Alexander Stirling Calder

The Swann Fountain, 1924, Philadelphia, Alexander Stirling Calder

 



Alexander Stirling Calder. No, the work is
not titled "Cure for a Really Bad Headache."

Mobiles, stabiles, bent wire sculptures...who comes to mind? Alexander Calder, of course. The problem bedeviling those studying art, and American sculpture in particular, is that there were no less than three Alexander Calders. Art runs in families. First there was Alexander Milne Calder who is best known for creating the bronze full-length figure of William Penn atop the Philadelphia city hall dome in 1875. He was born in 1845 in Scotland, the son of a tombstone carver. His son, was Alexander Stirling Calder (right), famous for his Swann Fountain (top) in Philadelphia. And finally, he was the father of the most famous of the three, Alexander "Sandy" Calder, born in 1898, the guy who made all the mobiles. (See the posting for 11-18-10 for more on him.)



Seated Nude, Stirling Calder.
Even sculptors must learn to draw.

Now, just to keep things straight, Alexander Stirling Calder (the middle one) was born in 1870. He died in 1945. If it helps any, this Calder is often referred to as A. Stirling Calder. I won't get involved in name and dates for the Scottish progenitor of the clan, things are complicated enough as it is. Suffice to say stone cutting runs deep in this family's tree, even though "Sandy" Calder worked mostly in welded metals. One might refer to them as the Peale family of sculpture, after Philadelphia's most famous art family.





The Gross Clinic, 1875,
Thomas Eakiins



Young Stirling Calder started his art training (apart from that which he undoubtedly received at home) at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under the tutelage of none other than the great American painter, Thomas Eakins. He was sixteen at the time. In 1890, the young man moved on to Paris to study at the Academy Julien and from there to the granddaddy of them all, the École des Beaux-arts. In other words, he had the best art education money could buy.

 

 

 






Dr. Samuel Gross, 1897,
A. Stirling Calder

Back in Philadelphia, Stirling Calder's first major effort came in winning the competition for a sculpture of Dr. Samuel Gross, the same Samuel Gross depicted in Thomas Eakins' famous painting, The Gross Clinic (above). In fact, Calder largely copied the pose from his former teacher's work. Next came a series of twelve larger-than life statues of Presbyterian ministers for Philadelphia's Witherspoon Building. This was during a time when every major new architectural edifice just had to be adorned with at least life-sized effigies of famous men or classical figures devoid of decent apparel. During his career, Stirling Calder often taught classes at his alma mater as well as at the National Academy Design and the Art Students League in New York.







The Depew Memorial Fountain, 1919, Indianapolis, Karl Bitter and Stirling Calder

Lief Eriksson Monument, 1929,
Stirling Calder

During the early 1900s, Calder came down with tuberculosis, causing him to move to Arizona for his health, which caused him to be in the right place at the right time to serve as co-chief of sculpture (along with Karl Bitter) for the 1915 San Francisco World's Fair. When Bitter died suddenly that same year, Calder was chosen to complete work on Bitter's Depew Fountain (Fountain of Energy) in Indianapolis, which featured a robust ring of scantily clad teenaged bronze figures dancing around a central fount, enjoying a refreshing drenching on a hot summer day. Several other public monuments in New York and Philadelphia followed, including his most famous work, the Swann Memorial Fountain (top) in his hometown and the monumental statue of Lief Eriksson (1929) standing before the Lutheran Cathedral in Reykjavik, Iceland, about as far away from his hometown as he ever got.

Alexander Calder

The truly great artists of today seem able to navigate freely from one medium to another leaving behind works of art that transcend narrow, artificial boundaries imposed by art critics, historians, and collectors. As a painter, we're most familar with his childlike swirls and squigles of paint transforming huge, tubes of airbourne, passenger-laden  metal into moving artworks soaring across the skies at speeds his earlier "moving" works could not approach.  Alexander Calder is one of the few artists who can be said to have "invented" a kind of art work.  Marcel Duchamp coined the name "mobile" for the free-floating bits of painted sheet metal, wood, and wire that made up Calder's first sculpture.  The year was 1931.    


