Are angels male or female?
That's not an open-ended question. Specified angels are male in all the stories of the Old and New Testaments. Their names include Gabriel and Michael. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity all support the same being, and the angel is never a female. Art shows all angels as male, not androgynes, as one might first suppose by the hair styles. Sure, large groups of angels appear to include females, but when a specific angel comes down to enact a scene from scripture, he is a male. It is now just past Christmas, and whether or not you believe in angels, you see them depicted everywhere, or hear them in the Christmas carols. I trust that the gracious readers of this blog have experienced all kinds of Holiday miracles. But before we talk about having "seen" an angel, it might do us good to establish what they are. Today is Boxing day, and Art Guy is going to be busy packing away three problematic angel-types in art, tearing them wing from torso to get at the impurities in their iconography. My three examples come from, Cimabue (1240-c.1302), an anonymous 19th century ornament-maker, and Frank Capra.
The Santa Trinita Madonna, done by the innovative hand of Cimabue in about 1280, depicts a Madonna and child enthroned among saints and angels.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Cimabue_Trinita_Madonna.jpg
Click on the link. Let the art speak for a second before we start talking about them. Alright, now take a close look at the halos on the angels. What are those little hook things behind the ears? Nope, they're not symbolic of anything. They are hooks for attaching the halos to the angels' heads. Cimabue is an innovator in early Renaissance naturalism. He is painting a scene from a "Mystery Play," in which Florentine citizens would reenact the mysteries of Holy Scripture while celebrating their painted votives. Perhaps you would carry Santa Trinita's high altarpiece around during one of these celebrations. But more importantly, you would dress up like an angel, and use wire attachments to fix a halo on your head. Cimabue wanted it to be known that he was painting people dressed as angels, not angels.
I love this painting, and I love Cimabue's cutting-edge spirit. Yet he is deflating the angel's place in art. Saying "A Madonna and Saints with Angels" is more resonant as "A Madonna and Saints with People dressed like Angels," or worse yet, "A bunch of People dressed like A Madonna and Saints with Angels" was so radical that nobody, not even his highly modern pupil Giotto, carried on the tradition. We can infer a lot about the state of realism in the period. Perhaps it was important to depict Mary and Christ as worldly and connected. But a painting of an angel should be a painting of an angel, not a person dressed as an angel.
Pardon my laziness to read up on this, but I gather that somewhere in the increasing secularization of Christmas, someone decided to add Christmas trees to the fun. Growing up, I always thought stars were what kids liked to put on trees, and that angels were what sophisticated devout people put on trees. It seems that both the guiding Star and the Angel Gabriel are important for Christmas, but the angel that people put on Christmas trees is not Gabriel. In fact, it's a female angel, the likes of which are unprecedented in the Bible (I know) and in art (I think.) The angel has a lovely gown, a clearly female body, and sometimes earrings. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that women are represented in a holiday that sports two male superheros (Christ and Santa), three male magi, and eight male reindeer. But perhaps we should draw our attention more to Mary the Blessed Mother of God, bearer of the Church, Queen of Heaven. She is decidedly female. The angel Gabriel is male, as one might notice in all the intriguing Annunciation scenes from Simone Martini to Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Christmas Tree angel often looks like Barbie.
Now comes one of the most "innovative" angels I have ever witnessed. The problem with this angel is he establishes a unique set of iconography for the hordes of typical Christian family film-watchers (including me) that spent their childhood watching him. This angel is hard to replace with the proper iconography. This is the angel Clarence from Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life."
The angels in this movie are galaxies. No more is explained about their cosmic environment except that they appear as galaxies in outer space, and they blink while talking to each other. While they talk, a chime-like rendering of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" plays incessently in this 'heaven.' An angel in Capra's film has two stages of professionality. There is the younger wingless angel, who must graduate in the eyes of higher angels before he can get his wings. When he gets his wings, he can fly, see the past narrative of a person's life without any help from higher angels, and the galaxy that he is presumably grows in size. When the wingless angel graduates to winged angel, a bell rings on Earth.
??? Galaxies? Bells? Wings and no wings? Clarence is one of these strange creatures, and is further described a "Guardian Angel," a Christian tradition, but not a Catholic one. What he does for the beloved George Bailey is really a Christmas miracle, but believer or non-believer, I would be puzzled if I was in George's place. If Art Guy's guardian angel ever came down and said, "You'll never make any money doing this; go to medical school," I would be highly suspicious if he was reading Tom Sawyer, drinking mulled wine, and making excuses for his lack of wings.
My favorite paintings depicting angels are Giotto's "Lamentation" in the Arena Chapel, Botticelli's "Annunciation," Simone Martini's "Annunciation," and Rossetti's "Annunciation," an "Expulsion from the Garden" by Masaccio and the same scene depicted in the Florence Baptistery Ceiling. I also admit that Cimabue's "Santa Trinita Madonna" is beautifully life-like for the time and I can easily overlook the wire attachments to appreciate one of the prettiest altar-pieces in Florence.
I would love to hear if you think you've seen an angel, whether or not it corrosponds to precedented iconography. An angel can obviously be anything you want it to be.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Don't f*** with the Hiltons: a lesson in artistic influence
The Paris Hilton campaign ad is the coolest work of public art related to the presidential campaign process this year.
In an art historical view of the world, patrons of the arts come in all shapes and sizes. But we tend to look back at art that the entire public could be exposed to. This art is generally patronized by Popes, monks, wealthy bankers, Sun Kings, emperors, pharoahs, etc. Rich people. Not presidential candidates in debt. A political campaign may or may not be a work of art. But any public statement can be subject to artistic criticism. Public art is not a force to be reckoned with, and Paris Hilton has just made herself a great art patron of our day.
My fellow Northeastern Corridorians are shocked to see the political world's Hollywood scapegoat actually show up with a presidential campaign video in response to John McCain's derogatory "celebrity" campaign video. Art Guy loves it and isn't terribly surprised. The Hiltons are rich and powerful, and Paris is a prolific Hollywood Star. The medium is "joke presidential campaign ad." Video is her bag. Who knows how many directors, script writers, and comedians she networks with. Probably more than Senator John McCain.
I've seen these jerks beat up on Hollywood icons in political contexts all the time. From the tired "Governator" name-calling of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the cheap-shot interview of Britney Spears in Micheal Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11, it's old and it's low, and Art Guy in Jeans is sick of it. First reaction to Paris Hilton is, you've done a great thing and set a great precedent.
The lesson here is pretty simple. Don't mess with powerful people. This is no doubt humiliating to John McCain's campaign, and there's no way for him to twist it for the good. Paris's campaign ad is more intelligent than his. I'm not just talking about Paris's "energy crisis" speech which had me rolling on the floor. I'm talking about the intelligence of the choice to do it. No matter how much help she had in making the video, it's her video. She's the artist with the workshop.
Art Guy in Jeans says insults are hurtful. The political ad campaigns this year are generally unintelligent, and McCain's was the lowest yet. Powerful Paris Hilton is an icon in her lawn chair and bathing suit, an artistic symbol that politicians aren't the center of the world.
In an art historical view of the world, patrons of the arts come in all shapes and sizes. But we tend to look back at art that the entire public could be exposed to. This art is generally patronized by Popes, monks, wealthy bankers, Sun Kings, emperors, pharoahs, etc. Rich people. Not presidential candidates in debt. A political campaign may or may not be a work of art. But any public statement can be subject to artistic criticism. Public art is not a force to be reckoned with, and Paris Hilton has just made herself a great art patron of our day.
My fellow Northeastern Corridorians are shocked to see the political world's Hollywood scapegoat actually show up with a presidential campaign video in response to John McCain's derogatory "celebrity" campaign video. Art Guy loves it and isn't terribly surprised. The Hiltons are rich and powerful, and Paris is a prolific Hollywood Star. The medium is "joke presidential campaign ad." Video is her bag. Who knows how many directors, script writers, and comedians she networks with. Probably more than Senator John McCain.
I've seen these jerks beat up on Hollywood icons in political contexts all the time. From the tired "Governator" name-calling of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the cheap-shot interview of Britney Spears in Micheal Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11, it's old and it's low, and Art Guy in Jeans is sick of it. First reaction to Paris Hilton is, you've done a great thing and set a great precedent.
The lesson here is pretty simple. Don't mess with powerful people. This is no doubt humiliating to John McCain's campaign, and there's no way for him to twist it for the good. Paris's campaign ad is more intelligent than his. I'm not just talking about Paris's "energy crisis" speech which had me rolling on the floor. I'm talking about the intelligence of the choice to do it. No matter how much help she had in making the video, it's her video. She's the artist with the workshop.
Art Guy in Jeans says insults are hurtful. The political ad campaigns this year are generally unintelligent, and McCain's was the lowest yet. Powerful Paris Hilton is an icon in her lawn chair and bathing suit, an artistic symbol that politicians aren't the center of the world.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
10 Favorite Italian Artists Profile: Giovanni da Milano
Here was a high point in interest, technique, and style that fed Florentine Art of the 14th century. We're talking circa 1360 here. Others might call this a low point; Art Guy in Jeans understands it to be a high point.
