Helene Schjerfbeck

The self-portrait--a moving picture

As I've mentioned a few times before, there's a very good reason (several, actually) why I always go in search of a self-portrait whenever I'm considering an artist about which to write. People place a good deal of subconscious importance on how others look. That almost goes without saying. The same is true from the artist's standpoint and their own appearance. Beyond that, through the self-portrait the artist projects his or her public persona--how they wish to be seen, as artists, by others. These are the most obvious attributes of the self-portrait. Beyond that, hopefully spread over a number of years, perhaps an entire lifetime, self-portraits also demonstrate the advancement of the artists skills in what is probably the most demanding type of art to be found--capturing the human being on canvas--more than just a face or likeness, but something akin to the artist's soul. They also demonstrate changes in the artist's style of painting, in essence, how he or she thinks about art, as well as how they think about themselves--their changing self-image. And finally, self-portraits, in the numbers created by artists such as van Gogh, Rembrandt, Picasso, and others, provide a moving picture account of the artist growing older. The work of the Finnish portrait artist, Helene Schjerfbeck, provides an excellent example of all these factors.

Dancing Shoes, 1882, Helene Schjerfbeck

A Boy Feeding his Younger Sister,
1881, Helene Schjerfbeck

Schjerfbeck is not a famous artist. She is, however, interesting. Schjerfbeck is another of the artists I discussed some time back who is quite difficult to categorize--Realist, Romanticist, Im-pressionist, Naturalist, Symbolist, Ex-pressionist, perhaps even Abstractionist --take your pick. Her life's work invites a comparison to the blind men describing an elephant by feeling different parts of it with their hands. The panel of her self-portraits (top) vividly demonstrates this evolution as to style from Realism (top, left) to an Edward Munch Expressionism (bottom right). Here the dates are vitally important. Yes, she ages, changing physically--the paintings are spread over a span of almost fifty-five years--but it's her style which changes far more.

The years of her life began in 1862. Helene Schjerfbeck was born the daughter of a Helsinki office manager. When she was four years old she fell down a flight of stairs, breaking her hip. It did not heal correctly, causing her to walk with a limp; the pain preventing her from attending school for the rest of her life. However, home-schooled, she found plenty of time to hone her childhood drawing skills. At age eleven, she was enrolled in The Finish Art Society Drawing School where she came to the attention of her drawing instructor, Adolf von Becker, who shepherded her through his drawing school and later the University of Helsinki. Helene's father died of tuberculosis when she was fourteen. A professor at the university paid her tuition while von Becker, himself, not only taught her drawing, but French as well (a very important skill for an art student at the time). Even while a student, Helene began winning prizes with her work.

Portrait of a Girl, 1886,
Helene Schjerfbeck

Portrait of a Girl, ca. 1945,
Helene Schjerfbeck

Around 1880, Helene Schjerfbeck put her newfound language skills to use as she moved to Paris, studying under a number of artists before enrolling a year later in the Académie Colarossi, where she studied with fellow Finnish artist, Helena Westermarck. She supported herself by painting portraits and selling her landscapes, as well as through a scholarship from the Finnish Imperial Senate. Schjerfbeck's portraits of others, especially children, didn't change as much over her lifetime as did most of her other work as can be seen in the 1886 Portrait of a Girl (above, left) painted when Schjerfbeck was twenty-four and the portrait by the same title from 1945, (above, right) painted at age eighty-three just a year before her death.

The Convalescent, 1888, Helene Schjerfbeck. It was a role she knew well.

Girl from Eydtkuhnen II, 1927,
Helene Schjerfbeck

By way of contrast, in terms of her other work, we see her award-winning The Convalescent (above) from 1888, painted while still a student in Helsinki. It is very much like her Mother and Child (below) painted in 1945, as to content. Yet in these two works we can see her mature style contrasted with the Finnish Realism she was taught as a student. For a more stunning contrast, even exceeding that of her self-portraits, Schjerfbeck's Girl from Eydtkuhnen II (right) dating from, 1927, is an example of her portrait work at its Expressionist best. Her paintings have variously been compared to those of James McNeill Whistler and Edvard Munch. I would compare this portrait with the work of Amadeo Modigliani. Helene Schjerfbeck was gradually forced into retirement by ill health. By 1940 she was living in a nursing home, though she continued painting almost up to the time of her death in January, 1946.