Aula Magna, Las Nubes. 1953,
Alexander Calder

Born 100 years ago, Calder's father and grandfather were both sculptors, while his mother contributed his background as a painter. His earliest sculptural innovation came when he first dabbled in wire sculpture at the age of nine. His educational background included a degree in mechanical engineering. He studied art only later. But it was a course in applied kinetics that inspired his signiture works in which time and movement added two new basic elements to the medium of sculpture. Some of his moving sculptures were hanging, free-floating pieces, in others he experiemented with motorized, "programmed" movement.  Albert Einstien is said to have gazed upon one such piece for almost an hour.  
    

De tre vingarna (The Three Wings), 1967,
Alexander, Calder


After living in Europe for many years, Calder returned to the U.S. in 1933 where he rented a farmhouse near Roxbury, Mass. There, working out of an old ice house for a studio, he explored the relationship of art and movement, creating a lifetime ouevre of over 16,000 pieces. He died in 1976.  Two years later one of his largest mobiles was installed in the the new East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. The U.S. Postal Service has since released a series of stamps featuring his mobiles.  For the first time, his work was not only be "moving", but moving mail.   

Content Concepts

Color Harmonies, Josef Albers

Yesterday we explored conceptual art. Today, let's talk about concepts in general. The concept or idea is the root from which the work's message grows. Earlier, in discussing "art for art's sake," I noted that such art is often limited to formalistic design elements. We see this in the various squares and color juxtapositions of German-born artist, Josef Albers from the 1950s (above). Just assigning a title for each one (and keeping track of them all) must have been a major chore. There were hundreds of them.

The Three Wings, 1967, Alexander Calder

"Art for arts sake" is not necessarily divorced from all but the reality of its own existence. Alexander Calder's physical shapes and his title, The Three Wings, (above) tell us his concept is one of graceful aerodynamics, in which he contrasts its physical presence with the earth, wind, and sky of its environment.

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913, Umberto Boccioni

Boccioni employs a stylized figure as a means by which to explore time and space in suggesting the element of movement these two combined concepts allow (above). Unlike Calder, Boccioni demands a neutral environment typical of "art for art's sake" art. And unlike Calder's mobiles, which are physically moved by the wind, here movement is in the mind of the artist and the viewer, making the concept purely one of imagery and imagination. Thus, communicating the concept is much more demanding of the figure itself and the viewer's interaction with it.

Worker and the Collective Farm Girl, Moscow, Communist Art

For most of its history, art was much too important a vehicle in communicating concepts and ideas for the self-conscious dalliances of "art for art's sake." Nowhere is this fact more obvious than in patriotic art and its close cousin propaganda art. The line between them is real, though sometimes quite thin. Not only that, but the labels are interchangeable according to the viewer's point of view. Virtually every culture, every nation, every political faction, every ethnic group has an abundance of both. Is the towering sculpture Worker and the Collective Farm Girl (above), soaring over the streets of Moscow, patriotic while the billboards below are merely propaganda? Both are art. They communicate concepts in a creative manner. Americans might consider both to be Communist propaganda.

 

Tragic Prelude, 1938-40, John Steuart Curry

A close kin to both patriotic and propaganda art is history painting as seen in John Steuart Curry's Tragic Prelude (above). The difference, if there is one, is mostly a matter of timing,. In this case, the work was painted well after the Civil War (or War Between the States). As in the disputed name for the tragedy the title refers to, the strident figure of John Brown, who is either heroic (as Curry tends to see him) or dastardly as viewed by those who hung him in 1859.

 

Liberty Leading the People, 1830. Eugene Delacroix

In a similar vein, Eugene Delacroix painted Liberty Leading the People (above), perhaps the French equivalent of Washington Crossing the Delaware or the Statue of Liberty (also French inspired and created). Liberty is a very French concept and the very fact that we have some degree of liberty today we owe figuratively, and in fact, literally to the French. (Remember Yorktown?) Though the French would claim Delacroix's work to be highly patriotic, in 1830 it was seen as a vitriolic piece of revolutionary propaganda. Those who win the revolution also write the history of the revolution and likewise get to label its art. Concepts are often controversial. Artists should not shy away from such concepts for fear of offending when in fact, virtually every social concept worth exploring is likely to offend someone. One person's patriotism is another person's propaganda.