It's not soon after the Black Death, so whether or not you agree that the Black Death caused a conscious revival of 13th century "medieval art," you can at least admit that Florence was changing and there had been turmoil caused by the 1348 epidemic. Was Giovanni da Milano's new style - rejection of linear perspective, usage of unnatural color, and separation of God from the earthly realm- an epidemic in painting? It spread like mad. Orcagna was doing it, Francesco Traini was doing it, it was the most popular style of the time. It involved de-naturalizing the art and depicting God as a terrifying heavenly being.
Maybe they couldn't do any better? That's a lousy explanation. It just doesn't hold water. Giovanni da Milano is my hero because he clearly COULD paint naturalistically. Art Guy has two stunning examples: A face of Christ on the ceiling of the Rinuccini Chapel (Santa Croce) and a Virgin and Child that quakes with emotion in the Accademia. (Yeah, you have to go upstairs to see it.) These two works are clear progressions of the naturalistic revolution that started with the Pisanos and Giotto and were carried on towards perspectival rendering and vivid facial individualism with the Lorenzettis and Martini. Milano could do it.
For his big fresco commissions, however, he did no such thing. Using the same composition as Taddeo Gaddi's "Life of the Virgin" cycle in the same church, Milano gives Santa Croce's Rinuccini Chapel a dark-fairy-tale edge. The compositions are jagged and highly unnatural. The houses are depicted in such a way as to frame the figures rather than retreat realistically into space. The figures are tall, rigid, and above all, angry. It's not fun watching Joachim get expelled from the temple - every figure stares at him disapprovingly from within the dungeonous temple while he cowers and soaks in shame. Art Guy in Jeans gets chills when he looks at this stuff.
Our hero really digs this Giovanni da Milano guy even though he hasn't seen a whole lot of his work. The stuff our hero has seen is near perfect. Milano is of a breed of artist who could shift their style elegantly for the purposes of specific patrons - and with bone-crushing authority and conviction!
It's not soon after the Black Death, so whether or not you agree that the Black Death caused a conscious revival of 13th century "medieval art," you can at least admit that Florence was changing and there had been turmoil caused by the 1348 epidemic. Was Giovanni da Milano's new style - rejection of linear perspective, usage of unnatural color, and separation of God from the earthly realm- an epidemic in painting? It spread like mad. Orcagna was doing it, Francesco Traini was doing it, it was the most popular style of the time. It involved de-naturalizing the art and depicting God as a terrifying heavenly being.
Maybe they couldn't do any better? That's a lousy explanation. It just doesn't hold water. Giovanni da Milano is my hero because he clearly COULD paint naturalistically. Art Guy has two stunning examples: A face of Christ on the ceiling of the Rinuccini Chapel (Santa Croce) and a Virgin and Child that quakes with emotion in the Accademia. (Yeah, you have to go upstairs to see it.) These two works are clear progressions of the naturalistic revolution that started with the Pisanos and Giotto and were carried on towards perspectival rendering and vivid facial individualism with the Lorenzettis and Martini. Milano could do it.
For his big fresco commissions, however, he did no such thing. Using the same composition as Taddeo Gaddi's "Life of the Virgin" cycle in the same church, Milano gives Santa Croce's Rinuccini Chapel a dark-fairy-tale edge. The compositions are jagged and highly unnatural. The houses are depicted in such a way as to frame the figures rather than retreat realistically into space. The figures are tall, rigid, and above all, angry. It's not fun watching Joachim get expelled from the temple - every figure stares at him disapprovingly from within the dungeonous temple while he cowers and soaks in shame. Art Guy in Jeans gets chills when he looks at this stuff.
Our hero really digs this Giovanni da Milano guy even though he hasn't seen a whole lot of his work. The stuff our hero has seen is near perfect. Milano is of a breed of artist who could shift their style elegantly for the purposes of specific patrons - and with bone-crushing authority and conviction!
Monday, July 28, 2008
10 Favorite Italian Artists Profile: Duccio
"I am Duccio," said Duccio, and Art Guy in Jeans dug it.
When Duccio created Siena's Altarpiece, the humongous Miesta, people thought it was freaky, people thought it was huge, and people thought it was so awesome that it was time to declare 3 bank holidays. So they did, and they paraded the giant altarpiece around the city. We're talking circa 1300 here. Was peak interest in the art world supposed to be 1500? I don't know. 3 bank holidays is a lot of days to parade around a cathedral altarpiece, you'd think maybe we were in some kind of Renaissance then.
But whoa, whoa, back up. Isn't Duccio more medieval?
Art Guy in Jeans would like to sit down and discuss this for a minute. Duccio's style is not what we would associate with the Renaissance, is it? At least not the traditional view of it. The perspective is...lacking, the figures are...stacked, the colors are...unnaturally bright and vibrant, the drapery is...stylized. What's so great about it?
"All those things you just mentioned," says our hero.
Siena and Florence were rivals, bitter ones. Florence's big guy at the time was Giotto; Siena's was Duccio. Weighty figures, linear perspective, and narrative focus were among Giotto's innovations. That just wasn't Duccio's or Siena's bag. Siena isn't about linearity. Just look at the streets. Look at the difference between the Piazza del Campo in Siena and the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, grand squares meant to outshine each other. Siena's is curvaceous and decorative. Florence's is heavy and authoritative. They both rock, and they were both innovative.
Back to Duccio. Compare his Rucellai Madonna to Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna. Duccio goes with a highly refined aesthetic rich with color, decoration, and other-worldliness. As you might know, I'm ripping a lot of this off my Syracuse-in-Florence Black Death professor Jennifer Cook. I learned this stuff in her class, and I highly recommend it if you take the Syracuse Junior Abroad Program in Florence.
Our hero wants to proceed with Duccio. Duccio is majestic, Duccio is powerful, Duccio is endlessly creative. Duccio is technically advanced, Duccio is Siena's standard for beauty (and you can't argue with Siena's beauty), and Duccio is an icon. Later Sienese innovators, such as Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti Brothers, were paying lip service to this king of Sienese color, even though their work uses a lot of Giotto's innovations.
Duccio, Cimabue, and Giotto. Just look at their stuff. They've each perfected a style. Art Guy would hesitate to say, for instance, that Giotto is taking what Cimabue was doing and just going the next step. Cimabue is no stepping stone. He's the master of the Cimabue style, and the Cimabue style is VERY distinct. Same thing goes for Duccio in spades. He went full-steam ahead with his own take on colorful religious other-worldly art, and the result is spectacular.
Art Guy in Jeans demands full praise of Duccio and his achievements, and he would like to see the artistic "Renaissance" as a process beginning almost right after the sack of Rome and going through hundreds of different trials and tribulations including the Byzantine, the Romanesque, the Gothic, the Sienese school, the Black Death style, the Giottesque Revival, the Northern 15th century, the Medici patronage era, the Perugino style, the style in the manner of Michelangelo (aka Mannerism), the Italian Baroque, the Northern Baroque, and so on and so forth until contemporary art. Our hero thinks there was a high interest in art throughout this entire period; some call it the "Long Renaissance." Calling half of those things the Renaissance really isn't fair is it? There is just as big a leap from Piero della Francesca to Leonardo da Vinci as there is from Duccio to Masaccio. Duccio marks the absolute peak of one of these niches. Go Duccio.
Just look at this stuff, man!
When Duccio created Siena's Altarpiece, the humongous Miesta, people thought it was freaky, people thought it was huge, and people thought it was so awesome that it was time to declare 3 bank holidays. So they did, and they paraded the giant altarpiece around the city. We're talking circa 1300 here. Was peak interest in the art world supposed to be 1500? I don't know. 3 bank holidays is a lot of days to parade around a cathedral altarpiece, you'd think maybe we were in some kind of Renaissance then.
But whoa, whoa, back up. Isn't Duccio more medieval?
Art Guy in Jeans would like to sit down and discuss this for a minute. Duccio's style is not what we would associate with the Renaissance, is it? At least not the traditional view of it. The perspective is...lacking, the figures are...stacked, the colors are...unnaturally bright and vibrant, the drapery is...stylized. What's so great about it?
"All those things you just mentioned," says our hero.
Siena and Florence were rivals, bitter ones. Florence's big guy at the time was Giotto; Siena's was Duccio. Weighty figures, linear perspective, and narrative focus were among Giotto's innovations. That just wasn't Duccio's or Siena's bag. Siena isn't about linearity. Just look at the streets. Look at the difference between the Piazza del Campo in Siena and the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, grand squares meant to outshine each other. Siena's is curvaceous and decorative. Florence's is heavy and authoritative. They both rock, and they were both innovative.
Back to Duccio. Compare his Rucellai Madonna to Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna. Duccio goes with a highly refined aesthetic rich with color, decoration, and other-worldliness. As you might know, I'm ripping a lot of this off my Syracuse-in-Florence Black Death professor Jennifer Cook. I learned this stuff in her class, and I highly recommend it if you take the Syracuse Junior Abroad Program in Florence.