Mother and Child, ca. 1945 Helene Schjerfbeck

 

Egon Schiele

Green Stockings, 1914, Egon Schiele

One of the most common stereotypes imposed upon artist is that: "All artists are weird." It's untrue, of course, simply because the word, "all," is an absolute. Adding the words "can be" (a relative element) to the verbal equation serves to make it true, but also takes it to the opposite extreme, making the phrase unlimited. "All artists can be weird," casts us in the same light as the entire human race--"All people can be weird," raising the question, what's the point? If we try prefixing the phrase with the more limited, "some" (some artists are weird) we again make it true, and perhaps a little more meaningful, but just as pointless--"Some people are weird." Thus the point in this discussion is that artist are no more weird than other people. From my own experience, they just like to seem that way. The attribute of weirdness (whether true or false) lengthens our social "leash," so to speak. Perhaps more accurately, this welcomed stereotype lengthens the heavy chain or rope artists must endure living in the world at large, giving us a greater degree of creative freedom. It can also give artists the rope they need to "hang" themselves. The early 20th-century Austrian painter, Egon Schiele, is an apt example.

Melon, 1905, Egon Schiele, painted at age fifteen.

Winding Brook, 1906, Egon Schiele

Schiele was born in 1890, the son of an northern Austrian railway station master. Not surprisingly, as a child the boy liked to draw trains. That was fine with his father until it came to the point that trains were all he would draw (his first sign of weirdness). His father felt the need to destroy all his son's sketchbooks. As young Egon began attending secondary school at the age of eleven, he stood apart from his peers, shy, and a poor student academically; he excelled only in art and athletics (a rather weird combination in itself) His Melon (above) painted when he was fifteen, demonstrates an extraordinary mastery of technique, color and composition for a boy so young. Likewise, his Winding Brook, (left) painted the following year, displays a similar aptitude for Impressionist landscapes. However, as a teenager, Egon also displayed an incestuous interest in his younger sister, Gertrude, at one point causing his father to break down a locked door to see what the two were up to. They were developing film.

Egon Schiele Self-portrait,
1906, age sixteen.

Self-portrait, 1914, Egon Schiele,
age twenty-four.

Sexual promiscuity apparently ran in the family. When Egon was fifteen, his father died of syphilis. The father's suspicions were not without cause. Free from his father's watchful eyes, a year later, when Egon turned sixteen, and without permission, he took his twelve-year-old sister by train to nearby Trieste and spent a night with her in a hotel room. Upon their return, Schiele was made the ward of his maternal uncle, who tried to discourage both his artistic and sexual proclivities. He succeeded at neither. Within a year, Schiele was sent off to the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts. There, the faculty and staff soon decided Schiele should attend the more conservative (and rigorous) Academy of Fine Arts, also in Vienna, where he studied under the painter (drill-sergeant), Christian Griepenkerl, whose strict, doctrinaire style of painting and instruction Schiele found most frustrating. To his credit though, he continued to endure for three long years while at the same time seeking out the Austrian painter, Gustave Klimt as a mentor. Klimt, who generously mentored younger artists, took a particular interest in Schiele, buying his drawings, offering to exchange them for some of his own, arranging models for him, and introduced him to potential patrons.

View from the Drawing Classroom, Klosterneuburg, 1905, Egon Schiele

Seated Woman with Bent Knee,
1917, Egon Schiele.
 

Klimt invited Schiele to exhibit some of his work at the 1909 Vienna Kunstschau. There he encountered the work of Edvard Munch, Jan Toorop, and Vincent van Gogh among others. Once free of the constraints of the Academy's conventions, Schiele began to explore, not only the human form, but also human sexuality. At the time, many found the explicitness of his works disturbing. For reasons just mentioned, I'm unable to display here the bulk of Schiele's figural work including many of his self-portraits. His Green Stockings (top), from 1914, is about as close as I can come within the bounds of good taste. It's interesting to contrast his early student work such as View from the Drawing Classroom, Klosterneuburg (above) with the stylized eroticism (putting it kindly) of work such as Seated Woman with Bent Knee (left), done a few short years later.

Portrait of Wally, 1912, Egon Schiele

From then on, Schiele participated in numerous group exhibitions, including those of the Neukunstgruppe in Prague, Budapest, the Sonderbund, Cologne, and several other Secessionist shows. In Munich, in 1913, Schiele mounted his first solo show, all of which culminated with a solo exhibition of his work in Paris in 1914. In 1911, through Gustave Klimt, Schiele had met the seventeen-year-old Walburga (Wally) Neuzil (above, right), who lived with him in Vienna and served as a model for some of his most striking paintings. Very little is known of her, except that she had previously modelled for Klimt and may have been one of his mistresses. In an attempt to escape what they perceived as the claustrophobic Viennese social scene, the two young lovers retreated to the small town of Český Krumlov in southern Bohemia. The town had been the birthplace of Schiele's mother (today it is the site of a museum dedicated to Schiele). Despite the family connections there, Schiele and his live-in model were driven out of the town by the residents, who strongly disapproved of their lifestyle, especially his alleged use of the town's teenage girls as models.