Cookie Monster Leading the People, Combat Art—2011

Art should do more than merely entertain or decorate, it should also enlighten, seeking to persuade. Sometimes art can do all three as seen in the North African Arab Spring painting I've dubbed Cookie Monster Leading the People (above). The image entertains in making us laugh. I guess some might find it decorative to a degree, and even in its humor, we have to admire the revolutionary spirit which, if we compare it to other works in this genre (the previous three images), bears a number of similarities—lots of uplifted arms bearing arms.

 

The Creation of Adam (detail), 1508-12, Michelangelo--how we see God.

Throughout much of history some of the most powerful concepts employing art have been religious. Long before Pope Julius II browbeat Michelangelo into literally rising to the challenge of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and giving us the image of the ultimate Creator in the act of creating (above), art and spiritual concepts were intertwined. Religious concepts are, by their very nature, difficult to comprehend. God, himself, is difficult to comprehend. Think about it. What does God look like? If you find yourself picturing an old man with a white beard, thank (or blame) Michelangelo.

The Last Supper, 1495-98, Leonardo da Vinci

If, in partaking of Holy Communion (Eucharist, Mass, or the Lord's Supper), you find yourself contemplating Leonardo's deteriorated masterpiece purely from habit (above), then perhaps you might want to switch channels and try recalling Salvador Dali's more modern take on the concept (below). Though somewhat (perhaps unavoidably) influenced by Leonardo's imagery, Dali breathes new life into both the concept as well as the execution. His version seems much more spiritual, yet in its surrealism, more physically real.

Last Supper, 1955, Salvador Dali. The painting is close to overwhelming in person.

Some might claim that without a concept the creative effort has nothing to say, nothing to communicate and, in failing to communicate, does not rise to meet the definition of art. Of course, the concept of the concept is a relative concept. Scratch your head and read that again. Let me translate: The concept (idea) of the concept (message) is a relative concept (philosophical entity). It is relative in that a concept may be minimal, trite, tired, passé, overused, overexposed, hackneyed, and needless to say. From there they range all the way up the figurative ladder to the explosively, obscenely, outrageously controversial--that which is apt to offend not just the proverbial "somebody," but the universal "everybody."

 

Copyright, Jim Lane

Some content concepts might entail reaching too far.

Because of this broad range, some might say that art automatically has some kind of concept at some level. If true, then predicating one's definition of art on the concept of the concept is, to mix metaphors, skating on a slippery slope of thin ice. Perhaps it's a pointless debate in any case. The important concept here is not whether there is one but in choosing which one to communicate. The important matter for the artist is to consider the concept first. Doing so should cause an artist to climb that figurative ladder and pluck his or her concept from the highest shelf they can technically and intellectually reach (communicate). Anything less will cause the resulting work to be conceptually handicapped.






 

Top Ten Fountains

Chicago's Buckingham Fountain did not make the list but was a close runner-up

Few works of art add more comfort to the soul and psyche than the sign and sound of water in motion. Despite this, we seldom think of water as an art medium unless we pollute it with pigments and stain paper with them. Although sculptors, architects, and engineers have been constructing them for many centuries it's hard to say when and where they first took form as works of art. Historians claim that gravity-fed fountains as we know them today were first built by the Greeks about 600 B.C. Most were utilitarian, used to supply drinking water in public places. It wasn't until the latter decades of the 19th- century, as modern day plumbing evolved that purely decorative fountains came into being. Shortly thereafter, hydraulic engineers were called upon to turn stone, glass, concrete and steel into the truly incredible works of art we marvel at today. Below are my biased aesthetic judgements as to the top ten. In making my choices, I took into consideration innovation, size, beauty, and the psychological effects displayed in such works . By all means, feel free to disagree.

Crown Fountain--fine if you don't mind being spit on.

10. The Crown Fountain in Chicago, was designed by the Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. Located in Millennium Park is a major addition to the city's world-renowned public art collection. The fountain consists of two 50-foot glass block towers at each end of a shallow reflecting pool. The towers project video images from a broad social spectrum of Chicago citizens, a reference to the traditional use of gargoyles in fountains, when faces of mythological figures were sculpted with open mouths to allow water, a symbol of life, to flow out. Plensa adapted this practice by having faces of Chicago citizens projected on LED screens and having water flow through an outlet in the screen to give the illusion of water spouting from their mouths. The collection of faces, Plensa's tribute to Chicagoans, was taken from a cross-section of 1,000 residents. The fountain’s water features operate during the year between mid-spring and mid-fall, while the images remain on view year-round.

