NAR . . . . . . . northwestern
Âť art review
premiere issue 2008 nureview.org
from the editor Welcome to the inaugural issue of the Northwestern Art Review, an annual journal dedicated to the publication of undergraduate research in the history of art. I am both honored and pleased to introduce our readership to our first foray into a realm of scholarship and critique of the art world that engages its past, present and future. What lies before you is the culmination of over a year’s worth of planning, coordinating and producing on the part of a very dedicated executive board, faculty board and staff. NAR is heavily indebted to their unrelenting commitment to producing an art journal that engages the hitherto silent voices of a growing number of art history students seeking a forum to discuss the history of aesthetic production and its role in the contemporary experience. I offer thanks to all of those involved in the debut of NAR, but especially Tim Wright, our founder and publisher, Media Cake, our design specialists and webmaster, and our faculty advisor, Assistant Professor Hannah Feldman of the Department of Art History at Northwestern. Of course, NAR is also indebted to the many undergraduate art historians who submitted their work to NAR and those whose essays comprise this issue. Unless you have taken it upon yourself to send this file to your printer, you are most likely reading these words as they appear to you on the digital display of a computer monitor. The pages, although they turn just like those of a printed journal, exist only as long strings of zeros and ones stored on a globally accessible server and in the temporary cache of your computer’s hard drive. While we recognize that an exclusively digital format is unconventional for a scholarly journal, we are hopeful that this mode of publication, which makes the journal freely accessible to any internet user worldwide, will increase its circulation and thus further our goal of engaging a community of scholars and readers that will be broader than is possible in print. NAR is firmly committed to the principle that anyone and everyone interested in the discourses of art and its history should be able to participate in them, whether through reading, writing, or thinking about art. Moreover, we believe that a modern, electronic format accords with our overall regard of art as a creative and expressive force that intersects, represents and affects the world in which we live today. Read. Think. Enjoy.
Elliot J. Reichert May 2008 Evanston, IL
NAR . . . . . . . northwestern
Âť art review
TIMOTHY WRIGHT founder and publisher Northwestern University, B.A. Candidate, 2009 t-wright@northwestern.edu
ELLIOT REICHERT editor-in-chief Northwestern University, B.A. Candidate, 2010 elliotreichert2007@northwestern.edu
GARRETT OWENS creative director Northwestern University, B.A. Candidate, 2009 garrett-owens@northwestern.edu
CAMERON HENDERSON director of finance and marketing Northwestern University, B.A. Candidate, 2010 cameron.d.henderson@northwestern.edu
GEORGIA MCKAY senior publisher Northwestern University, B.A. Candidate, 2010 gmckay@u.northwestern.edu
MARIA DANGLES senior editor Northwestern University, B.A. Candidate, 2011 mariadangles2007@u.northwestern.edu
CHRISTOPHER ADAMSON design TheMediaCake chris@themediacake.com
MARCY CAPRON webmaster TheMediaCake marcy@themediacake.com
NAR is a non-commercial journal published by students at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Images are from ARTstor.org and used within their Terms and Conditions. Written material is Š 2008, all rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.
reappraising bouchers companions of diana »
the consequence of context
fF
rançois Boucher’s Companions of Diana exemplifies the Rococo genre in its command of lighting, atmospheric unity, and varied colors. The painting was originally created to adorn a Parisian hôtel, a setting more suited to its intensely personal theater of erotic and social intrigues. The dramatics of this space were played out in an interior appropriately intimate in scale, luxuriant in décor, and bright with reflective surfaces of mirror and gilt (Crow, 1985). Displaying the Companions of Diana in the public Academy Salon, an arena very different
4
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
— university of california, berkeley from its original surroundings, issue visible even today in the caused a negative critical reac- painting’s current residence in tion for several reasons. The the Legion of Honor in San Franpainting, with its surface asso- cisco. In essence, the repositionciations of female cosmetics and ing of Boucher’s painting to the vacuous moral significance, was 1745 Salon removed it from the at odds with the male-dominated ritual hierarchies and values of Academy, a society that prided the communal life of the Parisian itself on its masculine, rational hôtels, transforming its function Enlightenment ideology (Hyde, and meaning in a manner that set 2000). Secondly, in the milieu of it at odds with the sensibilities of the hotel, the image was part of contemporary critics. a unified decorative scheme that The French critics’ grounded communicated the social status their negative reactions to the of its patron through economic rococo in a belief that the hôtel and symbolic terms. Stripped space was ostentatiously femiof their essential decorative nine, irrational and thus fundacontext, paintings resituated in mentally opposed to the moral the Salon became fragmentary. and intellectual concerns of the Lastly, the image became less Academy. Images like Boucher’s physically legible under the Sawere gendered female for obvilon viewing circumstances, an by rhonda adato
ous reasons. The Companions of Diana features two partially clothed, idealized nymphs, one of whom is in a seductively vulnerable pose of sleep. The surface of the painting is dominated by exposed female flesh and piles of fluid drapery that create a classicized image of elemental lust (Crow, 1985). Yet the Boucher artwork contains more subtle signs of the dangers posed by woman, symbols that threatened the male Academy, mainly through associations with fard, or makeup. The Companions of Diana features a typical rococo comingling of boundaries, textured surface and fluidity of appearance that bears a strong resemblance to
companions of diana
— François Boucher 1745
cosmetic paint. Roger de Piles’ characterization of art as a seductive, non-utilitarian object with knowledge of its own artifice is also deeply similar to high-ranking court women’s application of large amounts of apparent rouge and powder in public (De Piles, 1985). The associations with makeup in rococo art troubled unambiguous social and gender distinctions in French society in the eyes of the French critics, transform-
6
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
ing the Boucher image from a merely pleasurable object to one with specific political connotations of ?????. Cosmetics were used by women at court to proclaim social status, as only noble and highly appointed women wore the fashionable maquillage. As wealthy members of the bourgeoisie rose through court ranks through financial means or royal appointment, like the Pompadour and
Tournehem circle, these individuals applied makeup as a means of consolidating their new social status (Crow, 1985). Men also used fard, threatening the masculinity of a society that prided its upper classes in their adherence to malegendered, rational Enlightenment thinking (Hyde, 2000). Contemporary art criticism decried Boucher’s relationship with makeup as a communication of aristocratic profligacy
and a retrograde femininity. I would say he’s never for a single instant seen nature… there are too many pinched little faces [in his painting], too much mannerism and affectation for an austere art. He can show them to me unadorned if he likes, I still see the rouge, the beauty spots, the pompons, and all the little vials of the makeup table. (Diderot, 1995, p.23) Cosmetics also brought to
reappraising boucher’s companions of diana:
The consequence of context
light the issue of female empowerment, as female art subjects seemed to construct their own appearances through the application of makeup and certain women, like Pompadour, literally engineered their own public images through artistic patronage (Hyde, 2000). In a painting like Boucher’s Companions of Diana, French critics witnessed the importation of proliferated, irrational female ornamentation, direct from the purportedly licentious and voluptuous world of the Parisian hotels and in to their male-dominated Academy Salon (Scott, 1996). This transformed the Boucher painting from an essentially playful image, the product of a feminized hôtel culture, to a dangerously seductive and irrational force when transferred to the Salon atmosphere. It also represented the threat of social mobility feared
by critics who valued the hierarchy of their royal organization. The act of viewing changes fundamentally in the upper echelon hôtels and the Salon. In the home of a Parisian elite, Boucher’s Companions of Diana would have been part of a larger display of social status and wealth, a strategically organized program of other artwork, furniture, and lighting. Perceptual markers were used in the ornamentation of the enfilade and social apartments of the hôtel to communicate both the purpose of the rooms and to give tangible form to the values attached to the patron’s specific social importance (Scott, 1996). Contrastingly, art in the Salon was arranged by a much different method, ordered according to size and the artists’ rank within the Academy itself. Little attention was paid to appro-
priate spacing between objects and no attempt at conveying a uniform message was ever made. In the Salon, the Boucher painting lacked the special lighting, extravagant furniture, and similar mythological subjects that made it an object of pleasure and diversion in the Parisian hôtels. Also, art was discussed in the Salon in artisanal terms of the technically and commercially viable, an approach that translates the visual extravagance of rococo in to displays of monetary superfluity. The rococo in the Salon purported to be an inclination for goods and not ideas, creating a focus on economy, not ideology (Scott, 1996). The elite patron demanded quantities of small scale decorative paintings and portraits for his home. The Salon, with its erudite members knowledgeable of the ancient and
Biblical past, demanded a more masculine and challenging genre, the epic historical narrative. Critics like La Font and Diderot defended this call for large-scale history paintings by claiming that the Academy artists had a responsibility to educate the public by bringing them significant moral subjects to ponder. A key contention with Boucher’s painting was that the idle and erotic play of Boucher’s nymph, who tickles her sleeping companion with a thin reed, had no place before a public that demanded the morally upstanding to contemplate. Diderot wrote of Boucher that the artist’s “elegance, his affectation, coquetry, facility, variety, brilliance, rouged flesh tones, and debauchery will captivate dandies, society women, young people, men of the world, and the whole crowd of those who
are strangers to true taste, to truth, to right thinking, and to the gravity of art” (Diderot, 1995, p. 23). In essence, Boucher’s captured moment of female play posed a danger to the French critics because of its moral vacuity and feminine irrationality. The migration of the Companions of Diana to the Academy Salon thus transformed it from an image ensconced in a world of play and wealth to an arena where its ideology and moral meaning was valued at a much higher premium than the pleasure it induced. As evidenced by Diderot’s lack of appreciation for Boucher, the Salon was incapable of and uninterested in rec-
8
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
reating the same circuits and ritually and socially differentiated places that had ensured the value and intelligibility of the rococo in its native habitat (Scott, 1996). The intelligibility of the Boucher painting was also a key issue, as the image moved from an intimate viewing space populated by a select few to the much more public Salon. Hundreds of people now jostled to see artworks crammed next to each other in a confusing mixture of subject matter and style. The Companions of Diana would have been on the lower levels of the Salon because of its small size, and was thus farther away from
the spectator, who probably viewed it at an awkward angle. As a result of this spacing, different lighting effects, and the aforementioned removal from its meaningful hôtel context, the fluid surface of the Boucher painting became a source of confusion. “When viewed directly and intensively at the Salon, at alien distances and angles by an ostensively objective and disinterested eye, rococo decorative paintings tended to dissolve into allegedly formless and meaningless blots” (Scott, 1996, 255). The comingling of boundaries on the surface of the painting, a stylistic tradition inherited from Rubens and Watteau, con-
fused the educated Salon critic looking to decipher a clear and morally significant narrative. In the Companions of Diana, objects melt into each other to create a mass of the undistinguished when viewed from far away. The viewer becomes unsure of which legs belongs to which nymph, where the piles of drapery begin and end, and what sort of animals sit lifeless on the left edge of the canvas. Similar tonalities blend, creating a surface constructed of moments of color rather than clearly bound objects. The setting is also deeply ambiguous. The dense clouds of foliage in the background give no clear indica-
reappraising boucher’s companions of diana:
The consequence of context
tion of where the two nymphs sit, as if their ground plane had appeared suddenly and unannounced in a sea of trees. It also comes as a shock to the viewer that there is a pool of water in the foreground of the scene, found not by a difference of surface from the earth above it but by a thin white line marking its boundary. Indeed, even though a corner of orange cloth has dropped into the water, the fabric does not seem to dampen at all. The setting of the painting does not seem to be a major concern of Boucher; rather than giving the viewer the scene of a rousing hunt of Diana, he pushes forward and frames the seductive bodies of two women, ensconced in a pattern of fluid colors and textures. The “papillotage,” or
blinking, effect is also brought into play as the flickering, reverberating light of the canvas distracts the viewer and interferes with pictorial coherence (Hyde, 2000). In the intimate context of the Parisian hôtel, the Boucher image accorded with the de Pilesean compositional logic of the immediately pleasurable pictorial image. In the Salon, however, the Companions of Diana was rendered as an unreadable, fluid surface that seemingly ejected both the didactic aims of the Academy’s preferred historical narrative and the critic’s request for public intelligibility. Thus did the Boucher painting transform from a pleasurefilled image to a Salon artwork that disappointed due to its lack of physical legibility.
