Clyfford Still, Untitled

Clyfford Still, Untitled, 1960

113 x 146.25 in.

Clyfford Still (1904-1980) was an American painter and a leading figure in Abstract Expressionism. He was born in North Dakota and grew up in and around Spokane, Washington.  Unlike most major painters of the period, who all migrated to New York City throughout the 1930s, Still remained on the West Coast for his studies and development.  He did briefly take classes at the Art Students League when visiting New York, but he returned to Spokane University for most of his schooling. Many of Still's early works were deeply concerned with the farmers and workers made destitute by the Great Depression.  Still shifted to using pure abstraction several years before other Abstract Expressionists, between 1938 and 1941.  Throughout his career, Still shows the influence of Native American culture and imagery.  It is evident in many of his large-scale Color Field works, and it is present in the painting I am featuring today.  This piece is in the Metropolitan Museum and I urge anyone able to go see it, because the effect is remarkable in person.  The image I provided at the top of the post is the only decent sized image I could find, but the color is actually more similar to this low-quality image.  With the colors less bright it is even easier to see the Native American influence, and also gives the painting a very different feel.  It is darker and heavier with that purpler red and the painting seems to contain a sadness.  Still's arrangement of color is much less orderly than other Abstract Expressionists, like Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman.  Still's pantings looks like violence has been done to them, even if it is only the violence of applying paint.  The jagged edges and torn effect gives the works a different kind of intensity. His pieces also often suggest natural forms.  Untitled is an incredibly imposing piece, due in part to its size; there is a sense of being enveloped in these swaths of color and the painting's presence is palpable.  Still continued to work in this style until the last years of his life, always demonstrating great energy and vision.

Happy New Year!

Raphael Kirchner (1876-1917),
Happy New Year, 1899

Childe Hassam (1859-1935),
New Year's Nocturne, New York, 1892

Ilse Bing, Self-Portrait in Mirrors

Ilse Bing, Self-Portrait in Mirrors, 1931

Ilse Bing (1899-1998) was a prominent avant-garde and commercial photographer.  Born in Frankfurt to a Jewish family, Bing was encouraged to explore the arts as a child, but when she first attended the University of Frankfurt she intended to study mathematics and physics. However she soon switched to Art History and bought a camera to illustrate her thesis in 1928. She taught herself photography and it quickly overtook her academic studies.  Bing moved to Paris in 1930 and became a part of the avant-garde art scene there.  She worked for Le Monde, Harper's Bazaar, and Vogue, helping to bring art photography into the realms of commercial photography and photojournalism.  She worked in a number of styles, including architectural photography, portraiture, still life, and social commentary.  Bing also experimented with perspective and capturing rapid movement.  In 1941 she moved from Paris to New York CIty with her husband to escape the war and spent the rest of her life in New York, and continued to work throughout her life.  Self-portrait with mirrors is a fascinating work.  It makes reference to an old self-portrait technique (which I have discussed before, most recently with Lawrence Alma-Tadema) whereby the painter looks in a mirror to portray themselves accurately, and the result is the appearance that the artist is gazing directly out of the painting to make eye contact with the viewer.  Photographers have many more options in taking a self-portrait, for they do not need to continuously looks at themselves and can press the shutter without being behind the camera. Yet Bing elected to use the mirror trick, and it thus becomes a commentary on the technique and the concept of self-portraits.  Like Alma-Tadema who holds is brush, Bing portrays herself holding her camera, the tool of her trade.  However, our view of her, and her gaze out at us, is obstructed by the camera; she and it become inextricably linked.  Bing also has the mirror on the left which reveals the mechanics of the process, full dispelling any pretense about how this art is created. To many viewers saturated with selfies in 2014 this setup may appear very familiar, but in 1931 it was revolutionary.  Ilse Bing recreated this famous photograph in 1986 to great effect.

Albert Pinkham Ryder, The Flying Dutchman

Albert Pinkham Ryder, The Flying Dutchman, c1887

14.25 x 17.25 in.

Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847-1917) was an American painter, who was just as well known for his temperamental and eccentric character as for his dramatic paintings.  While Ryder's style borrowed from European Romantic and Realist painting, he developed a style that was very different from the conventions of European art, and in some ways prefigured Modernism.  Ryder's painting is marked by high drama, thick application of paint, and subtle variations in color while retaining a detailed attention to form.  Many of his pieces are moody landscapes that often have an ominous quality.  Ryder also frequently painted rural and animal scenes, as well as demonstrating a keen interest in myth, such as in Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens.  Ryder was just as devoted to the process of painting as he was to the result, which makes him unusual for his time and a forerunner of Modernists.  For Ryder, much of this effort was devoted to the perfect appearance of his paint, which he always tried to make look as though it was glowing from within. The Flying Dutchman is a perfect example of Ryder's commitment.  The paint was worked over repeatedly to achieve the perfect look of thick, churning waves.  The Flying Dutchman was of course a legendary ghost ship that was doomed to wander the oceans.  In the version Ryder worked from, the captain was cursed for hubris when he attempted to round the Cape of Good Hope in adverse weather.  Frozen in time, he would only be allowed to make port if his son brought him a piece of the True Cross.  The son can be seen in the small boat in the foreground hailing his father's ship; already an old man himself, he has been unable to release his father from God's curse.  Ryder conveys the intense drama of the scene with his exceptional balance of color and form.  In addition to the thick impasto of the waves, they have been rendered with subtle variations in blue, white, and black, to create realistic and highly imposing waves.  However the top portion of the canvas emerges quite luminous, with clouds and sunset of such delicate color that it's hard to imagine them over such stormy seas.  With the titular ship in the distance against the glowing sky, the painting becomes a powerful mediation on defiance, powerlessness, and the pursuit of achievement and beauty.