 

Trevi Fountain--been there, done that.

9. Trevi Fountain, Rome, Italy is one of the world’s most famous fountains and one of its oldest, located in the Trevi district in Rome. It is 26.3 meters (86 ft.) high and 49.15 meters (161.3 ft.) wide. It is the largest Baroque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world. Located in the Trevi district in Rome, Italy, it was designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi and completed by Pietro Bracci. The fountain has appeared in several notable films, including Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita and the eponymous Three Coins in the Fountain.According to the famous legend, if you throw a coin into the Trevi Fountain, you will return to Rome (provided you throw a few coins at your travel agent too).
 

In 1629 Pope Urban VIII, decided the earlier fountain was insufficiently dramatic, so he asked his favorite sculptor and architect, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, to sketch possible renovations. The project was abandoned when the pope died. Though Bernini's project was never constructed, there are many Bernini touches in the fountain as it exists today. An early, influential model by Pietro da Cortona, is preserved in the Albertina, Vienna, along with various early 18th-century unsigned sketches, as well as a project attributed to Nicola Michetti, another attributed to Ferdinando Fuga, along with a French design by Edme Bouchardon. Though Bernini is routinely given credit for the fountain's design, the attribution is quite uncertain at best. The building behind the fountain is the Poli Palace.

 

Calder's Mercury Fountain--who says you need lots of water for a fountain? All you need is a liquid.

8. The modernist sculptor, Alexander Calder designed this fountain, which features now water cascading down to a sizable pool, but with actual mercury. It was featured in the entry of the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris. Opposite Calder's fountain was Picasso's famous Guernica, also designed especially for the exhibition. Like Picasso's painting, this sculpture is a political statement, protesting Franco's siege of the Almadén mercury mines during the Spanish Civil War.

 

The most noted example is a modern sculpture designed by the American artist Alexander Calder and commissioned by the Spanish Republican government for the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris. The unique fountain is a memorial to the siege of Almadén, which then supplied 60-percent of the world's mercury, making it a direct counterpart to Picasso's Guernica. Due to the fact that mercury is now considered a dangerous substance, today the fountain is housed behind glass at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona.
 

Samson Fountain--the painting at the top is mine.

7. The Samson Fountain is located behind the Peterhof Palace near Saint Petersburg, Russia. The Peterhof Palace is a series of palaces and gardens laid out on the orders of Peter the Great starting in 1710. They are often referred as the “Russian Versailles”. The palace has many fountains, but the most important of them are the Samson Fountains added In the 1730s. It depicts the moment when Samson tears open the jaws of a lion, symbolizing Russia’s victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War. The Grand Cascade is modelled on one constructed for Louis XIV at his Château de Marly.

 

At the center of the cascade is an artificial grotto with two stories, faced inside and out with hewn brown stone. It currently contains a modest museum of the fountains' history. One of the exhibits is a table carrying a bowl of (artificial) fruit, a replica of a similar table built under Peter's direction. The table is rigged with jets of water that soak visitors when they reach for the fruit, a feature from Mannerist gardens that remained popular in Germany. The grotto is connected to the palace above and behind by a hidden corridor.

 

The fountains of the Grand Cascade are located below the grotto and on either side of it. There are 64 fountains. Their water flows into a semicircular pool, and from there into a fountain-lined sea channel. In the 1730s, the large Samson Fountain was placed in this pool. The lion is an element of the Swedish coat of arms, and one of the great victories of the war was won on St. Samson's Day. From the lion's mouth shoots a 20-metre-high vertical jet of water, the highest in all of Peterhof array. This masterpiece by Mikhail Kozlovsky was looted by the invading Germans during the Second World War. A replica of the statue was installed in 1947.

 

Perhaps the greatest technological achievement of Peterhof is that all of the fountains operate without the use of pumps. Water is supplied from natural springs and collects in reservoirs in the Upper Gardens. The elevation difference creates the pressure that drives most of the fountains of the Lower Gardens, including the Grand Cascade. The Samson Fountain is supplied by a special aqueduct, over three miles in length, drawing water and pressure from a high-elevation source.
 