Boucher’s Companions of Diana is an artwork that reflects not only its setting in time, but also the hôtel milieu in which it was meant to exist. The deeply ritualized court practices of sociability were housed in an atmosphere of wealth and amusement decorated by Boucher’s artworks. The display of social status and wealth were the central aims of the contemporary patron, who embraced rococo in order to impress his guests and establish social standing for himself. When Boucher’s image was transferred to the Salon, the markedly different viewership of the Academy transformed the original intent of the painting through a critical lens of different standards and expectations; cri-
teria it was destined to fail. Critics asked the painting to uphold a dominant ideology and to recount the past in a didactic, clear, and masculine grammar, tasks it was never meant to accomplish. La Font, Diderot, Cochin and others judged Companions of Diana as feminine, artificially constructed of superfluous amounts of cosmetics, unreadable, and lacking a moralizing and educational narrative. However, if these critics had taken into account both the original social context of the artwork and de Piles’ theory of immediate comprehension and pleasure that the work seeks to embody, Boucher’s Companions of Diana would have been deemed a success. » nar
meanwhile in reality
M m
eanwhile in Bagdad appears at first to be no more than an artistic rendering of what Alain Badiou called the ‘passion for the Real’ that allegedly defines the twentieth century experience—a drive to remove the layers of falsity obfuscating our modern reality in order to confront the Real directly. From a hyper-realistic facsimile of a bloody corpse to a set of posters comprised of clips from real newspaper articles, ‘the Real’ as we know it surrounds us throughout the gallery. With so much focus on portraying ‘the Real,’ it would be convenient, but also very dangerous, to interpret the exhibit as an attempt to violently jostle the viewer out of an ignorance-induced apathy to current international conflict via exposure to the brutal ‘realities’ of war. The implications of such a degrading analysis are hazardous because, if viewed as mere 10
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
by elliot reichert
— northwestern university
‘realistic’ depictions of conflict and its awful consequences, these art objects might, as Slavoj Žižek points out in his essay A Holiday from History, serve only as paradoxical opposites to their supposed goal, devolving in to “theatrical spectacle[s]” (Žižek, 2) that no more represent the void of the Real than replace what is missing from it. In fact, the very power of these objects lies in not what they portray directly, but what they represent through the omission of select details. Simply put, the greater purpose of Meanwhile in Baghdad is drawing attention to that which is not present in the gallery space: real conflict, real suffering, and real violence. In particular, by harnessing representations of absence, Jannis Kounellis’s untitled work speaks to an American dependence on representation as a form of insulation from a direct confrontation of the Real. Moreover, via conceptual imagery far removed from the realm of realistic depiction, the artwork offers an alternative way of knowing violence, suffering, and other themes central to an un-
derstanding of modern warfare. Situated in the far right corner of the gallery, Untitled is an installation of three fabric-wrapped bed frames. Two of the frames sit side-by-side on the floor and are wrapped in wide strips of canvas that are tangled and bunched on the top but hang free in loose loops below the frames. Strips of another fabric—what appears to be black wool—are visible through the many gaps in the wrapped canvas. On each bed, portions of the metal frame are also revealed where the canvas does not conceal it. Supported by metal legs approximately one foot tall, both bed frames sit low to the ground. Dark red paint matching the hue of baked bricks covers the lumpy and uneven surface created by the wrapped canvas but is only partially applied to the portions of the fabric that drape over the sides of the frame. Most of the canvas hanging underneath each frame has been left unpainted. A third bed frame prepared in the same manner but wrapped more tightly hangs on its side on the wall be-
untitled
— Jannis Kounellis 2006
hind the other two. This bed frame is attached to the wall with two large, metal hooks that pierce two of the legs of the frame and catch on metal eyelets screwed in to the wall. The beds on the floor are separated by just enough space so that their combined width matches the length of the horizontally hung bed. While the installation appears similar to what some might imagine a makeshift war hospital to look like, a want of bodies to fill the empty cots is not the most striking absence in Kounelli’s piece. To believe this is to fall into that dangerous trap of perceiving the artwork as a mere representation of the Real. What is more haunting about Untitled is a series of incongruencies that precisely indicate that the work cannot be taken at face value: the bed hung on the wall that is useless for repose, the red paint that is too maroon to be blood, and the utter deficiency of any other characteristic signs of real human life. There is nothing real about the piece, and it is only because of this fact that it retains significance. If the paint were a little redder, if the third bed frame were on the ground instead of hung on the wall, and if there
were even a few signs of human presence around the cots, then the viewer would be forced to conclude that, with the presence of blood and absence of bodies, he or she is being provoked in to mourning the loss of human life. In light, however, of the egregious contradictions of ‘the Real’ present in the piece, it makes more sense to conclude that it is the very absence of reality that is the point, and that Kounellis’s work underscores the constant and tragic fact that “the authentic 20th-century impulse to penetrate the Real Thing ... culminates in the thrill of the Real as the ultimate ‘effect’” (Žižek, 3). That is, the modern and ubiquitous “de-realization” (Žižek, 3) of horror and catastrophe is a product of our own drive to experience the Real without mediation; a ‘passion for the Real’ that is never fulfilled, but sustained by the constant, ironic fictionalization of that which is actually true (Žižek, 7). The cots, contrived semblances of what real bloody beds might look like, represent this ultimate failure to confront reality, one that is the inevitable outcome of its pursuit in a society largely ignorant of the suffering and pain that exists within and without its borders. That the wrapped bed frames can be 12
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
called cots and that the brick-colored paint that covers them seems to represent blood are facts that divulge just how much American imaginations of ‘reality’ are predicated on manufactured representations of that which we do not know from experience. As the “nerve center of the American ideology,” Hollywood and the American film industry function to “provide coordinates for private fantasies” that address themes otherwise unimaginable to the public at large (Žižek, 15). Countless war movies portray death and suffering, pain and brutal violence, gore and blood to audiences who come to know these realities only through these spectacular on-screen fantasies. Ironically, evaluations of how ‘realistically’ films depict such themes are usually made by those who have never experienced them first-hand. Thus, as a society learns to think of violence and tragedy in terms of illusory representations, these more familiar but false images of horror come to replace their real life counterparts, or worse, real life tragedies are fictionalized and fetishized in to fantasies of the mind in order to render otherwise incomprehensible tragedies consumable. As Kounellis’s painted and wrapped bed frames become the bloody
cots of the mind’s eye, the “ruthless pursuit of the Real” is revealed as a false passion and “the ultimate stratagem to avoid confronting the Real” (Žižek, 7). The bed frames are merely bed frames, but they are forcibly ascribed representational value in order to conform to a totalizing fantasy that shelters its author from “the hard kernel of the Real” (Žižek, 7) with a barrier of fictionalized reality. Viewers who misconstrue Kounelli’s work as merely a depiction of bloodstained cots illustrating the horrors of war will believe the piece is helping them better understand the abstract concepts of death and suffering, when they are actually using the piece to invent more layers of fantasy that further distance them from these painful realities. If the wrapped bed frames correspond to anything, they are symbols of the very themes of violence and suffering that are so remote from the typical American social reality and yet so sought after by those infused with the false ‘passion for the Real.’ Each frame is wrapped in messy, interwoven fabric always covered with brickcolored paint that suggests, but does not emulate, the gory entrails of a victim. The third frame suffers the same disembowel-
Meanwhile in Reality ment as his peers, with the added pain of hanging by sharp hooks from a wall. The installation is thus a scene of torture, and to examine the pain of the frames themselves instead imaging the fates of their fictional occupiers is to attempt an understanding of the themes they address without fictionalizing, and thus sensationalizing, their meanings. Once the ideas of suffering and violence are contextualized by viewers as part of a human experience that they are not personally familiar with, they must draw upon the realm of social fantasy and Hollywood special effects to fill in the gaps in their knowledge, effectively fetishizing the concepts to a point where they become less accessible than they are as mere abstract suggestions rendered in visual metaphors of red-painted bed frames. While other objects of Meanwhile in Baghdad employ alternative methods of illustrating the 20th century ‘passion for the Real’ and its problematic approach to constructing reality, the success of Kounelli’s piece is predicated specifically on its several representations of absence. Devoid of
the hallmarks of realistic depiction, Untitled interrogates the process by which we attempt to confront reality, exposing it as not just a failing practice, but one that, through its passionate fetishization of ‘the Real,’ accomplishes the contrary task of avoiding the Real through the substitution of fictional surrogates for reality. At the same time, its conceptual imagery gives viewers the opportunity for greater access to those sought-after unknowns, offering a different mode of understanding them to those careful not to fall in to a routine of fictionalizing realties that they have not directly experienced. Thus, while it is a difficult medium to manipulate, in a modern era where “the pursuit of the Real equals total annihilation” (Žižek, 2), it is only appropriate that absence be the vessel of choice for the artist aspiring to confront the Real without succumbing to the treachery of representation inherent in its pursuit. » nar
linear perspective as a catalyst
for understanding human perception in early modern europe »
doubt in visuality
tT
he established m at hem at ic a l rules of perspective theory would seem to systematize art beyond the realm of individual subjective perception, but this did not occur in the years following the invention of linear perspective. In the search for more persuasive representation, artists experimented with the formal schematization of linear perspective. The year 1415 pinpoints the historical invention of perspective theory by Italian architect Fillipo Brunelleschi (1377-1446). Experimentation with intuitive representations of 14
by christiana schmidt
