The Art Speak Vocabulary

About three months ago I wrote about what's commonly known as "Art Speak." I referred to it as a "foreign" language primarily aimed at discussing and understand Modern Art. Like every language, Art Speak has its own vocabulary which, fortunately, most artists, and even much of the general public has a fair degree of understanding. It's not that the vocabulary is all that foreign or difficult. The problem is that it uses fairly common words and phrases but assigns art-specific meanings to them. "Picture plane" is an example. We all know what a picture is and we know what a plane is but the Art Speak definition has nothing to do with aviation. The picture plane is simply an illusionary window parallel to the physical surface of a two-dimensional work of art through which the viewer observes the content of a painting, drawing, or print. The picture plane is usually bounded by the picture frame.

I often worry, in writing about art, if I'm not going "over the heads" of my readers--engaging in advanced art speak...so to speak. If or when I have, I apologize. At the same time, in highlighting some of the terms involved in the language of art, I also run the risk of insulting the intelligence of many of my readers by defining that which might be termed "common knowledge" among artists. The problem is, of course, that there is a vast range of art knowledge, experience, and technical competence among my readers. If I mention "Ben Day dots," for instance, the reactions probably range from "any idiot knows that" to "who the hell is Ben Day?" (They're the tiny dots used in color printing, especially cartoon half-tones, as seen in the paintings of Pop artist, Roy Lichtenstein, [below].) Who the hell Ben Day may have been is irrelevant. (As you may have guessed, he invented the printing process.)

What Ben Day dots hath wrought.

Thus I've done my best to avoid the most common art terms, even though some are quite complex and often incompletely understood even by many experienced artists. At the same time I've also made an effort to avoid the "who the hell cares" terms so esoteric many of which I've never heard of either. My first inclination was to list these terms in alphabetical order, but then again, I'm not putting together a dictionary. Instead I'm grouping them as they relate one to another, with an aim towards understanding rather than easy reference. In general, they fall into categories related to art history, art thinking, art creation, and some general terms which don't fall neatly into any of the other three categories. Where possible I've linked to earlier postings covering more detail.

ART HISTORY-- (roughly in chronological order)

Baroque--a style of art characterized by dramatic, extravagant, complex, highly emotional art and architecture developed in Europe from the early 17th to mid-18th-century, typified by bold, curving forms, elaborate ornamentation, and overall balance of various parts.
Rococo--was a style of art, architecture, and decorative art, originating in France in the early 1700s. It was marked by vaguely erotic and elaborate ornamentation, such as a profusion of scrolls, foliage, and fanciful animal forms.
Romanticism--was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement originating in Europe toward the middle of the 19th-century. It was characterized by an emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of the past preferring the medieval over the classical.
Victorian Era--applied as much to history and social behavior as to art. It corresponds to the reign of England's Queen Victoria’s (1837–1901). Artistically it has to do with prudish, often hypocritical, thought and manner as reflected in art from that period--somewhat the British equivalent of French Academic Art.

Academic--a conservative style of art promoted by an official art school of higher learning such as the French Academie des Beaux Arts during the 18th and 19th-centuries.
Post-Impressionism--can be roughly dated from 1886 to 1905 though the term was not coined until around 1910. It was applied to the reaction against the naturalistic depiction of light and color in Impressionism. The movement was led by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Georges Seurat, each with his own, distinctive style, but united by their interest in expressing emotional and psychological responses through bold colors and expressive, and/or symbolic images.
Pictorialism--was an international style of photography in the late 19th and early 20th-centuries, involving the creation of art tableaus and photographs composed of multiple prints or manipulated negatives, in an effort to promote photography as an artistic medium on par with painting.
Neo-Impressionism--a term applied to an avant-garde art movement that flourished principally in France from 1886 to 1906. It began with Seurat's Pointillism, and the renouncing of the spontaneity of Impressionism in favor of a measured painting technique grounded in science and the study of optics.
Fauvism--the style of painting practiced by les Fauves (French for “wild beasts”) in the early (pre-WW I) era characterized by the work of Henri Matisse and André Derain, emphasizing strong, vibrant color and bold brushstrokes over realistic or representational qualities.
Suprematism--was a term coined by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich in 1915 to describe a style of painting conforming to his belief that art expressed in the simplest geometric forms and dynamic compositions was supreme over earlier forms of representational art.

