Anish Kapoor

The Spire, 2004, Anish Kapoor

Not too long ago a reader sent me an e-mail discussing one of my posts at which time he asked, how and where I came up with the broad variety of content areas he found so interesting. There is, of course, no single answer to that. Often they come from a news item I come across on the Internet. At other times they simply reflect some artist or art interest I find fascinating myself and wish to probe deeper, hoping those reading my words will enjoy the effort. In the case of Anish Kapoor, my wife, who has very little interest in art, brought a small news article to my attention. I'm ashamed to admit that the name didn't immediately "ring a bell," though it should have. While in Chicago a few years ago I almost saw (experienced would be a better word) his most famous work. I had, in fact written about the British sculptor's Cloud Gate (below, a.k.a. the "bean") located in that city's Millennial Park. I say I almost saw it inasmuch as the park and Kapoor's massive, polished mass is right next door to the Art Institute of Chicago where I spent an entire day. Had I known the art landmark was so nearby, I would definitely have found the time to pay my respects.

 

Cloud Gate, 2006, Anish Kapoor, the centerpiece of Millennium Park, Chicago.



The news item that caught my wife's eye involved an unfortunate mishap in which an elderly man accidentally fell into one of Kapoor's site specific "sculptures" titled Bottomless. It wasn't, of course, only some eight feet deep with the sides painted black to give the appearance of a bottomless abyss. The Italian man in his 60's was slightly injured from the mishap. Bottomless (left) is a part of Kapoor series called Descent into Limbo displayed at the Serralves Museum in Porto, Portugal. The unfortunate art lover has since been released from the hospital.

Kapoor and curator Suzanne Cotter stand next to Descent into Limbo (1992) at the Serralves museum.

 

 

Along the same line as his earlier Bottomless, Anish Kapoor’s endlessly spinning whirlpool titled Descension (below) has descended on Brooklyn, NY, located at pier 1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The continuously spiraling funnel of water penetrates the earth in a powerful rush of ceaseless motion, drawing viewers into its mystifying and mesmerizing abyss. It turns an ordinary material (water) into a strangely behaving substance, disturbing the familiar notions of our world. The 26-foot in diameter installation creates a striking jux-taposition to the adjacent East River as it continues Kapoor’s long-standing interest in the destabilization of the physical world. The spiraling whirlpool is treated with an all-natural black dye, creating a seemingly endless hole, into which visitors are invited to carefully peer (this one has a railing).

 

Brooklyn's Descension follows an earlier display as a smaller, interior work at India's Kochi-Muziris Biennale.

Anish Kapoor is a leading contemporary British-Indian artist working in large-scale abstract public sculpture. Throughout his career, Kapoor has worked on a variety of scales and with diverse materials—mirrors, stone, wax, and PVC—exploring both biomorphic and geometric forms with a particular interest in negative space. Born in 1954 in Bombay, India, Kapoor moved to London in the late 1970s, studying at both the Hornsey College of Art and Chelsea College of Arts. He first gained critical recognition for his work in the 1980s, with his metaphysical site-specific pieces in which he manipulated form and the perception of space. Kapoor was awarded the Turner Prize in 1991.

 

1000 Names, 1979-80, Anish Kapoor



Tall Tree and the Eye, 2009,
Anish Kapoor, Royal Academy.

One of Kapoor's favorite work is 1000 Names (above), dating from 1979–80. Being from India, Kapoor relates emotionally to the pieces of the work, which are made in pigments with extraordinarily exotic shapes. They are a source of wonder, luscious, beautiful, delicious and very sensual. Those early works were unlike anything ever seen. However, quite apart from his work with pigments, holes, and other disquieting shapes and media, Kapoor is undoubtedly best knows for his "shiny stuff" such his Spire (top) or his Tall Tree and the Eye, seen at right when displayed in Paris in 2009. Kapoor is intrigued by the empty spaces between and within the shapes he has made, and by the endless, repeating "fractal images" reflected on their polished surfaces. Turning the World Upside Down (below) dating from 1996 is typical of Kapoor's "spacey" work.