the world prior to Brunelleschi’s treatise suggests that perspectival theory evolved naturally. Upon infusing artistic conventions throughout early modern (1490-1730) Europe, perspective diverged into theories of linear, aerial and color perspective. Traditionally, its role is given as a tool for spatial organization in artistic conceptions. However, through a careful examination of artistic experimentation it can be seen that perception is a mutable theory rooted in cultural perceptions of the world. At the same time, the invention of perspective served as a catalyst for overwhelming changes in human perception. Though the influence of lin-
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
— northwestern university ear perspective from a historical view is clear, its understanding by contemporary early modern artists reveals its status as a flexible channel of communication for culture models of perception. Italian artist Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) understood the vitality of perspective in art, and his 1451 fresco, Martyrdom of Saint Christopher (fig. 1) is a crafted attempt to emphasize the importance of linear perspective in art and vision theory. Although it has weathered over time the remaining effect reinforces the convergence of ideals and expression of perspective by the Mantegna. The lower mob scene is worn away, but the most significant detail remains intact:
an upper window where a man has been shot in the eye with an arrow (fig. 2). The iconography of St. Christopher is a common theme in Italian art, but the episodic moment of the arrow lodged in the King’s eye has only been recorded in Mantegna’s fresco. This image belies experimentation with perspective during the early modern period, but more importantly it makes a major claim as a metaphor between the arrow striking the eye and the art of perspective. Just as lines of sight converge in the human eye to make vision possible, the arrow converges in the King’s eye to make an overt comment on perspective. This early work
Martyrdom of Saint Christopher
— A ndrea Mantegna 1451
reflects the beginning of the spread in artistic convention for the principles of perspective throughout Europe. Mantegna made explicit what many artists implied in the execution of linear perspective. He sought to legitimize and enhance his use of perspectival principles by enforcing an explicit metaphor for its significance. Within Archers Shooting at St. Christopher, a conflict develops between man and nature that reflects the tentative acceptance of linear perspective. The center column formally divides the scene in half into a right side of the image that appears more city-like with buildings and arches that recess into the background. In contrast, the left side of the image represents a more natural composition. A thin tree forms the leftmost border of the painting to enclose a natural setting. The wavering tree and the wooden supports of the trellis form on an orthogonal line that converg16
Âť north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
es to a vanishing point beyond the central building. Instead of placing the vanishing point at the king’s eye, Mantegna set it more indefinitely behind the main building. This may reveal an incomplete mastery of perspectival rules by the artist. Yet it may be more logical to think of this as a mark of the artist’s doubt in his own ability to correctly render a scene using perspective. The conflict between natural representation and the man-made world parallels the transition between representation via the intuitive eye to representation with linear perspective. Behind the structure on the left, the viewer can peer beyond to glimpse another building and the top of a steeple. To enhance the natural image, the sky and clouds fill the remaining space. The soft shape of the clouds represents the still experimental and unsure nature of perspective theory in practice. By locating the exact event of the invention of perspective and at-
linear perspective as a catalyst for understanding human perception in early modern europe:
doubt in visuality
tributing it to one man, a further conflict develops. It seems like a theory devised entirely by man without natural course; however, it is more appropriate to understand the “invention” of linear perspective as moment that was preceded, and followed, by years of artistic innovation across regions and artists. The invention of perspective did not immediately augment artistic confidence in portraying the world in a systemized manner. Although rules of perspective provided better organization for spatial relations, experimentation by artists reveals many skeptical undertones. sketch (fig. 3) of 1481 by Leonardo da Vinci (14521519) for his Adoration of the Magi serves as one of the best instances of this underlying doubt. As a tentative and com-
A
plex sketch, it still exudes an air of experimentation in linear principles. It is as if the lines depicting the floor grid are visible as a reminder that Leonardo had precise control over the depiction of proper perspective. Ironically though, errors exist in the distant staircase which contains steps that are too widely spaced to fit with the rest of the perspective grid; this reveals Leonardo’s departure from the rules of perspective and his retreat back to more comfortable sketching done only with adjustments by the eye. Within this sketch
the staircases are crucial because they depict a breakdown in Leonardo’s study. The role of a staircase as an architectural element offers a transition between levels; the stairs in this sketch represent a transition from drawing with an intuitive model of vision to a more standardized design based on concepts of linear perspective. It is an uncertain transition, but even so, the outlines of the stairs are well defined, reflecting Leonardo’s self-confidence in drawing from the eye. If stairs are a transitory element, then the columns in the arcade
adoration of the magi sketch
on the left offer structural support. By clearly defining the columns, Leonardo emphasizes his control over perspective and indirectly implies perspectival rules as the support for visual coherence in art. Confidence in applying perspectival rules could only evolve as perspective merged with the general historical understanding of vision. In particular, the historical setting of the Adoration of the Magi is of extreme importance to understanding the full sketch. As a preparation for one of Leonardo’s first solo works without the watchful eye of his mentor, it represents a turning point in his career. The massive sketch was a prerequisite for Leonardo’s first large scale painting. As an early investigation by a future master of perspective, the emphasis on linear form and perspectival
rules in this sketch helps to underscore the intentional exploration produced by Leonardo. His doubt in producing master works of his own for the first time is shown through the tremendous focus on planning and placement of mathematical form. He utilized perspective to shape his perception of how to view the world. As perspective theory advanced, it allowed for renewed experimentation with the nature of viewing the world. An examination of the final version of Adoration of the Magi (fig. 4 ) reveals doubt in the inclusion of the experimentation done in the sketch. In contrast to the geometric sketch, the final image displays incomplete perspective in that the perspective differs in the foreground and background. A jumbled assortment of figures in the foreground appears as almost an afterthought placed in front of the linear study. Difficulties in bringing together multiples experimen18
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
tations in the sketch are reflected by the fact that relatively few paintings throughout the fifteenth century completely rely on perspectival principles. Leonardo’s sketch and its final version serve as reminders of the complex difficulties of linear perspective which were not instantly resolved from a reading of Brunelleschi’s treatise. Extensive experimentation was needed to master the principles of perspective with tentative studies often failing to encompass all the concepts. Following years of experimentation with linear perspective, Leonardo was able to produce his own treatise on perspective (Treatise on Painting, 1651) that emphasized its transparent intersections. In terms of viewing the world and producing artistic work from it, Leonardo makes an interesting claim by reporting that drawing with contours is incorrect because these lines do not exist in vision. This predates opti-
nisms that govern sight have remained constant since the evolution of modern man, our understanding of these processes would also be stagnant; however, this is far from the case. Theories of vision have evolved greatly throughout history, proving that understanding sight is governed by cultural conventions. Experimentation in the understanding of vision as attained by the human eye remained relatively static until Kepler offered a physiology of the retinal image, which approaches that of contemporary knowledge. In his dynamic theory, vision exists because an image of the object is projected on the concave surface of the retina. Colored rays of visible things strike the retina to paint an image. Prior to this, the ancient extramisptical theories of vision sion theory of vision dominathave a direct effect on ed conceptions of visuality in cultural interpretations which optical rays extend from of images. It would seem that the eye to touch the object of vibecause the biological mecha- sion and return to the eye with cal understanding, because in actuality, humans see through the help of lines; our brain perceives contours between light and dark and varying textures. It is these contours that define objects and allow for visual discrimination. Without our basic perception of contours, we would not be able to discern anything. Contrast exists in his Adoration of the Magi sketch as it reveals a basic desire to represent the world through line. The fluidity of his sketching process is made possible through an intuitive desire to create from through line. Leonardo’s false view of contours reflects the incompleteness of linear perspective and the importance of experimentation with form in order to understand visual processing.
O
adoration of the magi — Leonardo da Vinci c. 1480
an essence of object to be consolidated in memory. Several aspects of linear perspective as understood during the early modern period conform to contemporary understanding of perceptual and psychological principles. The Ponzo Illusion (fig. 5) is a standard optical illusion in which the brain perceives two lines of equal size as being different because of converging side lines. Parallel lines are judged to recede into the background causing the upper line appears to appear longer and farther away. In optical illusions such as this, the brain interprets stimuli falsely, but in a manner that allows for correct perception of depth and
three-dimensional space. This necessary and automatic deceit by the visual system was replicated in Brunelleschi’s theory of perspective; artistic production incorporating his theory varies based on the interpretation of these optical illusions of vision within a culture. Dutch painter Samuel van Hoogstatraten (1627-1678) in his treatise on painting described painting with perspective as a method under which artists can fulfill the overwhelming desire to represent the visual world through deceit: The art of painting is a science for representing all the ideas or notions which the
linear perspective as a catalyst for understanding human perception in early modern europe:
doubt in visuality
whole of visible nature is able to produce and for deceiving the eye with drawing and color…I say that a painter whose work it is to fool the senses of sight also must have so much understanding of the nature of things that he thoroughly understands the means by which the eyes are deceived.
