Monday Morning Art #17 - Jackson Pollack

Over a short, energy-filled career, Jackson Pollack evolved quickly from swirling representational creations into abstract explosions of colour and texture.  Through the late 40s and the first couple of years of the next decade, he created works that are quickly recognizable as his, even by those with only a passing familiarity with his work.

 His 1935 piece "Going West" is a swirling mid-ground between a Van Gogh and an Elvis-on-Black-Velvet.  The range of values is interesting, though, from very dark blacks to the glowing moon, and highlights on the horses. We'll see elements of this later.




 He also does some work that shows influences perhaps of Kandinsky and Klee. This piece is called "Blue Moby Dick" (1943).

His style here has elements of naive, surrealist and abstract.  Here's an untitled Kandinsky from about 1910, for an interesting comparison.










But the exploration - or perhaps evolution - of style continues. This untitled piece as well is an interesting one.  The palette, the shapes, and movement.  


 While I'm playing this-looks-like-that, I'll note that that one reminds me of Marcell Duchamp's Sad Young Man on a Train, shown below, on the right:





 











Pollack gets into a full-on rejection of careful brush strokes on an easel-mounted canvas, and gets into his energetic, full-contact painting method.  Canvases on the floor and paint flying, he creates works with depth, and motion and colour that manage to engage and appeal.

The piece above is his "Lucifer" from 1947.  Best seen large (click on it for bigger) and in-person, but even at this on-screen version you can see some of the depth and malevolence in the spider-web-like black and the tendrils of plant-like green.

He gradually abandons naming in favour of numbering. An understandable position as he lets the viewer decide what is represented.

Here is his Number 5, from 1948.  Again, a very small reproduction here. Hopefully it looks pretty good on your screen.

















There are a bunch of more pieces I'd love to share here, but doing them justice requires making them rather large, so perhaps I'll not get too carried away.

It's worth searching your favourite image search engine for more pieces, or click a few of the links here for some of my favourites, like his "Convergence" or "Full Fathom Five" or "Shimmering Substance."

A late work, his "Portrait and a Dream" is also notable in that it signals perhaps the beginning of another phase in the artists direction. One that sadly wouldn't have time to develop before his exit.

That late piece "Portrait and a Dream" was finished in - 1953.  Here's an (NPR) photo of the artist, and painter Lee Krasner (also an artist), and a guy with a pipe, looking at the finished work.

Also interesting, and tragic, is that Pollack had been exploring sculpture as a medium in the mid 50s as he approached his tragic end.  He was only 44 years old when he foolishly lost it all by driving drunk, killing himself and a friend in the process.  A mistress survived the one-car accident and (at last notice) was still alive in 2015.

I'll wrap up with perhaps my favourite piece, his "The Deep" from 1953.   For me, it's a look through  frosted pine trees or perhaps into a deep glacial crevasse.

Monday Morning Art #16 - René Magritte

"Everything we see hides another thing." -René Magritte

Quickly moving through Impressionism to Cubism in his early years, Belgian artist René Magritte is an icon of the Surrealist movement.

Magritte comes from a troubled childhood, with the suicide of his mother when he was 12, and then the First World War in his mid-teens. These troubled years feed into his work for the rest of his life, questioning reality, how we see the world, how people interact, and the very meaning of art and painting.

Drawing a lot as a child, it becomes his vocation. After serving in the post-WWI infantry, he becomes a draughtsman in a wallpaper factory in his early twenties, and works later designing advertising and posters.

This very cubist influenced work here, is from 1923, entitled 'Youth.'  This was created shortly after his military service.

Magritte's commercial art origin is not unusual for iconic artists, it seems. The demands of commercial work seem to do something to focus the artist's composition, and teach them to pack a lot of content into simply structured images, that can make an impression quickly.

An important skill in a successful artist is when they can depict that a depth beyond a first impressions.  A work becomes even more impactful when it challenges us to question what we see in the painting and even the 'ordinary' world around us.

This piece at the left is entitled "Modern" and places a figure in an abstracted urban scene.  A somewhat unsettled pose seems understandable from a twenty-something finding his way in the inter-war period in Belgium.