Art Nouveau--A decorative style of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that flourished principally in Europe influencing painting, sculpture, architecture, the decorative arts, and graphic design. It is characterized by sinuous, asymmetrical lines based on organic forms.

The Chrysler Building,
New York City

Art Deco-- is a style of visual arts, architecture and design that first appeared in France just before World War I. It was a blending of many different styles and motifs, sometimes contradictory, united by a desire to appear sleek and modern.

Arts and Crafts--was an Informal movement in architecture and the decorative arts emphasizing the unity of the arts and the experience of the individual craftsperson, in the "do-it-yourself" construction of the work itself.

Automatism--the process of creating art without conscious thought. The Surrealists later applied this to techniques of spontaneous writing, drawing, and painting.
Constructivism--was developed by the Russian avant-garde at the time of the October Revolution of 1917, in an attempt to make art universally under-standable and essential to everyday life.
Dada--was an artistic and literary movement that grew out of dissatisfaction with traditional social val-ues and conventional artistic practices during the war, which sought to expose accepted and often repressive conventions of order and logic by shocking people into self-awareness.

De Stijl--refers to “the style” a Dutch term for a group of artists and architects whose style is characterized by the use of primary colors, rectangular shapes, and asymmetrical compositions. This was another movement which was a direct response to the destructive events of World War I. Its members were naïve enough to believed that developing a new artistic style was a means of creating a new harmonic order. WW II proved otherwise.
Der Blaue Reiter--(The Blue Rider) was an artist group active in Munich, Germany, from 1911 to 1914. They were closely associated with the development of Expressionism. The group’s aim was to express their own inner desires in a variety of forms, rather than to strive for a unified style or theme. (Quite the opposite of De Stijl.)
Die Brücke--(the Bridge) was yet another artist group, this one active in Dresden, Germany, from 1905 to 1913. They were likewise closely associated with the development of Expressionism having to do with the distortion of reality and expressive use of color in response to the turmoil of modern urban society.
Neue Sachlichkeit--(New Objectivity) was a style of art that was developed in the 1920s in Germany by artists such as Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, and George Grosz. It was often satirical in nature, applying a critical eye to contemporary taste of postwar German society. The style directly challenged the traditions of the art academies.

Surrealism--was a literary, intellectual, and artistic movement begun in Paris around 1924 which also grew out of dissatisfaction with traditional social values and artistic practices after World War I. Surrealism remained active through World War II. Influenced by the writings of psychologist, Sigmund Freud, Surrealists were led by André Breton, their interests being in the irrational, unconscious mind as it moved beyond the constraints of the rational world.
School of Paris--was a loosely defined, somewhat all-inclusionary group of international artists living and working in Paris from 1900 until about 1940, practicing a diversity of new styles and techniques to such traditional subjects as portraiture, figure studies, landscapes, cityscapes, and still lifes. Among the artistic movements associated with the School of Paris are Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, and Symbolism.
International Style--an architecture that appeared from 1932 to 1960 which favored boxy structures, lack of decoration, and the use of materials such as steel, concrete, and glass.
The New York School--was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s and 1960s in New York City. They drew inspiration from Surrealism and contemporary avant-garde art movements, such as action painting, Abstract Expressionism, jazz, improvisational theater, and experimental music.
Postmodern--describes both an era and a broad movement that developed in the mid to late 20th century across philosophy, the arts, architecture, and criticism which marked a departure from Modernism. It asserts that knowledge and truth are the product of unique systems of social, historical, and political discourse and interpretation. (There's much more to it than that, but for the sake of brevity...)