In comparison to the more experimental methods of Southern European artists, as seen through Leonardo’s and Mantegna’s work, Dutch theories of vision remained rather conservative. Hoogstraten’s continued support for an extramission theory of sight typifies this. Although he emphasized the magnitude in understanding the underlying principles of sight, his reliance in extramission likely results from a more traditional focus in Dutch art; conception of visions are expected to vary when the desire to represent daily life by the Dutch is compared to explora20
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
tions of light and shadow and drama of cosmopolitan Italy. Kepler’s theory of vision is not reflected in Hoogstraten’s work, but perhaps this is because even with the radical suggestions for the optical mechanism, it was not a theory that presented immediate tools to aid the artist. Various adjustments from intuitive eye drawing to perspectival planning would have complicated areas that were already difficult, as in absorbing Kepler’s 180o viewing angle. Breaking apart from a functional extramission theory of
vision required more experimentation to fully develop the perceptual understandings. or artists in the early modern period, the invention of perspective allowed for a range of creativity with illusion. The Ambassadors (fig. 6) by the German artist Hans Holbein (1497-1543) was completed over one hundred years after the invention of perspective in 1533. Adequate time had passed for the foundations of linear perspective to spread throughout the artisinal world.
F
ponzo illusion
During this period, various artists were able to use perspective for their own unique advantage. Instead of merely utilizing geometric rules to organize space in a more realistic manner, an understanding of perspective allowed for a distortion of space. The Ambassadors is a painting that was made possible through experimentations in pure perspective by earlier artists, Leonardo and Mantegna. Although aspects of doubt still arise in this painting, an overwhelming mastery of the science of perspective and optics is attempted. The anamorphic skull can be interpreted as an extension of the metaphorical arrow in Archers Shooting at Saint Christopher. The distortion may serve as dreary message about death triumphing over all human pursuits, but it may also explain perspective as a theory capable of shifting throughout time. The skull mimics the early modern distortion of traditional spatial
linear perspective as a catalyst for understanding human perception in early modern europe:
doubt in visuality
the ambassadors — Hans Holbein 1533
rendering techniques. In its unstable form, the skull appears as a symbol which reveals the doubt in artistic presentation of ever-changing human theories of vision. The very existence of anamorphosis reveals key information about the role of perspective in society. Developed in the mid-sixteenth century as an experiment with linear perspective principles, anamorphosis became another way for artists to distort mathematical principles of balance and spatial organization for artistic individuality. Because of a constant desire within the early modern period to form new methods to represent the world, the experimentation
22
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
of space through distortion came to an unsettling climax with anamorphous. The fact that the skull in The Ambassadors only becomes available for conscious visual interpretation when viewed from a direction widely skewed from the conventional viewing angle is a comment on the one-point perspective principles in art. Holbien paradoxically rebels against the constraints of linear perspective while using a variation of its principles to create the distortion. A discussion develops on the inability of linear perspective to fully explain vision because it lacks room for the natural distortion in visual processing. Anamorphosis mathemati-
cally utilizes the principles of linear perspective through stretching them to an extreme without complete destruction. As perspectival rules began to infuse the early modern artistic consciousness, experimentation with its standardization produced creative variations. With experimentation of perspectival rules in Adoration of the Magi and the anamorph of The Ambassadors, art is revealed as a continually fluctuating form dependent upon and the cultural visuality and artistic convention formed through it. The desire to test the foundations of perspective by Leonardo and other artists allowed for the later advancement by Holbien. As a an indication
for future preoccupations with perspective, Leonardo does acknowledge a potential for distortion in his writings: “It is… virtually certain that those centres which developed perspective in general…also invented its paradoxes.” In admitting the extreme possibilities of perspective, Leonardo reveals an element of hesitation in committing to something which may confuse the viewer. The absence of anamorphosis in work by Leonardo indicated a desire to master the art of linear perspective; before artists could experiment with anamorphosis, it was necessary to understand the principles from which it is derived. The deceit mastered by the
linear perspective as a catalyst for understanding human perception in early modern europe:
doubt in visuality
artists of the early modern may extend beyond the early modern period. Contemporary artist David Hockney (b. 1937) offers a controversial hypothesis which claims that artists of the period often relied on optical tools like concave mirrors and the camera obscura in order to better represent space. As artistic genius is a romantic notion imposed by contemporary standards, it seems almost blasphemous to question the talent of artistic masters. Hockney explores convincing physical evidence which in turn exposes the formal similarities between particular paintings as being almost too perfect. This unnatural consistency does not change the importance of perspective in early modern art. In fact, optical tools used concurrently with the rules of perspective further enforce the idea of a continuum
of perception in visual representations of the world which persistently evolves with cultural change. The invention of perspective was not immediately responsible for a radical shift in cultural attitudes toward visions, but rather it was a catalyst combined with other tools which acted to gradually transform cognitive connotations of vision. Perspective thus becomes part of a larger movement in early modern period, reflecting the transformation of perception of vision throughout human history. Perspective in art emerged as a mechanism in resolving natural and artificial connections of reality. Artists of various regions were able to exploit perspective for a specific style of desired imagery. In the north, Dutch artists were able to create intricate genre scenes through geometry; the linear
perspective in tile and brick for the floor created more dynamic paintings. As an attempt to display artistic perspective abilities, the Archers Shooting at St. Christopher and Adoration of the Magi sketch both serve as examples that typify an artistic desire to spread the ideals of perspective. Leonardo’s sketch is a more timid experimental piece that uses perspective as a means to define the space and assert the artist’s mastery of it. The metaphor created by Mantegna intends to force the viewer into realizing that perspective is necessary to understanding the vision and workings of the human eye. The assortment of interpretations for the use of perspective reveals the very nature of perspective as a culturally conditioned phenomena. Linear perspective created ways to better organize space in an effort to eliminate the awkward-
ness which plagued artists in drawing based from the eye. By attempting to replicate natural undertakings by visual system, linear perspective represented a man-made articulation of a process already occurring in nature. Experimentation with these rules would produce a better understanding of human perception, as well as stir illusions which mimic natural deceit as completed in optics; the distortions found in anamorphosis aspire to compare with natural optical illusions that mislead the human visual system but help in perceiving and representing space. Linear perspective evolved out of artistic exploration with visuality through cultural conceptions and gradually became a channel for resolving doubts in models of visual perception in early modern Europe. Âť nar
subversion of sexual difference in feminist art & discourse »
we are all male-female
tT
he tradition of intensely personal explorations of the body and its concomitant issues of psychology, sexuality and sexual difference provides the backbone for the feminist discourse of art. This tradition will be explored in the critical discussion of three distinct innovators – Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, and Kiki Smith – in the field of artistic psychosexuality and its corresponding feminist concerns of sexual difference. Louise Bourgeois’ Torso/Self-Portrait of 1962-63, a white bronze relief, is a vertically-oriented and approximately life-sized abstraction of a headless female torso, the outer edges bearing a gentle curve and the central area, wherein one would presume the placement of breasts, stomach, and 24
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
by tassity johnson
— duke university
genitals, or the spine and buttocks, laden with biomorphic shapes, some spherical, some petal-like. These shapes lie symmetrically, with a linear, spine-like form ending in a circular form, like a pendulum, running through the center. Near the apex of the sculpture, where a conical nub stands in place of the neck, sit two small breasts. The petal shapes follow, each slightly different, longer or more detailed, than the first. Two buttocks-like forms bulge at the bottom of the piece are more integrated with the basic form of the relief than the other, superimposed shapes. The piece as a whole appears distinctly hand-made; the variance in the shapes of the biomorphic forms, the irregular surface texture – with some areas rough, some soap-smooth – and the unevenness of the symmetry speak of human effort and error, and betray the expected formal tendencies of Torso/Self-Portrait’s
chief material, bronze. The coat of white paint further obscures the work’s true material while highlighting the uneven surface texture, with shadows of ridges and dents and hand-molded curves rendered distinct by the ivory coloring. The repetition of petal forms beneath the two perky, perfectly spherical “breasts” gives Torso/Self-Portrait a bug-like appearance. This repetition, as well as the exaggerated shoulder-less and headless torso, abstracts the form in such a way that it appears not simply inhuman, but other-worldly. Yet the handmade, genital shapes also bespeak of a fetishistic obsession, like that of fertility goddesses, wherein the female form is abstracted to bear only its most objectified and seemingly most important physical features. The petal forms – the labial shapes - repeat on the same visual plane as the breasts and the buttocks, lain flat and
Torso/ Self-Portrait — Louise Bourgeois 1962-63
sideways. However, these petal forms appear as ribs as well, in their arrangement, pulling away from the center of the torso like a rib cage, and in the lack of indentation in the petal forms on the upper half of the torso, differentiating these forms from those just beneath it, which wishbonelike impressments and a more elongated, blunter point. As Mignon Nixon notes, Torso/Self-Portrait is, “a bilateral symmetry of breasts, ribs, labia, and buttocks.” This impossible orientation places female sexuality and its corresponding fertility to the visual fore. However, where this sculpture departs from the fertility object tradition, in a fashion distinct of Bourgeois, is in the linear object that runs between the labial shapes. The object ends in a large, weight-like circle shape, appearing distinctly phallic. This conflation of the male and female, the phallus forming the spine of an intensely feminine torso, pronounces Louis Bourgeois’ conception that, “we are all male-female.” This conception of universal, inherent bisexuality recurs throughout Bourgeois’ oeuvre, present in the many sculptural genital hybrids for which the artist is 26
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
known. The psychosexual element of these works manifests itself in psychoanalytic oedipal and female sexuality concerns of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan; Bourgeois herself was well-versed in Freud and Lacan, and the internalization and application of their ideas on the Oedipal complex and sexuality are manifest in Torso/ Self-Portrait, among the artist’s other art works. Speaking of Femme Couteau, but certainly applicable to Torso/Self-Portrait, Bourgeois discusses the conceptual psychological conflict at the core of her bisexual sculptural hybrids: [The woman] identifies with the penis to defend herself. A girl can be terrified of the world. She feels vulnerable because she can be wounded by the penis. So she tries to take on the weapon of the aggressor.
