Paul and Bunny Mellon: Visual Biographies The Trompe l’Oeil Paintings at Oak Spring, Virginia
Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi with the collaboration of Tony Willis 2020 Oak Spring Garden Foundation Upperville, Virginia
Contents I
6 Acknowledgments
7 Preface Sir Peter Crane frs
89 Paul Mellon: A Philanthropic Life
By Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi
9 Introduction 11
Trompe l’Oeil Painting: Vision, Perception, Deception
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The Revival of Trompe l’Oeil Painting in the United States and France, 1800 – 2000
By Tony Willis
99 Bunny Mellon: Creating Gardens and a Library Legacy to Inspire and Educate 108 An Account of the Battersby and Renard Trompe l’Oeil Paintings at Oak Spring 129 List of Objects in the First Proposal for the Trompe l’Oeil in the Formal Greenhouse at Oak Spring by Fernand Renard 131 List of Surviving Objects
27 “Counterfeit”: The Trompe l’Oeil and Botanical Art 37
A Trompe l’Oeil for the Mellons’ Living Room by Martin Battersby
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The Decoration of the Greenhouse by Fernand Renard
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Other Trompe l’Oeils at Oak Spring
132 Bibliography and Selected Additional Literature 135 Index
Paul and Bunny Mellon at Oak Spring with their dogs, ca. 1952. Photograph by Thomas Neil Darling, courtesy of Howard Allen Photography, LLC, Middleburg, VA.
Acknowledgments I
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This book is both a scholarly elucidation of the Oak Spring trompe l’oeil and a personal tribute to the cultivated aesthetic of Paul and Bunny Mellon. Both of us knew Paul and Bunny Mellon well. Through the opportunities that they provided the Mellons had a profound influence on our individual professional development. This book is dedicated to both of them with gratitude. We acknowledge with appreciation all those who helped to bring this project to fruition. Lisa Chien skillfully translated the initial draft of the main text from the Italian original and contributed in many other ways to the success of the project. Therese O’Malley at the National Gallery of Art read the entire manuscript and made many helpful suggestions for revisions. Jim Morris at Digital Color Productions, was responsible for most of the high-quality photographs and helped with the reproduction of several other images. Magda Nakassis expertly copyedited the manuscript and the superb design is by Antonio Alcalá and Helen McNiell at Studio A in Alexandria, Virginia. Peter Crane, President of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, coordinated every aspect of the book’s production from editing the manuscript to the final proofreading. We offer special gratitude to Elinor Crane for her research that brought to light many new details and materials relating to the Oak Spring trompe l’oeil. She also helped obtain several important photographs, including that of Fernand Renard. Several colleagues and distinguished scholars gave valuable advice during the development of the manuscript, including Alessandro Tosi at Università di Pisa; Michelle Fondas, Anne Halpern, and Aaron Wile at the National Gallery of Art; and Alison Parman at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. We owe special thanks to Fabio Garbari, who identified the plants, and to the late Paolo Tongiorgi, who iden-
paul a n d bunny mell on: visual bio graphi e s
tified the insects and shells, that are depicted in the Martin Battersby and Fernand Renard trompe l’oeil paintings. We extend our sincere gratitude to all the institutions who have granted permission to use images of works in their collections. We are especially indebted to Derry Moore for the photograph of Fernand Renard, Philippe Garner for the photograph of Martin Battersby, Beverly Carter for helping to obtain images of the Brick House, and Joël Cadiou for providing the image of La Déchirure (The Tear). Thanks go to the many staff of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation who contributed in different ways to the success of this project, including Lori Anderson, Ronnie Caison, Nancy Collins, Kimberley Fisher, Giulia Hines, Jordan Long, Allissa Montgomery, Kathy Olimpi, Angie Ritterpusch, Max Smith, Ricky Willis, Jacquelyn Wong, Gloria Woodson, and Judy Zatsick. Finally, our deepest gratitude goes to Bunny Mellon for her foresight in establishing the Oak Spring Garden Foundation to help promote scholarship and practice relating to plants, gardens, and landscapes, including especially those areas where the arts, humanities, and sciences come together. Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi Università di Pisa Tony Willis Oak Spring Garden Foundation
Preface I
