Freudian Art



Metamorphosis of Narcissus, 1937, Salvador Dali

With few exceptions, people dream. I'm not talking here about dreams in terms of plans or wishes for the future, but in the generic sense--as we sleep, we dream. Most dreams, vivid as they may seem, are forgotten within minutes of waking. For myself, I am able to remember dreams only because I often tell them to my wife when I first wake up, "Boy, did I have a weird dream last night." Being a former teacher, mine often have to do with a school environment, either as a student or as a teacher, and sometimes even a mixture of both. As an artist, I've never gone so far as to paint my dreams, but many artists have. In fact, the whole area of Surrealist painting is very much predicated upon the painting of dreams. And it's very doubtful there would even be Surrealist painting but not for one man, perhaps the greatest outside influence upon the fine arts of any individual in the 20th century--Sigmund Freud.

Leda, 1948, Paul Delvaux

Besides art, we all know that Freud was a tremendous influence in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, criminology, sociology, and anthropology. But beyond that, he had a strong cultural influence as well. Whether we know much about the man or his writings, we all know that a Freudian slip presumably involves an individual misspeaking, but in the process, presumably revealing some unintentional insight about themselves or others that they might otherwise have kept secret. Freud's studies of ancient Greek and Roman mythology and his application of them to human fears and longings have given us such terms as "Oedipal Complex" and "Narcissism." And, just as artists such as Salvador Dali, Felix Labisse, Giorgio de Chirico, and Paul Delvaux have studied Freud, Freud also studied artists and their work, particularly that of Leonardo da Vinci. In studying Leonardo's paintings and drawings and the artist's own accounts of his dreams, Freud was able to conclude in his own mind that Leonardo suffered from maternal deprivation.

The Strange Leda, 1950,
Felix Labisse

Of course Surrealism mostly grew out of the writings of the French poet Andre Breton, who first met Freud in Vienna in 1921. Surrealism was first a literary movement based upon Freud's ideas on free association and his study of dreams. But it was the artists who were attracted to Breton and through him, Freud, who carried the ball. Dali's The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (top), painted in 1937, is an overt surrealist invocation of the myth. And, although Freud was said to have been highly impressed with Dali's painting when they met in 1938 (just a year before Freud's death), he confided to Dali that he was far more interested in the unconscious and mysterious elements in artists such as Leonardo or Ingres than in Dali's conscious exploration of the myth. Had he lived, Freud might have found much more to intrigue him in the work of French artist Paul Delvaux's 1948 Leda (above, right) in which the artist juxtaposes the swan and a stylised twentieth-century female nude against a modern background of bridges, power lines, and a Gothic church. Felix Labisse's The Strange Leda (above, left) painted in 1950, goes even deeper into a Freudian exploration of the myth as it depicts the nude figure of Leda with a bandaged face and a hand transformed into a ravenous bird which bites the nipple of her breast.

St. George Killing the Dragon, 1940,
Giorgio de Chirico

Many surrealist artists, such as Giorgio de Chirico, combined mythology with an interested in Freud's study of dreams and sexual symbolism as seen in de Chirico's St. George Killing the Dragon, (right) painted in 1940. In the background he depicts the classical elements of the story not unlike that of his fellow Italian artist, Uccello's version, painted in 1460. However, in the foreground we see a modern-day nude woman eyeing the combat while all about her are thinly disguised representations of female genitalia. Besides Freudian mythology, Paul Delvaux was also interested in dream interpretation. His 1944 Venus Sleeping depicts a nude Venus reclined on a classical divan placed in the foreground of a nocturnal Roman forum. Figures in the background seem to be involved in random activities (free association) while another nude woman on the far right greets a Victorian female figure that, in turn, seems to be conversing with a skeleton. It's too bad Freud is no longer around to tell us what that means. Gee, I wish I could have dreams like that once in a while.

Venus Sleeping, 1944, Paul Delvaux

 

Finishing Strokes

It's not all that uncommon for an artist to start a painting, then for one reason or another, leave it unfinished for a time before going back later to finish it. Sometimes it's much later, several weeks, maybe months, perhaps even a year. How about fifty-five years? We should live so long. His name was Ernst Wille. Born in 1913, he died in 2005 in Cologne, Germany, at the age of 92. He was retired from a teaching position at the University of Art and Design in Aachen, Germany. His bronze sculptures decorate city hall and his paintings hang on the wall of the local Kunsthalle museum. And despite appearances to the contrary, he was not the world's champion painting procrastinator. There were extenuating circumstances--like World War II.