Canal City--the only one of these water fountains
that's inside. Go to the restroom before the show.

6. Canal City is located in Hakata, Japan, a large shopping and entertainment complex in Fukuoka, Japan. Called the "city within the city," it boasts numerous attractions including shop, cafes, restaurants, a theater, game center, cinemas, two hotels, and a canal, which runs through the complex. Canal City has become a tourist attraction and commercial success for Fukuoka. It is the largest private development in the history of Japan ($1.4 billion). It is built with a distinctive fanciful style, with many curving sculptures and fountains causing city of Fukuoka to be hardly visible. The atmosphere seems like an oasis far outside the rest of the town. Check out the video below. This fountain wins the award as the most innovative (click below).
 

Mind blowing !!

 

Dubai Fountain,  in one of the most expensive cities on earth.

5. Dubai Fountain, begs the question, is there anything Dubai doesn't do bigger and better? If the Dubai Fountain is any example, probably not. This fountain is, located in the 30-acre Burj Dubai Lake. It was completed in 2010. More than 83,000 liters of water can be projected up to 152 meters into the sky during the Dubai Fountain's water show. It is also lit by 6,600 lights and 50 color projectors, making the fountain still more spectacular at night. Currently, the fountain show is a favorite tourist attraction for people of all ages. The city of Dubai is a city that is aware of the tourism generated by such a spectacle and wants to promote the Dubai Fountain as one of the primary attractions for visitors. Dubai Fountain is in the area of Dubai Mall which is a part of the in Burj Khalifa complex, of downtown Dubai complex.

 

King Fahd Fountain, where water may someday
be more costly than oil--looks like gusher.

4. The King Fahd’s Fountain in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia is also known as the Jeddah Fountain. It is the tallest fountain of its kind in the world. Located on the coast of Jeddah, the fountain jets water 1,024 feet (312 m) into the air. In the clear desert air, it can easily be seen throughout the entire vicinity of Jeddah. The fountain uses saltwater taken from the Red Sea instead of freshwater. It also uses over 500 spotlights for illumination at night. The King Fahd Fountain is famous taller than the Eiffel Tower if you exclude the antenna. It uses three massive pumps that can deliver 625 liters of water per second at an amazing speed of 233 mph (375 km/h). The fountain was donated to the city of Jeddah by King Fahd, for whom it's named. It was constructed between 1980 and 1983 and was launched in 1985. The second-tallest such fountain is the World Cup Fountain in Seoul, South Korea, with a water height of about 202 meters (663 ft.). If you travel to Jeddah (and who doesn't these days) don’t forget to pay it a visit. It’s incredible.

  

Moonlight Fountain--colored water under the bridge.

3. The Banpo Bridge fountain, at 1140 meters in length (approx. 3740 ft.) is the worlds longest fountain. It has 380 nozzles that pump out 190 tons of water a minute. 220 lights in a kaleidoscope of color garnered it the name of Moonlight Rainbow Fountain. Not surprisingly, the fountain is world's longest bridge fountain. It set a Guinness World Record with nearly 10,000 LED nozzles that run along both sides for 1,140m. Installed in September 2009 on the Banpo Bridge, the former mayor of Seoul Oh Se-hoon declared that the bridge would further beautify the city and showcase Seoul's eco-friendliness, as the water is pumped directly from the river itself and continuously recycled. The bridge has 38 water pumps and 380 nozzles on each side, which draw water from the river some twenty meters below the deck. It shoots water as far as 43 meters horizontally. The bridge is constructed solely from bamboo, by the way.

 

Fountain of Wealth--inspired by a basketball hoop, no doubt.

2. Fountain of Wealth, is located in one of the largest shopping malls in Singapore called Suntec City. It is the World’s Largest Fountain according to the 1998 Guinness Book of Records. During certain periods of the day, the fountain is turned off and visitors are invited to walk around the mini fountain located in the center of the fountain to collect coins for good luck. During the night, the fountain is the setting for laser performances, as well as live entertainment. The Fountain of Wealth was created using bronze. It weighs approximately 85 tons and is situated on top of an underground restaurant that allows diners to look above and view the ring.