Bourgeois interprets the female phallic identification proposed by the Freudian Oedipal complex as an effort of self-preservation and defense. Torso/Self-Portrait in its bisexual hybridity acts as a scene and remainder of this developmental psychological conflict, the conflation of male and female genitalia a manifestation of
said vulnerability. The labia, breasts, buttocks, and penis act as a shield built upon the torso form, the physical embodiment of taking, “on the weapon of the aggressor” as means of protection against that aggressor, i.e. the male’s, violence and oppression. And yet, Torso/Self-Portrait is not solely feminine; as Bourgeois states, “We are all vulnerable in someway ... and we are all male-female.” Hence, this shield form can be applied to the male, and the male psyche as well; the difference appears in considering the position of the male gender in an intensely patriarchal society. It may be posited that the shield of Torso/Self-Portrait for men is embedded far deeper in their unconscious, acting as a defense against expectations of masculinity and patriarchy from which they may suffer some vulnerability; however, in a state of patriarchy these vulnerabilities are mostly submerged, perhaps expressed unconsciously through misogyny. Biography plays a crucial role in considering Bourgeois’ feelings of vulnerability and, as will be discussed, anger against the phallus and by association, men. Through the lens of biography the second
subversion of sexual difference in feminist art and discourse:
we are all male-female
title of Torso/Self-Portrait may also be considered. Much of the psychological conflict expressed in Bourgeois’s work stems from a distinct childhood trauma – her father’s affair with her live-in English tutor (an affair accepted by her mother). Bourgeois attributes this period in her life, “to feelings of anxiety and rage that continue to affect her and influence her art.” The body, specifically the torso and genitalia in the instance of Torso/Self-Portrait, acts as a language for autobiographical revelation, as Bourgeois, in her usage of the human form, “[creates] a private mythology from the direct expression of early trauma.” Female identification with the penis, as expressed by Bourgeois above, is not simply a universal aspect of the female oedipal complex; it is a personal revelation: Bourgeois’ own identification with her father’s penis, or truly, her father’s sexuality, which in his philandering, psychologically scarred Bourgeois. And so Torso/Self-Portrait acts as a personal shield against such harm perpetrated by male sexuality, a reconciliation, if only for the sake of protection, with a father whom Bourgeois would symboli-
cally destroy in her 1974 installation The Destruction of Father. Torso/Self-Portrait presents Bourgeois as the combination of her own female sexuality as well as that of her father’s; it is self-portraiture of Bourgeois’ psychological conflict and childhood trauma, as well as a protector against the remnant effects of said trauma. However, the universality of Torso/SelfPortrait and its corresponding psychological issues extends not just to conceptions of male/female sexuality; the bisexuality expressed in the piece presents a particular notion of sexuality that challenges patriarchy and places Torso/Self-Portrait, as well as much of Bourgeois’ oeuvre, into feminist discourse. The conflation of male and female genitalia in Torso/Self-Portrait may be read, as Mignon Nixon notes, as, A kind of dis-figuration, a marring or ruining of the sexually differentiated body … the indifference of such a work can be read as politically resistant in its refusal of the differential logic through which sexual difference in particular is produced.
A presentation of the bisexual, not simply in terms of sexuality but instead in a liter-
al, physical embodiment of such a principle as seen in Torso/Self-Portrait, annihilates this idea of sexual difference, of a distinct separation between men and women seemingly upheld in nature by genital disparity and perpetuated by societal patriarchy. As Julie Nicoletta posits, in Bourgeois’ joining of gender, the artist, “seems more interested in overcoming patriarchal dominance through the combination of the sexes.” In her own words, Bourgeois translates the merging of male and female as, “the merging of opposites, and ‘the problem of survival, of having to with identification of one or the other; with merging and adopting the differences of the father.” Hence, the adoption and near absorption of her father’s (and more generally male) sexuality into that of the female acts as both a transgressive act of defeating sexual difference upheld by patriarchy and a means of survival, a shield, so to speak, against societal patriarchy and its supporting intellectual theories of inherent sexual difference. The issue of sexual difference and its subversion through presentations of bisexuality resonate throughout feminist art and dis-
ishtar course, and will resurge in the following analysis of the works of Eva Hesse and Kiki Smith. va Hesse’s Ishtar of 1965 is a narrow vertical relief construction. Organized in rigid regularity, spheres bound by paper and cord are mounted on a textured surface. From the center of these spheres run black cords, which vary in lengths and extend beyond the length of the backing surface to meet at two single points. The detail increases and the color of the piece darkens in a gradient that runs from top to bottom. The bottom orbs are the darkest and most heavily corded and paper-bound. The overall surface texture of the piece is rough and gesso-laden, bearing a sensual, expressive crust-like appearance. This texture speaks of the head-crafted appearance of Bourgeois’ Torso/ Self-Portrait, a texture of human flaw, effort, and physical molding and shaping. These semispheres, or “semihemisperic reliefs,” as Robert Pincus-Witten notes in the catalog for her memorial exhibition, appear as prototypes for a shape
E
— Eva Hesse 1965
28
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
and artistic treatment of said shape that recur in Hesse’s body of work over a five year period. Of Ishtar, Lucy Lippard states that it acts as, “the first piece to incorporate a formal vocabulary which Hesse was to use consistently for the next two years – the repetition of circular or hemispherical “breast” forms from which strings, cords, or rubber lines emerge and hang down.” The semihemispheres, or “erotic orbs,” as Jonathan Fineberg calls them, speak of breasts, in a manner similar to the two small breasts at the top of Torso/Self-Portrait. The very orientation, vertical and serially arranged in two columns, also bears formal similarity to the arrangement of biomorphic forms in Torso/Self-Portrait. It is also possible to interpret this repetition of forms as bearing the same significance as that of Torso/Self-Portrait; the repetition of these breast forms, systemically arranged, articulates the same fetishistic quality. Fineberg also finds fetishism in the, “obsessive process of manufacture” of the orbs, Hesse’s physical wrapping of each a physical practice of obsessive compulsion (and an aspect of Hesse’s artistic process that would be observed throughout her oeuvre). Anything in abundance seems rooted in psychological fixation, and in Ishtar, the repetition of breasts, “evoke[s] the multi-breasted ancient fetish Diana of Ephesus ... for whom Hesse named her work.” Hence, like Torso/Self-Portrait, Ishtar
acts as a minimalist “erotic abstraction” of the traditional fertility sculpture, femininity and its analogous nurturance embodied in a single element of the female form. The usage of the fertility form by Hesse and Bourgeois both acts as a feminist appropriation of ancient and still-present figures of female bodily objectification. However, the critique of this tradition is found not simply in their appropriation, but instead in the alterations they make to this form. The lines that emerge from the breastforms centers provide the crux of interpretational interest in Ishtar as well as the point of critique on the fertility form. These lines present a linear, male shape to a composition that is overwhelmingly feminine it is abundance of hemispherical breast forms. They may be translated as trails of breast milk, the fertility of the forms split and therefore useless, black with rot, disuse, purposelessness, nurturing nothing. They may also be interpreted as phallic forms, albeit lacking the expected girth. However, in their narrowness they bear similarity to the phallic form of Torso/
subversion of sexual difference in feminist art and discourse:
we are all male-female
Self-Portrait, and appear masculine if only by their default formal opposition to the hemisphere forms. If the orbs of Ishtar are breasts and hence, feminine shapes, then the cords, in their striking formal dissimilarity with the orbs, may be presumed phallic and hence, masculine shapes. The rigid regularity in arrangement of the orbs, as well as the rectangular backing, may also be interpreted as masculine shapes. Thus, the presentation of the feminine, embodied in the orb forms, and the masculine, found in the cords and the backing structure of the piece, as one, merged and codependent, provides the same conception of bisexuality as expressed in Torso/ Self-Portrait. The breastforms may also be interpreted as testicles; thus the process of gender identification through genitals only in Ishtar, muddle[s] the penis up with the breasts, and the
breasts with the testicles: and so ... set[s] off a spiral of identifications in which the body is both drawn close and lost track of – becoming ever more impossibly phantasmic. The bisexual form presents an impossibly confused state of gender, wherein specific identifications simply cannot be made; the form instead becomes one of a mystical hermaphroditism, and perhaps in this merging, an image of ultimate fertility. The traditional fertility form, wherein the female body is singularly objectified, is here presented as the full embodiment of not simply fertility, but self-reproduction. A body with both breasts and phallus may nurture and inseminate. However, it must be noted that biologically, the human hermaphrodite is infertile; hence, this form is only one of fantasy, as possible as the multi-breasted Diana of Ephesus. The same possibilities of subversion of sexual difference rampant in patriarchal society noted in Bourgeois’ Torso/Self-Portrait is found in Hesse’s Ishtar.
However, unlike Bourgeois, Hesse did not recognize the male/female duality present in Ishtar and many of her other works; as noted by Lippard:
Lucy Lippard had commented on the preponderance of sexuality and sexual concepts in female art and imagery, stating that:
When Nemser asked her if she thought in
about whether there is and what is a fe-
terms of female and male forms, Hesse
male imagery has centered upon sexual
of course was adamant: I don’t see that
concepts. If women are more obsessed
at all. I’m not saying female/male when
by sexuality than men, it is because
I work at it and even though I recognize
we have been raised and conditioned
that is going to be said, I cancel that.
to think of ourselves and our futures in
This apprehension to recognize the eroticism and conflation of the feminine and masculine in her work may be a product of the times, since discussions of that nature did not emerge until the rise of feminist art criticism. Hesse died just before the Feminist Movement began to pick up steam; hence, though she appeared, through her journal notes, wholly concerned with her status as a woman in a male-dominated art world, truly feminist considerations of her work, eroticism, and the body in art, were not yet widely disseminated. Up until a certain point (presumably around the rise of the Feminist Movement, wherein sexual interpretations of her work were more openly proposed), Bourgeois too admitted hesitation at discussing the sexual imagery and aspects of her work. However, by 1977 30
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
It is no accident that so much dialogue
sexual terms.