Turning the World Upside Down, 1996, Anish Kapoor.

 

For the 2012 Olympic Games in London, Kapoor created the ArcleorMittal Orbit (below), now the UK's tallest sculpture. Standing 114.5 meters tall, the sculpture was erected at the cost of a whopping £22.7 million. Designed by Kapoor and structural designer Cecil Balmond, the work is a tangled steel lattice incorporating the five Olympic rings. Sponsors hope the tower will attract one million visitors a year to Stratford's Olympic Park. The ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture, is 22 meters taller than the Statue of Liberty, and has two observation floors with a spiral staircase consisting of 455 steps. The iconic attraction hopes visitors will be attracted by the architectural design and detailed integration; enough to want to take the elevator to the top and then maybe walk down the spiral staircase. Kapoor's enormous sculpture easily dwarfs the aspirations of Gustave Eiffel.

Anish Kapoor with a scale model of his ArcelorMittal Orbit.

Kapoor’s newer work includes his first paintings in years, though they stretch the description of a painting somewhat. There's paint, of course, but also silicon, and white resin applied deep and wide on canvas. Some of the paintings project as much as two feet from the gallery wall. These creations hang precariously, their apparent weight seemingly defying gravity itself. The initial impression is, as others have noted, that of a three-dimensional Francis Bacon, though Kapoor's works have a more savage quality. It’s pretty hard not to think of slabs of meat, with the sinews, bone, gore and eviscerated flesh both shocking yet, in the painting's hidden depths, truly mesmerizing. Are they his reflection on a particularly barbaric moment in our contemporary history? The artist contends, "I'm not going to exclude it. But I’m not going illustrate it either. I’m not a journalist. I don’t want to have anything to say, it just gets in the way. I think the journey of an artist is a journey of discovery and some engagements with paint, with the nature of material, and bodily things."

Kapoor views an artist’s job as going into the studio saying, "I don’t know what to do, I’m lost."



I don't know what it is, but I'd certainly hate to meet
up with it in a dark alley.
(Actually, it's called Trumpet.)

 

Winter Art

In glancing at the title above, you might bring to mind paintings of winter at its best--snow scenes, city or country, day or night. You might picture the work of painters such as Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma) Moses,  Claude Monet, John Fulton Folinsbee, John F. Carlson, or even Jim Lane. However, in this case I'm talking about painting on snow. That's no typo. I'm referring to the fine art of using a snow-white canvas of white snow upon which to paint. I've already dealt with snow sculpture (although some such artists choose to paint their creations). Painting snow and painting on snow are two distinctly different art forms with totally different "rules," techniques, values, and mindsets. In fact, some snow artists don't even use paint (below).

 

Snow calligraphy--anyone who quotes Faust has to be a serious artists, with or without paint.

When I first set out to explore the art of painting on snow I went in search of the usual broad range of professional snow painting artists. It didn't take long to realize what a naïve approach that turned out to be. For various reasons, not the least of which is the virtually non-existent archival element, all I found was a number of talented amateurs. Painting on snow is, after all, fun. Actually, the main emphasis I encountered was that of entertaining children on snowy days when schools were called off. At first I was disappointed, but then quickly came to realize that if painting on snow was the realm of school children, then so be it. As a former elementary art instructor, far be it from me to belittle such art "work."

 

From watercolor markers to food coloring to Kool-Aid, art of painting on snow has few rules and broad possibilities.

Although there are few "rules" in painting on snow, there are some factors to keep in mind:

 

 1. Snow disperses color as with the snowy decorated evergreen (above). Expect pastel tints if you dilute food coloring with water in a spray bottle.

 

2. Bright colors demand pure food coloring (upper images above).

 

3. Liquid colors tend to melt the snow except in extremely frigid conditions (at which times no one, especially young children, should be out painting on snow).

 

4. There is a learning curve. Start small. Then once you find what "works" and what doesn't, go for the spectacular.

 

5. Painting large scale works leaves footprints. Experiment--learn how to deal with them. (There are a number of ways depending on the nature of the snow).