Our hero wants to proceed with Duccio. Duccio is majestic, Duccio is powerful, Duccio is endlessly creative. Duccio is technically advanced, Duccio is Siena's standard for beauty (and you can't argue with Siena's beauty), and Duccio is an icon. Later Sienese innovators, such as Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti Brothers, were paying lip service to this king of Sienese color, even though their work uses a lot of Giotto's innovations.
Duccio, Cimabue, and Giotto. Just look at their stuff. They've each perfected a style. Art Guy would hesitate to say, for instance, that Giotto is taking what Cimabue was doing and just going the next step. Cimabue is no stepping stone. He's the master of the Cimabue style, and the Cimabue style is VERY distinct. Same thing goes for Duccio in spades. He went full-steam ahead with his own take on colorful religious other-worldly art, and the result is spectacular.
Art Guy in Jeans demands full praise of Duccio and his achievements, and he would like to see the artistic "Renaissance" as a process beginning almost right after the sack of Rome and going through hundreds of different trials and tribulations including the Byzantine, the Romanesque, the Gothic, the Sienese school, the Black Death style, the Giottesque Revival, the Northern 15th century, the Medici patronage era, the Perugino style, the style in the manner of Michelangelo (aka Mannerism), the Italian Baroque, the Northern Baroque, and so on and so forth until contemporary art. Our hero thinks there was a high interest in art throughout this entire period; some call it the "Long Renaissance." Calling half of those things the Renaissance really isn't fair is it? There is just as big a leap from Piero della Francesca to Leonardo da Vinci as there is from Duccio to Masaccio. Duccio marks the absolute peak of one of these niches. Go Duccio.
Just look at this stuff, man!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
10 Favorite Italian Artists Profile: Michelangelo
Art Guy in Jeans digs on Michelangelo. "David" wiped away the old version of beauty in the eyes of man and put a new one in its place.
80 years between Pietas but Art Guy still can't decide which one he likes more. All he can say is Casa Buonarroti has those marvelous torsos in relief that he couldn't envision any other way. This stuff is idealized, yes, and that's what's so great.
But seriously, let's talk about Capella Medici, since we've been avoiding it. Um...it's awesome. Okay, so the women look a little manly. According to Michelangelo, they look better that way, and Art Guy in Jeans suggests we let the man with the chisel do his thing since sculpting in marble is a good way to break your back if you hit it the wrong way. Can it really be possible that a space works so well together? So well proportioned, architecturally and sculpturally. The space is intimate and monumental at the same time, a near impossible, and our hero emphasizes, a near impossible feat.
But what about that Sistine Chapel - Art Guy in Jeans was hoping you'd ask! Remarkable, yes. Awesome, yes. Biblical, yes. Orangish, no. I think we should do whatever is in our power to restore the original colors of artwork, which has so graciously been done to the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. So all those scholars whose Michelangelo/colorism dissertations took for granted the orangishness of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Art Guy in Jeans wants you to go and rewrite it all. All of it. Until it's correct.
Our hero also thinks we should remove the painted pants and t-shirts of the Last Judgment. They should all be gone. Art Guy in Jeans wants naked men to spill down into the chapel like a waterfall of flesh. Imagine how much more intense the emotions would be. Our hero likes Mike.
Bacchus = awesome. Piazza Campidoglio = awesome. Doni Madonna = awesome. Santo Spirito Crucifix = awesome. For more information, consult Art Guy in Jeans' favorite partner blog,
Michelangelo and Nutella
There is a glorious tribute on this page, a tribute the likes of which Art Guy in Jeans will some day return to the creator of the Michelangelo and Nutella blog, an artist with as capable a hand and as fiery a passion as Mike himself. The one and only Alyssa Giangregorio, esteemed BFF of Michelangelo and actual BFF in past life.
Art Guy in Jeans wants you to rest on what you have learned. When you have fully researched and observed the glory of Michelangelo, it may be time to view the Duccio profile - but not until you're ready to be open minded, or it's wasted on you.
80 years between Pietas but Art Guy still can't decide which one he likes more. All he can say is Casa Buonarroti has those marvelous torsos in relief that he couldn't envision any other way. This stuff is idealized, yes, and that's what's so great.
But seriously, let's talk about Capella Medici, since we've been avoiding it. Um...it's awesome. Okay, so the women look a little manly. According to Michelangelo, they look better that way, and Art Guy in Jeans suggests we let the man with the chisel do his thing since sculpting in marble is a good way to break your back if you hit it the wrong way. Can it really be possible that a space works so well together? So well proportioned, architecturally and sculpturally. The space is intimate and monumental at the same time, a near impossible, and our hero emphasizes, a near impossible feat.
But what about that Sistine Chapel - Art Guy in Jeans was hoping you'd ask! Remarkable, yes. Awesome, yes. Biblical, yes. Orangish, no. I think we should do whatever is in our power to restore the original colors of artwork, which has so graciously been done to the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. So all those scholars whose Michelangelo/colorism dissertations took for granted the orangishness of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Art Guy in Jeans wants you to go and rewrite it all. All of it. Until it's correct.
Our hero also thinks we should remove the painted pants and t-shirts of the Last Judgment. They should all be gone. Art Guy in Jeans wants naked men to spill down into the chapel like a waterfall of flesh. Imagine how much more intense the emotions would be. Our hero likes Mike.
Bacchus = awesome. Piazza Campidoglio = awesome. Doni Madonna = awesome. Santo Spirito Crucifix = awesome. For more information, consult Art Guy in Jeans' favorite partner blog,
Michelangelo and Nutella
There is a glorious tribute on this page, a tribute the likes of which Art Guy in Jeans will some day return to the creator of the Michelangelo and Nutella blog, an artist with as capable a hand and as fiery a passion as Mike himself. The one and only Alyssa Giangregorio, esteemed BFF of Michelangelo and actual BFF in past life.
Art Guy in Jeans wants you to rest on what you have learned. When you have fully researched and observed the glory of Michelangelo, it may be time to view the Duccio profile - but not until you're ready to be open minded, or it's wasted on you.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
The Value of Critiquing, Bashing, and Disliking
After the bizarre conclusion of Art Guy’s adventure in the old library, I’d like to explore the importance of saying, “This doesn’t appeal to me,” when looking at art. Depending on who you are with, this can take a lot of nerve to say or no nerve at all. If you are unenthused about the Louvre, and you are in the Louvre with a group of other unenthused tourists, it’s not as daring as you think it is to say you don’t like the Mona Lisa. Likely, nobody in your group will disagree. In fact, most people I talk to about the Louvre go out on this very limb to say that they didn’t think much of the Mona Lisa when they saw it. Perhaps it was smaller than they thought it was going to be.
I can’t name a single person in my generation who was jarred or overwhelmed by the Mona Lisa. Appropriately, I am less surprised each time someone rejects it. The complaint about the Louvre is that it is “overwhelming,” while the Mona Lisa is “underwhelming.” Leonardo da Vinci is not around to hear this critique. Nor is Napoleon, whose stolen bounty comprises much of the Louvre’s collection. The only people around to hear the critique is the new hipness-driven generation. In this day and age, the Mona Lisa isn’t as hip as, say, Klimt’s The Kiss. The Louvre isn’t as hip as, say, the MoMA. It’s time to accept that it’s no longer daring to bash Mona; rather, it’s become quite normal. In fact, if I raved about the Mona Lisa, I would reveal myself as a simple-minded dinosaur, a relic of the old days, and I would be doubly bashed for liking something that “everyone likes.”
We should hesitate before we take this trend to heart and conclude that Mona Lisa hasn’t stood the test of time. The “test of time” is a flimsy concept I’ve never really taken to. Victorian art was steadily plummeting towards worthlessness in the 1970’s, but there has been a recent revival in interest. Medieval icons art were out of fashion since the dawn of the Renaissance, until 20th century scholarship has revealed its genius of color, otherworldly stylization, and religious monumentality. Maybe it’s coming time for someone to say, “Quit bashing the Mona Lisa. It’s a gorgeous painting.”
My Mona Lisa example serves as a foil for the rest of my study. I’m trying to say that the most important critiquing isn’t the easy kind. It’s the kind where the targeted artwork is getting more praise than it deserves for irrational reasons you can pinpoint. It is important to note that every artist can have a bad day. The perfect test is to go through a museum without looking at the labels and pick your 10 favorite paintings. Then look at who painted them. My former roommate, a Michelangelo buff while we studied in Florence, thought the statues in the Medici Chapel were just dreadful.
If you go on praising the artists that are used to praise, you are burying their lesser-known contemporaries. Sometimes these artists deserve praise too, and the curators can’t hang everything. Poor Marsden Hartley, an American Impressionist who doesn’t fit into any of the MoMA’s “movements,” and therefore is absent from America’s great modern art museum. Poor Botticelli, for hundreds of years seen as an underdeveloped stepping stone on the way to Raphael. It took the Pre-Raphaelites, critiquing the style of Raphael, to shed light on the importance of Botticelli. So if you don’t get negative about art you don’t like, you’re ultimately suppressing art that you do like.