Seated Girl Facing Front,
1911, Egon Schiele

Children, Egon Schiele

Together Schiele and Wally moved to Neulengbach, just west of Vienna, seeking inexpensive studio space in which to work. As had been the case in Vienna, Schiele's studio became a gathering place for Neulengbach's delinquent children. And, just as before, Schiele's way of life aroused much animosity among the town's inhabitants. In April, 1912, Schiele was arrested for seducing a young girl below the age of consent. When the authorities came to his studio to place him under arrest, they seized more than a hundred drawings which they considered pornographic. Schiele landed in jail while awaiting his trial. When his case came before a judge, the charges of seduction and abduction were dropped, but the artist was found guilty of exhibiting erotic drawings in a place accessible to children. The judge even burned one of the offending drawings over a candle flame. The twenty-one days Schiele had already spent in custody were taken into account, and he was sentenced to an additional three days. While he was incarcerated, Schiele made the most of his time by creating a series of twelve paintings depicting the difficulties and discomforts of being locked up.

Egon Schiele (center)
with two companions during WW I.

In 1915, Schiele married Edith Harms, who lived with her parents across the street from his studio in the Viennese suburb of Hietzing. She was the daughter of a Protestant locksmith. Schiele, even though married, had apparently expected to maintain a relationship with Wally. However, when he tried to explain such an arrangement to her, she left him immediately and never saw him again. Despite having avoided conscription for almost a year, World War I was now creeping into Schiele's life and work. Three days after his wedding, Schiele was ordered to report for active duty in the army where he was first stationed in Prague. Despite military service, Schiele continued to exhibit in Berlin as well as Zürich, Prague, and Dresden. His first duties consisted of guarding and escorting Russian prisoners. Because of his weak heart and his excellent handwriting, Schiele was eventually given a job as a clerk in a POW camp near the town of Mühling where he was allowed to draw and paint imprisoned Russian officers. By 1917, he was back in Vienna, once more focusing on his artistic career. He died a year later, at the age of twenty-eight, a victim of the Spanish Influenza, which claimed the lives of more than twenty-million in Europe alone. One of those was Edith Harms Schiele who died three days before her husband. She was six months pregnant with their first child.

The Family, 1918, Egon Schiele, one of his last works.

 

William Howard Taft Portraits

William Howard Taft, official White House portrait, 1911, Anders Zorn

William Howard Taft,
the heaviest of all our Presidents.

Well, it's birthday party time again. Happy Birthday, President William Howard Taft, born on this date in 1857. He would have been 158 years old today. He was one of seven presidents from my home state of Ohio and a member of the powerful Taft family of Cincinnati. His father, Alphonso Taft, had been Secretary of War and Attorney General, part of the scandal-ridden Grant administration during the 1870s. His son came to Washington in 1890 where he gained a broad range of governmental experience--Solicitor General of the United States, as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals, Governor-General of the Philippines, and in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of War (an effort to groom him as Roosevelt's handpicked presidential successor). Taft served one term as President, from 1809 to 1813. Taft's official White House portrait (above) by the Swedish artist, Anders Zorn, painted in 1911 while Taft was still in office, eloquently captures in Zorn's robust style, the persona of a big man in a big job. Taft weighed in at around three-hundred pounds.

William Howard Taft, 1910, William Valentine Schevill, now in the National Portrait Gallery.

William Howard Taft had numerous portraits painted of him, three by a single artist, William Valentine Schevill, who painted the Taft image now in Washington's National Portrait Gallery. Eight years after serving as President, Taft was appointed by President Warren G. Harding (also from Ohio) as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the only man to have ever headed two separate branches of the American government. His official portrait as Chief Justice (below) was painted by Ernest Ipsen. Taft served as Chief Justice from 1921 until his death in 1930. As President, Taft had appointed six justices to the Supreme Court, five of whom later served under his leadership. It was a position Taft had longed for all his life, even more than being President.