 

6. Jettison any traditional thoughts of permanence. An hour is good, a day is great, a week is fantastic (and damned near unheard-of).

 

7. Expressionism or Symbolism are the best styles to emulate.

 

Kool-Aid may be sprayed on in
diluted form or sprinkled directly
from the package. It tastes good
with snow too (unless it's yellow).

One of the disadvantages of painting on snow is that snow tends to lie flat on the ground, or at best on a sloping hillside, (which demands the added skill of a sure-footed artist). A fairly "wet" (and deep) snow provides one way to remedy this limitation. Simply recruit some strong hands and arms to roll up a large snow-ball (much like the base of a snowman). Then, leaving it on its rounded edge, use a 2-by-4 or a piece of plywood, to flatten out the surface to be painted. Use "clean" snow to cover up any debris which may have been picked up along the way. Then draw on this smoothed surface with a stick, the image to be painted. Apply color as desired, guided by the factors mentioned above.

Whether free-form or stenciled, painting on snow can be quite expressive (the two images just above are in reverse order).

When you have SNOW...lots and lots of snow, and you're tired of sledding, building snowmen, and shoveling sidewalks, try SNOW SPRAY ART! I don’t know how this art craze got started, but it looks like everyone is doing it. Probably because it’s a blast! Inasmuch as traditional paintbrushes are of little use in painting on snow, water and food coloring or even diluted dry tempera can be used in a discarded spray container. Here the use of stensils is quite appropriate while also allowing the combining of multiple shapes and colors into abstract images. Try Jackson Pollock's drip-and-splatter techniques (in diluted form, food color washes out of clothes quite easily).

Once you've become fairly adept, along side the creation of a vertical "snow canvas," mentioned above, spray painting snow goes hand in hand with snow sculpture. Once more, start small. Save the your full-size version of the Statue of Liberty for when you turn "pro." Try first sculpting a cat or dog, or perhaps the head of President Trump (several times life-size, of course). Varying concentrations of orange Kool-Aid should suffice for flesh tones and the hair.


Paint? What paint? Who needs paint? The Russian "snow artist" Simon Beck has boots.

Drakony, Simon Beck

Simon Beck, who bills himself as "the world’s first and most famous "Snow Artist," proudly displays a new work of art--a massive snow dragon (left) that he drew by walking in the snow near Yakutsk, Siberia. His works take anywhere from 5-10 hours to more than a day to create. Beck created this particular work of art for a Russian movie called Drakony.
 

 

The work of Utah snow artist Simon Beck.

The sworn enemy of all snow art.

Ancient Art Supplies (Part 1)

Manufactured artists' supplies, probably from around 1900.

The next time you order your art supplies online, or drop into your local hobby emporium for a tube of titanium white, you might want to stop and ponder for a moment where artists of the past got what they needed to create their ancient masterpieces? Unless you're thinking of artists from the previous century or two, you can bet the names Grumbacher or Windsor Newton weren't stamped all over them. The former dates back only so far as 1905 while the latter was founded in 1832. Paint in tin tubes were invented by the English portrait artist, John Goffe Rand in 1841. Before that, artists kept their homemade paints in pig bladders or glass syringes. Artists, or their assistants, had to grind each pigment by hand, carefully mixing the binding oil in the proper proportions. Painting apprentices often knew more about chemistry than painting and drawing. Once paint in tubes began to be produced in bulk, the caps could be screwed back on and the paints preserved for future use, providing both flexibility and efficiency. This encouraged artists to begin painting outdoors. The manu-factured paints had a balanced consistency that the artist could thin with oil, turpentine, or other mediums. Paint in tubes also changed the way some artists approached painting. The artist, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, said, “Without tubes of paint, there would have been no Impressionism."