If you critique something or someone, and someone says you’re being mean, think about it. I think it’s mean to bash people that everyone bashes, like Britney Spears. I think it’s a lot less mean to bring everyone’s not-so-heroic hero back to Earth. Ultimately you have to ask yourself, do you like it or not? You’ll find that result very hard to negotiate.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
The Old Library (Part Three - Art and Ritual in the Bowels of Modernism)
You've been waiting anxiously for the conclusion of this saga of the Old Library, and its pending demolition. In our last episode, Art Guy in Jeans broke into the top floor of the building to find a secret stash of lost literature. Believing this secret to be the reason for the developers' demolition plans, our hero was about to escape with some evidence, when all of a sudden...
"Who disturbs the fiery night of the Library at Old Oak Lane?" says a wiry voice from deep within the library.
Art Guy stumbles and falls from a bookshelf he is climbing in order to reach the air vents. He hears footsteps quickly approaching. Our hero kills his flashlight and hides behind one row of stacks.
Peering through the bookshelves, Art Guy sees a terrifying sight. A gruesome old witch, holding a candle, has made her way into the secret room.
"Who's there!" she says and swings her candle around. She's hideous enough to have been a donor for Masaccio's Trinita, and she looks old enough too.
Art Guy watches carefully as the witch searches the stacks for a sign of life. She enters the Art History section. She loses focus on her task and starts browsing the literature. What is she up to?
She pulls out the lost copy of Vasari, the one Art Guy had been looking at earlier and so eagerly wanted to take home, the only version he had ever seen that fairly praises Duccio and the rest of the Sienese school. Now our hero looks on with horror as the witch holds the book against the candle flame and slowly incinerates it.
Art Guy puts his knuckle in his mouth to stop from screaming. Vasari will continue to go on in history as a biased storyteller with nothing better to do than whitewash the frescoes for which he feigns praise and build monumental corridors onto historic bridges. The witch then pulls out the comprehensive text on landscape architecture.
"Stop! Please stop!" our hero hears himself say.
"You there," says the witch. "Nobody has disturbed our fiery nights since this building was first built. Explain yourself and I'll decide how long you have to live."
Art Guy looks at the monster and realizes that her threat is a weak one. She stands at about 4 foot 6 and carries no weapon. Art Guy, on the other hand, possesses his state-of-the-art razor sharp Florence museum pass.
"Burn one more book, and you'll have to answer to the Galleria dell'Accademia, you bitch!"
Our hero flings his museum card at the witch and hits her right in the jugular. However, nothing issues from the ghoul's withered neck. It is clear that she is inhuman.
"I'm undead," she says, pulling the card from her neck. "And I'm afraid this pass does not grant you access to the building."
Fifteen minutes later, our hero finds himself bound up in rope in the depths of the old library. A furnace is going full blaze. It now makes sense why he saw smoke coming out of the chimney when he first entered the air vents. Art Guy can do nothing but pray that somehow Gus will come in after him.
Many witches are bustling about the furnace room, moving large cart-loads of books towards a big pile by the furnace. Three witches feed the fire with books. It's terrible.
Suddenly, several witches pick up our hero's chair and march him towards the furnace.
"Wait! Stop!" he says.
They do not listen. The vile old women bring our hero closer and closer to certain doom.
Suddenly, our hero has a thought.
"You want fire? I've got news for you pretty young ladies. They're gonna blow this building to smithereens. That's fire!"
The witches stop.
"What are you talking about, little boy?" asks the ugliest of all the witches.
"If you don't let me out of here, the demolition will go on as planned. I'm going to a hearing in town hall next week to stop the demolition. It's your only chance for survival."
"What makes you think they need you to vote down the demolition?" says the ghoul.
"I'm an art historian. I give our generation of art viewers a critical voice," our hero says.
"That voice sounds to me like, 'Please don't kill me, please don't kill me, I don't want to be burned, I don't want to be fried alive!'"
Art Guy steams as the witches laugh in riotous unison.
"Why is it that you burn books, old woman?" says our hero.
"We inhabited this building as librarians when it was first built and found that it was perfect for our secret rituals. The roof area is made inaccessible to your average suburbanite, so we take advantage of the tinted windows and mysterious architecture to hide away and burn the books that nobody reads anymore. The treasure trove you found was not treasure to the generation before yours. This art history gobbledeegook is better off in the atmosphere than on the shelves."
"What rituals?" says our hero, ignoring the latter comment.
"Why, sacred rituals you wouldn't understand. You live in a world of the secular."
"Try me."
"Well, we like to act out the Last Judgment. Are you familiar with that event and how it is portrayed in art?"
"Yes," says our hero.
"We try to act out the hottest inner circles of Dante's Inferno. Do you know this book?"
"Yes," says our hero, getting slightly more annoyed.
"Well, we judge the books and cast them into Hell. The books that are still on the shelves downstairs are still part of this world. The shelves we found you in are a sort of Purgatorio. But every book is eventually destined for the Inferno."
"What does this have to do with art?"
"Because we are the same agonized faces tumbling down in the Sistine Chapel. We are the rejected in Giotto's Scrovegni frescoes. We re-enact the circles of Hell, kind of like a play. We dance in the heat of Lucifer, as all the lost literature we burn is hurled down to the same destination where we are bound to live in Eternity. We know we cannot enter Heaven. So instead we are Hell's literature collectors, if you will, thriving on the heat of Dante's Inferno."
As Art Guy looks around him, the witches begin to moan and thrash their bodies about. It is a cruel drama they perform. They claw at each other and put out their candles in each others' skin.
Once again, the witches pick up our hero's chair and move him towards' the fire.
"Heat!" says our hero, fearlessly. "What heat! In Hell, there is no heat. Dante's Hell is the coldest place imaginable, the farthest place from God's warmth."
Every witch stops what they are doing.
"I didn't know that," says one witch, turning towards the hideous leader.
"You didn't read your Inferno closely enough," says our hero, all the while slicing the ropes behind his back with his museum pass. "And there are Last Judgments between Giotto and Michelangelo that you've forgotten about! What about the Black Death, and the Camposanto frescoes? You think your little skit can hold a candle to that? What does burning books have to do with human guilt? Where's your guilt?"
The witches back away, wide-eyed and disillusioned.
"Millions saw those frescoes and were moved to convert or repent. Who has seen your little play? What are you trying to achieve?" our hero says, rising from his chair, suddenly free from his ropes. "What is art without an audience? Nobody ever critiqued you. You've been living a joke."
No witch answers.
"Alright, I've gotta jet," says Art Guy. Our hero books it, no pun intended, out of the furnace room. He hurries through the air vents, rappels down the face of the old library, and finally greets Gus, who is relieved as can be to see his old friend again.
"Wow, Mr. Guy," Gus says after hearing everything. "You're completely full of it, but incredibly creative."
Come next Monday, the hearing is very interesting. Our hero tactfully decides not to mention the witches or the treasure trove. When asked to state his opinions on the historic significance of the old library, our hero says that nobody goes to the library anymore. The intentions of Brutalist architecture are mysterious and impenetrable. It's an art form without audience and a proven failure. If the will of the people is to tear it down, so be it.
The townsfolk, on the other hand, stand in defiance of Art Guy in Jeans. It turns out they don't want to part with it. They never saw much in it while it was standing, but in the face of demolition, they don't feel the town would be the same without it. It adds texture, variety, a certain unexpected quality to the city. The town hall votes down the demolition.
"Why did you say all those horrible things about the library?" says Gus later that afternoon, rather upset and astonished.
"I wanted to see if the town actually liked it or not. There's no sense in letting art go un-critiqued. Otherwise it's just a hiding place for witches," says our hero.
So ends the saga of the Old Library. It still stands proudly in the Northwest corner of Bumsville to this day. No one has ever re-entered the top floor of the Library at Old Oak Lane, but after our hero's strange encounter, smoke ceased coming out of the chimney late at night.
***
Art Guy in Jeans is sleeping on the train back from Bumsville. All of a sudden, the phone rings.
"Hello," says Art Guy.
"Ciao, Guy! Sono Giacomo, di Firenze!"
"Giacomo, come vai?"
"Bene, bene."
They continue in Italian, and our hero's friend from Florence finally gets to his point.
"They're going to destroy the old Piazza."
Our hero's blood runs cold.
"Which one, Giacomo? Piazza della Signoria? Piazza Santissima Annunziata?"
Giacomo is silent for a moment.
"Good Lord, Giacomo! Which one!"
"Piazza della Repubblica."
"Oh," says Art Guy in Jeans. "Oh dear. Anything but that."
"Who disturbs the fiery night of the Library at Old Oak Lane?" says a wiry voice from deep within the library.
Art Guy stumbles and falls from a bookshelf he is climbing in order to reach the air vents. He hears footsteps quickly approaching. Our hero kills his flashlight and hides behind one row of stacks.