There are many treasures tucked away in the private world that Rachel (Bunny) Lambert Mellon created for herself, her husband Paul Mellon, and their family at Oak Spring. Set in the rolling landscape of the rural Virginia Piedmont, only a little more than an hour from the center of the nation’s capital, Oak Spring provided the Mellons with the tranquility to pursue their individual passions and the space to reflect on their shared interests. Oak Spring was where they called home. Rachel Mellon’s exquisite Oak Spring garden is well-known, as also is her magnificent library, which overflows with rare treatises on plants, gardens, and landscapes. Much less recognized, though one of the true treasures of Oak Spring, is a spectacular work of art, a unique trompe l’oeil mural more than nine feet tall that adorns the vestibule of the formal greenhouse. In this book, Mrs. Mellon’s close friend Professor Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi, with help from Mrs. Mellon’s longtime librarian, Tony Willis, brings to life this unique work, exploring its genesis, its symbolism, and its position in the long tradition of still life and trompe l’oeil painting. The Oak Spring trompe l’oeil is the product of a unique collaboration. It was made possible by the considerable technical skills of the French painter Fernand Renard, but it is infused with Mrs. Mellon’s personality and her unique sense of style. It reflects Mrs. Mellon’s discerning taste and provides a window into a creative life worth celebrating for its intellectual vigor and its multilayered sensibility. There is also a surprising coda. Hidden behind cupboard doors in the living room of the Mellon home is a smaller trompe l’oeil. Also a collaborative project, this time between Paul Mellon and the renowned English trompe l’oeil artist Martin Battersby, this painting gives a personal insight into Paul Mellon. It reveals a life not simply centered on horses and field sports, for which he was well-known, but
one that was also highly cultured, intellectually rich, and embraced a love of fine books and exquisite art. On behalf of the staff at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, I hope that you enjoy this glimpse into the private world of Paul and Bunny Mellon. These two unique works of art illuminate the lives of two of the foremost art collectors and philanthropists of the late twentieth century and exemplify the sophistication of their artistic vision. Sir Peter Crane frs President Oak Spring Garden Foundation
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Introduction I
We enjoy being deceived as long as we remain aware of the deception. ernst h. gombrich
Meditationen über ein Steckenpferd, 1978
Within the panorama of the protean genre of trompe l’oeil, two as yet unrecognized but noteworthy works deserve a place. They were commissioned around the middle of the last century by Paul Mellon (1907–1999), and by his wife Rachel Lambert Mellon (1910–2014), known to everyone as Bunny—two exceptional figures who, through their example, exerted a great influence on collecting and the arts around the world. It appears that parallel decisions were taken within a relatively short space of time to decorate two favorite corners of the couple’s estate at Oak Spring—a cabinet in the living room and the vestibule of Bunny’s recently completed formal greenhouse—with paintings en trompe-l’oeil. Given the divergent tastes and cultural predilections of Paul and Bunny, two different artists were chosen for the commissions. For the first project, Paul, a keen Anglophile, fixed on the English artist Martin Battersby (1914–1982), a well-known painter, decorator, and author of various books, including an important history of the trompe l’oeil. For the second, Bunny, with her profound love of French culture, selected Fernand Renard (1912–ca. 1980), a French artist specializing in the genre of the trompe l’oeil. Bound together by their love of art and their shared ideals and objectives, a lighthearted intellectual complicity and close collaboration, both academic and artistic, sprang up between the couple in the course of these two creative endeavors. Thus, in serendipitous fashion, two “visual biographies” came into being. When read closely, they shed light on the character, interests, and passions of two singular individuals who left a decisive mark on the history of contemporary culture.
This book gives a brief history of trompe l’oeil painting and the centrality of this distinctive genre to Renaissance portrayals of the natural world, before considering the creation of the two trompe l’oeil paintings that grace the Mellons’ home.
Italian cabinet in trompe l’oeil with marbled shelves and books, a nineteenth-century scenery prop, oil on canvas mounted to wood, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA.