Cave painting reconstruction, Font-de-Gaume, (southwestern) France

Throughout recorded history, people have had the desire to decorate their living space. Naturally, paint and painting were crude during prehistory, but both evolved tremendously in the millennia that followed. The oldest reliable painted evidence is the burial of the dead with red ochre applied to the body. Some examples of this are almost 100,000 years ago among the Neanderthal. There are unproved claims of cave drawings in ochre and charcoal being as much as 60,000 years in some places including Australia. As early as 38,000 B.C., people used paint made from soot, earth, and animal fat to adorn the walls of their caves. The ancient Egyptian painters over the course of about three-thousand years, were known to have mixed ground glass or semiprecious stones, lead, earth, or animal blood with oil or fat. Clearly people have been making art for a long time.

West Bank Tomb of Sarenput II, Aswan, Egypt

Art demands wealth, power, monuments, and a corps of state or temple artists to feed a growing demand for industrial scale production of pigments. Malachite, a natural green copper ore was mined along with its blue variant called Azurite. Orpiment a poisonous and impermanent yellow was discovered. It's shortcomings were known, but it was also the only bright yellow known. The beautiful dark blue we know so well from Egyptian tombs was Blue Frit, also called Egyptian Blue. It was basically blue glass ground up as a pigment. Later, a green variety was also made. Gypsum and chalk sufficed for white. The common black was an early form of lamp black (soot) still used today. The only reds were natural earth minerals such as Red Earth and Cinnabar. Madder and Indigo were known at this time as dyes for textiles. It's uncertain whether they were used as artists pigments, but given the limited alternatives it would not be surprising if they were.

The Statue of Liberty is verdigris green. It's made of copper.

By the Roman period verdigris, an artificial copper green, and green earth were developed. Ivory black was made by burning ivory. White Lead (Flake White) came into use along with new yellows massicot and Naples yellow. Tyrian purple was made into a glazing pigment while burnt and raw forms of umber and sienna joined the artist's palette. A yellow red was used in the form of realgar, an arsenic compound that occurs naturally. Bright red was supplied by 'Dragons Blood', claimed by Roman historians to be the blood collected after the fighting of dragons and elephants. Surprisingly this very impermanent pigment was common until the 19th century by which time it had been discovered to really be the gum from a tree in Southeast Asia. The villagers who collected it surely had one of the most successful marketing campaigns in history. It is likely that dyes and plant extracts intended for textiles supplemented artists color ranges in many instances. With the exception of the blacks and earth tones, virtually all of these colors exhibited problems. Most were impermanent (or weak and coarse like blue frit), and those that weren't tended to be highly toxic.

Ye ole vermilion, white, and ultramarine.

With Medieval times came two important colors from Asia. In the 8th-century artificial vermilion was imported from China. Although poisonous, it was the first of today's powerful, bright, and yet permanent colors. The second equally bright and permanent color was a blue. At first no one in Europe knew what it was or where it came from, only that it arrived on Arab ships from "over seas," so it was termed "ultra marine." Pure ground Lapis Lazuli stone had been used for millennia but it was weak and not as useful as Egyptian blue. Many found it difficult to believe that the older Lazuline blue and the new ultramarine were from the same source, but gradually the knowledge of how to refine the blue from lapis spread through Europe. During the 12th-Century, the new rich, deep, and strong blue would revolutionize art. Later it was discovered that it came from Persia and Afghanistan.



Illustrated manuscript of
St. Matthew composing
his gospels, c. 800 AD.

The need to illustrate Bibles and decorate churches was largely res-ponsible for the survival of Roman methods of color production during the Renaissance. Despite this good for-tune, there were still major gaps in the color ranges of artists five-hundred years ago as to the permanence of colors. It is astounding that they could produce such brilliantly colored works with so few choices at hand. So many colors were either too expensive (as with blues), too impermanent (reds and yellows), or quite dangerously poisonous. Strangely, considering the huge artistic flow from this period, there were only two major pigment developments. Naples yellow was produced artificially for the first time and red lake was developed into a large range of beautiful colors. While the name seems to have often been loosely applied to various reds the name originated with just one color. These days we know this color as carmine in the studio and as cochineal (cockroaches) in the kitchen. It is derived from certain such insects in Central America and India. 'Red Lake', or just 'Lake' was the name given to this type of pigment.