ART THINKING--

Aesthetics--the characteristics by which we discern beauty or good taste as to the visual arts.
Biomorphic--is a term referring to abstract forms or images that evoke associations with living forms such as plants and the human body.
Canon--is a group of artistic, literary, or musical works that are generally accepted as representing a field of artistic pursuit.
Classicism--refers to the principles embodied in the styles, theories, or philosophies of ancient Greek and Roman art.
Cultural icon--is a person, symbol, object, or place that is widely recognized as being culturally significant to a large group of people.
Existentialism--is a philosophical attitude emerging from the early 20th-century, associated especially with Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir, which stresses the free will of the individual in determining his or her relationship to the external world.
Iconic--has to do with the character of an important and enduring symbol of great attention and devotion.
Iconoclasm--is The doctrine or practice of attacking settled beliefs or institutions.
Iconography--refers to any subject matter in the visual arts, adhering to particular conventions of artistic representation, and/or imbued with symbolic meanings.
Metaphysical--is the transcending of physical matter or the laws of nature having to do with the branch of philosophy that studies that fundamental nature of being and knowing.
Paranoiac critical method--is a creative process emerging from the psychological methods developed by Surrealist artist, Salvador Dalí, in the 1930s, for the exploration of the creative potential of dream imagery and subconscious thoughts.
Social construct--is a concept or practice that doesn’t exist innately in the world but is instead created by society.
Sublime--refers to that which is awe-inspiring or worthy of reverence. In philosophy, literature, and the arts, the sublime refers to a quality of greatness that is beyond all calculation.

ART CREATION--

Appropriation--is the intentional borrowing, copying, and alteration of preexisting images and objects.
Artifice--Deception or trickery as to art or its creation.
Magic lantern--was an apparatus used to project an image, usually onto a screen or canvas in order to transfer an image. It was in use from the 17th to the early 20th century as a precursor of the modern slide projector.
Muse--is a guiding spirit that is thought to inspire artists as source of genius or inspiration.
Papier-collé--French for “glued paper,” a collage technique using cut-and-pasted papers.
Papier-mâché--French for “chewed-up paper,” is a technique for creating sculpture, from pulped or pasted paper and binders such as glue or plaster.
Vernacular photography--refers to Images by amateur photographers of everyday life and subjects, commonly in the form of snapshots. The term is often used to distinguish everyday photography from fine art photography.
Vignette---is a brief, evocative description, account, or depiction of an intimate visual moment.
Wet-collodion--was a photographic process invented in 1848 in which a glass plate, coated with light-sensitive collodion emulsion, is placed in a camera, exposed, developed, and varnished for protection before being used to create prints.

GENERAL ITEMS--

Curator--is a person whose job it is to research and manage an art collection, organize exhibitions, and thereby make the art seen on display more understandable in a broader context.
Exquisite Corpse--is a fun game to try at your next party with your arty friends. Each participant takes turns writing or drawing on a sheet of paper, which is then folded and passed to the next player for a further contribution. The game gained popularity in artistic circles during the 1920s, when it was adopted as a technique by artists of the Surrealist movement.
Manifesto--is a public declaration, often pol-itical in nature, but also having to do with an art philosophy covering a groups principles, beliefs, and intended courses of action.

There are probably dozens more words and phrases I could and should include, but look at the length of this sucker! If you've made it this far you'll know this is one of the longest pieces I've ever written. I hope I've not strayed too far from my original intention of providing both those struggling with art speak and those fluent in the language with usable terms having to do with thinking and sounding like artists.

Alfred Joseph Casson

Street in Glen Williams, 1938, A.J. Casson.

I'm not sure why, but when we think of landscape paintings our minds seem to automatically pull up woodland scenes, perhaps with a brook, lots of trees, and maybe a sunset. These are all stereotypes that, far from being invalid, are, unfortunately, quite apt. The term "vast majority" is very much overused today, but I think I can safely say that the vast majority landscapes painted "now and then" have one or more of those elements. Be that as it may, by far the worst landscape painting stereotype we conjure up is one of Realism (with a capital "R"). Again its a valid stereotype but one we should avoid in that it automatically eliminates from our consciousness many of the most important (not to mention, most beautiful) landscapes ever to flow from an artist's brush. With that in mind, take a look at the work of the Canadian landscape painter, Alfred Joseph Casson (above).

 

Casson was invited of Frank Carmichael to become a member
of the Group of Seven in 1926 after Frank Johnston left
the group some years earlier.