American History (detail), Fort Niagara mural, 1944-46, Ernst Wille

Ernst Wille Self-portrait

In 1944, Ernst Wille was a German soldier manning trenches in Normandy. In his spare time, he would take watercolors and set up his easel on the beach and paint the same serene seascapes French painters had rendered for generations. Then one day, the beaches of Normandy were painted in red, not by Ernst Wille but by the blood of Allied soldiers and their German defenders. Ernst Wille became a prisoner of war. The next time he wielded a brush was behind the walls of old Fort Niagara in upstate New York. There his talents as an artist were put to use painting portraits of officers, fellow prisoners, his guards, and even their families. He also painted a mural on sewn-together bed sheets used to decorate the officer's club at the makeshift prison where he was held captive for two years.

The unfinished mural.

Shipped out on short notice however, the mural remained unfinished. The image haunted the artist for more than half a century. Finally, in 1976, in returning to the United States as a tourist, he saw his mural again. The unfinished painting depicted the history of the old stone fort, built by the French, occupied by the British, and finally now on American soil at the headwaters of the Niagara River on Lake Ontario. In returning to Fort Niagara, he was able to finish his work. As a prisoner of war, he wasn't able to see much of the river or the great falls. But as a tourist with those images in mind, he could more accurately emphasize the importance and power the river played in the history of the fort. It is not a painting about war but about peace with soldiers extending outstretched arms to one another and canon facing away from each other. It is a painting about time, geography, history, and circumstances, but most importantly, finishing that which one starts.

The Joseph Story, 1979, Ernst Wille--his mature work.

Fin de Siecle

Progressive ideas, art, literature,
and people.

Several years ago, as the end of the 20th century approached, I came upon an interesting French phrase I'd never seen before that seems more and more apt as time goes by. Maybe you recall it too--"fin de siecle." Strictly translated it means "end of the cycle." Originally it was used to refer to the end of the 19th century in speaking of progressive ideas or customs. However, at the end of the 20th century, probably reflecting the questionable nature of these "progressive" ideas and customs, it has come to be used with reference to social and cultural decadence. What piqued my interest in the phrase was, first, the question as to what progressive ideas or customs of 1899 were seen to be decadent, and second, if we might apply this phrase just as appropriately to ideas and customs prevalent at the end of the 20th century and since.

photo by J. Crocker

Art Nouveau subway entrance, Chicago, Illinois

(transplanted from Paris).

In terms of art, fin de siecle is most often associated with Art Nouveau. For those not familiar with this term, I guess it could best be described as "botanical." That is, painting, sculpture, architecture, consumer products, interior design, poster, and commercial art with a strong organic motif--everything from stair banisters to clocks and cloisters. And while it may not be everyone's favorite style, and not at all popular today, I can see little that would be considered "decadent" in such decidedly flamboyant delicacy. However the work of the graphic design artist and illustrator, Aubrey Beardsley also comes to mind in terms of fin de siecle. His work is definitely Art Nouveau and is often considered quite decadent in it's moral perversity, formal elegance, and delicate eroticism. In literature, the fin de siecle work of playwright, Oscar Wilde, comes to mind; and their join effort, his 1894 book of poetry, Salome (below, right), which Beardsley illustrated, very neatly fits this decadent image.

Salome illustration, The Peacock Skirt,
1894, Aubrey Beardsley

So much for the 19th century, what about 20th century. Do we see fin de siecle art and culture then and now? Certainly no particular art style dominates as did Art Nouveau. And while one could easily identify plenty to find decadent in both the art and culture of the last few decades of the 20th century, is there any particular development along this line peculiar to the end of this century...indeed of the  millennium? We might easily latch on to any flare-up regarding guns and violence in entertainment, though one might be hard pressed to argue that the situation is any worse now than say in the late sixties. Sexual mores and the easy access to pornography perhaps? Decadent? Certainly, but fin de siecle? If we can apply this phrase to more recent years, I think we'd have to say it relates more to our attitude, with relation to some of the things I've mentioned, rather than the perverse influences themselves. The fin de siecle of the 20th century is the attitude that all these things are an inbred, embedded, permanent parts of our culture and not likely to change significantly no matter how many bombs explode, students die, laws are passed, or Internet porn sites come and go. Now that is fin de siecle decadence.

