CERES AND HER DAUGHTER

CERES AND HER DAUGHTER

by Joan K. Yanni

A newly-installed painting and a much admired bronze sculpture have been placed together in the Fountain Court. One is a prime example of Mannerism, the other shows the spiraling movement of Baroque art.  Both are concerned with the goddess Ceres and the mythological story of why the seasons change.

Sacrifice to Ceres

Ceres is the Roman goddess of agriculture and fertility. (Demeter is her Greek counterpart.)  She provides buds and blossoms in the Spring, green leaves, colorful flowers and fruits during the summer, and crops such as corn and wheat for harvesting in the fall. She causes rain to fall and sun to warm the ground. She gives life and food to the earth. 

The painting Sacrifice to Ceres (99.17), by an unknown Flemish artist, was painted in the early 1600s and is a perfect example of Mannerism, the movement that started around 1520. Unlike the balanced compositions of the Renaissance, Mannerist works have no focal point and space is ambiguous and distorted. Figures are in turn muscular and athletic, bending and twisting, then elegant and delicate.  Bizarre posturing is contrasted with graceful gestures. Colors clash, creating unstable, restless compositions with no  foreground, middleground or background.

In MAG’s painting, the main focus at first appears to be the kneeling, bearded figure, perhaps a priest, gazing upward, his delicate hands folded across his chest. Attention then turns to the action on the right, where a muscular figure is clutching a knife, preparing an animal for sacrifice. Other figures on the right are bringing sheep and other animals, presumably for sacrifice. At the lower left is a young servant girl offering up a tray of fruit and vegetables, while products of the harvest, including corn, symbol of Ceres, lie on other trays on the ground. A fire burns on an altar near the center of the picture.

It is hard to find Ceres among the clutter of figures in the foreground or between the Doric columns leading back into the picture. Look carefully to find a statue of the goddess high above the action, looking down at her followers. Her figure is seated on a pedestal decorated with fruit; in her hand she holds a sheaf of wheat. The upper left of the picture is quiet, showing mainly sky. The painting is confusing, as Mannerism is confusing, but it is never dull.

MAG’s small bronze sculpture The Abduction of Proserpina (68.2) continues the story of the myth. Ceres’ main love in life was her beautiful daughter Proserpina (Persephone in Greek) . When they were together, the  earth bloomed; where Proserpina stepped, flowers grew.  Pluto (Hades in Greek), god of the underworld, saw Proserpina’s beauty, fell in love with her and wanted her for his queen. He knew, however,  that Ceres would never permit him to take her beloved daughter to his underground realm, so he secretly kidnapped her and took her there. Ceres searched everywhere for her daughter, but could not find her. As she looked she forgot her duties on the earth. The ground froze and was covered with snow; no crops grew and mankind began to starve. Jupiter 

realized that something had to be done. He ordered Pluto to return Proserpina to her mother.  Pluto did as he was ordered, but had one trick up his sleeve. He asked his wife to eat some pomegranate seeds to sustain her on her way home. She absentmindedly ate a few and ran to meet her mother. The earth bloomed again and mother and daughter were happy.

But in the midst of their joy, Pluto appeared to claim his prize. Because Proserpina had eaten some pomegranate seeds, the food of the dead, she had to return to Hades for a month for each seed she had eaten. (Most stories say three. It seems like  in Rochester.) Proserpina returned to her underworld throne weeping, and her mother again neglected the earth. Thus the seasons came to be: the glorious color in spring, summer and fall, when Proserpina and Ceres are together, and white, frozen lands in winter during the months they are apart.

MAG’s The Abduction of Proserpina shows Pluto carrying off Proserpina. It is a perfect example of Baroque art, with figures spiraling upward as Pluto clutches the girl tightly while she struggles to be free. Her arms reach for the sky as she calls for help. The three-headed dog Cerberus, guardian of the Underworld, anchors the sculpture.

The original sculpture, a life-sized piece carved from marble and now in the Galleria Borghese, Rome, was created by one of Italy’s foremost sculptors and architects, Jean Lorenzo Bernini.