In 1686, Richard Waller’s “Table of Physiological Colors Both Mixt and Simple" set the stage for a broad expansion of manufactured paints and pigments. As you can see, many of his pigments were not very permanent. This chart takes good eyesight and some translating from Elizabethan English.

The year 1704 marks the beginning of the revolutionary development of modern-day artists' colors. Prussian blue, a form of ferric cyanide came first. Some of these 18th-century discoveries proved short lived. Bremen blue was thought to be the perfect blue when invented, but it was almost immediately superseded by Cobalt blue. Turner's yellow came and went, to be supplanted by Cadmium Yellow. Prussian blue, though still available today, has largely been replaced by Pthalo Blue. The 19th-Century marked big changes for artists. New colors seemed to come along every four or five years. Cobalt blue arrived in 1802, cerulean in 1805, chromium green oxide along with Indian yellow arrived in 1809. The latter came from India and eventually people would find out that it was made by cruelty to cattle (force feeding on Mango leaves and collecting the urine to concentrate to make the pigment). It was soon banned. Cadmium Yellow, which came along in 1817 was better in any case. An artificial (and cheaper) ultramarine, zinc white, rose madder, viridian, and cobalt violet soon followed.

As lethal as a gunshot.

Nonetheless, there were mis-takes. Emerald green, a favorite of van Gogh, was found to be so poisonous it became a popular insecticide sold only in hardware stores as 'Paris Green' (right). Around 1800, a British merchant named Robert Ackermann may have operated the first art supply store. He also sold prints and books. He made his own water-colors as well as supplying pigments and recipes for those who wanted to make their own. Out of a list of 68 pigments he sold, less than 20 were perman-ent or non-poisonous.

20th-Century pigments Shop, Venice

The 20th-Century started with new high-performance organic pigments (the Hansa colors). They became a replacement for the poisonous vermilion (cadmium red) and the long awaited non-toxic, yet opaque titanium white. The pthalocyanines were discovered in 1935, and soon to follow were the quinacridones, and all the other laboratory products that would finally give the artist a wide range of beautiful permanent colors. Now the problem is no longer not enough choices, but too many, with some artists buying colors, not because they need them, but just because they are beautiful. So, the next time you get the urge to grind your own pigments, keep all this in mind.



It's only pigment, medium
and vehicle...

 

What Were They Thinking--Houses

The Conch Shell House, Isla Mujeres, Mexico.
This home was built with a mixture of recycled, found, and traditional materials.

Whoever said architects don't have a sense of humor? I don't know, maybe nobody. I only know that I would strongly disputed such a blanket criticism. Then again, maybe they're just crazy...or their clients are. In any case, perfect examples of such lunacy, whatever it's source, can literally be found all over the world. It must be a pandemic. Take the strange creation above. At first glance, it appears to be some sea creature washed ashore. Yet, it has a certain alien beauty that is all the more evident in the video at the bottom.

 

ICD Itke Research Pavilion, Stuttgart, Germany. Though not actually
a house, I couldn't resist using it as an example of the work of a
mad architectural "genius."

The German creation (above) also tends to remind me of a sea creature--a beached whale, having gorged itself on marine ova of some sort. Of course, the most acclaimed architects in the whole world are those commissioned by the gang at Disney. And though virtually everything the create is either retro, whimsical, or otherworldly. Disney's theme park "Toon town" domestic abodes (below), designed for each of their highly-paid "movie star" characters, have a tendency toward all three of these elements. Are the Disney architects required to be crazy? No, but it helps.

 



The Disney rodent residences (I'm not sure precisely what genus of creature Goofy might be), never had it so good until old Walter Elias made them box office stars.

Perhaps taking his inspiration from Disney, or maybe Steven Spielberg or George Lucas, the owner of what's come to be known by the locals as the "Spaceship House" in rural Tennessee, appears to have been his own architect and builder. Maybe he returned, having been kidnapped by aliens. Let's hope the neighbors don't mind the daily "close encounters."

