Carlo Carra

The Red Rider, 1912, Carlo Carrà.
I wonder if this was the inspiration for Ford's Mustang logo.

Picasso? No, Carrà, Carlo Carrà,
The Woman on the Balcony, 1912.
Futurism was a second cousin to Cubism.

We often hear, or use the phrase "modern looking" in our daily life. However, most people would have a difficult time defining just what "modern looking" means. Worse, there would probably be as many different definitions as definers. Several words would pop up repeatedly though--sleek, clean, uncluttered, streamlined, unadorned, etc. The more erudite might recite the tired mantra, "form follows function," or perhaps the equally old and tired "less is more." What we now consider "modern" in appearance owes its genesis to three historic movements. (1) Aircraft design, (2) the German (later American) Bauhaus, and finally (3) the Italian Futurist movement. Pretty much everyone is familiar with the way streamlined aircraft begat streamlined cars starting in the 1930s, continuing today with our plethora of "jellybean" lookalikes roaming the highways. Today everything from toasters to hairdryers seek to look modern via streamlining. Where streamlining seemed inappropriate, or counter-functional, the Bauhaus, and its progenitor, Cubism (above, left), came into play. The box rules--and like streamlining, continues to be a major factor in modern design.

Funeral of the Anarchist, Galli, 1911, Carlo Carrà. Sure looks like anarchy to me.

Carlo Carrà Self-portrait, 1951,
(after he'd settled down a bit).

But Futurism? What's that? Only the third most influential factor in the definition of "modern looking." Yet, even artists seem hardly aware of it, and largely ignorant of its concepts and those espousing them. The concepts were spelled out in the 1909 Manifesto of Futurist Painters. Carlo Carrà (right) was one of the four original signers of this statement of principles, along with Umberto Boccioni, Gino Severini, Luigi Russolo and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (below, who authored it). First and foremost, it rejected (or claimed to) everything from the past regarding art and design. In its place came the embrace of machinery, speed, youth, industry, and violence aimed primarily at a cultural regeneration of Italy. Leonardo and Michelangelo were out, Picasso, Vincenzo Lancia, Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Ford, and Fascism were in. Moreover, there was a virulent anarchist pedigree to the whole movement, though by the second decade of the 20th century it had become largely muted. Carra's 1911 Funeral of the Anarchist Galli (above) illustrates this element. After WW I, these ideals once more came to the fore in ever-greater complexity in the European Dada movement, and later still, evolving into Surrealism.

The Futurists, 1910: Luigi Russolo, Carlo Carrà, Filippo Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, and Gino Severini.

 

San Gaudenzio di Varallo, 1924, Carlo Carrà. What a difference a war makes.

The Engineer's Lover, 1921, Carlo Carrà,
one of his first Metaphysical efforts. 

Carlo Carrà was born in 1881 in Quargnento, Italy, (top of the boot, towards the left). He was not foremost in the Futurist movement, more of a follower than a leader. And as the war came and the movement waned, he and most of the others abandoned it. In Carra's case, after something of a struggle to "find himself," and after buying himself a brand new palette of softer, duller colors, he took up with Giorgio di Chirico and his Metaphysical painting. He painted mysterious still-lifes bearing the seeds of Surrealism such as his The Engineer's Lover from 1921. Carra's Metaphysical period lasted through most of the 1920s and 30s until yet another world war came along. Having survived a second manifestation of the "violence clause" of the Futurist Manifesto, after the war, Carrà essential rejected Futurism (perhaps because of the war) and embraced the Italian classicism of Masaccio. Talk about returning to your roots! He died in Milan in 1966.

Flight into Egypt, 1958, Carlo Carrà, back to his roots.




 

 

Emily Carr

The family home in Victoria became a boarding house, then a studio, later the title of a book, and today, a museum featuring the artist who made it all happen, Emily Carr.