 

Bellagio Fountains

1. And that brings us to the Bellagio Fountains, Las Vegas. The Fountains of the Bellagio are huge, located on a manmade lake in front of the Bellagio hotel. The fountains feature vast, choreographed water performances set to light and music. The performances are visible from the strip. The show takes place every 30 minutes in the afternoons and early evenings, and every 15 minutes from 8 pm to midnight. The fountain display is choreographed to various pieces of music, including “Time To Say Goodbye”, “Your Song”, “Viva Las Vegas”, “Luck Be a Lady”, and “My Heart Will Go On.”
 

The Bellagio's Fountain Show

Contrary to a common urban myth, the lake is filled with treated greywater from the hotel. It is also serviced by a fresh water well, that was drilled decades ago to irrigate a golf course, which previously utilized the site. In fact, the fountains use less water at present than did the golf course. The fountains incorporate a network of underwater pipes with over 1,200 nozzles making it possible to stage fountain displays coordinated with over 4,500 lights. It is estimated that the fountains cost $50-million to build.

 

The Bellagio's Sombrero

The performances take place in front of the Bellagio hotel and are visible from numerous vantage points on the Strip, both from the street and neighboring structures. Two minutes before each water show starts, the nozzles begin to break the water's surface and the lights illuminating the hotel tower turn to a purple hue (usually), or red-white-and-blue for certain music. Shows may be cancelled without warning because of high wind, although shows usually run with less power in face of wind. A single show may be skipped to avoid interference with a planned event. Additional shows can occur for special occasions including weddings. The fountain display is choreographed to various pieces of music, including God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood, Viva Las Vegas by Elvis Presley, Luck Be a Lady by Frank Sinatra, My Heart Will Go On by Céline Dion, and The Sound of Silence by Disturbed. The fountains were created by WET, a design firm specializing in inventive fountains and architectural water features.

To see the show, click below.

 

The Fountain, 1917,
R. Mutt (Marcel Duchamp).
Though quite famous, this
"Fountain" wasn't on my
list either.

Painted Billboards

(Image 1) A dying breed of artist. Death by "oops"?                          

(Image 2) Billboard painting today.

No other form of art (stretching the definition a little) has changed more in the past hundred years than that of the painted billboard. Actually, strictly speaking in the traditional sense (Image 1, above), it has all but disappeared. In reality, this type of art has merely changed venue. No longer does the painter hang precariously, dozens of feet in the air, plying his skills. More often than not today, it's all done safely inside, flat on giant warehouse/studio floors (image 2, left), or mounted temporarily on a sizable wall fronted by scaffolding or a "cherry picker." Moreover, even at that, the painted billboard is all but a thing of the past, now replaced by the computer-driven "printed" billboard, though the gigantic, pigmented inkjet printers are, in fact, closer to painters than printers (Image 3, below). Originally they printed on strips of paper to be glued on the billboard much like wallpaper (Image 4, below). Advertisers even managed to invent a glue that deteriorated at roughly the same time as the billboard lease, causing the various layers of advertising to become an unsightly mess (Image 5, below).

(Image 3) The computer driven billboard printer (painter).

(Image 4) Billboards hung like wallpaper.

(Image 5) This is part of what gave billboards a bad name.

For better or worse billboards, as we think of them today (no one would dream of calling them art at that time), came with the automobile. Where there were cars, there was billboard advertising. The faster the cars traveled, the bigger the billboards in order to allow for words which could be read at forty miles an hour. They were totally unregulated as to size, number, placement, content, and taste. Often there was a sort of "billboard war" going on in which one billboard obstructed the view of others (Image 6, below). Ugly would be too mild an epithet for them. The famous Wall Drug of Wall, South Dakota, offering travelers "FREE ice water," practically lined the nearby highways "wall-to-wall" with their billboards. More recently there have even been musical billboards and scented billboards (near Mooresville, North Carolina, by the Bloom grocery chain). The signs depicted a giant cube of beef being pierced by a large fork that extended to the ground.

(Image 6) Billboard advertising circa 1920.

Obviously something had to be done; and thankfully, First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson took action. She persuaded her husband, the president, to push through Congress the 1965 Highway Beautification Act, which strongly encouraged states (through the threat of withholding federal highway funds) to pass certain specific laws governing billboards along interstate highways. For the most part the law has been effective, though some advertisers simply moved their billboards back from the highway the prescribed 300 yards and made them still bigger.