 

The Spaceship House. Notice the out-of-context colonial street light in the front yard.

If the examples of architectural humor (above) seem strange, they also seem strangely beautiful in their own contextual element. However, that can't be claimed for what I've labeled the "just too weird" practical jokes below. When architects begin designing ships out of water and beehives with balconies simply to attract attention to themselves (and attract tourists), then what they create is no long architecture but an affront to the aesthetic sensibilities and personal lifestyles of those living nearby. We have a word for such works--eyesores.

It's no longer simply "good, clean fun" ala Disney, but
anti-social impudence.

Of course, architects must share the blame for "over-the-top" neighborhood travesties of good taste with owners--those with more dollars than sense. As artists, architects should offer their clients guidance, not squelching honest creative expression, but also not allowing themselves to become conduits and facilitators of bad taste, seemingly motivated only be their clients' urge to do little more than anger others living nearby. The domestic monsters below are prime examples of prime real estate being turned into communal liabilities.

"Oh, that's right, you live out there by the house with the stupid grin." When does Postmodern cross the line into silliness?

On a street in Sopot, Poland, stand two nearly identical buildings (below) known locally as the Crooked houses or the "cuddling" houses, depending upon how you feel about anthropomorphic architecture. They raise the question most succinctly: Should architects strive to inject an element of humor, even craziness, into their works? Should they try to "warm" them by giving them human traits. Remember, Bartholdi's Liberty Enlightening the World (the Statue of Liberty) standing on Ellis Island in New York Harbor, is actually little more than an (inspirational) sculptural, lighthouse, in effect, a "building" shaped like a woman. Though Bartholdi was no architect, in order to insure his enlightening "lighthouse" was structurally sound, he did employ a famous French engineer--Gustave Eiffel.

The Crooked (or cuddling) House,  designed by architect, Szotynscy Zaleski, Sopot, Poland.

 

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at some of
the outlandish interiors which architects, their clients, and interior designing
co-conspirators have created.

Here's a sneak peak. Does anyone really
need a red carpet to get into bed?

Joaquín Clausell

Ixtacalco, Joaquin Clausell

Americans have long had a national, no-nonsense, love affair with Realism or what most art people would call naturalism. It's a mile wide and dozens of feet deep dating back at least a couple hundred years. It has become so much a part of "who we are" as an art-appreciating nation we take it for granted, seldom giving it a second though. However, as I mentioned yesterday (the item below) we have also fallen in love with Impressionism, though our attachment for this French delicacy is neither as deep nor wide in our national psyche as Realism. Impressionism is, after all, something of a "foreign influence" which we have a natural tendency to approach cautiously. Like French fries or French pastries, we've given Impressionism our own cultural twist in a sort of Franco-American manner the French would find either mildly amusing or not-so-mildly derogatory.

 

Laguna Azteca, Joaquin Clausell

We Americans also tend to think that we were the sole beneficiary of this painting gift in much the same manner as the French bestowed upon us Bartholdi's Liberty Enlightening the World (the Statue of Liberty). As tempting as this analogy might seem at first glance, it's not valid. French Impression didn't simply sail across the Atlantic and take up residence, immigrating to the United States alone. Instead, it radiated from its birthplace into virtually every dark, geographic corner of 19th-century art, (if we must use the earlier analogy), "enlightening the world" with its stunning brilliance and beauty. As Paris-trained painters returned to their homelands during the final decades of the 19th-century, they took with them the Impressionist tonal pallete, if not always the more complex technical attributes of the style. However, in the case of Mexico, a young, largely self-taught, painter named Joaquin Clausell did both. He was the conduit through which his country first discovered and came to love Impressionism.

 

Had Clausell chosen the life of a painter over one predominantly involved in political activism, he might well be considered Mexico's greatest artist. In his own time however, he was little known for his art, but quite well-known by Mexican governmental authorities as a major "pain in the ass."