Emily Carr Self-portrait, 1938-39

One of the supposed attributes of all artists is that they be eccentric. Personally, that doesn't apply to me, except that I'm a morning and a late-night person...afternoons...not so much. I eat only sugar-free cookies and have a considerable stash of them in my desk. I'm neat but not always tidy. And, I love flavored coffees. Aside from that... Emily Carr was eccentric...man, was she ever. She was not overly fond of visitors thus all the chairs in her studio hung from the ceiling. If she liked you, she took one down. If not... She liked animals, though. A friend recalled her house was like a zoo, or more accurately, a circus. She had a pet monkey named Woo, squirrels, a parrot, rabbits, bobtail puppies, even an elephant. Actually the elephant was what she called the small, primitive "caravan" (bottom photo, travel trailer to Americans) she took with her on sketching expeditions in the British Columbian forests. Emily Carr was something of a recluse and, it would seem, deliberately eccentric.

Breton Church, 1910, Emily Carr, one of her earliest surviving works.

Emily Carr was born in 1871 in British Columbia, the second youngest of nine children. She was raised in a strict, English, Presbyterian home, something of a rambunctious child, by all accounts. She had her first drawing lesson at the age of eight, her first work, a charcoal drawing on the back of a paper sack. Her father's reaction: "Umm...not bad." Her mother's: "You're all black, go wash." Both her parents died while Emily was in her teens, ushering in financial difficulties for the family, though she was able to work her way through art schools in San Francisco, followed by five years in England and later, in 1910, in France where she picked up her Post-impressionist style and color palette. Many would consider her a Fauvist. Certainly in her personal mannerisms she fit the Fauvist definition-- "wild beast." Between sojourns to Europe, around 1905 she briefly held a teaching position in Victoria at "The Ladies Art Club." That lasted less than a month as the ladies began boycotting her classes because of her rude manner, her smoking, and cursing at them.


Haida Village, Totem Poles at Tannu, 1913, Emily Carr

Totem Walk at Sitka, 1917, Emily Carr

Now far more worldly in terms of her art, Emily Carr returned to Victoria, British Columbia, from France in 1912, determined to make a career for herself as a painter. She began to paint the natives and the native landscape of western Canada, only to discover that her French Fauvism was out of step with the down-to-earth sensibilities of provincial Canadians. Her work received only modest recognition and acceptance, and virtually no sales. Feeling the pinch, Emily converted the family home, a two-story Victorian frame house (top) into a boarding house which she is reported to have run with a dictatorial iron fist. A sizable garden out back provided vegetables to feed her sisters and the boarders while also augmenting their meager income. For more than fifteen years she seldom painted.

The stories dealt with Emily's
relationships with the natives
she met during her painting
expeditions.

During the late 1920s when Emily Carr once more began painting, she began to find the broader acceptance and recognition she had craved before, as she was lumped in with Canada's famous "Group of Seven." She began exhibiting first in the far west then in various prestigious museums throughout the country. Gradually, she abandoned the impulse to document in favor of a purer form of creativity, flirting briefly with abstraction, which she deemed not suited for her disposition. Then, in 1937, Emily Carr suffered the first of three heart attacks as well as a stroke in 1940. Her doctor advised her to "slow down." As a result, Emily began her career as an author and illustrator of children's books, her first, Klee Wyck (Laughing Woman) was publish in in 1941, after which she wrote five more, the last three published after her death in 1945.

 

Above the Gravel Pit, Metchosin, 1934, Emily Carr--perhaps a little van Gogh influence.

Emily's Dream, an illustration
from one of her books.

Emily Carr is often compared to the American female painting icon, Georgia O'Keeffe. There are similarities. They were both roughly the same age (Emily was 16 years older), quite similar in disposition, and both somewhat reclusive. Likewise, Emily's totems compare quite neatly with O'Keeffe's skulls. However, there the similarities end. O'Keeffe, though growing up in the American Midwest, was a product of the New York art world, married, sophisticated, her work purely American in both style and content. Emily Carr, was a product of the thin veneer of English cultural life in the "wild Northwest." She lacked the connections enjoyed by O'Keeffe in her marriage to Alfred Stieglitz. Not only was Carr unmarried, she is said to have banned the word "sex" in her presence. O'Keeffe came to paint the West late in life. Carr painted it all her life. Moreover, O'Keeffe's work today sells for millions. A painting by Emily Carr recently brought $1,000.

Emily Carr with her pets on the steps of the Elephant, 1934.

 

Carolus-Duran

The Merrymakers, 1870, Carolus-Duran--not your typical Academician.