Street in Glen Williams (top) is a large oil on canvas by the Group of Seven's A.J. Casson. The painting was expected to do well at the 2010 spring auction of high-end Canadian art organized by Toronto's Joyner Waddington Auction House. And, thanks to spirited competition among three bidders, the Casson exceeded expectations, selling for a record $542,800, including buyer's premium. The Casson, a leafy, autumnal portrait of a small town near Toronto, carried a pre-sale estimate of $200,000-$250,000, the highest such valuation ever placed on a Casson painting. A.J. Casson joined the Group of Seven in 1926, as the youngest of the group, but highly esteemed, even at the age of twenty-eight, for his paintings of small towns in every season. Canadian art critic and historian, Paul Duval, referred to Street in Glen Williams as unquestionably his key autumn portrayal. At the time of Casson's death, in 1992, he was the last surviving member of the group, originally founded in 1920.

Farmhouse Winter, A. J. Casson

A. J. Casson was born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1898. HIs parents were Quakers, his father, English, his mother Canadian. At the age of nine the family moved to Guelph and later to Hamilton. The first exposure Casson had to art was at Hamilton Technical School, where he was asked by his teacher to demonstrate for the class. When the boy turned fifteen, his father sent him to work as an apprentice at a Hamilton lithography company. In 1915 the family moved back to Toronto where the aspiring young artist worked during the day while attended evening classes at Central Technical School.

Winter On The Don, 1926, A.J. Casson

The first public exhibition of Casson's work was at the Canadian National Exhibition, in 1917. His impressive showing there caused him to be hired by the commercial art/ engravers firm owned by the brothers George and Fredrick Brigden. In 1919 Casson moved to Rous and Mann where he was influenced by Group of Seven member Franklin Carmichael to sketch and paint on his own. Carmichael and Casson then moved on to the first Canadian silkscreen printing firm, Sampson, Matthews Ltd. There Carmichael introduced Casson to many well-known artists, including other Group of Seven members.

Winter in the Village, 1938, A.J. Casson

After the disbanding of the Group of Seven in 1932, the following year Casson co-founded the Canadian Group of Painters. Several members of the Group of Seven later became members including Lawren Harris, Arthur Lismer, A. Y. Jackson, and Franklin Carmichael. Casson developed a painting style with clear colors and background designs. When Casson turned sixty in 1957, he "retired" from teaching and his position as art director at Sampson, Matthews Ltd. to paint full-time. It's not hard to see in the later works by Casson his drifting away from Realism, as seen in his 1938 Winter in the Village (above) toward a more abstract form of landscape art such as his Below Ragged Falls (below). The composition, style, and content bear only a very modest affinity for the Realism of his earlier work, but instead rely quite heavily on design and color for their visual impact.

Below Ragged Falls, A.J. Casson

Untitled, 1966-68, A.J. Casson

This gradual movement away from Realism toward a more abstract, even Cubist, approach to landscape painting may well have been more of an unconscious evolution rather than a conscious rejection of his earlier style. Most of Casson's paintings (alas) are not dated so it is difficult to trace a direct line of progression. However, we do see a tendency to mass color at the expense of texture in some of the artist's work from the 1930s then later a reliance on mirror-image shoreline reflections for some of his works dating from the 1960s such as Rain, Mist and Sun (below) and pictured below that, Village at Sundown, from 1960. The untitled hillside village (left) dating from 1966-68 shows a further departure from Realism (or naturalism if you prefer) toward a distinctive embrace of flat design bordering closely on Cubism. A. J. Casson died in 1992, just three months short of his 94 birthday,


Rain, Mist and Sun, A.J. Casson

Village at Sundown, 1960, A.J. Casson.
Squint your eyes slightly and the painting content
completely disintegrates.

Nature Morte, 1937, A.J. Casson. The artist
also painted a few watercolor still-lifes.

 

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis

Winter V, 1907, Mikalojus Ciurlionis

As I've noted in the case of a few other extremely versatile and talented individuals, it sometimes happens that they are equally talented in a number of different media, styles, and techniques. Picasso is a prime example. For most of his life, everything he touched turned (almost literally) to gold. What is somewhat more rare...one might even say exceedingly rare, is for an artist to display equally prodigious talent across several different disciplines having to do with the fine arts--music, painting, poetry, etc. Picasso, for all I know, may have been tone deaf, and his meager literary efforts are almost laughable as compared to his painting prowess. Although the Lithuanian painter, Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis was no Picasso, he far exceeded, not just Picasso, but the vast majority of all exceptional painters insofar as his talents in as many as three or four other creative disciplines. In fact, during his lifetime, Ciurlionis was probably better, known as a composer and musician as for his paintings, though he tended to consider them one and the same.