Lippard attributes the prevalence of sexual imagery in art made by women to the sexual objectification of women in a patriarchal society. The fertility form preceding the breast and vaginal imagery apparent in Ishtar and Torso/Self-Portrait respectively emerges as a conception of femininity so pervasive that it seemingly initiates any attempt at representing the female and her form. Yet the presence of phallic imagery in these “fertility objects” subverts the patriarchal objectification of such a form, in that it simultaneously objectifies the objectifier, while presenting a form of bisexuality independent of male-conceived notions of sexual difference. These fragmentations of the feminine form presented in Ishtar and Torso/Self-Portrait
have become vocabularies of femininity, tying to Lacanian conceptions of language and sexual difference, and specifically to his theory of metonymy, “the naming of a thing by substituting one of its attributes for the thing itself…divisive and suggestive of femininity.” Ishtar and Torso/Self-Portrait both play on this idea of metonymy; yet in their presentation and conflation of masculine forms they prevent these attributes of femininity from being singularly identified as “female,” and instead propose a sexuality that is simultaneously all and none. This practice in bodily fragmentation, the presentation of the “part-object,” as Nixon conceives it, is a feminist action distinctly proto-feminist, preceding the body politic dominating 1970s feminism; Nixon proposes that, “for those artists of a prefeminist era who were concerned to resist the phallocentric and totalizing cultural logic of late modernism, the bodyin-pieces represented a viable strategy of resistance.” Nixon assures that the “bodyin-pieces” brand of resistance endures throughout 1970s feminism and beyond to the present day; however, after the struggle for reproductive rights and the definition of the female form in political terms
subversion of sexual difference in feminist art and discourse:
we are all male-female
during the 1970s, the fragmentation of the body has taken on new resonance. This resonance may be explored in the Bourgeoisand Hesse-influenced works of Kiki Smith. As Helaine Posner notes in the book Kiki Smith, the artist, “came of age in the 1980s, a time when the representation of the body as a tool to assert the politics of gender and identity began to play a significant role in contemporary art.”
uro-genital U system (female)
— K iki Smith 1986
ro-Genital System (Male) and Uro-Genital System (Female) , both of 1986, a two-part wall sculpture of both systems in bronze, as Susan Tallman notes, “marked her entry into the complicated territory of sexual difference.” The sculptures, bearing the same formal qualities of roughness and human touch and error as found in Torso/Self-Portrait and Ishtar, also interact with the complications of sexual difference, though in a decidedly blunter manner than the abstracted sexual imagery of Torso/Self-Portrait and Ishtar. In Uro-Genital System (Male) and UroGenital System (Female), just that is depicted: two heavy bronze sculptures of internal sexual and excretory systems. Sexual difference appears in the visible difference between the two systems; however, the expected metonymy conjured up by the female form in
uro-genital system (male)
— K iki Smith 1986 32
Âť north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
subversion of sexual difference in feminist art and discourse:
we are all male-female
most other depictions of female genitalia is not present here. Unfamiliarity with internal feminine imagery makes it impossible to reduce the female uro-genital system to a symbol of femininity; it bears more similarity with the male uro-genital system, if only because this too is an unfamiliar image. In presenting the unfamiliar internal depictions of images that, when externally viewed, are intensely charged with gender hierarchy and sexual difference, Smith strips female and male genitalia both of their associations, and in doing so, highlights the similarities between two distinct forms. The male and female uro-genital systems are understood, by their natures, to be different in appearance; hence, in viewing Uro-Genital System (Male) and Uro-Genital System (Female), one ruminates not on the differences between the two (because those are to be expected), but instead on the formal similarities. Man and woman become one in the same when
internally observed. Uro-Genital System (Male) and Uro-Genital System (Female) also provides an example of one of Smith’s conceptual preoccupations, one distinctly tied to issues of sexual difference. Conceptually, Posner asserts, Smith is deeply concerned with what she perceives to be the fragmentation and dualism that pervade both our individual bodies and our culture as a whole. She believes that ‘our bodies have been broken apart bit by bit and need a lot of healing ... Everything is split, and presented as dichotomies – male/female, body/ mind – and those splits need mending.
This concern with “fragmentation” speaks of the “part-objects” of the work of Hesse and Bourgeois. Formally, Smith takes much from the materials and materiality of Hesse’s work, and the conveyance of the emotional and at times alarming personal to the sculptural from Bourgeois. However, it seems that in this preoccupation
with cultural, gender fragmentation, and her investment in “heal[ing] the rupture,” Smith relates to Hesse and Bourgeois, and the history of feminist art, in a manner far more powerful than mere formalism. Explorations of psychosexuality and sexual difference are not unique to female artists but such explorations obtain a significant strength from the peculiar experience of femininity in patriarchal societies and their corresponding phallocentric intellectualism. Bourgeois, Hesse, and Smith contribute valuable challenges to the necessity and supposed inherence of sexual difference, and in doing so, find support and relevance in feminist art discourse. The possibility of reducing practices of sexual difference in this phallocentric society may be far off, if not impossible; however, their artistic attempts at such reduction introduce a compelling argument for questioning sexual difference and the necessity of patriarchy. » nar
caravaggio & theories of self-expressionism »
an artist, a life, an oeuvre
aA
rt forms are frequently seen as direct embodiments of the artist’s selfexpression; projections of emotion, subliminal or conscious desires, through which we regard his life and oeuvre. As art historians, we often conceive and develop multifarious systems of symbols— imbedded visual semantics—with which we seek to understand the true soul of the artist. This could not be more evident than in the case of the simultaneously beloved and hated Italian artist Caravaggio, whose works are sometimes viewed as dark, shuttered, and reflective of his narcissistic violence and brutish interior – a life replete with insecurity, repressed homosexuality, 34
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
by frank glaser
— dartmouth college
and elusiveness. In this narrative, art and the soul of the artist are closely entwined. This is seen to be particularly true of selfportraiture – What is the artist conveying, intentionally or unconsciously, in the selfdepiction, and what might that tell us about the artist? The very recent rediscovery (in 1993) of one of Caravaggio’s most sought-after masterpieces, The Taking of Christ of 1602 (fig. 1), by Senior Conservator Sergio Benedetti at the National Gallery of Ireland prompts a consideration of these issues. Slave to a long history of contested lineage, the piece has finally been unanimously attributed to Caravaggio. As many of his other compositions, this too incorporates a figure that is likely a self-portrait. If it is, in fact, the artist himself portrayed holding the lantern on
the right of the composition, what can we as art historians learn of the artist’s oeuvre? In this example, the self-depicted artist bears witness to a very emotionally charged moment. His lantern, figuratively, sheds light on a dark world. Is the artist contemplating his own psychic, violent and melancholic impulses purportedly imbedded in his works? Consider the fullest early account of the artist’s life, that of seicento critic Giovanni Bellori. Like just about all of his commentators, Bellori emphasized Caravaggio’s long history of disorderly behavior and violent crime (evident in multitudinous police records), and his haughty, provoking swordsmanship and cantankerous temperament; from this, he formulated a theory of selfexpression in Caravaggio’s oeuvre, and was
The taking of christ in the garden
— Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio 1602
the first (of many) to do so. In his seminal work entitled Caravaggio Studies, Walter Freidlander says of Bellori and the other commentators: They take Caravaggio’s tenebroso manner, the dark shadows which he used after
of Bellori’s theory of self-expression. ne should look no further than The Taking of Christ to discern some of the visual qualities that are considered typical of Caravaggio’s works and are
O
the pure and sweet colors of his first period to be an expression of his turbulent nature, and they suggest that his whole psysiognomy and appearance, his dark complexion, black eyes, hair and eyebrows—in short, his whole black character—is reflected [in his paintings].
In more modern interpretations, his art is linked to life in additional, psychoanalytic ways. Most prolific are those that theorize homosexuality based on imbedded, subliminal signals or those that assign psychic fears of castration and punishment to scenes of beheading and other types of violence. Such interpretations have been espoused by art historians like Howard Hibbard in Caravaggio and Walter Friedlander in Caravaggio Studies; these methodologies of psychoanalysis are the rough, modern equivalent 36
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
suggestive to biographers. In the artist’s rendering of the oft-depicted scene of the betrayal of Judas and Christ’s subsequent arrest in the garden, Christ and Judas are
the primary actors in the drama, caught at a precise moment. Cast upon them is the light from the upper-left corner and above the curved, red garment of a fleeing figure frames their faces – that of Christ reflects a quiet acquiescence while that of his betrayer reveals shameful, penitent disloyalty. The frantic, shrieking figure on the left to which the cloak belongs is a fleeing disciple. He and the onslaught of three soldiers, armored in shiny metal, one of which extends his left arm to apprehend, contrast sharply with the quietude expressed by Christ, whose hands are clasped in a gesture of perfect faith and painful resignation. And a spectator to this unfolding drama – the man on the right holding a lantern and whose face is quite visible and is said to be that of Caravaggio himself– appears unique in both dress and composure with respect to the other figures. The dense sturdiness of all material objects, the black background stripped to its essentials, the direct contact established with the spectator, the focus on few characters very close to the surface, the high-pitched drama, and the
caravaggio and theories of self-expressionism
an artist, a life, an oeuvre
handling of light are all significant qualities of the grand master that leave no doubt of this painting’s provenance, and are consistently taken to be indicative of Caravaggio’s melancholic and frequently violent nature. And as Benedetti points out about this piece in particular, the artist’s highly expressive spirituality is not “simply the result of artistic genius, but must be understood in terms of Caravaggio’s sincere religious conviction.” We, as heirs to Romanticism, are inclined to believe that even when executing commissions, an artist expresses himself through the brush. In this case, Caravaggio was commissioned by the Marchese Ciriaco Mattei to paint the subject of Christ’s betrayal in the garden. Based on other depictions to which Caravaggio might have been exposed, and despite any ostensible limitations on the part of the commissioner, there is sufficient reason to believe that the final piece, for which he would be paid 125 scudi during the year 7th January 1602 to 2nd January 1603, was the pure result of his creative, individual genius, and not the product of quoted images. Caravaggio’s construal of the subject matter both stylistically and iconographically departs
significantly from artistic precedent. Posed by Benedetti as a potential influence in composition is Lorenzo Lotto’s Child and Adultress which is telling of the artist’s innate dramatizing tendencies inherent also in Caravaggio’s depictions of other religious themes. Lotto, an artist who Caravaggio reportedly admired, paints a rather static scene of overall calm – there is no aggression on the part of the soldiers and it would be difficult to distinguish a specific moment within the narrative. Hibbard makes note of Caravaggio’s likely familiarity with a small painting by Giuseppe Cesari, Taking of Christ of 1596-97, which is set in a more conventional space but manages to introduce some elements of chiaroscuro that Caravaggio brought to new heights in his depiction. Even here, however, the figures are distant and their individual emotions are difficult to discern. Exposed to previous interpretative conventions of the same biblical subject such as these, a plausible impetus for new renderings is the artist’s own self-expression, certainly tempered by the potential demands of the patrons, society, and not in Caravaggio’s case, artistic precedent. Diverging from these previous tradi-
tions in which the chaos, drama, and emotion of the scene is more generalized (as it is in Cesari’s) or absent all together (as it is Lotto’s), Caravaggio’s localizes the emotional intensity very precisely on the interaction between Christ and Judas. As mentioned above, the framing device of red cloak and ray of light highlights this, as does the rhythm and gazes of the figures within the composition. The enemy group seems to be in motion towards Christ, as if everyone had just then entered the garden, and the moment portrayed may thusly be that directly before the kiss, when Judas hailed his master and established physical closeness, the emotional climax of the story. Conjured up within the viewer is an equally profound awareness of the emotional relationship between Judas and Christ. One begins to wonder, why did the artist choose to illustrate this particular moment in time in this particular way? There are various interpretations of the Gospel of Judas, and hence, there is considerable debate regarding the apostle’s consciousness and spirituality. In Psychology of Judas Iscariot, Uraguchi dissects the tradition of depictions of this character, and presents his own interpretation:
[Judas’] personality presents a mental condition very similar to the common consciousness of present-day people; and to the sympathetic student of human nature it contains much that is nourishing to the spiritual life. Yet the nature of the interpretations most commonly given to the character of this apostle has been neither psychological nor sympathetic. Some have regarded him as a most inhuman devil ... [Judas’] humanity was perfectly genuine and is thoroughly identical with ours.