Carolus-Durand Self-portrait ca. 1870

During the second half of the 1800s, Paris, France, likely had more artists than any other city in the history of the world. We most often think of the Impressionists during this period, but really, they made up a very small percentage of the more than 12,000 working artists during that era. The vast majority, mostly trained in Paris' famed Ecole des Beaux Arts, were what we call today "Academicians." The best of them taught at the school, the rest only wished they could. The best of them painted history, mythology, allegories, lots of naked goddesses, and the occasional naked god. The rest of them only tried. Some of the artists from that period have all but become household names--Monet, Manet, Sargent, Whistler, Cezanne, Cassatt, but not Charles Auguste Émile Durand. Even the name he was known by, professionally, Carolus-Duran (no "d" on the end), doesn't set off any chimes. Yet, second only to John Singer Sargent, Carolus-Duran was likely the most highly regarded portrait artist in Paris during the fading years of the 19th century.

 

The Triumph of Maria de Medici, 1875-77, Carolus-Duran,
the type of painting Modern Artists loved to hate.

Carolus-Duran, 1879,
John Singer Sargent

The caricature

Carolus-Duran was an Academician. Perhaps the reason we're not intimately familiar with the name is because Modern Art made that term as disreputable in the 20th century art world as "Painter of Light" today. Carolus-Duran painted mostly portraits of wealthy Parisians, and as such artists go, he was very good at it. He lacked something of the verve and daring of Sargent but his work was quite comparable to that of his friend. Sargent even painted a portrait of Carolus-Duran (above, left). Sargent was something of a brash, upstart American, not well-liked by the Paris art world. When the painting was displayed, it, its artist, and its subject as well, were caricatured on the cover of a leading humor magazine. Carolus-Duran was apparently also friends with Edouard Manet and Claude Monet. He painted them both (below). The man had friends in high places, too. He not only taught at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, he later became director of its branch in Rome.

Portrait of Edouard Manet,
Carolus-Duran

Portrait of Claude Monet,
Carolus-Duran



Lady with a Glove, Carolus-
Duran (the artist's wife)

Although Carolus-Duran painted more than his share of pretty pretentious paintings, and his portraits were, at best, "stylish," (right) it's the artists' peripheral work I find most interesting. His portraits of Manet and Monet (above) have none of the hallmarks of his society paintings. His The Merrymakers (top), though the artist might hate the term, is really quite "modern." It doesn't sink to the level of genre (the bottom wrung in the painting hierarchy at the time) yet it seems endearing, a restaurant, a playful child, a doting, laughing mother and her friend--a scene played out daily all around the world, both then and now. His Convalescent (below) from 1860, could just as easily have been painted by Manet, but never by Sargent. Except for their colors, neither The Merrymakers nor The Convalescent could be considered "Academic." Jacques-Louis David or Gericault would have painted him dead.

The Convalescent, 1860, Carolus-Duran




 

 

Alfred Eisenstaedt

Times Square, August 14, 1945, Alfred Eisenstaedt--the shot that didn't become famous.

The Kiss, 1945, Alfred Eisenstaedt,
the shot seen round the world.

The most difficult aspect of writing about famous photographers is that they produce so much great art it's incredibly difficult to choose from their reams upon reams of work, that which to highlight. In writing about the German-born American photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, that has been an excruciating process. Every photographer dreams of taking that one great iconic photo, which will forever etch his or her name in the annuls of history. For Eisenstaedt, that moment has come not once, but again and again. Undoubtedly the greatest of those great moments occurred August 14, 1945, on the streets of Times Square in New York City when he shot the unforgettable photo of a triumphant sailor kissing a white-clad angel of mercy. Although there was a lot of kissing going on that day, it was no accident Eisenstaedt was in the right place at the right time. Neither was the photo an accident (one of five or six frames of the scene). Compare the shot at top, taken just seconds before the famous "Kiss" photo at left. Can you see why one made it, the other didn't? Same time, same people, same place, same photographer. Only the artist's persistent, perceptive instincts for perfection--angle, focus, composition, background, lighting, contrasts--made the difference. Those were the instincts that separated Eisenstaedt from the dozens of other outstanding photo-journalists of the 20th century.