Peering through the bookshelves, Art Guy sees a terrifying sight. A gruesome old witch, holding a candle, has made her way into the secret room.
"Who's there!" she says and swings her candle around. She's hideous enough to have been a donor for Masaccio's Trinita, and she looks old enough too.
Art Guy watches carefully as the witch searches the stacks for a sign of life. She enters the Art History section. She loses focus on her task and starts browsing the literature. What is she up to?
She pulls out the lost copy of Vasari, the one Art Guy had been looking at earlier and so eagerly wanted to take home, the only version he had ever seen that fairly praises Duccio and the rest of the Sienese school. Now our hero looks on with horror as the witch holds the book against the candle flame and slowly incinerates it.
Art Guy puts his knuckle in his mouth to stop from screaming. Vasari will continue to go on in history as a biased storyteller with nothing better to do than whitewash the frescoes for which he feigns praise and build monumental corridors onto historic bridges. The witch then pulls out the comprehensive text on landscape architecture.
"Stop! Please stop!" our hero hears himself say.
"You there," says the witch. "Nobody has disturbed our fiery nights since this building was first built. Explain yourself and I'll decide how long you have to live."
Art Guy looks at the monster and realizes that her threat is a weak one. She stands at about 4 foot 6 and carries no weapon. Art Guy, on the other hand, possesses his state-of-the-art razor sharp Florence museum pass.
"Burn one more book, and you'll have to answer to the Galleria dell'Accademia, you bitch!"
Our hero flings his museum card at the witch and hits her right in the jugular. However, nothing issues from the ghoul's withered neck. It is clear that she is inhuman.
"I'm undead," she says, pulling the card from her neck. "And I'm afraid this pass does not grant you access to the building."
Fifteen minutes later, our hero finds himself bound up in rope in the depths of the old library. A furnace is going full blaze. It now makes sense why he saw smoke coming out of the chimney when he first entered the air vents. Art Guy can do nothing but pray that somehow Gus will come in after him.
Many witches are bustling about the furnace room, moving large cart-loads of books towards a big pile by the furnace. Three witches feed the fire with books. It's terrible.
Suddenly, several witches pick up our hero's chair and march him towards the furnace.
"Wait! Stop!" he says.
They do not listen. The vile old women bring our hero closer and closer to certain doom.
Suddenly, our hero has a thought.
"You want fire? I've got news for you pretty young ladies. They're gonna blow this building to smithereens. That's fire!"
The witches stop.
"What are you talking about, little boy?" asks the ugliest of all the witches.
"If you don't let me out of here, the demolition will go on as planned. I'm going to a hearing in town hall next week to stop the demolition. It's your only chance for survival."
"What makes you think they need you to vote down the demolition?" says the ghoul.
"I'm an art historian. I give our generation of art viewers a critical voice," our hero says.
"That voice sounds to me like, 'Please don't kill me, please don't kill me, I don't want to be burned, I don't want to be fried alive!'"
Art Guy steams as the witches laugh in riotous unison.
"Why is it that you burn books, old woman?" says our hero.
"We inhabited this building as librarians when it was first built and found that it was perfect for our secret rituals. The roof area is made inaccessible to your average suburbanite, so we take advantage of the tinted windows and mysterious architecture to hide away and burn the books that nobody reads anymore. The treasure trove you found was not treasure to the generation before yours. This art history gobbledeegook is better off in the atmosphere than on the shelves."
"What rituals?" says our hero, ignoring the latter comment.
"Why, sacred rituals you wouldn't understand. You live in a world of the secular."
"Try me."
"Well, we like to act out the Last Judgment. Are you familiar with that event and how it is portrayed in art?"
"Yes," says our hero.
"We try to act out the hottest inner circles of Dante's Inferno. Do you know this book?"
"Yes," says our hero, getting slightly more annoyed.
"Well, we judge the books and cast them into Hell. The books that are still on the shelves downstairs are still part of this world. The shelves we found you in are a sort of Purgatorio. But every book is eventually destined for the Inferno."
"What does this have to do with art?"
"Because we are the same agonized faces tumbling down in the Sistine Chapel. We are the rejected in Giotto's Scrovegni frescoes. We re-enact the circles of Hell, kind of like a play. We dance in the heat of Lucifer, as all the lost literature we burn is hurled down to the same destination where we are bound to live in Eternity. We know we cannot enter Heaven. So instead we are Hell's literature collectors, if you will, thriving on the heat of Dante's Inferno."
As Art Guy looks around him, the witches begin to moan and thrash their bodies about. It is a cruel drama they perform. They claw at each other and put out their candles in each others' skin.
Once again, the witches pick up our hero's chair and move him towards' the fire.
"Heat!" says our hero, fearlessly. "What heat! In Hell, there is no heat. Dante's Hell is the coldest place imaginable, the farthest place from God's warmth."
Every witch stops what they are doing.
"I didn't know that," says one witch, turning towards the hideous leader.
"You didn't read your Inferno closely enough," says our hero, all the while slicing the ropes behind his back with his museum pass. "And there are Last Judgments between Giotto and Michelangelo that you've forgotten about! What about the Black Death, and the Camposanto frescoes? You think your little skit can hold a candle to that? What does burning books have to do with human guilt? Where's your guilt?"
The witches back away, wide-eyed and disillusioned.
"Millions saw those frescoes and were moved to convert or repent. Who has seen your little play? What are you trying to achieve?" our hero says, rising from his chair, suddenly free from his ropes. "What is art without an audience? Nobody ever critiqued you. You've been living a joke."
No witch answers.
"Alright, I've gotta jet," says Art Guy. Our hero books it, no pun intended, out of the furnace room. He hurries through the air vents, rappels down the face of the old library, and finally greets Gus, who is relieved as can be to see his old friend again.
"Wow, Mr. Guy," Gus says after hearing everything. "You're completely full of it, but incredibly creative."
Come next Monday, the hearing is very interesting. Our hero tactfully decides not to mention the witches or the treasure trove. When asked to state his opinions on the historic significance of the old library, our hero says that nobody goes to the library anymore. The intentions of Brutalist architecture are mysterious and impenetrable. It's an art form without audience and a proven failure. If the will of the people is to tear it down, so be it.
The townsfolk, on the other hand, stand in defiance of Art Guy in Jeans. It turns out they don't want to part with it. They never saw much in it while it was standing, but in the face of demolition, they don't feel the town would be the same without it. It adds texture, variety, a certain unexpected quality to the city. The town hall votes down the demolition.
"Why did you say all those horrible things about the library?" says Gus later that afternoon, rather upset and astonished.
"I wanted to see if the town actually liked it or not. There's no sense in letting art go un-critiqued. Otherwise it's just a hiding place for witches," says our hero.
So ends the saga of the Old Library. It still stands proudly in the Northwest corner of Bumsville to this day. No one has ever re-entered the top floor of the Library at Old Oak Lane, but after our hero's strange encounter, smoke ceased coming out of the chimney late at night.
***
Art Guy in Jeans is sleeping on the train back from Bumsville. All of a sudden, the phone rings.
"Hello," says Art Guy.
"Ciao, Guy! Sono Giacomo, di Firenze!"
"Giacomo, come vai?"
"Bene, bene."
They continue in Italian, and our hero's friend from Florence finally gets to his point.
"They're going to destroy the old Piazza."
Our hero's blood runs cold.
"Which one, Giacomo? Piazza della Signoria? Piazza Santissima Annunziata?"
Giacomo is silent for a moment.
"Good Lord, Giacomo! Which one!"
"Piazza della Repubblica."
"Oh," says Art Guy in Jeans. "Oh dear. Anything but that."
Monday, June 16, 2008
The Old Library (part two) - the brutal truth
We last left our hero and his good friend Gus in Bumsville, NC on the sad case of the 1960's library, a relic of Brutalist Architecture, and its pending demolition. A terrible man with slick-backed hair is running the demolition and cares little for modern architecture. Does anyone else? Art Guy in Jeans seeks the answer...
"Gus, my friend, I fear that in this day and age, most people wouldn't see this library the same way you see it," our hero says.
"What do you mean?" says Gus.
"Great architecture to them is either something very old or very new. As for the mid-modern stuff - Frank Lloyd Wright is safe, sure, and Corbusier, but other than that..."
"I don't understand. Are you saying the people of this noble town will let those schmucks tear down our old library?"
"Let them? Gus, they'd love for them to destroy that library. You could sell tickets to the demolition. The architectural style is dead and gone, and nobody likes it."
"I like it. Don't you like it, Art Guy?"
Art Guy is silent. He doesn't like his opinions set loose at the wrong moment.
"Gus, you asked me to help you save this building. And I think a building that wants saving deserves saving. I'm behind you every step of the way."
"Thanks, Mr. Guy!"
"Get me on the phone with the mayor," our hero says.
In the main office of the town hall, a Neo-Classical building of brick and wood, the mayor of Bumsville answers the phone.