Today, Joaquin Clausell is best known for his painting, although he was also an orator, journalist, politician, and lawyer. I referred to him earlier as also a "conduit." In this case, that term is very much an apt analogy. Even though he spent some time in Paris where he was influenced by the impressionists, particularly Camille Pissarro, there's no indication at all of his having studied art there, painting there, or even having actually met his painting idol. In large part he escaped to Paris in order to remain a free man, having been jailed in his homeland on numerous occasions for his radical, anti-government views and activities. It was only in returning to Mexico around 1899 at the age of thirty-five, that Clausell first picked up a brush and began to paint. In the years that followed, the man had two painting careers, the first from around 1903 to about 1910, the second, a decade later, from around 1920 until his death in 1935. Between those two periods, the Mexican Revolution intervened.

 

Landscape with Hut, Joaquin Clausell

Despite Clausell's impact upon Mexican art in the form of his impressionist works, his surviving paintings themselves, some four-hundred of them, appear surprisingly unexceptional, even given the fact that around a hundred are quite large in size. Clausell painted mostly on canvas but when circumstances prevented him from doing so, he was not above rendering works on wood and even cardboard. With few exceptions he painted landscapes, and seascapes. Almost never were there human figures or even much indication of any human presences. Landscape with Hut (above) is a modest exception. The style and palette are impressionist. The content is purely Mexican.

 

Clausell Study, Pino Suarez, Mexico 

The single exception to his penchant for remote coastal landscapes can be found in what some have called his "Sistine Chapel" of Impressionism--the barren walls of his rooftop studio in Pino Suarez, Mexico (above), which exhibit more experimentation and a wider variety of themes. These images depict members of his family, other artists, religious icons, nudes, and animals. There are elements related to Symbolism, showing the influence of artists from Paul Gauguin to Paul Sérusier. Female figures were sometimes portrayed in a negative light. These works have received less attention from both the public and critics, mostly because of their relative inaccessibility and (until recently) their poor condition. Clausell did not sign his paintings and rarely dated them, making cataloging and a chronology very difficult. Moreover, he did not consider himself a professional painter and was something of a recluse, not selling or promoting his work. In fact, he was often known to give away his paintings.

 

Self-portrait (the painter), 1910, Joaquin Clausell

With few exceptions, Clausell did not associate with contemporary Mexican artists. Instead he served as an art teacher at the “escuelas de aire libre” (free and open art classes given in parks and other public spaces) though he became a director of the art school in Iztacalco in 1930. It has only been in recent years that Clausell has been recognized as Mexico's most prominent Impressionist. Even though he existed on the fringes of the Mexican art scene during his lifetime, his work was noticed and praised by a number of well-known contemporaries. In an exhibition in 1921, his paintings caught the attention of the Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera, who had just returned from Europe. Rivera later visited Clausell in his studio and proclaimed him to be the best of Mexico’s landscape artists as well as a “painter-poet” who expressed the natural beauty of the country. Clausell died in 1935 while on an outing with friends at the Lagos de Zempoala area south of Mexico City. He was walking on a hill near the lake when the ground gave way under his feet causing him to fall down an embankment. The resulting landslide covered and suffocated him.



































































 

The Luxembourg Gardens

The Luxembourg Palace, the Jardin du Luxembourg, and sailboats

One of the greatest regrets I have from all my travels is that I did not have enough time in Paris to see all I wanted. Moreover, the chances seem slim that I shall ever get to go back and take in the "leftovers" that didn't make it onto my schedule the first time around (2015). I could easily spend a second week in the city. However, my wife didn't much care for Paris. She complained that everyone spoke French, she didn't like most of the ingredients in French cooking, and in any case, there wasn't much that interested her in the city for which she would be willing to be on her feet long enough to take in. I sympathize somewhat with her last complaint but find the all of them easily worth dealing with. It is Paris, after all. At the top of my "wish I'd seen" list would be the Rodin Museum, the Petit Palace, the Versailles Gardens, and the Luxembourg Palace and Gardens. The gardens especially should be near the top of any "must see" list of anyone visiting Paris. This is about that lovely mid-city garden spot and what I missed.



The Jardin du Luxembourg from the air (top), from a map, and from a map of
the gardens (middle) of the many queens of France which grace the gardens (bottom).