Bernini was born in Naples in 1598 to a Mannerist sculptor, Pietro Bernini. He often traveled with his father as a boy, and his skill was recognized early in his life. By the time he was eighteen he had gained the patronage of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V. His first works were inspired by antique Greek sculpture, but he soon changed the classic, stately forms to incorporate movement and emotion, a revolutionary innovation at the time. He made marble look like soft clay or wax. While difficult to see in MAG’s bronze composition, in the marble sculpture Pluto’s fingers seem to sink into the flesh of Proserpina’s thigh. The same realism can be seen in one of Bernini’s most striking sculptures, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, in the Cornaro Chapel of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. One can almost feel the saint falling backward as Bernini presents her swooning in ecstasy as her heart is pierced by divine love. Even in his portraits Bernini  made his subject come alive, with head and shoulders moving and face showing expressions not seen before in marble busts.

In addition to sculpture, Bernini was known for his skill in architecture. He carried over his dynamism into fountains (the fountain in the Plaza Nirvona, for example ) and, in particular, his monumental baldacchino designed for Saint Peter’s in Rome. The tabernacle is colossal, as it would have to be to stand out in the gigantic space of the church. It is over one hundred feet high (the size of an eight-story building) with huge bronze columns spiraling upward, one of the first monuments in the Baroque style which swept across Europe during the 17^thcentury. Bernini died in Rome in 1680.

Source: Curatorial files

MANCHESTER"S DOUBLE PORTRAIT

Judge and Mrs. Arthur Yates

MANCHESTER’S DOUBLE PORTRAIT

by Joan K. Yanni

Among the Gallery’s rich holdings in folk art (the enchanting Portrait of Josephine Dixon, for example, and the engaging Pierrepont Edward Lacey and His Dog, Gun) is a double portrait placed appropriately above an 18^th-century sofa in the folk art--decorative art gallery. It is the unusual portrait of Judge and Mrs. Yates (41.30) by M.M. Manchester.

 The painting shows a somber couple seated at either end of an Empire-style sofa. The man’s right arm lies across the back of the sofa, and in his left he holds a copy of William Paley’s Natural Theology, one of the most popular philosophical works of the 19^th century--a reference to the man’s erudition.  The work is finely detailed, with light playing across the satin drape behind the woman and illuminating her lace collar, her necklace and the brooch at her waist.  She holds a pink rose in her lap, and a lacy scarf is draped across her right arm.

Both people are in formal attire--the man in a black waistcoat and the woman in a fitted blue dress. Though their clothing is detailed, it is stiff and shapeless, with no sign of a flesh-and-blood body underneath. Mrs. Yates’ bodice is draped, swag-like, across her chest, while the judge’s coat could be made of cardboard. Their faces are smooth and expressionless. He looks out at the viewer, while she stares into space. This was a period in which the man was the important head of the household. Is that why she looks sad and he looks imperious?

Between the two in the center of the painting is a window looking out on a surreal vista.  It incorporates both the Old World and the New in a moonlit scene. In the background is a European vista including castles, ruins, and even the Tower of Pisa.  In the center foreground is a log cabin.  A strange mix, perhaps telling the viewer that the Judge was an educated and wealthy gentleman who had been on the Grand Tour of Europe in his youth. The log cabin may suggest that his roots were humble, his wealth coming from the hard work of his ancestors. Or perhaps the painter was demonstrating his knowledge of prints depicting European scenes.

And, as one examines the landscape closely, a question arises: did the artist intend the scene in the window to be out-of-doors, or is it a painting on a window shade, popular in homes of the well-to-do after the 1830s? The more one looks, the interesting the work becomes.

The painting was purchased by curator Isabel Herdle from the estate of Frederick W. Yates of Rochester in 1941. According to a surviving sister-in-law, the portrait had been handed down from the deceased’s father, Arthur Yates, Jr., who was an avid genealogist as well as a wealthy business man. The subject of the painting, Judge Arthur Yates (1807-1880), was the son of Dr. William Yates, reputed to be the first to introduce vaccination into America.  Judge Yates was born in Butternuts, now Morris, NY, in Otsego County, but moved to Waverly in 1932. There he built Tioga County’s first steam saw mill and became a prosperous lumberman. A leading citizen of Waverly, he served as both village postmaster and Justice of the Peace before being appointed to the Tioga County Court in 1836.  He married Jerusha Washburn of Butternuts, presumably the woman in the portrait, in 1836.  Six children were born to the couple before she died at age 45.                                       

The painting is signed and dated “M.M. Manchester, Artist, and AD 1840.” It has been relined and the signature no longer shows, but photographs were taken for documentation. Who was M.M. Manchester? Though he was obviously an accomplished painter, little is known about him, and the Gallery’s is the only known signed work by the artist.