(Image 7) Still sold "everywhere" but for somewhat more.

Originally, all billboards were painted. Today, virtually none of them are. The painted billboard allowed existing surfaces such as the sides of buildings to become "billboards" (Image 7, above). Today, despite the ravages of old age, they often appear more quaint than unsightly. As with the antique Coca-Cola billboard, entire building today can sometimes be used as billboards. They take on such size and scale as to only be possible by painting them the old-fashioned way--by hand. Likewise, custom made billboards today, are sometimes of such size and/or creative invention as to rule out any digital printing device. The "bridge" billboard (Image 9, below) erected some years ago during the World Cup competition in Munich, Germany, could only have been hand painted, and may hold the record as to length and creative ingenuity as well. Sometimes, as with the bridge billboard, the locale suggests some rather creative adaptation of the billboard as seen in the Oldtimer rest stop ad incorporating, not a bridge, but a tunnel this time (Image 10, below, left).

(Image 8) The Nationwide wallscape (2007) stretches the definition of billboard
nearly to the breaking point with it's extreme advertising ingenuity.

(Image 9) Adidas Oliver Kahn bridge billboard, Munich, Germany.

(Image 10) How do you say, "Ahhh!" in Austrian?

Perhaps the last remaining stronghold for the billboard painter today is that of "billboards" painted on the fuselages of jet aircraft. Only good, old-fashioned, paint, hand-sprayed through stencils will withstand the speeds involved. In 1976, artist Alexander Calder was called upon by Braniff International Airlines to paint their new "Spirit of '76" Boeing 727 aircraft (Image 11, below). However, it might not have been a good idea. Braniff went bankrupt in 1982 and again in 1989. We probably can't blame Mr. Calder for that, though.

(Image 11) Alexander Calder's Braniff billboard.
Maybe he should have included the word "Braniff" somewhere.

Some billboards give the appearance of having been hand-painted when they're not. The shaped billboard for the Calcutta-based Berger Paints (Image 12, below) depicts the billboard painter creating a "fool the eye by matching the sky" image. The sky part is cut out. The billboard is not actually hand painted. I have to wonder sometimes if some of these billboards haven't caused traffic accidents.



(Image 12) Hand-painted? Not really, but the effect is not lost.

Occasionally, billboards are hand-painted out of necessity. Sharon Nelson of Salina, Kansas, has been on dialysis, waiting on the list for a kidney donor for six years. She has type "O" blood which makes locating a perfect match extremely difficult. When she heard that a Milwaukee man had obtained a donor by renting a billboard, her husband decided to do likewise. Unable to afford an artist, he painted the message himself (Image 13, below). That was nearly two years ago (2013). Sadly, they are still waiting.


(Image 13) A hand-painted plea for help.

And finally, hand-painted or otherwise, the traditional billboard is destined to undergo its most radical change ever. You've, no doubt, seen them, the digital LED billboards hovering over on of the busier highways in your area. At first they were little more than glorified electronic scoreboards. However, today, these digital wonders (Image 14, below) have a high-definition image to match your living room TV combined with gargantuan scale often making even the largest traditional billboards look puny. Moreover, though still quite expensive, they come in such a variety of sizes that small businesses or organization with even a modest advertising budget can afford them. Why post only one message, one image, when you can present a dozen or more? Let the passing drivers beware!

(Image 14) Only the sunset is more glorious.

The painted billboards of the past still haunt us.
This picturesque Mail Pouch barn is located in
southern Ohio not far from where we live.

 

New York's Art Students League

Cosimo De'Medici and Giorgio Vasari founded
Europe's first art school in 1563, Florence, Italy.

The teaching of young people the ways and means of creating art has been a difficult undertaking for centuries. It still is. There are three reasons for this--art is difficult; the students are difficult; and so too, in many cases, are the instructors who teach them. "In the beginning" as the Bible says (though perhaps not going back quite that far), would-be artists learned their trade one-on-one from other individual artists (often their fathers), helping them in their work--what we would call today "on-the-job-training." Later, a somewhat more efficient method of group instruction developed, in what has come to be known as the apprentice system, where dozens of young men (rarely women) would indenture themselves to a master artist or craftsman to learn "how to" and just as important, "how not to." Then in the 1600s, first in Florence, then later in Rome, Paris, and other developing art centers, there developed universities across Europe. Working artists began to seek government approval and support for a more formal system, which came to be known as academies. These, in various forms, persist today, both as the actual historic institutions and as models for most university art curriculums. It has become known as the "studio system."