Fritz Gartner, Schwebebahn (Cologne)

Fritz Gartner, Schwebebahn (Cologne), 1908

28.75 x 37.5 in.

Fritz Gartner (1882-1958) was a German artist originally from Sudetenland.  After studying in Munich, Gartner moved to Cologne to work as a magazine illustrator.  Gartner worked in a range of styles, with landscapes resembling Impressionism toward the beginning of  his career, but later finding his own voice in a number of idealized landscapes.  Gartner also frequently demonstrated an interest in industrial development, which this painting certainly fits with.  Schwebebahn means an elevated or suspended railway, as seen here traveling towards the viewer.  The famed Cologne Cathedral appears in the background.  The railroad itself, with its many struts and supports, and the railroad bridge behind it, have a rather futuristic feel, with the bright lights appearing somewhat unsettling.  Gartner used unusual colors blended together (such as the green glow that seems to emanate from the metal) give the scene a fantastical touch.  This piece is done in pastels, which have a smooth texture that adds to the hazy, dream-like tone of the piece.  With the cathedral in the background and the simple boat in the foreground floating unmoored on the Rhone, the piece is an exploration of the juxtaposition of modern and traditional ways of life, along with a sense of disbelief at the advancement of technology.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Self-Portrait

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Self-Portrait, 1896

20.79 x 25.87 in.

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) was born in the Netherlands to Frisian ethnicity. Originally named Lourens Tadema, he later changed his first name to the more Anglo-sounding Lawrence and adopted his middle name of Alma as part of his surname so that he would appear at the beginning of exhibition catalogues.  His family intended Lawrence to become an attorney, but at fifteen he suffered a physical and mental breakdown.  He was diagnosed with consumption and allowed to spend his time painting since he was expected to die shortly.  However Lawrence did recover and chose to pursue a career in painting, attending the Royal Academy of Antwerp. In 1870 the Franco-Prussian War caused him to leave the continent and move to England where he lived the rest of his life, eventually earning a British knighthood.  Alma-Tadema is mostly known for his Academic style and draughtsmanship that he brought to portrayals of Classical scenes, such as The Death of Hippolytus and scenes of everyday life in the ancient world.  In addition to showing everyday life, Alma-Tadema also painted many quiet portraits that show the deep emotional resonance of events in Classical mythology and history.  One excellent example shows Agrippina holding the ashes of her husband Germanicus, who was mourned by all of Rome.  In England Alma-Tadema met the Pre-Raphaelites and became influenced by their style.  Many of his works bear their mark and show an interest in the lives of upper class women in the societies of ancient Greece and Rome, which many have related to the British society that Alma-Tadema observed.  The self-portrait I chose to post was in fact Alma-Tadema's second, having also painted himself in 1852.  The earlier painting was done just after his period of illness, when Lawrence was just beginning his artistic career.  It shows a boy setting out on his life, determined but trepidatious. The 1896 piece shows a mature man, sure of himself, and still determined.  One feature in both paintings is the gaze out toward the viewer. Many self-portraits have this feature due to the technique of painting with a mirror, but the way Alma-Tadema meets our eyes conveys much about his person.  He paints himself with an openness and authenticity, and retains a certain softness in both paintings despite the intervening decades.  The artist's skill certainly improved over the years.  The 1896 portrait has great delicacy and skill, each brushstroke carefully and deliberately applied to shape the forms and light, compared to the slightly blocky forms in the earlier work.  The mature portrait also demonstrates great attention to detail, in the hairs of his beard and the shine of his face, the pattern of the wallpaper behind him, and the gleaming wood of the easel. The painting is so alive, Alma-Tadema almost looks surprised to be discovered by us in the midst of his work.

Frits Thaulow, Moonlight in Beaulieu

Frits Thaulow, Moonlight in Beaulieu, 1904

17.3 x 20.9 in.

Frits Thaulow (1847-1906) was a Norwegian painter, considered a member of the Impressionist movement.  Educated in Copenhagen, Thaulow was one of the first painters to work in Skagen, the northernmost town in Denmark which became developed a community of artists known as the Skagen Group.  Thaulow also spent time in Paris, where he encountered both Realism and Impressionism.  Most of Thaulow's work follows the conventions of Realism, but he also explored Impressionism, and some of his work tends toward Symbolism.  One of the fascinating things about Moonlight in Beaulieu is that Thaulow manages to incorporate and balance these impulses. Overall the scene is Realist in its approach to the buildings and trees, however the paint handling and details draw on Impressionism.  This is particularly evident in the rendering of the stone road and, upon close inspection, the foliage and sky.  Meanwhile the intense white patch in the sky adds a Symbolist mystical quality; although likely just a cloud, it appears like a rip in the sky and suggests something beyond a simple nighttime scene.  The sense of a deeper substance is heightened by the striking use of shadows, which cut the nearest building at a very noticeable angle and are cast on the cobblestones by the leafless trees.  Here in this late painting, Thaulow holds all of these elements together to create a painting of great interest and fascinating beauty.