His work continues to explore what reality is. Deconstructing the perceived veneers of the world around us.   From layers of reality stripped away, as shown below. Other pieces depict foreboding eagle shapes in enormous looming mountains in his late 1930s work.





This piece from 1926 is called "Popular Panorama" and depicts cutaway layers of reality that illustrate a separation of peaceful - yet somewhat ominous - natural environments separated from the modern world in which we all live.

By the 1930s Magritte has mostly found his trade-mark style. Crisp realist, somewhat flat, portrayals of reality, with a twist to make us question how we look at the world.

He plays with our perception of how art fits into our lives and what purpose it serves for us.  He finds that a landscape devoid of figures can ask us as much about how we live in our environs as another asks with a figure placed prominently within it.



Magritte's 1933 work called "The Human Condition" considers how we look at the world through art.  He has a number of pieces that depict a pastoral view recreated in a realistic painting, yet situated in the very environment in which it was created.  Perhaps a bit of a jab at landscape painters and realists?  Was that view edited perhaps? Are we really seeing reality, just because it seems like a faithful reproduction?

"Why do we choose to capture the world on a canvas as it actually is, rather than just look at it in real life?" he seems to ask.  Where is the challenge? How are we examining the human condition when our art is just pastoral landscapes?

As early as 1927, Magritte begins with his questioning of what we see and feel. In his "Interpretation of Dreams" piece he seems to do that.

I disagree with some reviewers' claims that he was exploring how objects connect with disparate things in our lives.  I see this piece instead making a jab at pop-psychology and psychoanalysis.  These random items, with their incongruous labels,  as if in a museum display case, evoke a disbelief somewhat similar to that a skeptic feels hearing about Freudian dream interpretation.   

You dreamt about a leaf perhaps? Well that represents a table in your life. A briefcase? That's the sky.  A sponge? Well that's just a sponge.  Wasn't it Freud that said "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar?"

As war approaches, the foreboding creeps into his work.  In one piece, that gets later recreated in many variant forms, large, oppressive mountains loom over the scene, with small eggs or other objects sitting on a building ledge in the foreground.



Perhaps his most foreboding piece is "Black Flag" created in 1937.  Somewhat referencing the Futurism of the early 20th century, but hinting too at dark days to come.



Magritte remains in Nazi-occupied Brussels during WWII, evolving his work into somewhat less attention-drawing period sometimes dubbed his "Renoir" period, with some very similarly styled pieces, yet still with that surrealist edge.

A theme in many of his war-period pieces is the use of birds.  Owls are depicted, as are doves in flight. The imagery in those subjects is suggestive - quiet watchful waiting;  the yearning to be free. An optimism even, particularly in the late war years.

In the post war period Magritte seems to pick up where he left off, making us question reality. Asking too, perhaps, why do we believe what we are fed in the art and media around us.  For an advertising/poster guy living through a propaganda-filled period, this question must be a dominant topic during the war.

One of Magritte's most discussed messages is embodied in his famous "This is not a pipe" statement, with a crisp depiction of a pipe.

But that's absurd, his audience exclaimed, it's clearly a pipe.  When pressed with that, his reply was simply, "well try to put some tobacco into it."  

Again he challenges us with the question of what is reality. What are these things we call paintings, and why do we choose to depict the things we do.  More importantly, why do we accept the things we are told in various media to be true or real at all?

Magritte continues to place figures in his views of our world, and continues to obscure the faces.  Not only does this create mystery about identity but allows us to perhaps put ourselves into the image.  We ask who are we, and how do we fit into this (on the surface) familiar world.  "Everything we see hides some other thing," he says.



Perhaps Magritte's most iconic artistic element, or device, is his man-in-the-bowler-hat.  It seems he first appears around 1951, with the piece "Pandora's Box" where the figure crosses an urban bridge, with a the lure of a perfect white rose just in front of him.  The title suggests that what he will find on the other side of the bridge is not what he might expect.

Many depictions of our bowler-hatted friend appear in subsequent years.  Turned the other way, or with his face obscured by flowers or fruit, he shows up time and again.  Clearly a device that resonated with Magritte and his public.  Most exhibitions to this day feature this element.