There were many itinerant painters at this time--artists, many lacking skills, who made a living by going from town to town, advertising their presence in local papers, showing an example of their work, and painting whatever townspeople were able to pay for a portrait. Manchester was no ordinary itinerant, though. His skill can be seen in the Yates portrait, and he was aware of the European tradition of the Grand Manner, of placing a subject in luxurious and elaborate, even if not authentic, surroundings and wearing fashionable clothes. Thus he must have been than an unskilled folk art painter working in isolation. At some time he must have been in a city where skilled artists worked and where he could see the work of accomplished American painters or prints of works by European artists.

Still, it is strange that so little is known about such a talented painter. Research has found an obituary from the Cooperstown, NY, Freeman’s Journal for May 29, 1847, noting the death of an M.M. Manchester in the 38^th year of his life. The death notice does not mention that this Manchester was an artist, and his name does not appear in Cooperstown census records or directories.  No death certificate survives, and apparently no will was probated in either Otsego or Chenango County.  However, odds were against finding such records, since birth, death and marriage certificates were not regularly kept by the New York State Department of Health before 1880.

But the date of our painting and the location of the sitters would make it likely that this Manchester was the painter of our portrait. And an early death at age 38 would suggest a short career and might account for the small number of paintings by him that have been located.

In her article “A Yates Family Portrait by M.M. Manchester: Materials for a History,” Patricia Junker makes note of a double portrait, unsigned, but attributed to M.M. Manchester, and reproduced in The Magazine Antiques. This unsigned portrait uses the same composition as ours: a couple seated on either side of a sofa, with a view of a landscape seen in the center of the picture. The careful details of texture are similar, and light plays across the picture highlighting the fabric of the drapes in the background and the clothing of the sitters. The landscape is not European, however, but a panorama with a river steamer. The similarity of the style in the two portraits, however, indicates that the artist is the same.

The scarcity of works by such an accomplished artist is not only odd, but frustrating, and MAG’s unique double portrait begs for research.

Source: Porticus, vol. IX, 1986: Patricia Junker: “A Yates Family Portrait by M. M. Manchester: Materials for a History” p. 21, and curatorial files

INGRES AND BERNIER: PORTRAIT OF A FRIENDSHIP

INGRES AND BERNIER: PORTRAIT OF A FRIENDSHIP

by Thea Tweet

Late August and early September of 1800 found two extraordinary young men in Paris. Both had spent their childhood in the south of France, away from the worst aspects of the French Revolution.  Before long, Napoleon would crown himself Emperor, and some measure of stability enabled Ingres to enter the studio of Jacques Louis David, the most famous painter of his generation. While in David’s studio Ingres would win the Prix de Rome. His friend Bernier had just attached himself to a scientific expedition to the Far East.  For two young men, both twenty years old and hailing from the remote French town of Montauban, these were notable accomplishments

.

Their fortunate juxtaposition resulted in the portrait that the Memorial Art Gallery acquired in 1956. Although it is unsigned, Ingres included it in his list of paintings in his notebook.  A confirming label was lost when the painting was earlier relined.  The medium of the painting, oil on paper mounted on canvas, is somewhat unusual.  It might be explained by the poverty of both the painter and his subject.

The quality of the portrait is immediately visible upon first inspection. Ingres became famous for his ability to capture a likeness. Even his later rapid sketches of visiting tourists are remarkable for being lifelike.  Fortunately, in addition to the Bernier portrait, MAG owns a fine example of Ingres’ drawing of his friend, the sculptor Cortot.  Ingres’ drawings were remarkable. Though they were  done quickly, the artist managed to capture the personality of the subject.

 A closer examination of MAG’s painting shows a noticeable difference between the left and right side of the face, and suggests that the painter was standing somewhat to Bernier’s left when he created the work.  What might appear to be a “five-o-clock shadow” might be the beginning of a mustache and beard, or it could be the way Ingres modeled the face.

                                                                                                                                                               He frequently used the grey-green prime coat for shadows and added the flesh tones where they were needed.Other notable aspects of the painting are the extraordinary amount of curly hair, the lavish shirt with its fashionable stock and the prominent button with its anchor insignia. All of these details are secondary to the immensely appealing face portrayed here. Bernier’s lively, alert expression conveys an active mind.