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The Decoration of the Greenhouse by Fernand Renard I
Bunny inherited a passion for gardening from her maternal grandfather. As her own knowledge of gardening and garden history grew, she came to appreciate the activity as a rich and complex cultural phenomenon, a harmonious convergence of nature, botany, horticulture, art, and material culture that was perfectly consonant with her own interests, tastes, and aspirations as a gardener. It was this vision that inspired her, not only in the layout of the grounds for the family’s new home, a gracious mansion of whitewashed stone at Oak Spring, but also in the building of a formal greenhouse to complement the estate’s vast expanse of flower beds, orchards, lawns, and meadows, in which she could carry out horticultural experiments and cultivate seedlings and plants for her garden. All of Bunny’s gardening projects reflected her refined intuition, but she allowed herself to be influenced by examples from the past, finding ideas that she could apply in a manner that harmonized with her own vision for her garden. Thus, she turned to the French tradition for the design of her formal greenhouse, which was then constructed by the New York architect H. Page Cross (1910–1975). A brief letter from Bunny’s secretary to the architect sent early in 1959 shows how closely she followed the project from beginning to end. After providing Cross with Renard’s address, which he had apparently requested, the letter continues, “Mrs. Mellon also asked me to say…that she is not yet ready to go ahead with the greenhouse. She is sure you understand that she does not want you to go ahead, but she wanted to make certain there would be no misunderstanding as she will want to make some modifications.” 72 The formal greenhouse was no mere conservatory, but a carefully designed and functional building consisting of two long wings, each
wide enough to accommodate two rows of plantings—one bed along the inner stone wall and a bench along the length of the outer glass wall. Bunny then devised a pleasing architectural feature to vary the utilitarian aspect of the building—a quadrangular pavilion intended to serve as a vestibule with a hidden workbench, while also providing access to the two wings, each of which ends with its own small pavilion. The vestibule is a beautiful and unusual space, with diffuse light streaming through the glass doors to the right and left, and evocations of eighteenth-century French Orientalism in its architecture and decor. Perched on the roof of the pavilion is a lead urn in the eighteenthcentury style containing a magnificent floral arrangement beautifully wrought from several kinds of metals. This piece of garden sculpture was conceived by Jean Schlumberger (1907–1987), a French jewelry designer who came to the United States after the Second World War and became one of Tiffany & Co.’s most celebrated collaborators. Bunny admired the sophistication and imagination of the artist’s work, which included a vein of whimsy, particularly in his interpretations of nature. She and “Johnny” became close friends and in 1959–60 she asked him to propose some ideas for the decoration of her greenhouse. In the archives of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation are eight studies by the artist pertaining to this commission.73 Bunny devoted a great deal of thought to the layout, furnishing, and decoration of her pavilion. She had wooden cupboards built into the walls of the room, drawing inspiration from L’Art du Menuisier (The Art of the Joiner), an exhaustive treatise on woodworking that was published in several volumes from 1769 to 1774 by the celebrated Parisian cabinetmaker André Jacob Roubo (1739–1791) under the
Bunny Mellon in her formal greenhouse at Oak Spring, 1962. Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photography, New York.
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Three architectural plan proposals from Cross & Son Architects: “Central Block of Greenhouse for Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA, Feb. 21, 1958” (above); “Greenhouse for Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA, Made by C. Handback Jan. 26, 1959,” (left); “Mellon Greenhouse Made by C. Handback, Rec’d 2/4/59” (right), Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA.
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Jean Schlumberger, Design sketch and photograph of the finial on the formal greenhouse, a vase with flowers, ca. 1960, Gerard B. Lambert Foundation and Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA.
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André Jacob Roubo, Elévation Géométrale d’un Salon de Treillage Accompagné de Galeries de Deux Differentes Décorations, folded engraving, from L’art du treillageur, ou Menuiserie des jardins (Paris, 1775), plate 365, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA.
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Formal greenhouse at Oak Spring, ca. 1960s. Photograph by Louis Reens.