This piece is "Decalcomania" from 1966. 

René Magritte died in his native Belgium at 68 years old, in 1967.

Monday Morning Art #15 - Ivan Kramskoy

During the mid-to-late 19th century there was a portraitist of prodigious skill.  Perhaps 100 years before his time, or maybe a Russian Vermeer?  Ivan Kramskoy was part of the group known as the Itinerants, intellectual, activist artists who valued realism in their work, and achieved a high level of proficiency.

Kramskoy's portraits really shine, but he depicted some people in the natural environment as well.  This view of a lady named Vera Tretyakov walking a forest path is an interesting picture to lead with.  It is, in someways, a contrast to the portraiture for which Kramskoy really shines. But there are some parallel skills shown here. The ability to capture the light and atmosphere of the space under the vegetation with an economy of strokes, for example.  If the artist had been more taken with landscape as his focus, it would have been interesting to see where it would lead.

Indeed in the Itinerants group, several members feature figures in the landscape, though the figures are usually more dominant centres of attention, and the landscapes, while faithfully rendered, are not as atmospheric or 'magical' as Kramskoy's. 


The subjects in his landscape settings somehow capture subtle a sense of movement, too.  You almost expect an arm to lift or a head to turn.



His colour palette is usually consistent as well.  The translucent green of sun-through-leaves appears to be a favourite.

This piece, a couple On Balcony at Siverskaya (1883) not only captures the summer's day well, it reminds me that the mowed-lawn is much more of a modern obsession.  They are people living in the landscape rather than dominating it.




Looking at the other members of the Itinerants for a moment, there are many who deserve attention.  One notable is the artist Ilia Repin who did large, slightly over-the-top, Cecil B. DeMillesque tableaux.   Moments in history, migrating peasants, labouring hoards, that sort of thing.  Quite pleasant to look at and note the complex, multitudes each with their own expression and activity.


There's also, the engaging Valentin Serov who was a skilled portraitist in his own right. Serov perhaps even incorporates more personality in his works, embracing the free feeling of a quick sketch into his finished works.  Certainly he captured a wider range of emotions, often joyous ones too, if not an equal depth to that Kramskoy captured. (A future Monday Morning feature?) But one cannot deny the striking gravitas of a Kramskoy portrait over all others.

This portrait of Dr Rauhfus (1887) is one that perhaps has some of the feel of Serov, in its contrast of roughly sketched, and precisely completed elements. (Or maybe it was just unfinished ;)





In the 20th century there was the Photorealism movement, born out of Pop Art in which Kramskoy and Repin and some of their Itinerant contemporaries would have felt at home.


I don't have a good sense of Kramskoy's biography. It's clear he spent some formative years in France, as he has a handful of landscapes around Paris. The 18th and 19th century Russian love affair with all things French can easily explain that.  The influence on his work comes through clearly though as well.

The French landscape painters of the mid 19th century were still doing classical pieces full of mythology and religion, but would lay the groundwork for impressionists like Cezanne, Seurat and Monet.  Kramskoy seems to have picked up on some of that. And while his portraits are near photo realistic, his landscapes have an ethereal quality, and interpretation that his people do not.  They look to my eye like he may have been on to something, but didn't really develop it, as portraiture consumed him.

Now on to his portraits. There are two very arresting pieces that first brought my attention to Kramskoy.  First was his self-portrait of 1867.  Many his self-portraits are very good.  He may be, at least to my taste, among the greatest self-portraitists in history.

In this piece of the artist at thirty years old, one can easily imagine him as a contemporary figure.  Here, as in all his male portraits, Kramskoy shows a mastery of hair.  The big bushy beards of peasants and working class (see further below) are always meticulously and captured. I find it interesting that he could master such a photo-realistic approach to beards and tousled hair, yet works with such an economy of strokes and an impressionist feel with vegetation.  Both are surely of equal complexity.  The latter, I suppose, is more forgiving in terms of criticism by the viewer?




Oh the second of his most arresting portraits on my list,  among his best, are two 1883 portraits of the same unknown woman shown below. 