Some might consider Ciurlionis a composer who also
happened to paint pictures. Over his lifetime, he
composed some 400 pieces of music, but painted
only about 300 works of art.

Mikalojus Ciurlionis was born in 1875, the eldest of nine children. The small town of Senoji Varėna, in southeastern Lithuania where he was born was a part of the Russian empire at the time. His father was Polish, his mother was Lithuanian of Bavarian descent. Despite living in Lithuania, the family spoke only Polish. It wasn't until Mikalojus met his wife, Sofija, that he learned Lithuanian. In growing up, if ever there was one, Mikalojus was a child prodigy, though not, as you might suspect, in drawing or painting, but in music. He could play songs by ear when he was three and was sight-reading music by age seven. (His father was the town organist.) Shortly after finishing primary school, the young boy went to the musical school of Polish Prince Michał Ogiński in Plungė, where he learned to play the flute and several other instruments. Ciurlionis studied piano and composition at the Warsaw Conservatory from 1894 to 1899. For his graduation, in 1899, he wrote a cantata for mixed chorus and symphonic orchestra titled De Profundis (From the Depths). Later he attended composition lectures at the Leipzig Conservatory.

Sparks, 1906, Mikalojus Ciurlionis, one of his early
non-musical works.

It would seem that only after having mastered music did Ciurlionis decide to study art. He returned to Poland in 1902 where he studied drawing at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts from 1904 until 1906. After the 1905 Russian Revolution, which resulted in the loosening of cultural restrictions on the Empire's minorities, Ciurlionis began to identify himself as a Lithuanian. He co-founded, and participated in, the First Exhibition of Lithuanian Art in 1907 at the Palace in Vilnius. Later he was one of nineteen founders of the Lithuanian Union of Arts. Through this endeavor Ciurlionis met and married the art critic, Sofija Kymantaite in 1909 (a smart move for an up-and-coming artist).

Mikalojus Ciurlionis--less than ten years of art.

Less than a year later, he traveled to St. Petersburg, where he exhibited some of his paintings. On Christmas Eve Ciurlionis fell into a profound depression and was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital in Marki, Poland, northeast of Warsaw. In 1911, while still a patient there, Mikalojus Ciurlionis died of pneumonia at the age of thirty-five. As a painter, Ciurlionis contributed to Symbolism and Art Nouveau. As a representative of the fin de siècle epoch, he has often been considered one of the pioneers of abstract art in Europe.



Ciurlionis painted numerous series, many of them paralleling his musical
compositions. Much of his written music was destroyed during WW I.

Ciurlionis considered himself a synesthete, which is to say he claimed to perceived colors and music simultaneously. Many of his paintings are interrelated, falling into series such as the Creation of the Earth (above) while others bear the names of musical pieces: sonatas, fugues, and preludes. Ciurlionis was one of the few artist which, today, one can view the vast majority of his surviving works in a single place, the M.K. Ciurlionis Art Museum (below) in Kaunas, Lithuania.

The M.K. Ciurlionis Art Museum,
Kaunas, Lithuania.

I know how he felt.

 

Movies About Artists--Pollock

Ed Harris directed, starred in, and did all the painting
himself in making Pollock. Squeeze, drip, and dry.

Having written about two movies dealing with artists of the distant past (van Gogh and Michelangelo) it's a rather refreshing change to delve into one from the more recent past, Ed Harris' directorial debut and starring vehicle, Pollock. As bio-pics go, Harris's Pollock is relatively recent--taking place in the 1940s and 50s, and released in 2000. The screenplay was taken from the book, Jackson Pollock: an American Saga by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. The film was a long-term personal project for Harris based on his previous reading of Pollock's biography some ten years earlier. Filming, however, took a mere 50 days with a six-week layoff after forty days so Harris had time to gain thirty pounds and grow a beard.

