could almost feel the strong wind that causes such tumult. I imagined myself on one of the boats cold, miserable, and, above all, afraid.
Nearly two decades later, I still often picture myself in the same predicament when I look at Rough Sea. What a horrible existence, I think. Once you reach the safety of shore, what do you have to look forward to? Another day at sea, another day risking your life.
As if to underscore a seaman's peril, Ruisdael includes weather-beaten logs peeking out of the water at the bottom left of the painting. Sunlight has broken through the clouds there to bathe the logs in a glow that makes that area of the painting almost as bright as the white sail
on the front-most boat. I'm not sure what these logs are--perhaps the remnants of a pier? Whatever their purpose, they seem old and broken, and by making a formal connection between the logs and the white sail, Ruisdael reminds us of the shipwreck the boats will become if they don't weather this storm.

Nonetheless, the situation is not hopeless in Rough Sea. A substantial amount of blue peeks through the clouds, and clear skies seem to be just out of view at the left edge of the canvas. The rightward direction of the gale suggests that the clouds and storm will blow away, and peace will return.

I love that blue sky. It's a hue that, if seen alone on an otherwise blank canvas, would seem dull. But here among Ruisdael's mostly gray clouds, it has a quiet vibrancy, and, most importantly, it looks real. If Ruisdael had chosen a more intense, unnatural blue, the sky would feel artificial, and the painting's optimism less genuine.

Other Ruisdael seascapes are less hopeful. About forty miles to the west of Boston, his View of the IJ on a Stormy Day hangs in the Worcester Art Museum. In this painting, the boats teeter severely, on the verge of capsizing. And the wind seems more likely to blow in a deadly storm than to bring the calm that seems to be moments away in Rough Sea. I imagine if I were on one of the boats in the Worcester Museum's painting, I would huddle in a corner, petrified with fear and useless to everyone else aboard.

In Rough Sea and View of the IJ on a Stormy Day, Ruisdael created two palpably intense and riveting depictions of humans' vulnerability to the capricious whims of nature. I feel fortunate that both these great works found their way to Massachusetts collections.

Pin Matisse on Avery

"Some critics like to pin Matisse on me....But I don't think he has influenced my work." *

It's hard to believe that Milton Avery actually made that statement.

Just take a look at some of his paintings, like Tree Fantasy (Whitney Musuem of American Art, New York), March on the Balcony (Phillips Collection, Washington, DC) and Seated Blonde (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis). Avery's brushwork, sophisticated use of color, and his masterful reduction of forms to simple, playful, sketch-like approximations all show a fluent understanding of Matisse's style as well as a skillful appropriation of it. In addition, March on the Balcony is a picture of a woman seated by a window overlooking the sea--a favorite subject of Matisse once he moved to Nice. And where did Avery paint March on the Balcony? Also in the South of France, in St. Tropez.

A lot of space could be spent considering the reasons for and implications of Avery's implausible denial of Matisse's influence. But I don't want to spend my time--or yours--speculating. Instead I'll just be glad that he learned so much from the French master that he created paintings like the one above, Bicycle Rider by the Loire, the next work in my series "Permanent Collections."

As the painting's title indicates, Avery did not restrict himself to the Riviera when in France. Besides a sojourn into the heart of the country, which produced Bicycle Rider by the Loire, Avery traveled to Paris and made at least one picture along the Seine. That painting, The Seine (Whitney Museum) is one of my favorite Avery landscapes. But I've decided to focus on Bicycle Rider by the Loire, simply because it makes me chuckle and because of the institution that owns it, the Flint Institute of Arts.

That's right Flint, Michigan--mostly known for rusting factories, economic woes, and its poisonous water--has an art museum. And Bicycle Rider by the Loire, is a representative example of the impressive quality of the museum's collection of American paintings. If you take look at its website, you'll find that the FIA also owns fine works by Mary Cassatt, Lee Krasner, Jacob Lawrence, and John Singer Sargent. I got a kick out of discovering that the museum owns a painting by Don Eddy, a former teacher of mine.

The FIA also has a fairly extensive group of 19th and early 20th century French paintings, with works by Courbet, Corot, Sisley, Boudin, Renoir, Bonnard and Vuillard. In 2006 the museum a small Matisse painting from 1921.

Bicycle Rider by the Loire was donated to the FIA in 1990, along with paintings by Josef Albers and Willem De Kooning, and a small sculpture by Alexander Calder. All four works were bequeathed to the museum by Mary Mallery Davis. People like Mary Mallery Davis intrigue me. You find their names in museums across the country. The information cards next to paintings tell us that they were generous and fortunate enough to own great works of art. But other than that, who were they?

From a web search, I have discovered that Mary Mallery Davis was a painter, but I haven't learned much more. I'd love to know how she got her hands on Bicycle Rider by the Loire. Maybe she met Avery at one of the various artists' colonies where he spent his summers in the 1950s. Or maybe she met him through other creative circles. Or maybe she simply saw the painting in a gallery and bought it. Who knows?

However Mallery Davis acquired Bicycle Rider by the Loire, the people of Flint are fortunate that she did. I love the enigmatic silliness of the robed figure on two wheels. Is he a monk? Or could the figure be a woman in a long dress? The figure's shrunken head makes the rest of the body seem large in contrast. How does a person of such apparent girth maintain balance? And how does a bike with its rear hub so far off center manage to function properly?