This first one seems to be more of a sketch for a later finished work, which I've also included here, below.  The expression in the sketch is a bit more natural and sympathetic. There is a more natural colour in her cheeks from the cold, and her hair pulled up out of the way, but there doesn't seem to be a hat involved.

A different facial expression now. Similar, but now a little more haughty. Her makeup a bit more powdered and formal, and clothing more dressy as well.  She's headed for the opera, perhaps?  The setting and face seem rather French to me, but who knows.  Could just be that on-going obsession with Parisien culture.

Let's go extra-large for this formatting, and let it spill over the template a bit so we can enjoy the misty setting more easily.

A smattering of other portraits to include now to convey Kramskoy's best.  Two other stand-outs are these that follow, depicting the lower-echelons of Russian society.   As an activist artist and intellectual, born into humble means, he shows an affinity to the common people.  We all know where the outrage at the plight of poor Russian peasants leads in the next couple of generations. 

The Peasant from 1868 gives us a humble looking fellow with a prodigious beard.  His hair looks like he may just have taken a moment to wet his hand and flatten out the unruly locks before the painting was 'snapped.'  The beard belies his years, the coarse clothing his station and facing the difficult elements.

There's colour in his lower face from working in the sun and wind, and a bright forehead from a heavy hat.

His eyes look at us, but glaze a bit as he waits for the painting work to be finished.  His mind wanders, we can see a little bit into his soul.

 The Miller from 1873 shows an older fellow. He doesn't look at us, but rather gazes off across the room.

His rough coat is still cinched up tight over his girth.  He didn't get a lot of sleep last night. He's getting on in years and the heavy work of the mill is probably wearing on his old bones.

This and the previous subject with their rough hair, the scraggly beards, and rudimentary clothing, are Kramskoy's forté.  You can feel the connection with these people that are part of his activist nature.



A final piece with a similar ability to capture expression and depth.  May I introduce you to Ekatarina Kornilova, or at least as she appeared in 1880.

Kramskoy is in his early forties at this point.  Ekatarina seems a little nonplussed at sitting so long for her portrait.  She's putting on a brave smile occasionally, but mostly a bit tired of the chair.  Kramskoy captures her 'in-between' face, showing us a bit of the fatigue, and eyes that are at one moment meeting ours, then at the next drifting down slightly to our right.



Kramskoy only lives to be 49 years old. Perhaps not unusual for the mid 19th century.  He dies in St. Petersburg in 1887.  He leaves a lot of crisp, engaging portraits that are as good as any we will ever see.

Monday Morning Art #14 - Katsushika Hokusai

I won't profess to be particularly knowledgeable about Japanese art.  There are some broad genres in that milieu which we all recognize, from figurative domestic scenes, to nature scenes, to botanicals, or fish paintings, portraits, or landscapes.

The single most recognizable image from Japanese art, ever is surely the "Wave Off Kanagawa" by our artist of the day, Hokusai from 1831.

There are several notable angles to his life, works, and times that drew me to him for my #MondayMorningArt today.

Hokusai lived a long productive life.  In comparison to the works of the European masters,  or our favourite Canadians, he lived a very prolific life.  He was probably born in October 1760, say the histories. There is some confusion due to conversion of calendar systems and record keeping.  Yet much of his famous work is from the 1830s and 40s - in his 70s and 80s.

I almost hesitate to include the famous "Wave off Kangawa" image because it is so iconic.  Forget calling it most well-known Japanese paintings, it is probably among the top dozen images in art ever, from any culture.



The famous coloured woodcut is part of published series called "Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji."

It's also one of the most copied, parodied, commercially exploited and reprinted images ever.  From the side of a 1970s van, to packaging of every conceivable food-stuff, it's simplicity, power and dramatic composition are iconic to say the least.

Remember this is in a series - the first in the series - honouring the revered Mount Fuji.  At first glance, the volcano is almost not seen. But with a moment your eye is drawn through the great sweeping, powerful arc of the wave and dropped right on top of the central subject.

The series featured diverse scenes, all enjoyable, in subject, style and tone.  Many focus on the locals of their area going about their daily work. Some are more whimsical in their subject matter.

For example, the 11th of the series is "Mitsui shop in Suruga in Edo" with kites and the figures on the shop roof capture such movement and fun I can't imagine in 1830s European art.