The Exotic to the Erotic

Villefranche sur mer, 2001, Jim Lane, the exotic Cote Azur

Today, we take world travel almost for granted. Most of the American middle class, at one time or another, has traveled to a foreign country, even if it's just across the border to Mexico or Canada. Beyond that, more and more are visiting the Caribbean islands, and even travelling to Europe. In our travels we naturally take a lot of pictures. During the 19th century, when this wanderlust all began, tourists, in lieu of photos, either bought artwork by local artists in places they visited, or they drew their own. If you were any kind of artist, of course, you did the latter. And before long, what may have begun as art for their own personal collection, quickly became an important area of art to be explored and exploited in terms of sales too. Artists such as Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Auguste Ingres, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and Diego Rivera were among others who found that setting their work in another country, another culture, perhaps even in another time, allowed them the freedom to paint scenes which might not have been socially acceptable at home.

Women of Algiers in their Apartment, 1834,
Eugene Delacoix

With the conquests of Napoleon during the early years of the nineteenth century, most of Europe and even Northern Africa became easily accessible to artists seeking a new venue from which to paint. Delacroix, for instance, chose Morocco where he worked sketching and painting in watercolour, exotic scenes of women in colorful costumes lounging in harem-like settings. These he took home and used as source material for modest sized oil paintings, which he sold for prices high enough to more than pay for his frequent sojourns across the Mediterranean. His 1834 Women of Algiers in their Apartment (above, left) is a colorful example.

Henry IV Playing with his Children, 1812, Jean Auguste Ingres

Ingres, Delacroix's rival in France at the time, chose the past, particularly the life and times of France's beloved King Henry IV for his domestic genre scenes, which, given their historical overtones, were lifted several notches above what would have been ordinary contemporary genre. They no doubt brought prices several notches above the ordinary too. His 1812 Henry IV of France Playing with His Children (above) depicts the arrival of the Spanish ambassador making an official call, only to find the king down on the floor, on all fours, playing "horsey" for two of his children. Ingres would never have dared portray any contemporary monarch in such domestic revelry.



Baths of Carcalla, 1899,
Lawrence Alma-Tadema



 

England's Lawrence Alma-Tadema carefully researched the newly discovered ruins of Pompeii for his setting of Roman domestic tranquillity as seen in his 1899 Baths of Caracalla (right). In the foreground he depicts three lovely Roman ladies lounging in their filmy gowns while in the background, cavorting in the bathing pool are nude Romans of both sexes lending an erotic air to the work. (His research obviously didn't include the fact that Roman bathing was normally segregated by sex.) Such a scene would have been scandalous had it, instead, been set in the turn of the century baths of Bath, England.



La Civilization Zapotheque,
1930s, Diego Rivera

In the 20th century, Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera, chose not a foreign country but his own, opting to illustrate Mexican history before the conquest of the Spanish Conquistadors as seen in his 1930s La Civilization Zapotheque. By depicting the daily customs of farmers, priests, scribes, and goldsmiths of Pre-Columbian times, he obliquely imparted a political message in contrasting his scenes of ancient domestic tranquillity and prosperity to the social unrest of his own time. And while it may have been politically safe for him to have made his point in such a manner, many of his public works were defaced or destroyed by those seeing through the ruse.

Proserpina and the Sea Nymphs   
1908, Maxfield Parrish

In this country, during much of the twentieth century, nudity and eroticism from other times and cultures have found their way into our own through such art as the paintings of Maxfield Parrish (right), the illustrations of J. C. Leynedecker, the films of Cecil B. DeMille, even the pages of National Geographic. And today, we see a different moral standard for erotic art which has a medieval or science-fiction fantasy quality to it than that which might appear in Playboy. We may be living now in a new century, but we still rely on the same old rationales in making socially acceptable that art appealing to our most "human" of tastes.

English Impressionism

The Thames Below Westminster, 1871, Claude Monet, in refuge from war.