The painter Jean Auguste-Dominique Ingres was born in 1780 and lived until 1867. During his entire life he yearned to be remembered as a history painter, but to this day he is most admired for his luscious nudes and for his portraits of elegant society men and women. Like his American counterpart John Singer Sargent, he detested doing these portraits and once kept a woman waiting ten years for hers!

The years Ingres spent in Italy deepened his love of Raphael and refined his style. He had always been an excellent amateur violinist, and he continued his performances on the violin, the silky tones of his music reminding his listeners of the silken textures of his paintings. He may well have found that organizing musical soirees was a welcome relief from those everlasting portraits.

A great deal is, of course, known about Ingres, but it is somewhat surprising that so much is known about Bernier. Still known as Citizen Bernier ten years after the French Revolution, he had already distinguished himself as a mathematical prodigy who was published as a co-author at only 17 years of age. He was in Paris as what we would call today a graduate student and restless for a  exciting life. over, he was anxious to avoid the universal draft. Consequently, he signed on to be a civilian scientist on an expedition to the East Indies. (Hence the anchor button on his portrait.)

Before he left France Bernier wrote a letter to his parents:                    

“If I have the good fortune to return, the government, which is just and generous, will help me find the means to make you as you were before the Revolution. That is, in comfortable circumstances, but not wealthy. I will have the honor of being useful to France and of helping to extend the limits of human knowledge. What are the dangers compared to such great incentives? And even if I should die there, isn’t a short but useful life really longer than many years spent in idleness or useless pastimes?”

On September 28,1800 Bernier left Paris to join the expedition of two sailing vessels with a complement of astronomers, zoologists and botanists. They were destined for the very long trip around the Cape of Good Hope, through the Indian Ocean,  with landfall on northern Australia. Several of the scientists abandoned the expedition long before it reached there, but unfortunately, Bernier did not.

In addition to his astronomical and meteorological observations, Bernier had begun some pioneering anthropological studies. He did not much care for the aborigines of Australia, but he was beguiled by the natives of Timor and was making a study of their language as well as their customs. 

On June 6, 1803, Bernier’s life was cut short by fever, and he was buried at sea--only 23 years old. Subsequently his colleagues wrote of “his gentle and modest character, his friendly and obliging ways, his coeur et esprit.”

Thirty years later another scientist attached to a naval expedition traveled along the southern coast of Australia on his way home from a five-year expedition, which he described in “The Voyage of the Beagle.” Many years later he lived to write Origin of the Species. He was Charles Darwin.  Had Bernier been spared, what would he have left us?

Of the many portraits Ingres painted in his  87 years, there is not another that evokes  nostalgia than this early picture of Pierre-François Bernier. 

Source: Porticus, 1984; Karin H. Grimme, “Ingres,” curatorial files.

NB: The prestigious Prix de Rome is an award given by the French government to students of the fine arts. The competition is conducted yearly by the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and is open to students between the ages of fifteen and thirty. Ten students are chosen for the final competition. The prize consists of a four-year scholarship at the Académie de France in Rome, allowance for expenses, and exemption from military service.

BEYOND THE OBJECT (RE: WALTER MURCH)

Roasting Rock

MAG’s Resting Rock (98.78) painted in 1961 is an example of Murch’s mature style.  He creates an altar-like setting for a rock, a rock fragment and a small block of wood resting on an oriental carpet.   He illuminates the objects with light that seems to come from above and in front of the picture plane.  The rectangle of the rock is echoed by the implied rectangle in the carpet.  He uses a muted color palette of grays, gold, rose, pink, blue, cream.  Nothing is clearly defined.  The edges of the rocks blur, meld into the background, the colors of which echo those of the carpet. The rock takes on the quality of a gemstone, a jewel shimmering in diffused light.   The painting evokes a mood of nostalgia, of mystery, of events long past.

BEYOND THE OBJECT (Re: Walter Murch)

by Sandra Koon

“I think a painter paints best what he thinks about the most.  For me, this is about objects, objects from my childhood, present surroundings, or a chance object that stimulates my interest, around which accumulate these thoughts. ……I am  concerned with the lowly and forgotten object, the one people discard because they are finished with it or see it in a certain logical automatic way that I would like to break.”