These silly conundrums are the by-products of Avery's thoughtful formal decisions. The small head draws the viewer's attention to the biker's body, an organic shape that stands out against the geometric forms that indicate the river and its bank. When I look at the body, I immediately notice the curved edge of its back crossing the horizontal edge of the far side of the river. This intersection is the most dynamic part of the painting, and it seems to provide the biker with the energy necessary to propel him across the canvas.

The off-center rear hub also activates the picture. If Avery had placed it at the middle of its wheel, the rear hub--like its forward counterpart--would rest on the abutting edges of the river and bank. The bicycle would then seem locked in place, thereby draining the painting of its energy. A simple yet well thought-out decision that makes all the difference. Without it, Bicycle Rider by the Loire would bore, and the Flint Institute of Arts would be a little less remarkable.



*James R. Mellow, "Sun, Surf and Subversion," Art News 81:10 (12/82) p. 80; quoted by Robert Hobbs in Milton Avery: The Late Paintings, pg. 49.

Let's Start with Matisse

This post is the first in a series I call "Permanent Collections." "Permanent Collections" is the result of countless hours spent traveling the country looking at paintings from institutions of all kinds: from large, encyclopedic collections built on the donations of many collectors--such as the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Cleveland Museum of Art; to well-known eponymous legacies, like the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Phillips Collection; to small, obscure museums with one or two gems in otherwise modest collections. Future posts will feature other highlights from my travels to museums, both in the real world and online.

I begin with a Henri Matisse painting owned by The Cleveland Museum of Art.

Home to signature works by Caravaggio, El Greco, Velazquez, Turner, Monet, Cezanne, Picasso, Braque, Pollock, and Rauschenberg, the Cleveland Museum houses one of the greatest collections of paintings in the United States. Its most famous Matisse work, Interior with an Etruscan Vase is a prime example of the artist's late style. However, I've decided to concentrate this inaugural post on one of the museum's lesser-known Matisse paintings, The Windshield, on the Road to Villacoublay (seen above), because of its appropriateness to this blog's theme.

The Windshield's evocation of a road trip thus makes it a logical choice for this first post. Yet I've never gone to the Cleveland Museum by car. In fact, I have never set foot in the museum. I have "traveled" there and to many other American art museums in the same manner that you have reached this page. The internet has allowed me and other artists and art lovers the opportunity to seek out treasures in museums across the country (and the world) without ever leaving home. As a result, I have discovered a myriad of intriguing paintings, many of which I might never have the opportunity to see in person. The Windshield is one of my favorites.

Painted on a summer day in 1917, The Windshield gives a sketch-like depiction of the road from Paris to an airport near the city. According to the Cleveland Museum's website, "while being chauffeured by his son Pierre," Matisse suddenly "decided to paint the road from inside the car, which proved challenging, as zooming traffic forced the artist to keep the windows shut and constantly rocked the old Renault back and forth."

This burst of creativity doesn't surprise me. For more than a dozen years, Matisse had sporadically painted pictures of windows, most notably The Open Window, Collioure from 1905 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC). And when he moved from Paris to Nice later in 1917, windows would take on a bigger role, figuring prominently in his paintings into the early 1920s.

Placing windows in his works allowed Matisse to overtly address the paradox inherent in figurative painting: its role as an illusory opening to a world beyond the surface of the picture versus its physical presence as paint applied on canvas. In The Open Window, Collioure, Matisse deftly played with this contradiction, allowing the viewer to at once imagine himself moving through the window to the boats and water beyond, while at the same time being keenly aware of the brushstrokes and the tactile qualities of the paint that creates the illusion.

In The Windshield, Matisse has created a more dynamic sensation of movement. The painting's subject alone suggests fast, forward motion, and Matisse accelerates this feeling with an old formal trick: two lines converging at the horizon to create great depth in the picture. We can imagine the car quickly arriving at the vanishing point way off in the distance.

Moreover, because the painting includes parts of the car's two side windows, the viewer can almost feel himself physically inside the car, hurtling down the road. Indeed, the painting makes it clear that the viewer is riding in Matisse's seat: we can see an early stage of The Windshield peeking up from the bottom edge of the image, as if resting in our lap.

For all this dynamism, however, The Windshield also seems still; Matisse depicts the car without a driver, so, despite sensing the contrary, we have to assume the car is parked. This paradox alludes to the equivocal nature of painting that Matisse had directly addressed in The Open Window, Collioure. In addition, the sketchy quality of The Windshield--its obvious brushstrokes, irregular lines, and its lack of crisp detail -- undercuts the picture's illusion of three-dimensional space. Like the tactility of the earlier work, some of The Windshield's formal properties remind us that what we're really looking at is an assemblage of paint on canvas.

And in some respects, this assemblage does not create as compelling an image as The Open Window, Collioure. The Windshield's palette is much less vibrant, and its interplay of shapes is not as intriguing. Nonetheless, if I could own either one, I'd pick The Windshield. First of all, it's one of the few paintings in which Matisse includes details that tie the painting to a specific era. The two-paned windshield, the wheel-hugging fenders, and the bulb-horn next to the steering wheel all indicate that we're looking at an early-twentieth-century car. And secondly, I can't think of any artist among Matisse's contemporaries who ever depicted the view from inside an automobile. The Windshield, on the Road to Villacoublay may not be one of Matisse's best paintings, but it is one of his most unusual.