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auspices of the Académie royale des sciences. The son and grandson of master cabinetmakers, André Jacob Roubo added to his training an apprenticeship under the architect Jean François Blondel (1681–1756). 74 His manual was a true product of the Enlightenment and reflected its ideals, which included a respect for the work of the craftsman and an appreciation of the role played by material culture not only in the economy of the country, but also in its history and culture. It is worth noting that the seventeen volumes of Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie—significantly subtitled Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers—and its eleven volumes of Planches contain many entries on tools and machines complete with illustrations. Similarly, Roubo’s manual was accompanied by 389 engravings based on drawings by the author, which depict every imaginable type of furnishing that could be made out of wood—from decorative paneling and furniture to carriages and even stages, sets, and machinery for the theater. Of particular interest to Bunny was the section on L’art du treillageur, ou Menuiserie des jardins, which presents garden furnishings (with diagrams, elevations, and enlarged details) ranging from benches and planters to various types of treillages or trellises; indeed, she adopted some of Roubo’s trellis designs for her own garden. Thus, she had the quadrangular vestibule entirely lined with cupboards, providing useful storage space and even a small cubicle to serve as a workbench and potting space concealed behind a pair of folding doors. Such was Bunny’s passion for detail that the cupboard doors are furnished with charming replicas of antique French handles made of iron cast in the form of a hand clutching a rod. Bunny would go much further, however, and her vision transformed the greenhouse vestibule into a work of art that reflected her personality and interests. She decided to have the room decorated
paul a n d bunny mell on: visual bio graphi e s
en trompe-l’oeil to give the impression that one was entering the studiolo
of a Renaissance scholar and student of the science of nature. Like the study of Federico da Montefeltro, the cupboards lining the vestibule have been disguised by a series of trompe l’oeil shelves and cabinets. The walls are decorated with a motif of slender lengths of bamboo arranged in geometric patterns against a pale blue-green background, all directly inspired by Roubo and the eclectic vogue for chinoiserie in eighteenth-century France. The trompe l’oeil cabinets at floor level are embellished with the same bamboo latticework against a celadon-green background, with the addition of a sheaf of wheat—the symbol of agriculture for the French Republic—at the center of each pair of trompe l’oeil cabinet doors.75 This use of trompe l’oeil painting to disguise the real furnishings is a pleasing conceit, but what makes the decoration so original is that it consists of trompe l’oeil shelves filled with a vast array of objects both large and small, precious and ordinary, that invite perusal one by one. In fact, Bunny’s vision of what the room should look like and signify took her well beyond mere embellishment. While the objects depicted are all linked to her beloved garden, the composition is reminiscent of the paintings of cabinets of curiosities executed in the rigorously realistic style of the trompe l’oeil. The painter chosen for this commission was also French—Fernand Renard, born in Paris in 1912, but of whom little more is known.76 He showed a gift for drawing at an early age and was encouraged to enroll at the École des arts plastiques in Paris, where he studied the decorative arts and fresco painting. After leaving school, he found employment designing commercial advertisements and cinema posters. A poster with the faces of the comedians Laurel and Hardy, drawn by him for a movie theater, still survives. After collaborating for a short
Fernand Renard, ca. 1970. Photograph by Derry Moore.
period with the painter Auguste Desiré Parus (dates unknown) as a glass decorator, Renard’s career was abruptly interrupted by the war. He joined the French army in 1939, was imprisoned by the Germans, and returned to France in 1945. Settling once again in Paris, he picked up the threads of his life and his career with some difficulty, and began painting still lifes. Various exhibitions of his work were held, through which he earned a degree of recognition and had the opportunity to meet patrons of the arts from both sides of the Atlantic. While the roots of his style lay in the tradition of the northern European painters of the seventeenth century and in the French school of still life painting, Renard would later declare that his art was inspired by “my desire to evoke the significance and the charm the subject holds for me, and also by my desire to create, in the end, a beautiful object.”77 His pictures had a particular appeal for English and American collectors; the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the socialite Anne Ford Johnson (who served on the White House Fine Arts Committee under the Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy administrations and on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) acquired more than one painting by Renard for their collections.78 Several paintings by Renard were also acquired by William Perry (1910–1993), a classmate of Paul’s at Yale and a neighbor of Bunny and Paul, at Oak Spring. Various still lifes and trompe l’oeils by Renard’s hand occasionally resurface at art auctions, primarily in the United States. It is possible that Bunny’s attention was drawn to the artist by Frederick P. Victoria, who, according to surviving accounts, befriended Renard in the 1950s.79 Victoria was a well-known antique dealer in New York City who also provided decorating services, serving as an intermediary between wealthy clients and fine furniture makers, artisans,
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Note card to Bunny from Fernand Renard (front), Four baskets, three eggs, and two bamboo sticks, 1964, body color drawing, Gerard B. Lambert Foundation.
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Four preliminary pencil drawings, one with body color, of the Oak Spring formal greenhouse, possibly by Fernand Renard, not dated, Gerard B. Lambert Foundation.
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Fernand Renard, Initial maquette proposal for the formal greenhouse, diluted oils on canvas, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA.
and artists. Alternatively, Bunny could have met Renard through Paul Manno, a friend of Victoria and manager of the New York office of Maison Jansen, a celebrated Parisian firm of interior decorators that would later participate in the redecoration of the White House (1961–63) for First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (1929–1994). It seems that the French painter decorated various pieces of furniture for Maison Jansen.80 There is a wardrobe decorated in trompe l’oeil that Stéphane
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Boudin of Maison Jansen installed for Jacqueline Kennedy in her White House dressing room.81 While perhaps not by Renard, it does reflect the taste of the period for such refined effects. It can be assumed that the artist began the greenhouse project at Oak Spring in 1959 and completed it the following year. He left his signature and the date—“Renard 1959–1960”—on one of the trompe l’oeil panels on the north wall of the vestibule.
