T RAV EL + LEI SU RE
The art of teeth:
A look at the use of teeth in art throughout history EMILY WILLIAMS Georgia ’20 District 4 Newsletter Editor
IMAGINE TEETH in your mind’s eye. What comes to mind — a cheery smile? Your dentoform? Perhaps a jar of extracted teeth? Wherever you go in the world, everyone is familiar with the crystalline protuberances within our mouths. Perhaps it is then unsurprising that throughout the centuries, artists have used the omnipresent sight of teeth to convey a wide range of messages, from fear to shock to joy. When fabricating dentures, we note age, sex and personality of the patient to determine which teeth will be the best match for them. However, what happens when the toothbearer in question is a gorgon or a street musician? Here, we will look at four works of Western art spanning 2,500 years to see ways different artists have used teeth to make a statement.
Terracotta stand Blasting back into the Greek archaic period, this diminutive terracotta stand, painted by Kleitias c. 570 BCE, depicts the head of the gorgon, Medusa, in all her fanged glory. Though many may be more familiar with the myth of Medusa as a snake-haired demigod whose glance turns men to stone, this earlier vision of the gorgon avoids the reptilian hairdo entirely (though her curls are sinuous) and instead focuses the attention of the view on her giant canines. Much of her appearance is humanoid, but the gorgon’s teeth more resemble that of a dog — and noting the canine relationship, a class II dog at that. Here, Kleitias has used heavily stylized teeth to make a huge impact on this two-inch-tall stand. Combined with the protruding tongue, Medusa’s teeth make for as formidable of an image as her serpentine hair later will.
Terracotta stand. Signed by Ergotimos as potter and Kleitias as painter. Archaic Greek. ca. 570 BCE. 5.7 cm H x 9 cm W. Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8
TRAV EL + L EIS URE
Mouth of Hell. The Hours of Catherine of Cleves. The Master of the Hours of Catherine of Cleves. Utrecht, the Netherlands. C. 1440. Collection of the Morgan Library.
Mouth of Hell Fast-forwarding a few centuries, the hellmouth was a well-known sight in medieval Europe, stunningly depicted here in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves (c. 1440), an illuminated prayer book. In the foreground, we see a monstrous feline from whose fanged mouth — which appears to have a central cleft or at least a huge diastema — is held open by demons reminiscent of the Fireys in David Bowie’s Labyrinth. Still others use pitchforks to toss wailing people into a bubbling cauldron. Within the outer mouth lies a riff on the tonsillar pillars: a second monster, who seems to be totally edentulous. Outside the main focus, two more mouths are visible: one gaping behind the castle turrets and another beneath the frame vomiting various scrolls. The use of four mouths all centered and aligned with each other underscores the visual impact of falling into the mouth of hell. They resonate from the image, stacked in ascending order like a devilish matryoshka doll. The mouths themselves have as much impact as the teeth, creating an echo chamber through the image and highlighting the horror within.
SEPTEMBER 2018
The Rommel-Pot Player Skipping to the 17th century, Frans Hals’ oil painting The Rommel-Pot Player (c. 1618–1622) shows a street musician surrounded by cheering children. This is a typical example of the work of Hals, an early master of the genre painting. Prior to this era, formal works of art were generally reserved for religious images, those of nobility or other erudite topics. However, after the Protestant Reformation, secular scenes were often favored within northern Europe, paving the way for such familiar topics as the landscape. Here, Hals shows the street musician smiling, showing a grin with less than perfect dentition, while the children exhibit a range of occlusions as wide as their smiles. Hals is especially noted for painting people with toothy smiles throughout his work, compared to the closed-mouth subjects of his contemporaries. By showing people smiling naturally, Hals transports the viewer directly into a day in the life of the common man of his time. Though earlier works often used teeth to startle their viewer, Hals’ dentition instead softens the tone, emphasizing the human quality and jovial nature of the musician and surrounding children.
Frans Hals, The Rommel-Pot Player. Dutch. C. 1618-1622. Oil on canvas. Collection of the Kimbell Art Museum.
Kerry James Marshall, A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self, 1980. Egg tempera on paper; 8 × 6 ½ in. (20.3 × 16.5 cm). Collection of Steven and Deborah Lebowitz.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self Lastly, perhaps the most compelling depiction of teeth in the 20th century is Kerry James Marshall’s seminal work, A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self (1980). Though this work is half the size of a sheet of paper, the visual impact is massive. Marshall’s use of contrast through shades of black, charcoal and white draw the viewer’s attention directly to his eyes, his collared shirt and, most strikingly, his teeth. He presents with a flat, infinite plane of incisors, each tooth rendered in a similar shape and size barring the missing central incisor on the maxilla. The lack of this tooth, centered perfectly within the image, is as jarring as the presentation of the Cheshire-cat-like smile, emphasized by the solitary use of chroma: the man’s ochre gingiva. While the subject has been essentially reduced to eyes, teeth and shirt, the pupils and missing tooth are what draw our focus. The play of negative and positive space creates a visage that penetrates as deeply as the night itself. The intersecting diagonals of the man’s hat and right shoulder create a pseudoperspective otherwise missing from the intentionally flat composition. Here, the teeth are the artist while simultaneously outside the artist. Where do they end and the artist begin? The layering of voids creates an image where the negative and positive spaces are in constant flux and competition. Like the artists we have seen prior, Marshall uses teeth to add humanity to the image while also shocking the viewer. They are heavily stylized while also remaining instantly recognizable as human teeth. All four artists reveal the universal nature of the tooth. Throughout millennia, few things draw more attention than what lies within our own mouths. ⚫
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