Chief Justice, William Howard Taft, after 1921, Ernest Ipsen

Portrait of Mr. Taft,
President of the United States,
1909, Joaquin Sorolla

As with several other presidential portraits, the unofficial ones are often more interesting than the often stodgy ones bought and paid for by the government. In Taft's case, two in particular stand out, one by the aforementioned William Valentine Schevill (below, left), the other a miniature watercolor portrait painted on ivory by the relatively unknown painter, Alyn Williams (below, right). Both feature an oval format. Both capture Taft the man fairly well, though the 3.5 inch miniature seems the far more lifelike of the two. Another, by the Spanish painter, Joaquin Sorolla, (left) Portrait of Mr. Taft, President of the United States, painted at the White House in 1909, suggests a convivial sessions between painter and President. Judging by he number of them and the fact that most were done during his single term in office, William Howard Taft seems to have enjoyed having his portrait painted.

    William Howard Taft, 1909,                               William Howard Taft, 1910,           
William Valentine Schevill                            Alyn Williams watercolor on ivory

First Lady Helen Herron Taft, 1909, Karl Bror Albert Kronstrand

William Howard Taft caricature
by an unknown artist.



































The Cooper Union

The new Cooper Union building housing the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture,
41 Cooper Square, New York, NY.

If you could imagine the perfect higher education art school, what would it be like? It would have a world-class staff of instructors. It would be big, but not too big, less than a thousand student. It would be in the heart of the art capital of the world. The facilities would be spacious and the most up-to-date in the world. The campus would be compact--maybe a block or two each way. And, best of all, tuition would be free (yeah, dream on). Could such a school exist? Actually, until the past year or so, such a school DID exist. Except for the free tuition part, it does exist--the famed Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in the heart of mid-town Manhattan, New York City. The only "fly in that ointment" is the fact that it's one of the most difficult art schools in the world in which to gain admission. Last year (2014), even as the college started charging tuition for the first time in its 184-year history, the school received over 2,500 applications. The acceptance rate rose from ten percent to fifteen percent.

 

The main staircase inside.

The Cooper Union was founded in 1830 by Peter Cooper, based upon the government-supported École Polytechnique in France. It's not just an art school, but also teaches future architects and engineers. In place of government support, the wealthy multi-millionaire inventor/entrepreneur businessman founded, then funded the entire enterprise himself. If he could see today the radical Postmodern edifice that bears his name (top) with it's strikingly daring main staircase (above) he might well have had second thoughts. My own first thoughts in seeing it were that they'd erected the standard glass-cube office building then taken a giant machete to it just to break up the monotony. If that was their goal, they certainly succeeded. Peter Cooper's original educational edifice, still standing a few hundred feet down the street (today known as the Foundation Building, below), looks nothing like the new addition to the campus. Whether that's good or bad, I guess, depends on your taste in architecture. Personally, I'm not particularly fond of either one of them.

The recently remodeled Cooper Union Foundation Building, E. 7th Street, New York.

The Cooper Union, mid-town Manhattan.

Peter Cooper was born in 1791, the son of a Methodist hat maker. In his early years, Cooper worked as a coach maker's apprentice, cabinet maker, hat maker, brewer, and grocer. He had barely one year of formal education during his entire lifetime. Thus, his devotion to facilitating academic opportunity for all, regardless of race, gender, ethnic background, financial or social standing, is not only remarkable for that era, but reflects his consciousness of his own shortcomings. Around 1830, Cooper designed and built the first steam powered railway engine in the U.S. He also dabbled in in the manufacture of glue and iron. Having made his fortune, Cooper invested it in real-estate, insurance, and railroads. Then, as president of the New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph Company, he was the principal investor in the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable. In 1876, at the age of eighty-five, Peter Cooper spent $25,000 of his own money, running for President of the United States under the Greenback Party banner, though he was somewhat less successful in that undertaking. He was no Donald Trump.

Peter Cooper: painted by a present-day Cooper Union art student, Dan Howard
(above, left), as seen by Virginia Tucker in a posthumous portrait (center), Cooper
as a young man in an 1850s photo (above, right), and in his latter years (lower right).
 

Cooper Union women students
painting, ca 1920.

Peter Cooper's school was built on a radical new model of American higher education based on his fundamental belief that an education equal to the best technology schools [then] established, should be accessible to those who qualify, independent of their race, religion, sex, wealth or social status, and should be open and free to all. The Cooper Union originally granted each admitted student a full-tuition scholarship. Even today, every incoming student receives at least a half-tuition merit scholarship. The Cooper Union began with adult education in night classes on the subjects of applied sciences and architectural drawing, as well as day classes primarily intended for women on the subjects of photography, telegraphy, typewriting and shorthand in what was called the college's Female School of Design. The early institution also consisted of a free reading room open day and night, and a new four-year nighttime engineering college for men and a few women. A daytime engineering college was added in 1902 thanks to funds contributed by Andrew Carnegie. Among those who availed themselves of the institute's courses in its early days include the sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, inventor, Thomas A. Edison and the military engineer, William Francis Deegan.