Renard’s Initial Proposals for the Greenhouse Trompe l’Oeil In seeking to meet the expectations of his cultivated and exacting patron, the decoration of the greenhouse must have presented the artist with quite a few compositional challenges. Many discussions were probably held before Bunny approved the final version and the phases in this process can be at least partially retraced in surviving proposals. A sketch by Renard, painted on canvas and glued to a cardboard backing board, still exists and provides evidence of the design process.82 It depicts a trompe l’oeil cabinet made of yellowish-brown wood decorated with strips of bamboo arranged in a geometric pattern. Closed cupboards form the base, supporting a set of four open shelves on
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which a variety of objects have been arranged, beginning with some splendid pieces of antique porcelain: a large serving bowl; a tureen with a cover imitating an arrangement of vegetables; a plate decorated with a motif of leaves, butterflies, and insects; and porcelain tureens and boxes in the form of a cauliflower, a bundle of white asparagus, and a lemon complete with a leaf. The Mellons owned a fine collection of rare porcelain, which Bunny sometimes used to decorate her table when entertaining guests for lunch or dinner. 83 In this composition, the artist is obviously playing with the theme of the difference between reality and artifice. Alternating with the pieces of porcelain are some real fruits and vegetables—a basket of lemons sits on the shelf beneath the ceramic citrus; a small, covered tureen in the form of an artichoke with a bird-shaped handle sits on the top shelf, while a real artichoke of another variety lies on its side on the bottom shelf. Also portrayed in an almost desultory manner are a real pear, persimmon, and bunch of asparagus arranged side by side with other objects: a hanging basket containing three eggs, three feathers in a terra-cotta cup, two small seashells, a glass vase containing two carnations, a matching pair of bird statuettes with two cornflowers lying at the feet of one of them, an airmail envelope addressed to “Madame Paul Mellon,” an hourglass, a large die, and a delicate china cup in the form of a striated tulip that holds some cigarettes. The artist has also inserted a passing reference to the country of his birth (and to Bunny’s love of all things French) in the form of a tricolor ribbon looped around one of the bamboo rods that visually separate the shelves into three compartments. 84 In the restrained composition proposed by Renard, a small number of carefully chosen objects, featuring pieces from the Mellons’ collection of porcelain, have been meticulously arranged. Bathed in a
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golden-green light, they seem to be suspended in a world of absolute stillness lying outside of time. In this rarefied atmosphere, even the eggs in their basket appear to float as if in a painting by Magritte. As will be seen, however, Bunny had an entirely different visual idea in mind—an exuberantly chaotic arrangement of everyday objects, each of which was in some way significant to her: the gardening tools that she always had to hand; plant pots, labels, and bits of broken terra-cotta; a variety of baskets; odd objects that she came across and kept just because she liked their shapes; and of course flowers, fruits, and vegetables from her garden. She wanted the objects in her trompe l’oeil to be imbued with an uncompromising corporeality, an effect that was further accentuated by Renard’s chiaroscuro lighting. Other material in the archives of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation reveals that much work and discussion was necessary before the final design was approved. In particular, there is a small threedimensional paper model in pencil, watercolor, and body color with a proposal for the decoration of the greenhouse vestibule, which now depicts shelves crowded with a variety of objects. Attached to it is a maquette for the ceiling decoration. 85 The color scheme for the cabinets remained the warm, yellowish-brown tone of Renard’s first project, while the domed ceiling (embellished with the same bamboo motif) was tinted a pleasing pale blue-green, the background color that Bunny finally chose for the room. Recently, another eight sketches have come to light in which the artist and patron were clearly working out the grouping of the objects and the sequence of the panels, compositional solutions which, however, were not all incorporated into the final design. They provide a fascinating insight into the creative process and the close collaboration that led to the final result one can see today. 86
Fernand Renard, Later maquette proposal for the formal greenhouse, diluted oils on canvas, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA.