The views of Mt Fuji works were part of a popular movement towards domestic travel that had emerged in the mid 19th century.

Japanese art seems centuries ahead in some ways, with manga/comics and travelogs common and marketed to the masses.  Perhaps it was the Japanese expertise in paper making and wood-cut techniques that set their culture ahead of the west in this regard.

This at the left is "Ejiri in Suruga Province" – number 10 in that series of Mt. Fuji views –
 and again a great one in catching a sense of motion with flying papers, and people holding onto their hats in the strong wind.

But just as striking - look at the representation of Fujisan in this image.  Just the starkest of representations, as a line of its outline.  So far confident, this artist, who finds such freedom in how he chooses to represent even most important element of his composition. The S-curved path, the tree up the left third of the page.  Classic composition devices still taught to young artists today. 

Hokusai apparently went by many different names over his career.  Looking over his body of work, I felt like I was looking at the works of several different artists.  I wondered if historians were mistaken, and had merely lumped together multiple artists of the same period under the Hokusai label.   But a hint to why that may have seemed so is communicated in a preserved account of the artist complaining that one of the block-cutters at the publishing outfit was drifting too far away from the way Hokusai insisted that peoples' heads be drawn.

So it appears that the commercial production of art books had driven them to a division of labour only later to be seen in the west.  With artist and production separated, there are hints of the styles of the intermediaries creeping into the works.

Indeed there were apparently even 'how to' art books produced in this period, as commercially produced and distributed art was so popular. This was an importantt source of income for this master of illustration and publishing.  

Hokusai produced such instructional books, like his "Quick Lessons in Simplified Drawing" to teach other artists some of his techniques, such as in his image of Cranes, rendered in simple lines, in a variety of postures and movements.  It's not quite "draw the kid with the big eyes to get into art school for free" but it's not far off.

Some of the caricatures of people, such as this "Fisherman" in 1835 make me think of American painter Normal Rockwell.  I've never been a fan, but the knobby, somewhat mimicking sytle seems to say something similar about the ordinary folk of the county.


Hokusai does work in all the areas that can earn him commercial success. From portraiture to botanicals. A few "Shunga" or erotic works as well, that could make even a modern Internet browser blush.  His work is widely varied and in many ways I see similarity to works of later century artists like Escher and comic book artists of today.


This lion-riding, sword-wielding, swashbuckler is seems like it would be in good company in a modern comic book.

The colour palette seems like it may well have inspired a much-later-arriving Alphonse Mucha, as featured last week in my MondayMorningArt series.

The golds and reds are certainly right up his alley.  The fantasy nature of the work, as well, would resonate with him.  Hokusai produced many images of cortesans and lavishly painted, kimono-clad ladies too. That would certainly have appealled to Mucha.





Below are a couple of pages of Manga drawings - the cartoons of the time. These Bathers and acrobatic horse-dudes area all about capturing action and movement.















These beautiful carp fish are a pleasure to look at. There are many fish and botanical paintings and woodcuts that define the art of the period, but I have to assume our modern view of such classic Japanese-art subject matter was somewhat defined by the work of Hokusai.

Finally, in the genre of animal subject matter, I enjoyed this little sketch of a tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog thing) curled around a cooking pot.  I assume it may well be a snapshot from Hokusai's real life experience.  I can imagine a cold morning with a still-warm pot hanging over the hearth, and an already black-and-white raccoon enjoying the heat from the big iron pot to warm his bones.








Hokusai dies in Tokyo approaching his 90th birthday.  There's a quote that probably wraps up every biography of the artist, but is a poignant one that probably speaks much to how driven he was as such a prolific artist.

As he lay on his deathbed he is purported to say  "...just another five more years, then I could become a real painter"

Lots of his work has survived to treat our eyes to his view of the world.  And that's even with a bunch of it being wiped out in a studio fire during his lifetime.


He died in Tokyo in 1849. 

Monday Morning Art #13 - Alphonse Mucha

This is a prominent artist from the Art Nouveau period with a healthy dash of 'decorative arts' as well.  Alphonse Mucha is a Czech born in 1860, and well known for his commercial work, and associated pieces which conformed to a rather narrow style. 