This marks the first of a series of items I'll be doing during the next few weeks and months in highlighting the most beautiful gardens in the world. The Jardin du Luxembourg and all the others were created by artists, which means they are manmade in design. I won't be including "National" Parks such as the Grand Canyon in this country or the Swiss Alps in Europe. They are, in essence, God-made parks, their beauty the grace of God. I think it unfair to compare them to the meager, contrived, decorative efforts of the landscape design artist. Doing so would be like comparing fountains and waterfalls.

The Medici Fountain in spring, autumn, and summer.

Marie de' Medici, of the Florentine de' Medici family, and the widow of France's Henry IV, also the regent for the King Louis XIII, decided to build a palace in imitation of the Pitti Palace in her native Florence. In 1611 she purchased the hotel du Luxembourg (today the Petit Palace) then began construction of her new palace. She commissioned Salomon de Brosse to build the palace and a fountain (above), both of which still exist. Around 1612, as construction was coming along nicely, she had planted 2,000 elm trees, and directed Tommaso Francini, and a series of others, to build a park in the style she had known as a child in Florence. Francini planned two terraces with balustrades and parterres laid out along the axis of the chateau, aligned around a circular basin (top). He also built the Medici Fountain (above) to the east of the palace as a nympheum, an artificial grotto and fountain, minus its present reflecting pool and statuary. The original garden was just eight hectares (a little short of 20 acres) in size.

Jardin du Luxembourg, 1829, Christophe Civeton

Some twenty years later, the queen bought additional land and enlarged the garden to thirty hectares (about 74 acres), then entrusted the work to Jacques Boyceau de la Barauderie, the head gardener of the royal gardens of the Tuileries and the Gardens of Versailles. He was one of the early theorists of the new and more formal jardin à la française (French Garden). He also laid out a series of squares along an east-west alley at the east end by the Medici Fountain, along with a rectangle of parterre de broderies of flowers and hedges in front of the palace. In the center he placed an octagonal basin with a fountain having a perspective toward what is now the Paris observatory. Having created all this, later monarchs largely neglected the gardens in favor of those at Versailles. In fact, around 1780, the Comte de Provence, the future Louis XVIII, sold the eastern part of the garden for real estate development.

The Luxembourg Palace and the grand vistas of the Jardin du Luxembourg

An original model of
the Statue of Liberty.

However, in the years after the French Revolution, the new government expanded the garden to forty hectares (almost 99 acres) by confiscating the land of the neighboring religious order. Jean Chalgrin, the architect of the Arc de Triomphe, took on the task of restoring the garden. He revamped the Medici Fountain and laid out a long perspective from the palace to the observatory. He preserved the famous pepiniere, (nursery garden) and the old vineyards, while keeping the garden in a formal French style. A few years later, during and after the July Monarchy of 1848, the park became home to a large population of statuary Queens and famous women of France, lining the terraces. Late in the 19th century, there were added, monuments to writers and artists, as well as a small-scale model of Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty. During the reconstruction, Gabriel Davioud, the Director of Parks and Promenades of Paris, built new ornamental gates and fences around the park. He also transformed what remained of the old nursery garden, at the south end of the park, into an English garden with winding paths, and a fruit orchard in the southwest corner.

A panoramic view of the Jardin du Luxembourg

Today, the garden is largely devoted to a green parterre of gravel and lawn enhanced by statues and centered on its large octagonal basin of water, with a central jet. There children sail model boats (top). The garden is famed for its calm atmosphere. Surrounding the basin on the raised balustrade terraces are a series of statues of former French queens, saints, and copies after the Antique. In the southwest corner, there is an orchard of apple and pear trees and the Theatre des Marionettes. The Orangerie displays art, photography and sculptures. The gardens include a large fenced-in playground for young children and a vintage carousel. In addition, there are free musical performances in a gazebo on the grounds next to a small café nearby, under the trees, with both indoor and outdoor seating where visitors may enjoy the music over a glass of wine.

A French sailor boy.