The decoration of the greenhouse must have constituted a pivotal moment in Renard’s career as an artist. From that time forward, he would concentrate on painting still lifes, mostly arrangements of fruit, but also flowers and shells, many of which recall the objects in the trompe l’oeil at Oak Spring. During the following decade or so, various exhibitions of his work were held, primarily in New York City. In 1961, and therefore just one year after he completed his commission for Bunny, the Carstairs Gallery in New York organized a show of about twenty of his paintings. In the catalog, Renard described himself as a “painter of reality” and stated “the necessity for painting to depict the truth.” The Hammer Galleries in New York presented several exhibitions of his work, first in 1968 and then in 1972, 1973, and 1975. 87
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In the archives of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation are a few letters sent by Renard to his patron. Of particular interest is a letter posted from Viviers on July 15, 1960, in which Renard thanks Bunny for telephoning him during his stay in Paris and mentions some mutual “American friends,” in particular a certain “Johnny” (Schlumberger) and his sister Jacqueline. In a second, more candid letter sent on December 18, 1961, from 10, rue Fargeau in Paris, Renard informs Bunny that his father is in poor health, and then expresses his fear that she was perhaps disappointed with his work, along with his sincere regret that this might be so. However their contact continued until at least 1978, and he was also an acquaintance during the 1960s and 1970s of Bunny’s daughter Eliza Lloyd Moore and her then husband Derry Moore. 88
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Fernand Renard, Further set of maquette proposals for the formal greenhouse, body color drawings, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA.
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Bunny Mellon in her formal greenhouse, ca. 1960, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA.
The Completion of the Greenhouse
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A charming photograph (see page 103), probably taken in 1960, shows Bunny in the vestibule of her greenhouse, smiling and holding a basket. 89 The trompe l’oeil decoration of the room appears to be complete. It obviously constituted an extraordinary collaborative undertaking between the artist Fernand Renard and Bunny Mellon, whose role could be likened to that of a Renaissance patron of the arts. She made clear her wishes with regard to every aspect of the commission: the overall composition of the work, the themes linking its various parts, the objects that she wanted to be included and how they should be arranged, and finally the sequence to be followed in assembling the various parts of this complex work. For his part, Renard brought to the enterprise not only his technical skill in the rendition of the physicality of objects, but also suggestions based on his extensive knowledge of the European, and in particular the French, tradition of the genre, which often featured shelves bearing a miscellaneous collection of objects. He could have pointed out many examples, such as the Trompe-l’oeil à la statuette d’Hercule by Jean Valette-Falgores Penot (1710–after 1777). 90 From this joint effort an extremely sophisticated work came into being, in a creative process that granted the two parties the opportunity to interact in a unique fashion. An allusion to this conjunction of two distinctive, intelligent, and cultivated minds may be found on one of the shelves, where Renard painted a vase holding a French flag. The final work, painted in diluted oils, portrays hundreds of objects in their natural dimensions, some quite large and others very small, in a recreation of Bunny’s world. As was so often the case in still lifes from
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Bunny Mellon in her formal greenhouse, 1982. Photograph by Fred Conrad.
the past, each object was invested with personal meaning or references to the patron’s family and friends. However, unlike the trompe l’oeil painted by Martin Battersby, which contains objects that in large part allude to the ideals and cultural preferences of Paul, the panels painted for the greenhouse did not indulge in any form of veiled symbolism. This would have been inconsistent with the fundamentally open and extroverted personality of his patron. Bunny usually sought to guard her privacy, but in what was quintessentially “her realm”—the garden at Oak Spring—she was willing to show an important side of herself through a selection of objects that could “tell her story.” Upon crossing the threshold of the pavilion, one finds oneself in a place like no other. The pronounced three-dimensionality of the trompe l’oeil shelves filled with an array of objects form a veritable continuum that may generate surprise, or even a slight sense of vertigo and claustrophobia, despite the glass doors to the left and right that open onto the two wings of the greenhouse, providing a light-filled vista of long rows of carefully tended plants. The enclosed space of the room is amplified by a multiplicity of perspectives that create, through the optical illusion of this pictorial cycle, the sensation of entering a world of “circular time” (to borrow an expression from Jorge Luis Borges), in which one is forced to return again and again to things already seen, as if standing in a hall of mirrors. The initial impression of chaotic profusion and horror vacui dissipates, however, as one turns around the room and begins to focus on the objects one by one. It then becomes clear that they have actually been quite carefully chosen and arranged, and the result is an intricate series of still lifes composed—as Baudrillard perceptively observed—of “banal” and heterogeneous objects that have accumulated over time, as such things tend to do. For the most part they belong to the material
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Fernand Renard, Trompe l’Oeil in the Formal Greenhouse at Oak Spring, details from west wall, 1959–60, diluted oils on canvas mounted to wood, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA.