Harris, like many directors when they are unsure
of a scene, film it first in 16mm or digital video.

I don't normally get involved in recounting the plot when writing about movies, much less those about well-known painters, We all know how this movie ends. However, most people know very little as to how it begins or the turbulent, tragic course of Jackson Pollock's forty-four years and less than ten years of fame (or notoriety). Jackson Pollock was born in 1912. Ed Harris was born in 1950, about the time Pollock made his big splash into the new York world of Modern Art. Yet, in some ways, Harris's portrayal of the painter is so intensely personal, he seems to look, act, and even paint more like Pollock than Pollock himself. Harris was not at all surprised to be nominated for an Academy Award for his role, and was likely just as pleased (though perhaps surprised) that his co-star, Marcia Gay Harden, who played his long-suffering wife, Lee Krasner, was nominated as Best Supporting Actress. He was, however, likely surprised and dismayed when she won and he didn't. From that point on, she received equal billing on all the film's poster advertising (top).

Pollock popularized "gestural" painting in the 1950s
as captured here in a still from Hans Namath's film.

Casting is one of the
most critical roles of
a director.

The film begins in 1950 as Pollock is seen autographing a copy of Life Magazine for a woman at the art exhibit which made him famous. From that point on most of the film is a flashback to some nine years earlier. At that time Pollock is portrayed as an alcoholic painter who makes his living by exhibiting his work in occasional group art shows. He is living with his brother, Sande, and sister-in-law in a tiny New York apartment. Sande's wife announces that they are having a baby. Actually, she is hinting for Pollock to move out. Soon afterwards, Pollock meets artist, Lee Krasner (Harden), who takes an interest in him. Later, at dinner, he learns that his brother is moving to Connecticut, taking a war production job to avoid a rumored draft of married men not involved in the war effort. Jackson has a 4F draft deferment. Unable to handle the situation, Jackson goes on a drinking binge. Krasner and Sande find him in a drunken state, whereupon Krasner learns from Sande that Jackson is diagnosed as "clinically neurotic" (he was actually bipolar). Despite this, Lee takes him home and decides to become his manager.

The wealthy (also very angry) heiress and art dealer
who "found" Jackson Pollock. She'd just climbed five
flights of stairs only to be kept waiting to see the artist.

Some time later, Pollock's old friend, Ruben drops by with Howard Putzel, who works for the wealthy art collector Peggy Guggenheim. They arrange for Guggenheim to come see his art. Despite a strained first encounter, she gives him a contract to sell $2400 of paintings plus a commission to paint a mural in the entrance hall of her New York town house. His first exhibit attracts little interest and no buyers. After a New Year's Eve party for which he'll long be remembered for urinating in the fireplace, Pollock almost goes to bed with Peggy, but is too drunk to perform. He returns to Krasner in the morning. The film recounts several other drunken debacles after which Krasner always takes him back. She eventually demands that Jackson either marry her and continue painting or that they split up. Jackson surprises her by insisting on a church wedding. They compromised by inviting no guests.

The two-page spread in Life which outraged readers,
but changed everything for Pollock.

The place where paintings
worth millions originated.

After marrying, the two decide to move to a Long Island country house by the ocean in Springs, NY. Jackson is disheartened when Lee makes clear that she does not want to have a baby, partly because she is happy to just live as two painters, partly because of his neurosis, and partly because of their tight financial situation. At a get-together at Peggy Guggenheim's, art critic, Clement Greenberg, mentions that things will change after Life Magazine's coverage of Pollock's upcoming art exhibit. In desperate need of money, Pollock tries doing other work for a living, but his drinking gets in the way. He lies to Sande and family about the financial status and waits to see what will happen after Life Magazine's coverage. This time he tries to abstain from alcohol. Things get better after the magazine story. Later, photographer, Hans Namuth, tries to film Jackson as he paints. Hans' moviemaking interrupts the spontaneous nature of Jackson's work and Jackson feels like a phony acting it out. Jackson loses patience and, much to Lee's disapproval, begins drinking again. Later he ruins Thanksgiving dinner in a rage. The film then returns to the 1950 art exhibit.

The physical resemblance of the movie's cast to
the actual people in Pollock's life is amazing.