The Atelier of Courbet, 1855, Gustave Courbet

However, during the nineteenth century, there began to develop on the side a less formal and less structured, and some would contend a less efficient system for training young artists. In Paris, where it first began, instructors at the Ecole des Beaux-arts (run by the Academy) began moonlighting, taking on students from their academic classes and others in their private studios. This developed into what has come to be known as the "atelier system." Without it, most of the Impressionists would never have had much formal (or informal as it were) art training. In some ways, it was like a hearkening back to the old apprenticeship system albeit under less formal and far less stringent conditions.

 

A modern day atelier.

For the most part these two systems have coexisted for more than a hundred years, harmoniously, but occasionally competitively, at times with some rancour. The studio system is highly structured with a formal, set curriculum, lots of rules, and a largely conservative, reactionary outlook in line with "protecting" the profession as much as imparting knowledge. (It's often been compared to boot camp.) The atelier system, on the other hand, has merely time, instruction, and facilities. (It's often been derisively compared to summer camp.) Its informality is both a help and a hindrance, allowing students the flexibility to set their own schedules, work at their own pace...or not...all too often, the latter. In one, the student is marched through a course of study, in the other he or she meanders

For its first 40 years the National Academy of Design
had no permanent home. Then after the Civil War,
the academy built this Venetian Gothic structure at
23rd St. and Fourth Avenue.

Starting in 1825, the United States copied England and set up the National Academy of Design in New York under the guidance of such painting names as Thomas Cole, William Cullen Bryant, Samuel F. B. Morse, and architect, Alexander Jackson Davis. Informally at first, then after 1831 in tuition-free formal classes taught by volunteer artists and instructors; they began taking on the best and brightest this nation had to offer in the arts. This continued until the nation-wide financial difficulties marking the 1870s when economic pressure grew to start charging tuition. A fight developed among the directors. In 1875, they reached a "compromise" of sorts, suspending all classes rather than charge tuition or go into debt to avoid doing so. In their stubbornness, they had caused their studio system to collapse. It had never operated under government support and control (as had its European models) and in refusing to adopt the strictly "business" approach of Europe's parallel atelier system, chose instead to dispose of both baby and bath water in one fell swoop. By this time of course, their students numbered in the hundreds. In effect, they were "hung out to dry."

The cockloft, fourth floor, 197 Fifth Avenue,1875

As a result, students took matters into their own hands. They pooled their meagre funds and started their own "school." It wasn't much. They met in a 24'x30' "cockloft" on the fourth floor of a building at 108 Fifth Avenue. They called it the Art Students League. At first there were no instructors, no heat, no course of study, and only occasionally the services of a model. Eventually all these things took care of themselves even as, three years later, the National Academy saw the light, re-instituted classes, and reluctantly started charging admission. Some of their students came back, most did not. The atelier system had struck a chord, freeing them from the ever-increasing stilted outlook they had known before, allowing them the freedom to try new things, and perhaps fail at them with no fear of academic consequences.

The Art Students League, mid-town Manhattan

It was a rough and tumble existence, but the League survived, even flourished. Names such as William Merrit Chase, Kenyon Cox, Thomas Eakins, Daniel Chester French, Childe Hassam, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and John H. Twachtman all taught at the school. Furthermore, a list of their students reads like a "Who's Who" of American art, including Romare Bearden, Thomas Hart Benton, Norman Rockwell, Alexander Calder, George Grosz, Hans Hofmann, Roy Lichtenstein, Reginald Marsh, Louise Nevelson, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and John Sloan. The League developed such innovations as a summer school in Woodstock, New York (1909-1922 and 1947-1979), and one of the earliest "outreach" programs aimed at training students in the public schools. Today, the League is housed in a rather stodgy looking old stone structure at 215 West 57th Street just off Broadway and a couple blocks south of Central Park with a program borrowing the best of both the studio and the atelier systems. It serves over 2,000 students. Meanwhile, further uptown, the National Academy of Art, with largely the same program, has about half that.

The Art Students League also reaches out to artist of the more distant future.