Hitler meeting with Mussolini, 1934, Alfred Eisenstaedt.

An Alfred Eisenstaedt, "selfie" from the 1930s

Alfred Eisenstaedt was born in the West Prussia area of Imperial Germany in 1898. As has happened surprisingly often in the lives of great photographers, Eisenstaedt began taking photos as the result of a gift camera, a folding Eastman Kodak, when he was fourteen. He was wounded serving in the German artillery during WW I, then worked as a belt and button salesman during the Weimar era when he began freelancing for the Berlin office of Pacific and Atlantic Photos. In 1931 the company became a part of the Associated Press. During the period between then and 1936 when he fled to the U.S., Eisenstaedt photographed the rise of both Hitler and Mussolini, and was friendly with Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels...until Goebbels found out he was Jewish.

Three Frames of Marilyn, 1953, Alfred Eisenstaedt,
his largest and most famous celebrity series.

Sophia Loren, 1964, from Marriage
Italian Style, Alfred Eisenstaedt.

Taking up permanent residence in the Jackson Heights area of The Queens, Eisenstaedt went to work for Time publisher Henry Luce's newly revitalized, and heavily photographic, Life magazine. It was a perfect fit. Eisenstaedt produced some ninety covers during the next thirty-six years. More than anything else, this association, and the doors to the rich and famous which it opened, made Eisenstaedt. Moving freely From movie stars, particularly Marilyn Monroe (above) and Sophia Loren (right), to politicians, scientists, athletes, including drum majors and the neighborhood kids who followed them (below), Eisenstaedt found himself in the enviable position of having celebrities request he photograph them, rather than vice-versa. His portfolio includes every president (and their families) from FDR to Bill Clinton. Only Eisenstaedt's death in 1995 at the age of 97 put an end to this series.

Children Following the Drum Major, University of Michigan, 1950, Alfred Eisenstaedt.

The Nurses of Roosevelt Hospital,
1937, Alfred Eisenstaedt.

If Alfred Eisenstaedt had only photographed famous world leaders and celebrities, he would still have been a celebrated personage in his own right. But in viewing Eisenstaedt's work from an artist's point of view, I find his many "snapshots" of American life during the previous century to be the dominant element in his best work. Virtually any reasonably adept photographer with the kind of connections afforded Eisenstaedt by Life can take great photos of the photogenic--Marilyn, Sophia, JFK, Jackie, even the homely old Albert Einstein or the crusty Winston Churchill. But Life was about life, and Eisenstaedt routinely went about giving life to the pages of Life. Some of his photos were elaborately staged to tell a story while presenting startling images (left). Others, such as his Times Square masterpiece, involved instinctive, instantaneous, "on the feet" thinking. These Eisenstaedt instincts mark the difference between a great photographer and a great artist.

Eisenstaedt's final president(s?) 1993, Martha's Vineyard.




 

 

Renaissance Cities--Constantinople

Constantinople's Hagia Sophia dates from 537

Hagia Sophia interior
(now a museum)

There is nothing simple about Constantinople. Even the name presents difficulties. During its pre-Roman days (from around 660 BC until 330 AD) its Greek founders called the place Byzantium. Only in modern times (since the establishment of modern Turkey in 1923) has the Roman name, Constantinople, given way to Istanbul. Indeed much of the art history from this great city has always been referred to as Byzantine. I guess that's better than Constantinoplian or Istanbulian (my spellchecker is having a hissy-fit). Moreover, aside from Turks, what do you call the cities' residents from the two latter eras? (I won't even go there.) Numbers play an important role in the city, the only one in the world situated on two continents, and like Rome, built on seven hills. Where else would you find a provincial capital which occupies the entire province? And with nearly fourteen million people now living within its city limits, it's the second most populous city in the world (after Shanghai, China).

Constantinople during the Reign of Justinian and Theodora, 7th century AD.

Justinian and Theodora, 6th century mosaics,
Church of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy.