After a few years of success, Pollock is outraged when Greenberg mentions that the Partisan Review is favoring Clyfford Still, whose original technique could be the next direction for modern art. Once more, a drunken Pollock does not take it well and becomes even more upset when Krasner berates him for his drinking and womanizing. Pollock argues that it's all because she won't have a child. However, his wife knows he's having an affair with a woman named Ruth Kligman, but refuses to give him a divorce. By this time, he's very much her "meal ticket." Later, when she goes to Venice on his behalf to visit Peggy Guggenheim, Pollock receives a call from her, whereupon he realizes, "I owe the woman something." A short time later, Ruth brings over a friend, Edith Metzger. Pollock takes them for a drive even though he is quite drunk. It's late at night, August 11, 1956. He crashes the car, killing himself and Edith (Ruth Kligman survives). The film ends by noting that Lee Krasner survived another 28 years, continuing her painting career from Pollock's studio while promoting his legacy.

Harris, as Pollock, in the artist's studio.
 

Jackson Pollock's studio floor. I wonder how
much these boards would bring at auction.

Jackson Pollock's shoes--ought to
be worth about a million dollars each.

 

Princeton Uniniversity Art Museum

McCormick Hall, the Princeton University Art Museum.

It hasn't always been the case, but today, most major universities have at least modest art collections, perhaps even their own campus museum tucked away in some converted office space all but hidden away in some remote corner of a sprawling campus. Quite frankly, some such art holdings are a good deal more modest than others...some relatively recent in fact. In many cases the art collection (such as it is) may be spread quite thinly among various university offices, more in tune with decorating blank walls than serving any academic purpose. And, all too often, such works reflect donations by university's faculty or art alumni of their own work. In such cases these art collections are usually as insignificant as they are "modest." There have even been cases when such works have been liquidated when the university, for one reason or another, suddenly needs ready cash (new restrooms at the football stadium, for instance). However, standing well above many such shortsighted institutions, is Princeton University, located (of course) in Princeton, New Jersey.

 

The original Princeton art collection occupied the faculty lounge located in the university's first Princeton campus edifice, Nassau Hall.

Naturally, when you've been around since 1746, (Originally the College of New Jersey), that does tend to provide a head start as to art collecting over all the other such legendary institutions which date back only to the 19th century. Likewise, Princeton's art holdings didn't come overnight. Early works were heavy laden with semi-nude sculpture, portrait busts, and dinosaur bones precariously cluttering up the faculty lounge as seen in the 1886 photo (above). All that changed in 1894 when the college spent $49,000 to build a museum specifically designed to display its art (below), Then became Princeton University two years later.

 

One of the first museums designed and built specifically
for the housing and display of art. (The building was
demolished in 1963 to make way for the present-day museum).

Although some of Princeton's 92,000 items date back to the 18th-century when the governor of the colony donated a painting to the college (of himself). Shortly thereafter was hung next to it a portrait of England's then reigning monarch, a painting of King George III arrived soon thereafter (both destroyed during the Revolutionary War, as was much of the college's original art holdings due to a fire in 1802). In any case, the founding of the art museum is listed as 1882. For many years the new museum housed both art and artifacts of natural history, in line with the University's philosophy of teaching through the use of actual objects. As the university grew along with its horde of collectibles, space limitations caused most of the non-art items to be farmed out to the appropriate university colleges, leaving only the art.

Having grown prodigiously during the early 20th century, it's not surprising that the Princeton University Art Museum now sprawls
over some pretty significant acreage (outlined in red above).

The Steerage, photo by Alfred
Stieglitz, part of the university's
20th-century art collection.

The museum's original purpose had little to do with training artists, and everything to do with art history. The museum received it's first of many extensions in 1922 with the addition of McCormick Hall, a Ven-etian Gothic style wing financed by the Cyrus McCormick family. During the re-maining years of the 20th-century, weal-thy benefactors (of which Princeton had a lengthy list) continued to buy or donate additional works of art and build wings to house them. Before long the university was receiving gifts of historic Greek and Roman artifacts from all over the world, making their holding in this area some of the most outstanding on this side of the Atlantic. Donations included not only European paintings, but also important pieces of more recent art history such as Alfred Stieglitz's The Steerage (above) and numerous examples of Asian art.