38
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
In contrast to artistic precedents such as those cited above, Caravaggio has chosen to humanize both Christ and Judas. He has cultivated a Judas that seems to be genuinely compassionate and perhaps even remorseful. His brow is furrowed and raised, his gaze intense upon Christ, and his facial features softened. Far from coming off as an “inhuman devil,” and despite his actions, Judas appears to be bona fide. The actual rendering of Christ is strikingly dissimilar from that of convention as well. Cesari’s emotionless, celestial Christ, for example, has been supplanted by a very real, human
caravaggio and theories of self-expressionism
an artist, a life, an oeuvre
Christ whose soul has been overtaken with grief having learned of his loved one’s infidelity. Head tilted, eyes closed, he leans back and clasps his hands, resigning himself sorrowfully to his unavoidable fate. Cesari’s Christ, on the other hand, is beaming with golden rays. The figure’s idealized forms are softened, and his face is blank and expressionless. We do not even see Judas’ face up-close, and we are not invited to identify or sympathize with the Christ presented here, because he does not look vulnerable or human, an all-together different message from that of Caravaggio. The preference of the specific instant preceding the kiss just as Christ has sensed his fate and intuited Judas’ duplicity, the moment of greatest tragedy, is telling of the artist. At this moment, it seems that Judas himself is aware of Christ’s foreknowledge, consciously unable to deny his treachery, and is consigning himself to compunction. Within this flash of time there is a complicated set of emotions, and one which Caravaggio invokes expertly. The only man that would be able to so fully and holistically comprehend this human tragedy, and especially the consciousness of Judas, is he
who himself is closely familiar with it. This painting suggests that the artist, unknowingly, self-identifies with Judas’ complex struggle of sin, guilt, and redemption, or at the very least, understood the associated complexities of human emotion. It is widely believed that Caravaggio rejected the artistic conventions of his time and embraced a purely self-invoking innovativeness expressed through his works; this belief informs much of our knowledge of the artist. In order for this reading to stand firm, this work must endure one last trial. Allegedly, Caravaggio looked “beyond nature to earlier images of the subject ... and developed his image from Durer’s woodcut of the subject in the so-called ‘Small Passion’ series,” thereby reducing the artist’s individual invention and creativities. This implies that Caravaggio was visually exposed to Durer’s woodcut before he undertook the painting of the Taking and that he recorded, processed, and employed his impression in his own depiction. Noticeably absent in Kristina Fiore’s exposé are details pertaining to this woodcut’s provenance that would denote such an influence. To his (and her) credit, how-
ever, Caravaggio was distinguished by his contemporaries for his remarkable ability to record and then later conjure up visual images that he had seen long ago. So if Caravaggio had indeed been exposed to Durer’s work, his ability to recall would likely be significant. Notwithstanding, the stylistic and compositional qualities—while overlapping in some respects—are quite drastically diverse, and point to the late seicento artist himself as the source of inspiration for his depiction. Durer’s woodcut does, in fact, draw attention to the central grouping of Christ and Judas, and pinpoints the most emotive moment in the narrative. His two central figures appear to actually be kissing at that very instant, and in the same way as Caravaggio’s depiction, they are physically and emotionally intimate. Further, an armed soldier to the right of the composition has taken hold of Christ’s robe in a strikingly similar way. But Caravaggio has elevated this iconography to a completely new level by way of reducing the number of figures, employing a medium that conduces an unprecedented tenebrism, and bringing the characters
and their emotional expressiveness closer to the surface. We can truly perceive the heartfelt emotions of both main characters through their countenances and physical composure, a quality that is restrained in Durer’s depiction partly by their distance from the viewer and the medium itself. In the woodcut, the unfolding of a very vigorous thrashing, presumably of one of Christ’s followers, detracts from the central dilemma. Had he been influenced by Durer’s woodcut, which seems to be the closest precedent, these very extensive transformations would still constitute a complete visual departure on Caravaggio’s part. Correct is David Carrier’s remark that “theories of Caravaggio’s pictorial quotations and of his self-expression are internally connected;” but the evidence above attests to the complete entrenchment of Caravaggio’s own mental persona in his work. One other way to step out of the proverbial “circle” (of self-expressionistic readings) is to approach the artist by way of social history; a culture, we believe, “has a certain unity.” Commonly linked to Caravaggio’s works, for instance, is the religious climate that
was occupying seicento society. Though there are many plausible sectarian influences of different contemporary theologians and texts, it suffices to mention the few, general, religious qualities that typify
ent at that given moment and participating by means of the senses. In keeping with this, Caravaggio paints religious scenes as if they were real human tragedies; Christ and Judas’s evocation of emotion and close interpersonal exchange are visual qualities of the Taking that have been noted. In the Taking, we can hear the shriek of the terrified, fleeing disciple. We can experience the weightiness of human betrayal and remorse, and we can truly sense the fullness of the human drama in the “now.” The composition of place and application of the senses, making religious mystery tangible by employing the worshipper’s imagination to invite direct participation, was a specifically Catholic method of meditation during the Counter-Reformation. It is apparent, as Chorpenning points out, that the hallmarks of Caravaggio’s religious art are Cara— Michelangelo Merisi vaggio’s artistic response to, and da Caravaggio interpretation of, contemporary 1597-98 religious practice. It could be conjectured that, besides his sponsors, his works. Counter-Reformation medita- Caravaggio himself was a deeply religious tive techniques prescribed that the wor- man, and that that manifests in his art, shipper imagine a religious scene taking given the visual qualities discussed above. place before his eyes, as if he were pres- This certainly seems to be the case; the art-
medusa
40
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
Judith Beheading Holofernes
caravaggio and theories of self-expressionism
an artist, a life, an oeuvre
— Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio 1598-99 ist himself within which lies internalized religious conviction seems to be the main impetus behind the artistic genius. e shall now return back to the main drama, The Taking of Christ, and particularly, the added dimension of self-portraiture here. Looking back, Caravaggio’s early works of his juvenilia period occasionally feature his own portrait; during this time, he likely did not have ready access to models, so according to his contemporary Baglione “he tried to get along by himself and painted small pictures from his own reflection.” In these initial self-portraits, most notably Self-
W
Portrait as Bacchus (“Bacchino Malato”) of 1593-94, we see the artist as model but not subject; beneath the physical features of 22-year old Caravaggio, plainly absent are the undertones that will eventually become apparent. It is through many of these early works that many modern scholars have psychoanalytically constructed his homosexuality. A few years before 1600, Caravaggio’s works became increasingly violent and dark, and a deeper, and at times confusing, autobiographical self-portrait emerges. Judith Beaheading Holofernes of 1598-99 and Medusa of 1597-98 are but two early examples of the artist incorporating grue-
Self-portrait as Bacchus — Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio 1593-94 some flavors of mutilation and death in his oeuvre. It could even be hypothesized that both, but particularly the Medusa, manifest self-depicted qualities. Further, they and other depictions of decapitation are said to embody the artist’s private fears and fantasies of decapitation and thence castration, and also allude to the origins of his homosexuality. Caravaggio’s The Martyrdom of St.
The Martyrdom of saint matthew
— Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio 1599 42
Âť north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
caravaggio and theories of self-expressionism
an artist, a life, an oeuvre
Matthew of 1599 depicts the saint awaiting the final blow from his executioner as others flee in all directions. The composition of the scene—with its chiaroscuro, dark background, sharp emotional contrasts, and handling of light (here too it comes from the upper-left unto the martyr)— reminds us in some ways of The Taking of Christ, although the incorporation of more figures here (necessitated by the subject matter, the size of the canvas, and his commission) and the overall execution disable this from reaching quite the same emotional pitch. Far in the background a bearded man with thick, dark, furrowed brows, medium-length hair, deep-sunken sockets with hazel eyes, and a rough, concerned face glances back; the facial profile is a perfect match to Ottavio Leoni’s portrait of Caravaggio, one of our only nearcontemporary visual renderings of the artist by someone other than himself. This is one of the first of several self-images that belong to the “dark” half of the artist, which Hibbard describes:
be deduced from some of Caravaggio’s later works, his identification with violence and evil, which seems to have increased with time. He must have expected to be recognized here, and his presence is a form of signature that was well known in Italian Renaissance art.