Invariably, when we think of Impressionism, we automatically think of French Impressionism. This is only natural in that the style originated there. But it's only to be expected that once such an innovative approach to painting and color took hold, it would eventually spread worldwide. There came to be American Impressionism, English Impressionism, even little known schools of Spanish and Italian Impressionism to name just a few. The first step beyond the shores of France was a small one, a couple hours ferry ride across the channel to England, but it was not one that came easily. It was a move forced upon the French school by war--the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Impressionists such as Daubigny, Monet, and Pissarro, among others, sought refuge in London when life in besieged Paris became untenable. And, while they found the London area landscape to be most beautiful, intriguing, and a joy to paint, the public response to their work was, as one of them put it, "...like Paris of 25 years ago." It was a good place to paint but one wouldn't want to live there...perhaps even couldn't live there. As several of the refugee Frenchmen noted, in London, art was about money. English artists painted only what would sell, and to no one's surprise, there was little or no market for the impressionist's painted "sketches." Once the war was over, the impressionists were only too glad to get back home.

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, 1871, James McNeill Whistler. Same river, same year,
it's not hard to see Manet's influence, though it's likely the artists influenced one another.

Impressionism in England thus revolves around one man, who ironically, isn't usually thought of as an impressionist--James McNeill Whistler. Not only was Whistler not an impressionist per se, he wasn't even French. He was American, born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the son of a railroad engineer working in Russia. Thus he had such a cosmopolitan upbringing one could imagine him as being a man without a country. And, though Whistler was undoubtedly influenced to a degree by the impressionists, and at times adopted their painting style, his own style, which he labelled "Aestheticism," was much to strong to be dominated by anything as ephemeral as Impressionism. With as many ties to London as Paris, Whistler was thus a bridge between France and England, his personality so strong as to attract a whole corps of English artists, among them Walter Richard Sickert, William Scott, Theodore Roussel, Sidney Starr (bottom), Mortimer Menpes, and Edward Atkinson Hornel - they became the English Impressionists.

Charing Cross Bridge, 1899, Claude Monet,
painted when Monet returned to London.

View of the Thames, Charing Cross
Bridge, 1874, Alfred Sisley, after the war.

Later, once there developed a modest market for Impressionism in England, due largely to the efforts of dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, there flowed back across the channel several true French Impressionists such as Alfred Sisley and Berthe Morisot. Durand-Ruel had, during the war, purchased several Impressionist paintings by Monet, Pissarro, and others. These he had shown around the country in various exhibitions in the years after the war, sparking interest amongst younger British artists, if not the public at large, in the new movement. Thus it could be said, despite fierce resistance from the critics (principally Ruskin) and the British art establishment (primarily, of course, the Royal Academy) Impressionism sort of "infiltrated," almost surreptitiously, into the fringe of British art during the last twenty years of the Victorian period. But surprisingly, given its antecedents in the work of J. M. W. Turner, Impressionism took longer to "catch on" in England than it did an ocean away in  the U.S. Impressionism in America was quite popular well before the turn of the century. In England, despite Turner, Durand-Ruel, Whistler and all his followers, it never achieved this degree of popularity.

The City Atlas, 1888-90, Sidney Starr, Impressionism takes root in England.

English Female Artists

Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser,
ca. 1800, Angelica Kauffman

With the advent of the women's rights movement from the 1970s on, art recent historians have been forced to take a thorough look at the past importance of women in the arts, and particularly as applied to the traditionally all-male bastion of painting. I mentioned in passing a few days ago their reluctance in some cases to do so. However when women themselves such as Lois Fichner-Rathus and Marilyn Stokstad began writing texts for college level art history courses, the work of great female artists ceased to take the form of tacked-on chapters at the end of the traditional text and instead began to stand shoulder to shoulder with that of their male counterparts in the normal context of painting history. And when it did, more than a few art scholars of both sexes found themselves blinking their eyes in astonishment. They, perhaps, didn't recognize the names but the newly discovered "female art" stood up very well on its own, thank you.

The Royal Academy, 1768, Simon Fieldhouse

We're all familiar with the almost legendary story of the inclusion of female artists Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser (above, right), who were among the thirty-six founding members of the England's Royal Academy in 1760. What few of us may be aware of is that the next woman to be given membership in this august body was not until the election of Dame Laura Knight in 1936. For 117 years following the death of the flower painter, Mary Moser in 1819, the Royal Academy was an all-male club...and deliberately so. Few of us have ever heard the name of the genre painter, Rolinda Sharples, or miniaturist, Annie Dixon, or portrait artist, Margaret Sarah Carpenter, or watercolorist, Mary Ellen Best. Except for their sex, it's very likely all these, and of course many others, would have been Academy painters. In each case they were free to exhibit at the Royal Academy (and did) but were never even considered for possible membership.