"Who is this?... Old library? We don't have a library in this town, trying to waste my time?... What was that?... What, that old cemented up rat hole?... Uh, huh... Well I'll tell you what, Mr...what did you say your name was?... Well, okay, Mr. Guy, I'll tell you what...try getting 100 signatures of people who don't want to see that modernist disaster blown to smithereens, and I'll bring it to the floor... Yeah, you bet, good luck Mr. Guy... I'll be surprised if I hear from you again."
The mayor rolls his chair around playfully and then asks his secretary about the old library.
"I've been there a couple times," says the secretary. "But why do we need a nuclear space station to store books?"
Gus and Art Guy spend the whole day on the phone, hearing similar responses:
"That place gives me the willies. The roof looks like it could fall right off and crush my car."
"Why are the windows tinted? It's like the Shakespeare section is a headquarters for top-secret Government conspiracies."
"When I return books to the drop-off slot, I feel like I'm going to be gunned down by Imperial Troops."
By the end of the day, they only have interest from 15 people, and Art Guy is starting to long for the Medici's Lorenzian Library, part of the San Lorenzo church in Florence, designed by none other than Michelangelo Buonarroti. Now there's a library worth saving.
"Gus, let's have a beer," says our hero. "We've made our dent today."
Weeks go by on the project, and somehow they muster up 100 signatures. Most people interested in saving the building are batty old hermits from the distant suburbs. They remember the days of old, when cement spaceships were in their prime. The architect, a fellow by the name of H. L. Jones, is living in San Diego at the age of 74, and has donated 2,000 dollars to the cause, vaguely aware of having built the thing. Art Guy and Gus show the dumbfounded mayor the list of signatures, and at this point the hearing is scheduled for next Monday. Over a celebratory beer, Art Guy comes to a dark realization.
"Gus, they're going to bring it to the floor in less than a week," says our hero.
"Isn't it great! I knew we could do it. Where there's a will, there's a way," says Gus.
"No. We haven't won yet. They're going to bring it to the floor in a week, and everyone will vote for the side of demolition. We haven't rallied any public support from the town. The only people who signed were old bats from the suburbs."
"With a little help from your art historical database of a cranium we'll win with flying colors. What are you so worried about, Mr. Guy?"
"If only I had some inside piece of information, something really historical about that building to talk about, we'd seal a win."
Beers abandoned, our hero and Gus hop into the pickup truck and drive down to the old library on Old Oak Lane.
There's almost no moon, but the Bumsville sky is alive with stars. The library stands before the preservation-minded partners as Art Guy takes down some key dimensions in his moleskine.
"You know Gus, even if the demolition guys win in court, they'll need a lot more than dynamite to make a dent in that cement."
Art Guy, armed with climbing gear, takes half an hour to pick his way to the bottom lip of the cumbersome roof slab that signs the building as Brutalist. It's the tallest library he has ever ascended, and our hero needs his special fresco-viewing binoculars to see Gus's worried expression below. Our hero knows he is safe because of all the horizontal slabs that jut mysteriously from the building's fabric. Within twenty minutes, Art Guy has scaled the overhang of the roof, entered the air vents, and broken into the storage floor of the old library. Our hero never said it was going to be easy.
Art Guy switches on a flashlight and browses piles and piles of hardcovers that are long out of print. He even finds an art history section. He cannot believe what he's seeing: extensive studies on landscape architecture, a log of confessions to artistic atrocities written by Pietro Perugino. Art Guy reaches for an especially large volume of "unabridged" Vasari and reads a few pages - to find that it pays due respect to the Sienese. Our hero suddenly feels cold and vulnerable. There, what's that? He's gotten thoroughly distracted by the art literature in the top floor of the Brutalist library, but maybe this one will help his case. It's an overview of modernist architecture. He flips 60 percent of the way through and finds an entry on the very building he has broken into:
According to legend, The Jones Library in Bumsville, North Carolina, is home to a sacred spring of lost literature not on public display. The owners of the library have long ago lost the key, and only a planned demolition of this disposable example of eccentric '60's monumentality can reveal the lost treasures.
"Lost the key!" our hero says aloud, forgetting he's in a library.
How could they just lose the key? What is this, Florence? Our hero reflects on a hotel in central Florence that has access to an underground Roman road, but upon our hero's investigation of the location, the hotel owners confessed the key had gone to the city government, and nobody was allowed to see the road. Just as nobody was allowed to see the lost books of Bumsville, NC.
Apparently nobody tried sneaking in the vents. In this case, our hero has found the stash of lost books and has a burning desire to steal the objective version of Vasari. But what of the demolition? If this architecture book was true, maybe the demolition was all a plot to recover the treasure by pillaging the rubble. That would crush the slick hair guy in court and might be enough to save the building. Art Guy packs up only the architecture encyclopedia, remembering the scariest moment of Alladin, when the monkey wants to take more than just the lamp and the tiger cave gets angry and swallows up all the good guys. As our hero breaks for the ventilation infrastructure, a strange voice calls out from the bowels of the book dungeon.
"Who disturbs the fiery night of the library at Old Oak Lane!"
And the age old mystery of the tinted windows suddenly becomes clear...
(to be continued...)
"Gus, my friend, I fear that in this day and age, most people wouldn't see this library the same way you see it," our hero says.
"What do you mean?" says Gus.
"Great architecture to them is either something very old or very new. As for the mid-modern stuff - Frank Lloyd Wright is safe, sure, and Corbusier, but other than that..."
"I don't understand. Are you saying the people of this noble town will let those schmucks tear down our old library?"
"Let them? Gus, they'd love for them to destroy that library. You could sell tickets to the demolition. The architectural style is dead and gone, and nobody likes it."
"I like it. Don't you like it, Art Guy?"
Art Guy is silent. He doesn't like his opinions set loose at the wrong moment.
"Gus, you asked me to help you save this building. And I think a building that wants saving deserves saving. I'm behind you every step of the way."
"Thanks, Mr. Guy!"
"Get me on the phone with the mayor," our hero says.
In the main office of the town hall, a Neo-Classical building of brick and wood, the mayor of Bumsville answers the phone.
"Who is this?... Old library? We don't have a library in this town, trying to waste my time?... What was that?... What, that old cemented up rat hole?... Uh, huh... Well I'll tell you what, Mr...what did you say your name was?... Well, okay, Mr. Guy, I'll tell you what...try getting 100 signatures of people who don't want to see that modernist disaster blown to smithereens, and I'll bring it to the floor... Yeah, you bet, good luck Mr. Guy... I'll be surprised if I hear from you again."
The mayor rolls his chair around playfully and then asks his secretary about the old library.
"I've been there a couple times," says the secretary. "But why do we need a nuclear space station to store books?"
Gus and Art Guy spend the whole day on the phone, hearing similar responses:
"That place gives me the willies. The roof looks like it could fall right off and crush my car."
"Why are the windows tinted? It's like the Shakespeare section is a headquarters for top-secret Government conspiracies."
"When I return books to the drop-off slot, I feel like I'm going to be gunned down by Imperial Troops."
By the end of the day, they only have interest from 15 people, and Art Guy is starting to long for the Medici's Lorenzian Library, part of the San Lorenzo church in Florence, designed by none other than Michelangelo Buonarroti. Now there's a library worth saving.
"Gus, let's have a beer," says our hero. "We've made our dent today."
Weeks go by on the project, and somehow they muster up 100 signatures. Most people interested in saving the building are batty old hermits from the distant suburbs. They remember the days of old, when cement spaceships were in their prime. The architect, a fellow by the name of H. L. Jones, is living in San Diego at the age of 74, and has donated 2,000 dollars to the cause, vaguely aware of having built the thing. Art Guy and Gus show the dumbfounded mayor the list of signatures, and at this point the hearing is scheduled for next Monday. Over a celebratory beer, Art Guy comes to a dark realization.
"Gus, they're going to bring it to the floor in less than a week," says our hero.
"Isn't it great! I knew we could do it. Where there's a will, there's a way," says Gus.
"No. We haven't won yet. They're going to bring it to the floor in a week, and everyone will vote for the side of demolition. We haven't rallied any public support from the town. The only people who signed were old bats from the suburbs."
"With a little help from your art historical database of a cranium we'll win with flying colors. What are you so worried about, Mr. Guy?"
"If only I had some inside piece of information, something really historical about that building to talk about, we'd seal a win."
Beers abandoned, our hero and Gus hop into the pickup truck and drive down to the old library on Old Oak Lane.
There's almost no moon, but the Bumsville sky is alive with stars. The library stands before the preservation-minded partners as Art Guy takes down some key dimensions in his moleskine.
"You know Gus, even if the demolition guys win in court, they'll need a lot more than dynamite to make a dent in that cement."
Art Guy, armed with climbing gear, takes half an hour to pick his way to the bottom lip of the cumbersome roof slab that signs the building as Brutalist. It's the tallest library he has ever ascended, and our hero needs his special fresco-viewing binoculars to see Gus's worried expression below. Our hero knows he is safe because of all the horizontal slabs that jut mysteriously from the building's fabric. Within twenty minutes, Art Guy has scaled the overhang of the roof, entered the air vents, and broken into the storage floor of the old library. Our hero never said it was going to be easy.