In addition to the dates mentioned above, there are five important historic figures to remember, (1) the Emperor Constantine, (2) Justinian and (3) his wife, Theodora, (4) Constantine Palaeologus, and (5) Mehmed II. In Brief, Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople in 330. The Byzantine Emperor, Justinian, and his wife (and backbone) recaptured much of Italy from the Visigoths, briefly reviving the Roman Empire around the middle of the sixth century. During the reign of Justinian and Theodora (right), Constantinople grew to a population of 500,000, of which 40% died during the plague of 541-42. Justinian was also responsible for the building of the Hagia Sophia (top). Finally, There was Constantine Palaeologus, the Byzantine Emperor who was killed defending his city during the siege of Mehmed II and the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Over the centuries, this city separating the Aegean Sea from the Black Sea has been one of the most fought-over chunks of real estate in the history of the world. And the seven-week siege of Constantinople, could be considered one of the bloodiest in that history. It was among the first when gunpowder and very heavy artillery played a major role. Mehmed even went to far as to move his fleet of ships overland to wage his battle (below). He marched his army into the city of about 50,000 on May 29, 1453, and Constantinople was never to be the same again.

Mehmed II "sailing" his supply ships over greased timbers overland, to bypass
a Byzantine blockade in order to bolster his siege of Constantinople.
The painting is by the Italian artist, Fausto Zonaro (1854-1929).

During the period which we normally think of as the Renaissance, Constantinople was Muslim. Following the conqueror, Mehmed II, the city was ruled for the next forty years by his son and grandson. Most of the former Byzantine population was deported. The Hagia Sophia was sacked to became a mosque. Figurative art disappeared in favor of Arab calligraphy, and the architecture, likewise, took on an Arabic flavor. The Topkapi Palace was constructed to replace the ruined "Great Palace" of the Byzantine era. The city flourished as never before. At one point, Michelangelo briefly considered a call to build a bridge across the Bosporus for the Sultan Suleiman I, but then thought better of it and painted a certain chapel ceiling instead.

A modern day artist's depiction of Constantinople's forum during the height of the Justinian era, before the plague brought down the populace and the earthquake of 558 AD. brought down the original dome of the Hagia Sophia.

 

Soren Emil Carlsen

Roses and Vase, 1894, Soren Emil Carlsen. Even though painted in the prevailing
Impressionist style, and far more eye-catching for its color than most of his work, the
painting still retains a somewhat old-fashioned quality even in its own era.

Emil Carlsen Self-portrait

In the pages of my book, Art Think (available at right), I discuss the difficulty in selling still-life paintings. It doesn't seem to matter how well composed or how well rendered they are, people may admire them, but they simply don't buy them. Emil Carlsen would agree with me I'm sure. He spent his entire life devoted to painting still-lifes and at times, faced bankruptcy trying to sell them. Although he also painted a few landscapes and seascapes, for some thirty years he was forced to teach art at various academies, colleges, and art institutes in order to make ends meet. Born in Copenhagen in 1853, Carlsen came to the U.S. at the age of nineteen having already studied architecture for four years at Denmark's Royal Academy. Here, he studied painting in the country's best art schools, then joined the late 19th century flood of American artists to study in Paris. There, he came to admire the work of Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. Though Chardin is considered the foremost French still-life artist of the 18th century, that infatuation could well be considered Carlsen's most grievous error.

Study in Gray, 1906, Emil Carlsen. Even the title, not to mention the colors, subject, and composition, are boring. They were reminiscent of Chardin alright--to a fault.

Moonlight, 1818, Emil Carlson, probably the
"trance-like" painting Phillips was referring to.

When an artist as adept and well-trained as Carlsen has difficulty selling his work, there must be one or more very good reasons. The first and foremost I've already discussed. He insisted upon concentrating his artistic efforts primarily on difficult to sell still-lifes. Second, as I alluded to above, he chose as his chief influence an artist whose style and aesthetic sensitivities were already a hundred years old at the time. Antiques were not so well regarded as today back in the year 1900. The art collector Duncan Phillips wrote of Carlsen that his ocean scenes had "a certain trance-like mood." If that means they could put you to sleep, while the statement may have been meant as a positive comment, it could also be taken as yet another reason Carlsen could not sell his work. In a word, they seem "boring."

The River Bank, 1881, Emil Carlsen--one of his few landscapes containing human life.

