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EESTI ELU reedel, 14. jaanuaril 2022 — Friday, January 14, 2022
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On the Wall: Michel Sittow and the soul of portrait painting Vincent Teetsov Back in January 2018 and continuing until May of that year, a succession of artistic, musical, academic, and cine matic events took place around the facilities of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., falling in line with the 100th anniver sary of the Estonian Republic. One of these events was an exhibition based around the art of court painter Michel Sittow, who is known for his portraits of European royalty in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. After three and a half months in the United States, the paintings were shown at the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn, having been brought back to the painter’s place of origin. Michel Sittow is thought to have been born in 1469 in what was then the city of Reval. His mother, Margarethe Mölnare, was from a rich merchant family of Swedish-speaking Finns; and his father, Clawes van der Sittow, was Dutch. As his father was an artist whose painting and woodworking handiwork could be seen around the city, young Michel was first given a glimpse of his future profession early on. At age 15, Sittow moved to Bruges, in modern-day Bel gium, then part of the Hanseatic League, where he studied under the tutelage of Hans Memling for the next four years. It’s often expressed that this period of learning made him the painter that the world knows him as today. In these years, he was absorbing the stylistic ap proaches of early Netherlandish artists.
Accentuate the positive The slender one is certainly not embarrassed to publicly acknowledge a fondness, occa sionally too much so, for what in the Ashkenazi culture is known as schmaltz. It is actually rendered goose fat, used in cooking, but in Yiddish, the language of the Orthodox, it has become to mean sappiness, excessive sentimentality. And if there ever was a place for that, our trying times often simply cry out for emotion that is not negative. Then we have the German equivalent of this, schlagsahne. Again, food is the root, it means whipped cream, but is used often to describe excess. For whipped cream also is very fatty, cholesterol-laced, and unnecessary on either pastry or topping a good cuppa of java. But it does taste good occasion ally. Moderate consumption, as advised by Doctor Slim is, however, advised. The same applies to music. The lean machine may turn to
The point at which he began painting his most famous works was in the year 1492, when Queen Isabella I of Castile hired him and several other artists to work in her and King Ferdinand II’s court in Spain. In this position, he was employed for 10 years, becoming a favourite of the monarchy there. Between the end of this tenure and his death in 1525, Sittow completed projects across Europe, for royalty (in cluding members of the House of Habsburg) and churches in the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, and then back in Spain. Like most men of his time, Sittow followed in his father’s footsteps and took up the liveli hood and skills that were most feasible to attain. He had a secure springboard into getting the education he needed, which then opened up the most lucra tive form of artistic patronage around. Thematically, on this steady path, there wasn’t room for experimentation. Thus, in the artwork of Michel Sittow, we see an emphasis on portraits and religious imagery. It’s within these guidelines and in finer details that we find the artist behind the paintings. In The Virgin with Child and Apple, a painting attributed to Sittow, and also Catherine of Aragón as the Magdalene, the way he paints makes it such that features like hair have palpable weight and a respon siveness to light. Curls have a delicacy that settles beautifully against weathered faces. In Portrait of a Man with the Pearl, the beard he paints is wiry, and shimmers in strands between muted tones. Portrait
sappiness, overwrought tunes at times. As at present. The German whipped cream idea was applied to sentimental yet popular songs, performed and listened to at their peak in the 1930’s. Known as schlagers, they entered the Estonian musi cal scene, many popular songs had the German melody, Estonian words. The category is still vibrant and alive, just check the German pop charts, and take the journey on YouTube when you are feeling down. The slimster has for the last 22 months (has it really been that long?) relied on YouTube for musical diversion, much needed these days. And feels no shame listening to the likes of Julius La Rosa, one of the best crooners of all time, with some excellent performances being backed up by the best big bands of that era. Sinatra, Bing, Como, Bennett, Nat King Cole, the list is long. But certainly a favourite tho much maligned is Johnny Mercer. Perhaps the derision of others stems from the over wrought number “Autumn Leaves”, performed by many,
John Hand in the introductory lecture to the National Gallery of Art’s exhibition, we see the influence of illumination in the work of Sittow’s colleague in Spain, Juan de Flandes. In de Flandes’ painting The Temp tation of Christ, the Devil appears as a man in monastic robes, with webbed feet and horns, for which a similar scene interpretation appears in a manuscript that Queen Isabella I would have had in her posses sion. The style of these artists was permeable to other art around them.