Art Guy switches on a flashlight and browses piles and piles of hardcovers that are long out of print. He even finds an art history section. He cannot believe what he's seeing: extensive studies on landscape architecture, a log of confessions to artistic atrocities written by Pietro Perugino. Art Guy reaches for an especially large volume of "unabridged" Vasari and reads a few pages - to find that it pays due respect to the Sienese. Our hero suddenly feels cold and vulnerable. There, what's that? He's gotten thoroughly distracted by the art literature in the top floor of the Brutalist library, but maybe this one will help his case. It's an overview of modernist architecture. He flips 60 percent of the way through and finds an entry on the very building he has broken into:
According to legend, The Jones Library in Bumsville, North Carolina, is home to a sacred spring of lost literature not on public display. The owners of the library have long ago lost the key, and only a planned demolition of this disposable example of eccentric '60's monumentality can reveal the lost treasures.
"Lost the key!" our hero says aloud, forgetting he's in a library.
How could they just lose the key? What is this, Florence? Our hero reflects on a hotel in central Florence that has access to an underground Roman road, but upon our hero's investigation of the location, the hotel owners confessed the key had gone to the city government, and nobody was allowed to see the road. Just as nobody was allowed to see the lost books of Bumsville, NC.
Apparently nobody tried sneaking in the vents. In this case, our hero has found the stash of lost books and has a burning desire to steal the objective version of Vasari. But what of the demolition? If this architecture book was true, maybe the demolition was all a plot to recover the treasure by pillaging the rubble. That would crush the slick hair guy in court and might be enough to save the building. Art Guy packs up only the architecture encyclopedia, remembering the scariest moment of Alladin, when the monkey wants to take more than just the lamp and the tiger cave gets angry and swallows up all the good guys. As our hero breaks for the ventilation infrastructure, a strange voice calls out from the bowels of the book dungeon.
"Who disturbs the fiery night of the library at Old Oak Lane!"
And the age old mystery of the tinted windows suddenly becomes clear...
(to be continued...)
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
The Old Library (part one)
Today we find our hero contemplating citrus fruits in one of his favorite Florentine hangouts, the little island in the Boboli Gardens. It's June, and the citrus tree collection is out on the island, and Art Guy's dear friend, Harold the great blue heron, is stalking around between the embroidered parterres. How cool it would be to own the garden as a Medici, and walk out to the island to sugar some lemons for a royal snack.
Our hero's cell phone wakes him from his trance.
"Pronto," says Art Guy.
"Mr. Guy! It's your old friend Gus. Remember, we went to boarding school in Bumsville. Listen, you gotta help us! They're gonna tear down the old library and someone has to tell these developers how significant this thing is. It aught to be a National Landmark, and they want to destroy it!"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down," says Art Guy, "When is the demolition planned?"
"In 18 and a half months!"
"That doesn't give us much time to make a difference; I'll be there tomorrow morning."
Within 12 hours, Art Guy has found his passport, spoken to the right people, and booked a budget flight with only 2 changes and one train ride to Bumsville, North Carolina. As he steps off the platform and onto Main Street, our hero takes in the urban fabric and general architectural trends of the city, looking for clues. An important colonial port town, accessible via the Bums River, the place is made mostly of Tudor houses, spotted with some Victorian neighborhoods. The town center is bustling with ma and pa businesses beginning their days; the river and rail line has kept this place as a strategic cultural crossroads, while they've avoided chain activity and degradation by keeping out the highways. But the suburbs are spreading, and newer architecture is sprouting up where old Tudors have burnt to the ground. The developers have finally found this little known North Carolina heaven.
Art Guy grabs a copy of the Bumsville Gazette at the coffee shop but doesn't find anything on the demolition of the "old library," which our hero, for the life of him, can't remember ever going to. He always used the school library. After the coffee grows cold, our hero decides to call Gus.
"Gus, where's the old library? For the life of me, I just can't remember..."
"Oh it's at 3rd and Old Oak Lane, I'll meet you there. So glad you made it in one piece!"
10 minutes later, they stand before it. It's a colossus. Reminiscent of DC's FBI building, it's a masterstroke of late 1960's Brutalist architecture. Rectangular concrete slabs puncture the atmosphere, including an over-sized roof that gives the library an edge of cumbersome monumentality. The windows are tinted black.
"Ahh...there she blows," says Gus.
"Wow, these things really had a hayday in the States," says our hero. "Only now are they beginning to get torn town. They usually go without a murmur from the public."
"We have to stop them!" Gus says.
"Stop who?" says a tall oily-haired man behind them.
"The developers. They want to demolish this historic building," says Gus.
"You mean me. I'm in charge of this project, and it's due to happen in just 18 months. There's no stopping us now." says the oily-haired man. He grins and pulls on a cigarette.
Art Guy begins sketching in his moleskine. "What if the city hall votes it down?" our hero says.
"Before they even bring it to the floor, you'll need at least a hundred signatures from civilians who don't want that modernist disaster to be blown to smithereens." The oily-haired man can't help but laugh like a vampire. He then coughs twice on his smoke.
"You know what's a disaster?" says Gus. "It's people like you sticking your money into the cracks, when these issues aren't part of your daily life."
"Well, I won't deny I have a lot of money. But in my experience, sticking dynamite in the cracks is a lot more effective."
"I'll tell you where to stick your dynamite..."
"Alright," says Art Guy, "We'll work on those signatures. Good day to you, Sir."
"Let's go back to my place, Mr. Guy," says Gus, "and have some intelligent conversation."
That night, our hero and his concerned colleague look through the phone book for the numbers of people Gus knows well enough to convince.
"I have a suggestion," says Art Guy, "for when you call them."
"Yes, anything, that's why I asked you to come down here!"
"Okay," says our hero. "When you say, 'they're going to tear down the old library,' to your friends, and they can't remember what old library you're talking about, don't elaborate. Just tell them it's the old library."
"But what about it's historical significance? Surely, I should tell them that."
"Uh, yeah, okay. Tell them it's part of a significant art movement that was implemented in historic sections of Washington DC and Boston."
"Should I tell them what it looks like?"
"God no."
(to be continued...)
Our hero's cell phone wakes him from his trance.
"Pronto," says Art Guy.
"Mr. Guy! It's your old friend Gus. Remember, we went to boarding school in Bumsville. Listen, you gotta help us! They're gonna tear down the old library and someone has to tell these developers how significant this thing is. It aught to be a National Landmark, and they want to destroy it!"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down," says Art Guy, "When is the demolition planned?"
"In 18 and a half months!"
"That doesn't give us much time to make a difference; I'll be there tomorrow morning."
Within 12 hours, Art Guy has found his passport, spoken to the right people, and booked a budget flight with only 2 changes and one train ride to Bumsville, North Carolina. As he steps off the platform and onto Main Street, our hero takes in the urban fabric and general architectural trends of the city, looking for clues. An important colonial port town, accessible via the Bums River, the place is made mostly of Tudor houses, spotted with some Victorian neighborhoods. The town center is bustling with ma and pa businesses beginning their days; the river and rail line has kept this place as a strategic cultural crossroads, while they've avoided chain activity and degradation by keeping out the highways. But the suburbs are spreading, and newer architecture is sprouting up where old Tudors have burnt to the ground. The developers have finally found this little known North Carolina heaven.
Art Guy grabs a copy of the Bumsville Gazette at the coffee shop but doesn't find anything on the demolition of the "old library," which our hero, for the life of him, can't remember ever going to. He always used the school library. After the coffee grows cold, our hero decides to call Gus.
"Gus, where's the old library? For the life of me, I just can't remember..."
"Oh it's at 3rd and Old Oak Lane, I'll meet you there. So glad you made it in one piece!"
10 minutes later, they stand before it. It's a colossus. Reminiscent of DC's FBI building, it's a masterstroke of late 1960's Brutalist architecture. Rectangular concrete slabs puncture the atmosphere, including an over-sized roof that gives the library an edge of cumbersome monumentality. The windows are tinted black.
"Ahh...there she blows," says Gus.
"Wow, these things really had a hayday in the States," says our hero. "Only now are they beginning to get torn town. They usually go without a murmur from the public."
"We have to stop them!" Gus says.
"Stop who?" says a tall oily-haired man behind them.
"The developers. They want to demolish this historic building," says Gus.
"You mean me. I'm in charge of this project, and it's due to happen in just 18 months. There's no stopping us now." says the oily-haired man. He grins and pulls on a cigarette.
Art Guy begins sketching in his moleskine. "What if the city hall votes it down?" our hero says.
"Before they even bring it to the floor, you'll need at least a hundred signatures from civilians who don't want that modernist disaster to be blown to smithereens." The oily-haired man can't help but laugh like a vampire. He then coughs twice on his smoke.
"You know what's a disaster?" says Gus. "It's people like you sticking your money into the cracks, when these issues aren't part of your daily life."