This self portrait from 1899 is nice, because it uses many elements of his trademarked style.  The constant use of drapery, the hints of Asian feel in the dress and lines, the glittery gold lighting and muted earth-tone palette.

Mucha lives through a turbulent time, not only in the post-impressionist era of art when the rules were gradually thrown out the proverbial window, but politically as well. Czechoslovakia was not a great place to find oneself as Europe spiraled towards war in the '30s, and that was a pivotal factor at the end of his life.
 
But the optimism and warmth in the Mucha pieces is the key to their success. No wonder product manufacturers and retailers wanted to him to push their products.

Mucha built up his style through a background of theatrical scenery and decorative painting, and a close association with music. He did many posters for performers, and performances. And even as his style and name became widely known in Art Nouveau circles, he was doing posters for exhibitions for which his recognizable style was no doubt a key draw.











His work on product packaging and advertisement posters is very recognizably his.  Here for a hot chocolate product.

Poster work was very important in the emergence of the Art Nouveau style. Perhaps the most recognizable of the Nouveau artists was Henri Toulouse-Lautrec whose poster work is still widely hung on walls around the world.

The necessity for posters to be clearly seen from a distance and to quickly create an atmosphere and positive regard for the associated product or destination means that the compositions were bold, with strong contrasts and simplified subjects.






Here are Much's works for cigarettes, beer and bicycle companies.

The heavy contours Mucha uses around his figures make them 'pop' a bit more among their surroundings.  I would speculate that this style of art is fundamental too in the emergence of the comics of the period after the crest of the Nouveau period - into the 20's and beyond.



The printing technology of the time was likely a contributing factor, in part, due to the limited colour palette achieveable. The result is undeniably attractive.  As in many artistic endeavours, boundaries and restrictions often spawn more creative results.












His use of overlapping to create visual interest is a strong, common element, as is again his copious use of drapery and swirly lines and ribbons and tresses of hair.










The subject matter is invariably elegant and feminine.  If Degas' ballerina work adorns the bedrooms of the youngest girls, Mucha's elegant and more daring women likely took the same place for their older sisters.  Well, maybe not so much the cigarettes and beer posters.











As for many artists with a strong commercial element to their careers, there is an always burning desire to spend more time on purely artistic endeavours.

Mucha spent much effort in later years on a 20 piece history of the Slavic peoples, called the Slav Epic, delivered as a set of large canvasses.   This piece below is the "The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia" painted in 1914.

A large piece, and the depiction is very crisp right to the borders. Even the mist-and-snow enshrouded domes are meticulous.  Here's a detail of the group of subjects from the painting's lower left. Note the drapery, the curling shock of golden wheat, the dramatic poses of figures. Not to mention the bright red scarf - all very much Mucha.

Even the palette is his usual range of earth tones, and gold and red against the pristine white of the snow.

Mucha paints and sketches his daughter many times. How could he resist, his subjects are always women. No doubt she serves as stand in for the figures in many of his pieces.   At right here is a painting of his wife Marushka. Perhaps more of a sketch, though the face is nicely finished. Perhaps a bit more emotion in the picture, given the subject matter.  It's unusual for his pieces to have an unfinished figure like that, particularly when it could have been glorious folds of cloth. But the same muted colours are there.

In the many books and calendars and cards that Mucha portrayed, surely to pay the bills, he rendered personifications of abstract concepts or inanimate objects as women often. This interesting idea of using the personality and setting of his subjects to represent some non-human thing is an appealing one.

He painted the four seasons as women several times. As well as gem-stones, moments in history, countries, figures of religion and myth.

Here is one of his depictions of winter. I like this one because it reminds me immediately of comics to emerge shortly after this period.  In particular I think the works of Hergé, like his beloved Tintin are evocative of Mucha's style.

Hard to fill the scene with his favourite golds and reds when he is depicting winter, but he still manages with the hints of weak sunlight illuminating her dress, and the splash of red among the birds.












And here too is his Autumn. Well, no challenge to illuminate the work in gold when you're doing a scene in the fall. And the red locks of swirling hair come easily too then.