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culture of mid-twentieth-century America and in particular to the activity of gardening, but they were objects to which Bunny assigned a value that was anything but abstract and theoretical. Banal they may be, captured by the artist and portrayed on the trompe l’oeil shelves of the greenhouse with no ostentatious display of erudition, and yet—divested of their original functions and decontextualized—these objects take on an independent existence, living their own “silent lives,” immobile and passive, in an almost metaphysical dimension. With their invitation to silent contemplation, these objects speak for their owner directly and eloquently, conveying her thoughts and the sources of her inspiration.91 It will not be possible to give here a circumstantial account of every item depicted in the greenhouse trompe l’oeil; however, a summary is provided in the detailed description that accompanies this essay (pages 115–126). At first glance, the shelves of Bunny’s imaginary Wunderkammer are filled with a seemingly haphazard collection of tools and other materials familiar to every gardener, from pruning shears in different sizes to spades, dibbers, a trowel, a scythe, balls of string, a spool of wire, lengths of raffia and leather straps, stakes with labels on which the names of plants could be written, bamboo poles, a hammer, wooden pegs, even some nails. Half hidden on one shelf is a packet of cornflower seeds, while other seeds seem to have been left forgotten in a fold of paper. The illusion includes a variety of containers: watering cans, plant pots (including one that has been broken and four others in a nested pile), demijohns, bottles and pitchers, cups, bowls, glasses, mugs, and a large soup tureen in the form of a pumpkin (just one of the many pieces in the Mellons’ collection of antique porcelain). Baskets in different shapes, sizes, and materials (wicker, reed, wood…) sit on
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Fernand Renard, Trompe l’Oeil in the Formal Greenhouse at Oak Spring, details from east wall, 1959–60, diluted oils on canvas mounted to wood, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA.
shelves or hang from nails; one contains letters, others are filled with fruits or vegetables. These had been collected over the course of many years and were kept in a special “Basket House.” A delicate basket fish trap (perhaps from the Greek islands) was a gift from Jacqueline Kennedy, as is disclosed by a card tied to the object with a red ribbon. 92 In this conglomeration, a few personal effects from which Bunny was rarely separated have been included, such as her beloved ivoryhandled pruning scissors, blue cloth hat, gardening coat, leather gardening gloves, and two band rings designed by Schlumberger (which will be discussed below). Some of the other items can still be found, more than fifty years later, at Oak Spring. They may have been gifts that had a special meaning for Bunny, from the gold powder compact by Schlumberger to the little glass rabbit that recalls her nickname, a miniature obelisk (perhaps a gift from Battersby, who was fascinated by Egyptian monuments), a small house in glazed porcelain, and a curious wire basket with dangling metal discs. To accentuate the trompe l’oeil effect, the traditional theme of paper is represented in various forms, from handwritten notes and a basket of letters to engravings tacked to the shelves (perhaps a reference to Charles Bird King’s Poor Artist’s Cupboard). Of particular interest are an architectural drawing of the greenhouse prepared by the firm of H. Page Cross and dated November 19, 1957; one of Schlumberger’s sketches for the floral urn that decorates the roof of the greenhouse pavilion; and a poem written by Paul which will be discussed below. The greenhouse shelves would not have been complete without books, each of which—like those in the trompe l’oeil bookcase painted
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Fernand Renard, Trompe l’Oeil in the Formal Greenhouse at Oak Spring, details from west (left) and east (right) walls, 1959–60, diluted oils on canvas mounted to wood, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA.