The Cooper Union's architectural design studio today.

The Cooper Union campus--

 

A. The Foundation Building, 7 East 7th Street

B. 41 Cooper Square (new building)
C. Administrative Offices, 30 Cooper Square

D. Residence Hall, 29 Third Avenue

E. Stuyvesant-Fish House, 21 Stuyvesant Street,

     (home of the college president).

For most of the 19th-century the Cooper Union operated from the Foundation Building, an Italianate brownstone building designed by architect Fred A. Petersen, one of the founders of the American Institute of Architects. It was the first structure in New York City to feature rolled-iron I-beams for structural support. Peter Cooper them himself then produced them in one of his factories. Built in 1853, the building was the first in the world to feature an elevator shaft, even though Elisha Otis had not yet perfected them for commercial use. At the time, the building's basement also contained one of he largest auditoriums in New York City. It was there, in the "Great Hall," on February 27th 1860, that Abraham Lincoln launched his bid for the Republican nomination as President of the United States.

Abraham Lincoln's dramatic speech opposed Stephen A. Douglas on the spread of slavery to the federal territories and new States. The speech solidified support for Lincoln, helping him to gain his Party's nomination for the Presidency. It is now referred to as the Cooper Union Address.

For more than a hundred years or more, Peter Cooper has sat outside
his school, perched under a classical stone pavilion, still supervising
the goings on in the triangular "square" bearing his name.

 

Louis Schanker

Study, WPA Mural at WNYC, 1937, Louis Schanker

Newness creates problems. It entails a struggle on the part of the creators for acceptance among traditionalists. Likewise, for those traditionalists, newness creates problems in that it is often seen as a threat to their previous ways of thinking, perhaps their lifestyle, their economic level, ideals, and standards of excellence. As an example (unrelated to art), we're seeing this in today's grudging acceptance of, or outright hostility toward, same-sex marriage. Newness comes most easily to the young, those without a strong urge to keep things "the way they've always been," despite what is often an indifference to, or ignorance of, the facts as applied to the definition of "always." Always is a very long time and covers a very broad swath of human differences. Newness is especially problematic in the area of art in that it's difficult to form a valid definition of art that doesn't embrace newness. It's the key element in creativity which, in turn, is the foundation of all art. I've always used my own "nutshell" definition of art as "creative communication." If it's not creative, (new) or does not communicate an artist's thoughts and ideals, then it's NOT art. It's broad, yes, but not so broad as to be virtually meaningless.



Louis Schanker, ca. 1930s

The art world last encountered this confrontation with newness during the 1930s up through the early 1950s as Abstract Expression raised it's impudent head in the U.S. (elsewhere too, but lets limit this to a manageable group). Is it art, or isn't it art? Ironically, even some of the artists creating such works weren't entirely sure. Beyond that, they suffered the same verbal deficiency as did the critics who castigated their efforts--a pronounced lack of an accurate technical and aesthetic vocabulary with which to even discuss such art. Add to that an uncertainty on both sides as to whether such art was even worth discussing. No one doubted that abstraction was creative...creative to the point such creativity became the crux of the problem. But, did such non-representational (or barely representational) work meet the criteria of communication? It was as if artists were making up a new language with dozens of different dialects and expecting everyone else to instantly understand it (or try to). One of these artists attempting to communicate creatively in a new language (top), was the Bronx-born, Jewish artist, Louis Schanker.

Sketch for WPA Mural (Neponsit Beach Children's Hospital), ca. 1937, Louis Schanker.

We often think of Abstract Expressionism as being the proprietary miscreant of the post-war New York School. Actually, many involved in this historic movement were relative latecomers to such "newness." Louis Schanker, along with such later known and unknown names as Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Milton Avery, the Soyer brothers, Chaim Gross, and Adolph Gottlieb were the real pioneer artists of the 1920s and 30s struggling to just "plant the seeds," literally living out the starving artist stereotype, sharing cold water, walk-up flats (who could afford a loft back then?). Barely surviving in the cheapest artists' ghettos New York City had to offer, some were formally educated at art schools such as the Cooper Union, the Art Students League, even the ultra-conservative American Academy of Design. Others, such as Schanker, for example, had studied at some of these institutions of art orthodoxy, but he was also a graduate of the Barnum and Bailey Circus and the wheat fields of the Great Plains. His Sketch for WPA Mural, Neponsit Beach Children's Hospital, (above) from around 1937 reveals some of these past experiences.