"Well, I won't deny I have a lot of money. But in my experience, sticking dynamite in the cracks is a lot more effective."
"I'll tell you where to stick your dynamite..."
"Alright," says Art Guy, "We'll work on those signatures. Good day to you, Sir."
"Let's go back to my place, Mr. Guy," says Gus, "and have some intelligent conversation."
That night, our hero and his concerned colleague look through the phone book for the numbers of people Gus knows well enough to convince.
"I have a suggestion," says Art Guy, "for when you call them."
"Yes, anything, that's why I asked you to come down here!"
"Okay," says our hero. "When you say, 'they're going to tear down the old library,' to your friends, and they can't remember what old library you're talking about, don't elaborate. Just tell them it's the old library."
"But what about it's historical significance? Surely, I should tell them that."
"Uh, yeah, okay. Tell them it's part of a significant art movement that was implemented in historic sections of Washington DC and Boston."
"Should I tell them what it looks like?"
"God no."
(to be continued...)
Monday, June 2, 2008
Why Art is More Important than you could Ever Imagine
To imagine how important something is, you have to conceive of a world without it and see how well you would get along in that world. With art, this may be impossible. But let’s give it a shot anyway. We could try being James Stewart in a cruel waste land where art had “never been born,” but even its magical creator/our guardian angel Art Guy in Jeans, no matter how creative he is, will initially be at a loss. A world without art is a world without aesthetic design, visual advertising, or cool cars. James Stewart would be tremendously confused. I can barely think of any objects that don’t incorporate art in their inception. Naturally occurring objects, I suppose.
So let us imagine Bedford Falls as a completely natural landscape, with nothing made by human hands. Okay, maybe there are some people wielding primitive tools, tools that serve no purpose but to kill animals or glean water from the soil. If they are wearing clothing, it is for warmth, but the clothing should not be shaped in any aesthetically directed way. Let’s look around at the animals. There goes an eagle. “What a beautiful specimen,” says James Stewart (or George Bailey if you will). Watch out, George. To appreciate an object’s aesthetic value is to impose an idea of artistic creation onto its maker. George defends himself. “Now look, I didn’t say it’s a work of God; it’s just pretty, that’s all.” True enough. Maybe we can separate the pretty things that are naturally created from the pretty things that are artistically created. In other words, it’s not fair to call clown fish works of art, even though they look like someone painted them. Someone might say “Mother Nature really outdid herself” or something like that. But either you believe in a Divine Creator with artistic motivations, or nature is naturally selecting the more likely to live from the less likely to live, and those most likely to be born from sexually successful fathers and mothers are often the prettier ones. Don’t let the nature channels fool you. Clown fish do not willingly grow their own spots.
Alright, alright, we don’t have to dig much further into the “What is art” discussion today, except to reiterate that good looking cars are and that clown fish aren’t. Now, we can all agree that mountains and coral reefs look pretty damn good, and wandering around in nature results in some awesome photographs. Some people spend their entire careers in nature, and they never have to worry their heads about art. A lot of people would say that God is the supreme artist, and that I cannot argue with, but for the most part when people talk about “art” they are referring to visual works by human hands, intended for viewing and appreciating in and of itself. Even though I consider all architecture art, we’ll leave it out of the equation for right now, just to be extra harsh on my hypothesis.
In some ways, art is proof that we have moved from survival to civilization. It's the reason people choose Building and Loan over Potter's bank. Luxury has something to do with air conditioning, great food, and comfy furniture, but it has a whole lot more to do with visual surroundings. Every living room I walk into has pictures on the walls. Furniture I sit in is designed foremost to look excellent. A chair that perfectly performs its function to seat me is inferior in anyone’s eyes to the gorgeous one that also seats me. Art does not replace function, but by now it is a necessary addition. Even if you are not materialistic, you know your room has gone bad when you let it get dirty, and health issues are not the primary concern. Art isn’t necessarily what make our lives livable, it is what makes are lives enjoyable. At this point in our evolution, life has to be enjoyable.
So don’t let anyone tell you that art isn’t important. We know, at the level of visual surroundings, that art is crucial to enjoying life. Even if you work all day in a box and come home at night to a box, remember that minimalism is an art movement too, and some designer put a significant amount of effort into making your living/working space aesthetically interesting. If you don’t like it, that is proof that your opinions and life choices are shaped in some way by artistic preference. If you spend your whole life in tents in the Himalayas, and find it beautiful, you have created an aesthetic program for which parts of the world you would like to see, which is in itself a work of art. There is simply no escape from art.
Okay, but then why are art museums important? Why is Mona Lisa important? Why is it worth my time to go to a place just to look at something? Art Guy in Jeans can’t tell you why he spends hours and hours in museums, but he does, and he’s not particularly ashamed of it. If we accept that hanging a 20th century reproduction of the 15th century Birth of Venus by Botticelli can augment the beauty and the enjoyment level of sitting in your living room, then at the very least we can appreciate the original craftsmanship of the first version. Art Guy in Jeans gets a chill from looking into the tempera on panel eyes of Aphrodite as she drifts onto the shore in her sea shell vessel, a billowing breeze catching him off guard. Even if this fantastic event never happened, looking straight at the original painting is the closest we ever come to bearing witness to it. And it happens over and over as long as we stand in front of it. A life without Birth of Venus would be a life without this event. A life without art would ultimately be a life without representation of the events in the Bible, the events in Mythology, or the real events that we don’t get to see in person. In the case of Velasquez’s Las Meninas, a thousand words don't even do the trick. If anything, art is a tangible motivation for the perks of civilization over pure survival. To successfully reject art from your life, you would become a primitive being. Even if you were cool with this, it would be quite a trick to accomplish.
Friday, May 30, 2008
A new kind of superhero...
You're in distress. You just walked into an art museum, paid a large sum of money for the ticket, and now you find that nothing about it interests you. What's worse, your significant other cannot believe she was dragged here on a perfectly good Saturday, and she is waiting for you to say something about the painting before you. You look at the label. Pablo Picasso.
"Look, honey, it's a Picasso," you say.
She challenges you with her eyes. What about it? Do you know the first thing about Picasso? Tell me, is there something about you I don't know?
Thousands of Bostonians, Washingtonians, New Yorkers, and tourists to France and Italy face this dilemma every year. It usually results in avoidance of the museum districts. Or, if you do go back to the Smithsonian, it's straight to Air and Space - you "don't want to get into a big discussion about art today."
This is a job for Art Guy in Jeans.
"Demoiselles d'Avignon," says a young stranger to the left, "is seen largely as the painting that defines Primitivism. Picasso applied his studies of African art to the faces of the ladies at right."
You get a sudden rush of self-confidence.
"I would hardly call African art primitive; maybe they were after a different style."
"It's just the title of the genre, sweetie," says your day date.
"Yeah, well maybe our Western stereotypes have narrowed our understanding of world art. What do you think of that?" you say, turning to your left.
But the stranger has vanished.
And on and on you discuss Picasso and African art with your date, but there's one thing you can't get out of your head. Where did that art guy in jeans go?
He went to tactlessly dump all his art opinions, planned tours, and sarcastic insights on a new blog. Art Guy in Jeans reads tall piles of art history books with a single Red Bull, sees right through the agendas of art curators with powerful X ray vision, and can derail a locomotive with his dry wit. Art Guy in Jeans can cut through 3 hour lines with a razor sharp museum pass.
Art Guy in Jeans never has to wait in lines, all he has to do is give our generation of art viewers a critical voice.
"Look, honey, it's a Picasso," you say.
She challenges you with her eyes. What about it? Do you know the first thing about Picasso? Tell me, is there something about you I don't know?
Thousands of Bostonians, Washingtonians, New Yorkers, and tourists to France and Italy face this dilemma every year. It usually results in avoidance of the museum districts. Or, if you do go back to the Smithsonian, it's straight to Air and Space - you "don't want to get into a big discussion about art today."
This is a job for Art Guy in Jeans.
"Demoiselles d'Avignon," says a young stranger to the left, "is seen largely as the painting that defines Primitivism. Picasso applied his studies of African art to the faces of the ladies at right."
You get a sudden rush of self-confidence.
"I would hardly call African art primitive; maybe they were after a different style."
"It's just the title of the genre, sweetie," says your day date.
"Yeah, well maybe our Western stereotypes have narrowed our understanding of world art. What do you think of that?" you say, turning to your left.
But the stranger has vanished.
And on and on you discuss Picasso and African art with your date, but there's one thing you can't get out of your head. Where did that art guy in jeans go?
He went to tactlessly dump all his art opinions, planned tours, and sarcastic insights on a new blog. Art Guy in Jeans reads tall piles of art history books with a single Red Bull, sees right through the agendas of art curators with powerful X ray vision, and can derail a locomotive with his dry wit. Art Guy in Jeans can cut through 3 hour lines with a razor sharp museum pass.
Art Guy in Jeans never has to wait in lines, all he has to do is give our generation of art viewers a critical voice.
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