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by Battersby for the living room—had a special significance reflecting the interests of the artist’s patron. By the end of the 1950s, Bunny had already assembled a large collection of antique and modern books on gardens, gardening, horticulture, and plants, to which she would continue to add over a lifetime. Realizing that a place was needed to house this collection, with the encouragement of her husband an architect was chosen—Edward Larrabee Barnes (1915–2004)—and commissioned to design and construct a library on the estate. The project was completed in 1981, extended a decade later, and the result is a truly extraordinary place for research and study nestled in the rolling hills of Virginia. The titles of many of the books in the trompe l’oeil are clearly legible and represent works to which Bunny was greatly attached. On one of the shelves appear the three volumes, bound in leather and marbled paper, of Le jardin fruitier, a treatise on the cultivation of fruit trees and fruiting plants published in 1821 by the eminent botanist and gardener Louis Claude Noisette (1772–1849). This was one of the first gardening books acquired by the young Rachel and she turned to it time and time again, finding “Noisette” an inexhaustible font of ideas and practical advice.93 Le jardin fruitier is illustrated with beautiful
engravings, and Bunny chose two of them—one depicting gardening tools and the other grafting techniques—for inclusion in her trompe l’oeil. Renard reproduces them faithfully on a cupboard door in the east wall, attached to the back of one of the shelves by drawing pins; one sheet is creased and the lower edge of the other curls upward, adding to the impression of depth and tactility. Also identifiable is a copy of the magnificent and extremely rare two-volume folio publication on the grape, Le raisin, ses espèces et variétés, dessinées et colorées d’après nature by the German botanist Johann Simon
paul a n d bunny mell on: visual bio graphi e s
Kerner (1755–1830), published in Stuttgart from 1779 to 1810 with illustrations colored by hand. (The copy at Oak Spring is bound in red and green leather with gold tooling, with the title “Les Raisins par Kerner” and the volume numbers “i–vi Livr” and “vii–xi Livr” on the spines.)94 Also included are Les beaux fruits de France (1947) by the nurseryman and expert on roses and fruit trees Georges Delbard (1906–1999), with its elegant cover facing the viewer, as well as “Stirpium imagines lxxv quas ex horto patavino delineavit…” (1776), a superb manuscript consisting of seventy-five watercolors by the Italian botanical artist Baldassare Cattrani (fl. 1776–1810) that has never been published.95 There is even a copy of the March–April 1958 issue of the New York Botanical Garden’s periodical The Garden Journal. Finally, Bunny did not forget to ask the artist to include a volume from her delightful collection of illustrated children’s books—Kate Greenaway’s Birthday Book for Children, published in London in 1880, a first edition that shows some signs of wear. Unlike the books from Paul’s collection featured in Martin Battersby’s trompe l’oeil painting, whose present whereabouts are unknown, all of the books that appear on the shelves of the greenhouse trompe l’oeil can be found in the library at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. Portrayed with scrupulous fidelity, skillfully intermingled with the other objects on display are various flowers, fruits, and vegetables, a reminder of this exceptional collector’s love of floral and botanica painting. A purple and blue striated tulip with its bulb hangs upside down from one of the uppermost shelves, a reminder of tulipomania, the speculation in tulip bulbs that gripped the Dutch Republic in the 1630s. Bunny studied this phenomenon, perhaps the earliest example of a speculative bubble in Europe, long before it became the subject
Abraham Munting, “Arbutus humilis virginiana” (possibly a chokeberry, Aronia arbutifolia), hand-colored engraving, from Phytographia curiosa (Amsterdam, 1713), figure 23, folio 125, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA.
of general interest, and assembled a considerable collection of rare tracts and illustrated manuscripts from the period. 96
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Some leafy stems of Pelargonium zonale, an African geranium, are arranged in a glass; two aster blossoms and an elegant white Narcissus poeticus with a yellow and orange corona spring on long, delicate stems from a mug; and a slender, pyramid-shaped bottle holds two blue cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus). A dried branch of fennel has been placed in a redware pitcher together with a small French flag, while an artichoke balances against the rim of a small black pitcher, its top-heavy inflorescence supported by the large terra-cotta pot standing nearby. A tall redware pitcher contains an arrangement of foxtail grasses with a feather and two fading red poppies. One papery petal has fallen and rests on the shelf next to Bunny’s gardening hat. Painted on the inside of one of the cupboards is a framed sketch of a red carnation. In another cupboard, Renard reproduces a page from Phytographia curiosa, exhibens arborum, fruticum, herbarum & florum icones, an important botanical text by the Dutch physician Abraham Munting (1626–1683) that was published in Amsterdam in 1713. It is illustrated with 245 botanical engravings to which Munting added embellishments such as landscape backgrounds and trompe l’oeil elements. In 1957, Bunny acquired a copy of this work in which each of the plates was colored by hand, with somewhat more imagination than scientific accuracy. For the greenhouse trompe l’oeil, she asked Renard to reproduce the plate of the “Arbutus” (figure 23) (possibly a chokeberry, Aronia arbutifolia) and he did so with meticulous precision, even copying the original artist’s error of coloring the flowers blue. At the foot of the plant appear a spade and a scroll, but Renard replaced the words inscribed on the scroll, “Arbutus humilis virginiana” (Arbutus unedo), with “Ex Libris Bunny Mellon 1960.” 97
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