Works by European painters from all eras.

The Princeton Art Museum mounts regular temporary exhibitions featuring works from its own holdings as well as loans made from public and private collections around the world. Admission to the museum is free but admission to the college is about $35,000 per year (which tends to cover the ticket price to see their art. They're open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, Thursday, 10:00 am to 10:00 pm, and Sunday 1:00 to 5:00 pm. The University is open from the second Monday in September to the end of May (not an ideal time to visit).

High above the University Art Museum entrance
are Circus Acrobats, a 1981 sculpture by George Segal.

Princeton University Art Museum

Seventy Years Ago,
 1877, Thomas Eakins

 

January Paintings

The Rose Bowl, Ken Goldman

Let me be about the thirty-third person today to wish you a HAPPY NEW YEAR! Inasmuch as it's resolution time, I thought this year I'd make mine to present here, once a month, a group of paintings having to do specifically with that particular month. It'll kind of a calendar without the distracting grid of dates. I've always thought that publishers tend to ruin perfectly good calendars by injecting all those numbers and cluttering up the artwork. In my search for January paintings I went looking for a painting of some figure suffering a hangover from an excess of New Year's Eve cheer. Alas, I couldn't find anything that I liked. So instead, I've included a painting by California artist, Ken Goldman of the Rose Bowl (above). What could be more January than college football? (January 2, this year).

 

Inauguration Eve, G. Harvey. Though it looks like January, this is
probably a poor choice for this month in that the means and modes
of transportation seems to involve horses. January 20, didn't
become Inauguration Day until 1937. Until then it was in March.

Martin Luther King Jr.,
2013, Derek Russell

Two other major holidays fall in January--this year, inauguration day--and every year Mar-tin Luther King Jr's birthday. Though he was born on January 15, 1929, his official national holiday birthday is on the 16th (the 15th falls on a Sunday).

Snowboard Psyched,
Hanne Lore Koehler

And just as we have national holidays, we also have local holidays celebrated mostly by kids and their school teachers. We call them Snow Days! And speaking of snow, when artists set about painting January, this fluffy white stuff would appear to be God's way of hiding the dull, drab, deadness of these darkest days of the year. Despite all that, and notwith-standing the sparkling freshness of spring, nor the fiery, rich colors of autumn, the snowy January landscape has a frozen, white, virginal beauty that, to me at least, is unmatched by that of any other time of the year. Utah watercolorist, Roland Lee (below) captures it perfectly.

Winter Snow, Roland Lee

I suppose it might be said that snow is a subject that only an artist could love. They've certainly painted it pretty consistently for hundreds of years. Naturally, the ones who do it best are those of the northern hemisphere, Canada, the Baltic countries, Poland, and Russia. Skating on the Banks of a Frozen River (below), by Jan Wildens, dates from the early 17th-century. Though my source doesn't say, I'm guessing the artist was Dutch.

Skating on the Banks of a Frozen River,
early 17th-century, Jan Wildens.

Perhaps because the British seldom get as much snow as the rest of us, they have a tendency to depict it in a more lighthearted manner as seen in the color etching (below) featuring figures probably from the early 1800s, at a time when apparently only men skated on thin ice. However, having said that, the skater on the right with his delicate, dancing pose and slender, effeminate figure, may indicate that women sometimes dressed as men in order to secretly enjoy this wintertime sport.

The British depiction of January.

As for my own take on January, one of my favorites has always been the painting I call General Merchandise (below). At first glance one might think the title derived from the sign on the old country store, but in fact, General Merchandise is the name of the horse.

Copyright, Jim Lane

General Merchandise, 1980s, Jim Lane

And finally, what tribute to the month of January would be complete without an artist's rendering of our new president-elect as she tries out the fit and feel of the furniture in her new office. Inasmuch as I'll be on vacation when you read this, and I'm writing in mid-October, some three weeks before the election, like the artist, Ron Keas, I'm going somewhat "out on a limb." But that's what artists do--take risks. As for all the bitter Trump supporters, the cartoon at the bottom was chosen to give them equal time--

The Oval Office, (presumably painted in 2016), Ron Keas

That's the good old American spirit!