Calling the Roll after a Major Engagement in the Crimea,
1874, Lady Butler (Elizabeth Thompson)

In London alone, during the 19th century, two to three dozen outstanding female artists rose to some prominence painting everything from tight botanical depictions to scenes of military history in all its frenzied glory and humiliating pathos. The names and work of Henrietta Ward, Louise Jopling, Marie Stillman, Rebecca Solomon, and Kate Elizabeth Bunce particularly stand out. While Rosa Bonheur was painting action scenes of daily rural life in France (later in England), Elizabeth Thompson, better known by her married name of Lady Butler, was painting scenes from the Crimean War and Waterloo on a very masculine scale. Her Roll Call (1874) and Scotland Forever! (1881) forced even the classic male chauvinist critic, John Ruskin, to admit in seeing them that he'd been wrong in previously asserting that "...no woman could paint." Ruskin was not the first, nor the last man to have to eat those words. All during the latter third of the 20th century, their names have been a staple part of the diet of very many male art historians.

Scotland Forever!, 1881, Lady Butler (Elizabeth Thompson).

 

Electronic Art

Lucid Phantom Messenger, 2010, Herwig Weiser,
 16th International Symposium on Electronic Art

Inasmuch as all really creative artists are innovators, we, like those in many other fields, are constantly trying to peer around the corner and see what's coming down the pike before it hits us smack in the face and leaves us for road kill. As Web denizens, some friends of mine on the Net have been trying to do just that. Every so often we rub our eyes, wondering in amazement "What hath God wrought?" Those were the first words ever tapped out by artist, Samuel F. B. Morse, over a 150 years ago with his telegraph key. It's fitting that an artist of Morse's caliber was the first to move beyond visual and written communication to an electronic medium. Even so, no doubt he too would "rub his eyes" at what's happening now, though I don't think for a minute he'd regret having started it all way back in 1844.

In the realm of gaming, the big name in electronic art is Electronic Arts, as seen here in
one of my own Sims 3 architectural creations.

I've preached for some time that the future of wall art is digital just as a hundred years ago, the brightest future in the performing arts was in the then infant medium of motion pictures. This is not to say that traditional arts will not continue to flourish just as has live theater and live concerts today, but the incredible digital art we see on the Internet daily is barely an inkling of what large-scale wall monitors will be able to deliver in the not-too-distant future. Just as today when computers are left running 24-7 and deliver delightful screen savers, tomorrow these lovely moving images, whether abstract or highly realistic as seen in landscapes and still-lifes with Java-generated watery ripples will be the norm, and not just with the Kinkade crowd either!

Lest you think electronic art is
strictly a two-dimensional digital
phenomenon, check out Ann P.
Smith's Parrot, which recycles
used electronic parts.

I dare say, if there's any money to be made from it, even traditional art such as Monet's watery Impressionist paintings will be digitized and animated much in the same way old black and white movies have been colorized. We can lament this "technicalization" of art all we want but it is going to happen. The hardware is rapidly coming upon us, the software is here (and rapidly getting better), all that remains is for the right economic elements to fall into place. That doesn't necessarily mean we won't continue to paint using traditional methods, but just as now, when the really "hot" painters paint for print reproduction, the selling artists of the future will paint for digitization. In fact, given the fact that digitization is so quick and easy (and perhaps quite lucrative), we may all paint for this method of sales and exhibition. Our landscapes may have rustling leaves and flowing, babbling brooks, our still-lives may not be quite so still (flowers perhaps that occasionally drop a few petals), our portraits may smile as someone walks by (their eyes literally following you around the room), and portraits of dearly departed pets that bark a friendly greeting from time to time. Okay, so it seems funny now, a bit spooky, maybe downright frightening in its implications for how we will think and work, but then the future has always been all these things. Keep in mind, a hundred years ago, as crude visual and audio recordings were just coming onto the horizon, philosophers were having to rethink and redefine the meaning of the simple little three-letter word, "now."

Brave Old World Mural, 2012, Stephane Berlin, traditional content handled
digitally in a non-traditional manner.