Still-life, 1932, Louis Schanker

Abstraction with Musical Instruments,
1932, Louis Schanker

Louis Schanker was born in 1903. His parents were Romanian Orthodox Jews living in the Bronx. While still a teenager with barely a "smidgen" of art training, the happy-go-lucky Schanker fled both his Jewishness, and the rigor of art schools for the exciting life of the circus, and later, the much less exciting life of a migrant farm worker. In effect, he became a teenaged hobo. Perhaps having "grown up" a bit, Schanker returned home to New York in 1924 where he leased a studio, trying to earn a living as an artist, however meager. Speaking of meager, Schanker began to realize how meager his art training had been. During the early 1930s, the would-be artist somehow scraped together financing allowing him to follow the well-worn art student's path to Paris where he studied at the cut-rate Académie de la Grande Chaumière (a model and heat in the winter). Later he toured Italy and Spain. And, as seen in his 1932 Still-life (above), at some point along the way, Schanker became a Cubist. His Abstraction with Musical Instruments (above, right), also from 1932, would seem to indicate that the "Picasso bug" had bitten him rather severely.

1939 World's Fair Mural, Louis Schanker

During the 1930s depression there were no jobs available, especially for Cubist artists. However, artists were included in the Public Works of Art Project and then the WPA Federal Art Project. Schanker participated in both beginning in 1933 as an artist and supervisor in the mural and graphic arts departments. In the New York City division he worked with many old friends and future painting icons including Jackson Pollock, his wife, Lee Krasner, Burgoyne Diller, Byron Browne, Milton Avery, and Stuart Davis. These were controversial times in the arts community. This was public art these future Abstract Expressionists were creating at public expense, yet most of those paying the tab had little understanding of what was being produced. Schanker's Study, WPA Mural at WNYC (top), from 1937 was typical of his work and that of others under his direction. As seen in his 1939 World's Fair Mural (above), Louis Schanker was seldom completely non-representational during the 30s, yet this made his work all the more difficult to discuss rationally, in that the critic was never sure whether the distortions of recognizable shapes were accidental or intentional.

Untitled, 1933 watercolor, Louis Schanker

In 1935 Schanker and others such as Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, Joseph Solman, Tschacbasov, Lou Harris, Ralph Rosenborg and four other even lesser-known abstract painters formed a group called The Ten protesting the lack of support for American abstract artists by the Whitney Museum, which at the time concentrated on representational art. Ironically, Schanker was in the awkward position of having his works being shown in the museum's 1936 Annual exhibit at the same time he was protesting. The same year, Schanker was among those founding another group, the American Abstract Artists (AAA), not as a protest, but in a positive effort to promote and foster public understanding of abstract art. He and the others had a long way to go. Schanker's work in particular was probably the most radical. In 1935, one critic wrote: "[His] conglomerations of color-patches...are bound to alienate no small part of the gallery-going public."



Acrobats, 1939, Louis Schanker

However, by 1937, in the high-altitude thin air of the New York art scene, Schanker was gaining some degree of acceptance. The often-hostile New York Times art critic, Edward Alden Jewell, softened his criticism. When speaking of Schanker's major WPA mural at the municipal building studios of WNYC in New York, he noted that Schanker had "a touch of lyric feeling." In 1938, writing for Art News, Jewel went on to say that "Louis Schanker's delightful Street Scene From My Window (no image available) calls forth admiration for its delicacy of color and kaleidoscopic forms in plane geometry." It took a while, and even by the start of the war, the new language of Abstract Expressionism wasn't fully understood; but at least the critics had picked up enough of the vocabulary to at least write intelligently about it.

















 

The Ten Most Beautiful Buildings in the World

As much as I love "top ten" lists, and enjoy creating them; I realize that virtually no one is likely to totally agree with my choices, nor the order in which I have listed them. My choices are unavoidably subjective to some degree, but I like to think they are also both knowledgeable and reflective of at least a modicum of good taste. In listing the ten most beautiful buildings in the world, I have screened out those structures which, though once quite beautiful (such as the Parthenon in Athens), but which now lie in ruins. I've also not considered architectural/engineering structures, build entirely for show (such as the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, or St. Louis' Gateway Arch. Beyond that, I've also not considered buildings that, while they may be architecturally daring, perhaps even pointing the way toward the future in architecture, are at this point problematical, and in some cases even downright ugly (here I'm not going to cite examples). The buildings I've selected, without exception, serve a purpose. They were built to house human activities. Only two are more than a hundred years old. If that shows a bias for the contemporary over the classical, then so be it. The same applies to the fact that two of my choices are works by the same architect. I've already written about several of the buildings listed so I've created links to them so as not to be redundant. I'm hoping some of my choices may be surprising, thus bringing to light some very beautiful creations which thus far may have slipped beneath the architectural radar (so to speak). By the same token, I've no doubt left out some excellent possibilities with which the reader may take issue. If so, by all means make your feelings known in the comments section at the bottom.