Michel Sittow’s painting Portrait of a Man with the Pearl (15151517), from the Palacio Real de Madrid.
of a Man with a Book also stands out among the many faces seen in Sittow’s work, for the way he captures the man’s hopeful eyes looking up high to the left. Otherwise, the faces of royalty are vulnerable and downcast, as if they are aware of a deeper root of melancholy not known to the viewer. Is this intended to be relatable, or pious? Maryan W. Ainsworth from The Met in New York City writes, “...Early Netherlandish paintings reveal the pursuit of a common goal – to make the painted image vividly present and to render the unseen palpa ble... Artists attempted to en gage the viewer by depicting figures that serve as metaphors
but Mercer’s is perhaps the measuring stick. Mercer was one of three composers of the tune. The melody alone is truly sappy, (rivaled perhaps only by Dr. Zhivago’s “Lara’s theme”). Which was composed by Maurice Jarre. As an interesting sidebar, Jarre’s son Jean-Michel Jarre was and is among the most adventuresome and groundbreaking composers of electronic music. The pinecone, or apple, acorn did not fall far from the tree in compositional skills, but certainly the genres are as different as night and day. Pardon the digressions, yet they are necessary to explain the fixation that developed once again over the recent Christmas holidays. Boy, as these words are being typed in the New Year, they are still playing Yuletide sappy songs in our strip-mall’s muzak system. Enough already, it is a new year! Hence it must be emphasized that the splinter does listen to other songs on YouTube, having learned to search by category. Feel-good songs is a popular one presently. Can’t go wrong.
for ourselves in the way they pose, gesture, or directly ad dress us...” When oil paint was applied to wood panels, of which the Baltic region was a common source incidentally, Sittow al lowed us, to an extent, to deter mine the motive for thoughts portrayed. For all of these stylistic points, we can survey Sittow’s oeuvre of paintings, side by side with his contempo raries, and appraise it as a faith ful extension of the early Netherlandish style further across Europe. The J. Paul Getty Museum describes how manuscript illu mination also made its way into the style of Sittow and his peers. As pointed out by curator
Then there is by the month search – these aging ears heard, after many decades, the song “January” by Pilot, a most-up lifting melody from the 70’s. Sappy lyrics make it qualify for this pontification. It is also good to have millennial off spring; “Sidur Pidur Gaas Gaas” (Clutch brake gas gas) by 42GO is a good, bouncy qua si-rap song, with a bevy of Estonian beauties m aking the video surpass the value of the invigorating song. It was a new experience, the skinny one had never heard of this number. Do check this one out, if crooning schmaltz is not for you. Even if, like many and the undersigned, you do not care for rap. Finally, a Mercer favourite – and there are plenty to choose from, including “Moon River”, “It’s Only a Paper Moon” and the seasonally appropriate but scorned by the PC thought police who read things into
Because Sittow was not a ccustomed to signing his crea tions, detective work has been required to determine which paintings are his. Based on this sleuthing, it can be said that within the royal courts of Renaissance-era Europe, Michel Sittow’s hand guided the way we now see quite a few wellknown monarchs and other figures of the period. Yes, these images he made solidified the visibility of each subject’s power, but also their connection to humanity. After moving around so much, Sittow eventually re turned to Reval, where he had family property and was a member of the Guild of Kanut. In the wake of his career, the walls of palaces and churches were adorned with his creations, and then in museums and private collections. Artists have a different kind of social influence than queens, kings, dukes, or duchesses, but within their artistic efforts, por trait artists assemble a highlight reel of all the divergent, note worthy personalities they have gotten to know, and perhaps influenced themselves, in their lifetime. This is the soul of the art of painting portraits.
innocent words, “Baby It’s Cold Outside”. (These simple ears just loved the recording by Märt Matsoo and Raja Raudsepp, a duet of this lovely song a few years back). The gracile guy refers in the title to “Accentuate the Positive”, of which Mercer was the lyricist. The song opens thus: “You’ve got to accentuate the positive/ Eliminate the nega tive/ Latch on to the affirma tive/ Don’t mess with Mister-InBetween”. Now, how can you go wrong listening to this oldie, written for the 1944 movie “Here Come the Waves”? It is present in the growing, certainly not slender record collection, and available, of course, in multiple versions on YouTube. Feeling blue and sad, anxious and depressed? A dose of Mercer, others of his generation will assuredly provide welcome stress relief. OTEPÄÄ SLIM
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