Portrait of the Artist's Wife, Emil Carlsen

Though some of Carlsen's landscapes were a bit more exciting than his other works, such as The River Bank (above), in effect, they more often than not appear to be simply "backgrounds" waiting for something interesting to happen in the foreground. Even Carlsen's few portraits as seen in the one of his wife (left), have a dull, bland, "sleepy" look to them. Of course a sitter becomes bored during the hours needed to pose for a portrait. It behooves the artist, however, to try to relieve the ennui, or at least to mask it. Carlsen does neither. I don't often "dis" the work of other painters, especially those of the past; and to his credit, Emil Carlsen is said to have been an excellent teacher. But every artist, regardless of the era in which he or she lives, or the style or content of their work, needs to imbue that work with a certain degree of (for lack of a better word) pizzazz. That word probably hadn't invented yet when Carlsen lived (he died in 1932), but it seems quite obvious to me that such a trait, whatever word was in vogue at the time, might have elevated Carlsen and his work to a much greater level of acceptance, both then and now.



A Tempting Shot, 1873, Emil Carlsen. His work would seem to have been much more
salable before he headed off to Paris and took up with Chardin.




 

 

Jan van de Cappelle

Home Fleet Saluting the State Barge, 1650, Jan van de Cappelle
 

Jan van de Cappelle, 1650, Franz Hals

Fortunate is the artist who is not forced to rely on the sale of his or her work in order to survive. Since my retirement some fifteen years ago, I've been a member of that meager group. Although I do, occasionally sell my work, I no longer promote myself (except like now) nor push my work toward the public beyond my Website. Although not independently wealthy, I am quite independent and becoming more so with every passing day (or so my wife insists). Surprisingly, there are few such artists in the annuls of art history numbered among the great. Paul Cezanne was one. Gustave Caillebotte was another. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec came from a wealthy family and could probably be said to fit into this category. Beyond those, I can think of no others at the moment. There's a lot to be said for monetary needs as an incentive to paint. By the same token, freedom from such worries has been known to allow artists to experiment with their work, free from the consequences of failure. Cezanne did a lot of this type of thing.

Shipping in a Calm at Flushing with a States General Yacht, 1649, Jan van de Cappelle

Though not particularly famous, Jan van de Cappelle, a Dutch Golden Age painter, born in 1626, neatly fits into the above category. His father owned a dyeing business which Jan helped manage, and eventually inherited. Actually, one might be tempted to say Jan van de Cappelle fits a little too neatly into the "freedom from want" category of painters, to the point some critics and historians count him merely as a talented amateur. His lifetime body of work is said to have numbered around 700, though fewer then 150 paintings survive that have been firmly attributed to him. However those same critics and art historians also consider van de Cappelle the best marine landscape painter of the Golden Age. That means van de Cappelle painted ships on the water better than just about anyone. Except for a few rather raw, bleak winter landscapes (below), that's virtually all he painted. That might seem odd to artists today, but Dutch artists of the that bright Golden Age (the 1600s) were extremely specialized. Aelbert Cuyp, for instance, also painted a few ships, but mostly he specialized in cows and fowls.

 

Winter Landscape with Kolf Players, 1653, Jan van de Cappelle

Winter Landscape, 1652,
Jan van de Cappelle

As a painter of marine shipping, usually on calm, inland waterways, Jan van de Cappelle left behind no self-portraits. There was no need for them with friends like Franz Hals and Rembrandt who both painted him. Actually, Jan van de Cappelle, though very good at what he did, is at least as well known today for his enormous collection of Dutch art (with a few Flemish pieces mixed in). When Rembrandt van Rijn was forced by creditors to liquidate virtually all he owned (1656 and again in 1658), his good friend Jan van de Cappelle was there, checkbook in hand, to scoop up at fire sale prices a sizable chunk of the offerings. At his death in 1679, van de Cappelle's collection numbered some 192 paintings and more than 7,000 drawings (500 by Rembrandt alone). In addition to his Rembrandts, van de Cappelle's collection featured work with names on the bottom like Rubens, van Dyck, van Goyen, Holbein, Bruegel, Lastman, Potter, Durer and a virtual "who's who" of specialty painters like himself. There were even seven paintings by van de Cappelle himself.

A Calm, 1654, Jan van de Cappelle.