 

10.

10. The "Gherkin" Building, London

This one was a difficult choice. There are people, especially in London, who love it and an equal number who hate it (as indicated by it's nickname). Officially it's called 30 St. Mary's Axe. Completed in 2003, the gracefully curved structure rises some forty-one stories, or 591 feet (180 meters) above the street level. The architects were Norman Foster and the Arup Group. The top level contains a bar open only to those using the building and their guests (above, left) while a restaurant occupies the 40th floor just below. Incidentally, despite appearances, the only piece of curved glass in the entire building is the oculus seen capping the dome's pinnacle. The highly energy- efficient "Gherkin" is currently occupied by the Swiss Re, a global reinsurance company, who commissioned the structure.

9.

9. The United Nations Building, New York, NY.

In a city filled with iconic, often exquisitely beautiful architecture, the United Nations Building on the banks of New York City's East River, built during the early 1950s, has stood the test of time by several definitions of that phrase, not the least of which would be architecturally. Designed by an international team headed by American architect, Wallace K. Harrison, French architect, Le Corbusier, and Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, the complex is the ultimate in "form follows function" design without resorting to bland, cost-efficient, "glass-boxiness" despite its monolithic secretariat building. One of the criteria I've used in selecting buildings for this list is whether the structure looks good from all angles and whether it is as attractive inside as it is outside. The UN Building manages both in is striking simplicity and noble form.

8.

8. Colonial Architect James Hoban's near perfect classical proportions have withstood fire, numerous remodeling, rebuilding, and additions, not to mention the ravages of time from the 1790s until today, with remarkable grace becoming more beautiful with every passing century.

Some buildings are considered great or beautiful because of the remarkable genius of their architects combined with the patient acquiescence of their owners. Others have become symbols of governmental, religious, or financial power, which color our feelings as to their physical presence. With no building is this more the case than the White House, the home/office of the President of the United States of America. Ever since our first president chose the site along the wooded banks of Tiber Creek in 1790, chose the architect, and then, in the role of "owner," heavily influenced and guided him (and the builders) in creating what we see today, virtually every temporary occupant (or his wife) of what may be the most beautiful public building in America, has left his mark on this American architectural icon. Tastes change, needs change, new technology supplants old, still classical beauty, in the protective embrace of men and women of refined tastes, not only survives, but thrives.

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7. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York, NY.

I've often criticized the Guggenheim Museum, not architecturally, but functionally. It's not that it doesn't serve its purpose. It does, extremely well, in fact. The problem is it's too beautiful for an art museum. I don't care what anyone says, no art museum should compete visually with the art it houses. But...having said that, as a work of art itself, the Guggenheim may well be the most beautiful museum in the world. It's final architectural masterpiece of Frank Lloyd Wright, whom I consider the greatest American architect of all time (which is only a little over two-hundred years, but who's counting). Completed in 1959 after his death, it contrasts sharply with every other museum in New York, both in style and its stunningly daring, swirling masses. Moreover the 1992 slab-like addition which myself and others have found rather jarring, in a more contemporary light serves as a visual backdrop, functional, relatively unobtrusive, and something of a guardian, blocking out the disturbing clutter of Manhattan "architecture." Its benign presence is welcomed simply because it is such a departure from the curvilinear lines of Wight's frontal showpiece. It's a museum wing that doesn't appear to be a wing.

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6. It's only appropriate the one Wright masterpiece should only be surpassed in its beauty by an earlier one.

No house ever dominated its environment, yet looked as if it had "grown" from that environment like Wright's Fallingwater. Imagine a house, that doesn’t even appear to stand on solid ground, but instead stretches out, hovering weightlessly over a 30′ waterfall. Such a structure captured everyone's minds even in the darkest hours of the Great Depression, foretelling a future brighter than even the most optimistic could imagine. Designed as weekend retreat for Pittsburgh's Kaufmann family, and finished in 1934, it continues to appear futuristic even some eighty years later. Since 1963 it has been open to the public. You know you have a thing of great architectural beautiful when you can buy a Lego building kit allowing kids to re-create and appreciate their own Fallingwater.