The Martyrdom of St. Matthew was painted just a couple years before The Taking of Christ, and in both pieces the figure of the artist is very clearly distinguishable, although there are subtle and perhaps significant peculiarities. The figure in The Martyrdom of St. Matthew has a visage of shock or rage, or both, communicated by the furrowed brow and rutted cheek, perhaps a result of his participation in the scene; Hibbard has suggested he is King Hirtacus, the man who ordered the slaying, an identification that would surely affect the way he was depicted. In contrast, ostensibly the same man appears to be less visibly emotional in the scene of the Taking. Chin lifted, eyebrows raised, and lantern in-hand, he is merely trying to catch a We sense here a beginning of the fa- glimpse of the two figures in the center of talistic or tragic self-image that can the composition – Christ and Judas.
My own sense of the purported King Hirtacus figure is different from that of Hibbard. In addition to just his facial qualities, the figure’s whole body is contorted and his arm is outstretched. A helpless witness to a horrific murder, he appears to be attempting to reach back, as if to symbolically stop the executioner. To me, his overall disposition invoked by his countenance, is one of deep compassion. This reading does not support Hibbard’s identification of the figure as King Hirtacus. The figure in the Taking, on the other hand, appears to be more ambiguous as it is difficult to gauge the precise quality of his gaze. Here, he looks almost bewildered, perhaps slightly troubled, but certainly less passionate. In a form almost identical to the Taking, the artist represents himself in the last work known to be completed in his lifetime – The Martyrdom of St. Ursula of 1610. Shown at terribly close range is the king of the Huns shooting an arrow through Ursula after she refused to be his wife. All of the same stylistic qualities still characterize Caravaggio’s work. The bearded man on the right, upon whose face the light shines,
is identical to the figure in the Taking; he observes somewhat dispassionately, as his casual onlooker self. hat does this tell us about Caravaggio, if anything? Contrary to Hibbard, this self-image does not infer a straightforward, unequivocal “identification with violence and evil.” Rather, it seems that imbued in both of these images is a self-identification of a different, more ambiguous, nature – perhaps one that reflected his introspection, self-questioning, and contemplation of the world around him, as an artist and human being. This accords more closely with Philip Sohm’s interpretation:
W
Caravaggio might be seen as casting himself in an opposing role as a latterday Diogenes seeking redemption and casting light on a deceptive and morally dark world. In this reading, however hypothetical it may be, Caravaggio presents himself not as the dark painter who came into the world to “destroy painting” but as another Carracci, savior of art, who shines the light of truth into Mannerist obscurity.
Thus, it appears that Caravaggio’s selfportrait in the Taking relates somewhat to 44
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
what has already been discussed regarding his choice of subject matter and humanization of the characters in this drama. With the deliberate inclusion of his self-portrait as anonymous spectator, the artist expresses his identification with humanity— life and death—and all of its emotions, albeit in an ambiguous manner. Whether or not he mindfully intended to display himself “casting light” symbolically by way of the lantern in the Taking, it is not clear. But regardless, in accordance with Giovanna Dell’Orto, we can see that in a general sense “Caravaggio’s self-portraits are…portraits of his true spirit, a painted exploration of the self as a fiercely involved spectator in the sudden burst of life, and the final end of death.” One last example, painted towards the end of Caravaggio’s life, is frequently taken to be especially illustrative of the artist’s most subliminal, insentient psyche – David With the Head of Goliath of 1609-10 – in which he portrayed himself in the severed head of Goliath. With this, Hibbard associates “an explicit self-identification with Evil—and with a wish for punishment ... [Caravaggio] may have been looking for punishment in order to atone for unconscious feelings of guilt.” Later, Hibbard goes on to render an additional, complex
level of self-identification of the artist with the youthful beheader, expressing feelings of guilt, and he relates this “latent content of the painting as dream” and rests ultimately on the fact that Caravaggio was “a murderer.” In contrast to Caravaggio’s portraits of self as spectator/observer, he is figuring himself directly into this scene – as an express participant. Here, the psychoanalytic undertones are surely too manifest to be cast aside, even by the most skeptical of critics. The rendering of Goliath is so uncanny that of all the early and later commentaries on Caravaggio’s works, this is the self-portrait that is most definite and undisputed. In striking contrast to his presence as observer in other scenes such as the Taking, he is here the primary focus of this gruesome and outright horrifying nightmare. In addition to the more overt expression of self-punishment and guilt on the part of the artist, there are many layers of psychoanalytic analysis that could be employed. Consider Hammill’s interpretation, for instance: It is as if ... [he] were announcing that in beheading the Philistine giant who threatened to subject all the men of Israel, he has supplanted Goliath’s hyper-
David With the Head of Goliath
caravaggio and theories of self-expressionism
— Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio 1609-10
an artist, a life, an oeuvre
masculinity without sacrificing his own youth. Who cares, the nonchalance of the sword’s placement suggests, if the sword comes so close to my penis? I already have the phallus ... Having evaded castration, David poses as if on the way to becoming what the history of the Hebrew nation will have him be ... But there is more ... There is also the dark void out of which David emerges to pose as an emblem of imaginary masculine wholeness ...
As is apparent, once one steps firmly into the realm of psychoanalysis, the interpretative possibilities are virtually endless. What is critical is to understand how the integration of this piece and its psychoanalysis into Caravaggio’s oeuvre affects our interpretations of his other pieces. Consider the above reading of The Tak46
» north w est er n a rt rev iew
n urev iew. org
ing of Christ, in which it is acknowledged that the significance of his self-portrait was ambiguous, but that it nonetheless invoked subtle feelings of compassion, selfcontemplation, and his identification with humanity. Despite his resignation as a non-participant, the dramatization of the scene and all the other artistic choices are rooted in his passion for being a fiercely passionate spectator. David with the Head of Goliath lends a new twist of meaning to Caravaggio’s corpus of works, in some regards. As Carrier argues correctly, “psychoanalytic accounts are extremely vulnerable to simple counter-evidence” and “our whole view of Caravaggio [can be] changed by accepting [just] one attribution.” In this case, a far more explicit tone of guilt and self-reproach is conveyed, but one not all together incompatible with the
expressions of inner turmoil alluded to earlier. Nonetheless, we begin to question ourselves as to whether or not this was observable in the Taking and other self-depictions. Is it just the artist’s devastating weariness that is imbedded, or is there an intense emotionality of self-blame, regret and perhaps even fatalistic foreboding. Further, is he (the artist) psychically projecting himself in David as “an emblem of imaginary masculine wholeness?” Certainly there is something additional here that we did not detect in the Taking, but if anything, we become more aware of the artist’s bitter consciousness of his impulses; that which we began to see in the Taking. Having examined this final example, should we go back with this new understanding and reevaluate the Taking and other works, and if we did, would it be fruitful?
caravaggio and theories of self-expressionism
an artist, a life, an oeuvre
The answer is an unequivocal yes. When we encounter a new attribution, a work hitherto unknown, or even a new primary source document or finding in the field of contemporary social history, we must reprocess the artist. This is not antithetical to productive art historical scholarship. rt historians since the seiscento have tried desperately to seek as many links as possible between Caravaggio’s life and works, albeit with different approaches. Having discussed the various “codes” that guide theories of interpretation frequently encountered in Caravaggio Studies, Carrier sums up his conclusions in a rather disenchanted tone:
A
I show that what the psychoanalytic interpretations and Marxist texts share with the traditional iconographical discussion and studies of attributions is the assumption that all the facts about Caravaggio’s life and art can be synthesized into a narrative explaining the origin and development of his art.
Thus, the earliest commentators such as Bellori are anachronistically linked with
modern theorists such as Friedlander, Hibbard or Hammill in that all aspire to conjoin art and life, employing different methodologies to accomplish this ultimate goal. I am an adherent of this philosophy and a firm believer in our constantly developing art historical frameworks. Though we may differ here and there on matters of what is being conveyed and/or how much of the artist is being expressed, we share a common belief in the foundation that some common trend is there: above, within, and beneath the surface of the canvas. I believe the basis of Carrier’s disillusionment has to do with the inherent challenge of this process. Scholars have spent lifetimes formulating theories only to have them nulled, shifted, and developed. This is humanism. Eloquently verbalized by Carrier: “For the humanist, his life is ‘a principle of unity’; his beliefs are expressed in his art, so that his art and life become a seamless unity.” Though disparaged by Carrier, I feel impelled to agree with this important art historical exercise. I do not believe in this as a static process as Carrier does, but rather as one that accommodates multiple interpretations and
adapts to new information. There are limits to this seeking of unity, however indefinable and indefinite they may be; these are handled by the term “modern humanism.” The modern humanist does not overlook selectively to suit his single-minded view of the artist, he acknowledges all that is before him. In the course of our search for symbols and visual clues of the artist’s persona, let us be sure to consider the whole picture: the artist, his works, outside artistic and cultural influences, religion and of course, the artist’s personal beliefs and life; and not explain away important facts to fit our mental picture of the artist. When we examine a work of art, one must dig deep into the soul of the person and culture that created the image, in a very openminded way. We should continually debate the nature of our modernly conceived cultural histories, attributions, and spectatorship; and perhaps as a result, the next generation of scholars will challenge and evolve our portrait of Caravaggio, as ours may no longer be acceptable. » nar
NAR is a student-produced journal based at Northwestern University dedicated to publishing undergraduate papers on art history and contemporary art trends. If you are interested in submitting a research paper or art review for publication in the Journal, please contact our editor-in-chief at e-reichert@northwestern.edu. If you are an undergraduate at any institute of higher education and interested in contributing in other ways, please contact the publisher at timothywright2007@u.northwestern.edu. NAR thanks its sponsors, staff, featured authors, and the Department of Art History at Northwestern University for their combined efforts in producing its inaugural issue.
NAR . . . . . . . northwestern
Âť art review