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5. The Taj Mahal, Agra, India

Some, myself included, have called the Taj Mahal most beautiful building in the world. In fact I headlined it in those terms when I wrote about it three years ago. Obviously, I've reconsidered that judgment in lieu of some more recent entries into this imaginary "contest," but that doesn't change the fact that this is the oldest dowager of architectural beauty on the list. Begun in 1632 and finished some twenty-two years later, if love was an architectural term, this temple/tomb would be its embodiment. I've traveled all over the world and seen many of the structures on this list. There's not much which would persuade me to travel to far-off India, but this ageless tribute to undying marital love is most tempting.

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4. Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia

I would someday love to see the Sydney Opera House in person. The problem is, like the Taj Mahal, it's on the wrong side of the world, and my "somedays" are starting to shrink down to a dismal few (I'm really not all that fond of opera, anyway). Rising out of the Sydney Harbor, the Sydney Opera House is not only the center of the arts scene in Australia but also stands out as a must-see for anyone visiting the area. In the late 1940’s Eugene Goossens, the Director of the NSW State Conservatorium of Music lobbied for a new venue for large productions. In 1955 a design competition was held by NSW Premier Joseph Cahill, and by 1958 construction had begun. Completion wasn't until 1973 When the Queen of England cut the ribbon. The winning design features several concrete shells and houses a concert hall, the opera theater, the drama theater, a studio, the Utzon room (named for the Danish architect, John Utzon), a broad forecourt, as well as a recording studio, five restaurants, four souvenir shops, and a guided tour operation. Hey, tourist attractions can be beautiful too.

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3.The Lotus Temple, New Delhi, India.

Lotus Temple can be found near New Delhi, India. As you may have guessed, the temple is built to resemble the lotus flower. It has twenty-seven "petals" created using white marble. It also has had over fifty-million visitors. Its twenty-seven, free-standing, marble-clad "petals" arranged in clusters of three, form nine sides of a structure some forty meters tall, and capable of holding 2,500 Bahá'í worshipers. Along with its nine surrounding ponds and the gardens, the Lotus Temple site comprises 26 acres in the village of Bahapur, a suburb of New Delhi. The architect was an Iranian, named Fariborz Sahba, who was approached in 1976 to design and oversea construction until completion in 1986.

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2. Dupli Casa, J. H. Mayer H. Architects, Ludwigsburg, Germany

My dream home...or perhaps more accurately, my fantasy house; and to my way of thinking the most beautiful house in the world. As hard as it might be to believe, what you see above is a remodeling of a pre-existing, already heavily remodeled house dating from 1984. Completed as it now appears in 2008, the villa has three floors. On the top level, each bedroom protrudes, from the core of the house. On this floor the windows are angled to reveal specific views of the surrounding landscape and buildings – one being David Chipperfield’s Museum of Modern Literature just across the valley. There are both outdoor and indoor swimming pools. The building’s middle floor is treated as a public space, with a big atrium in the lobby and large panoramic windows creating a sense of spectacle in a very futuristic style. White and dark colors are used hand by hand in the interior. Inside or out, it's impossible to take a bad photo of the place.

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1. Burj al Arab, Dubai, UAE

And finally, the moment you've all been waiting for, the most beautiful building in the world--the Burj Al Arab (Tower of the Arabs). This impressive thing of beauty is a luxury hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It claims to be the only seven-star hotel in the world. At 1,053 feet (280 meters) tall, it is only the fourth tallest hotel in the world. Burj Al Arab stands on an artificial island 920 feet from Jumeirah beach and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge. The shape of the structure is designed to mimic the sail of a ship (right). Designed by the London architect, Tom Wright (no relation to Frank Lloyd Wright), only superlatives are permitted by the Arabs in describing it. The lobby is the tallest in the world at 590 feet in height. Despite its size, Burj Al Arab holds only 28 double-story floors which accommodate 202 bedroom suites. The smallest suite occupies an area of 1,820 sq. ft. The largest suite covers 8,400 sq. ft. The Royal Suite, is billed at $18,716 per night.

--Incidentally, I considered including Barcelona's La Familia Sagrada on the list but didn't inasmuch as it's still under construction and will be for the foreseeable future. I also considered St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, Oscar Niemeyer's National Congress Building in Brasilia, the old TWA terminal at JFK, and Bob Hope's former home in Palm Springs; but eliminated each on for a variety of reasons.