This general statement about his work explains Walter Murch’s career-long interest in the commonplace of everyday life -- machines, fruit, vegetables, clocks, eggs, architectural ornament -- most often fragments in juxtaposition of the natural and the man-made.  For Murch the object is a starting point not an end.  As he explains, “Once I have selected an object to paint and have worked out the background and technique of transferring the object to the canvas, I forget about the object and try to paint the best painting I can…..which means that it will not be just paint on canvas but a re-created image.”

 It’s difficult to categorize Murch amid the movements of 20^th- century American art.   By choosing objects as his focus he positioned himself within the tradition of American still life painters.  He rejected the direct reproduction of objects as seen in MAG’s  Still Life Number 26: Silver Basket of Fruit by Rubens Peale or  the fool-the-eye explicitness of John Haberle’sTorn in Transit.  Murch set himself apart by his application of paint and by his commitment to transforming the object into something poetic, unreal or mystical.  His objects are volumes which give shape to light.

Above all, Murch was interested in the act of painting, an interest that places his work securely in the second half of the 20^th century.  He preferred a thick, irregular surface and painted the texture of objects via thin layers of paint loosely applied, sometimes with a brush, a rag, a palette knife, even his hand.   He said,  “If I use a brush at the outset, I get too damn self-conscious.  I want to put paint on – like Pollock did – and see what happens.” This trust in the act of painting developed slowly over the course of his career.  A quiet, unassuming man who dressed

and spoke conservatively,  Murch forged his own path in the ever-changing art world of New York City.  A Canadian by birth, Murch came to New York in 1927 at the age of 19 and happened into a job with the Montague-Castle Stained Glass Company as an assistant designer.  He had studied at the Ontario College of Art for two years, but found the course work a bit dull.  In New York he studied at the Art Students League and with Arshile Gorky for several years.  He became a close friend of Joseph Cornell with whom he shared an interest in mundane objects portrayed in unusual ways.

 In 1930 he married Katharine Scott, a fellow Canadian, and the family grew to include a son and daughter.  To support his family Murch worked first in the design department of Lord & Taylor for five years, then as a free-lance artist designing book covers, painting murals in private homes, illustrating advertisements.  His paintings of technical subjects were featured on the covers of Fortune and Scientific American magazines and often found their way onto the walls of major corporations. 

His first two one-man shows were arranged by Betty Parsons, in 1941 and 1947, the second one hung by Barnett Newman.  Parsons continued to feature his work in shows over the next two decades.  Following a 1957 exhibit, Stuart Preston, a critic with the New York Times, wrote, “So adventurous is the general run of exhibitions at the Betty Parsons Gallery that it always surprises one to find Walter Murch’s exquisite, slightly sleepy still lifes hanging on walls usually devoted to trail blazers.  No disparagement is meant here.  Murch’s precise and poetic realism probes as deeply into the mystery of placing color and shape as any abstract.”

By the 1950’s Murch’s work was included in group shows throughout the U.S. Beginning in 1951, he taught at the Pratt Institute, New York, Boston and Columbia universities, becoming a highly respected teacher.  He was a frequent juror of museum shows including a stint as a juror of the 1966 Finger Lakes exhibit at MAG.  In 1966 the Rhode Island School of Design organized a retrospective of his work which subsequently traveled to Montreal, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington and the Brooklyn Museum of Art among others.  He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1966 which went unused due to his untimely death in 1967 at the age of 60. 

(Murch’s son, Walter, is an Academy Award winning film editor and sound mixer.  He won an Oscar for the sound mix of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.”  Murch’s film work can also be seen or heard in The English Patient, The Godfather, and Cold Mountain.)

FLINCK PAINTS POMONA

Vertumnus and Pamona

by Joan K. Yanni

 Govaert Flinck (1615-1650) was one of the most outstanding of Rembrandt’s many pupils, able to capture the master’s technique and adapt it to his own style.  MAG’s Vertumnus and Pomona (83.10) is an example of Flinck’s ability to bring together color, composition, detail and passion in his work.

The shining white blouse and glowing face of a young, rosy- cheeked girl, her chin resting on her left hand, light up the painting. She is Pomona, a wood nymph, and she is listening intently to an old woman who is speaking. The woman’s gesturing hand is also highlighted, though the rest of the picture is shaded except for a half light on the woman’s face and left hand. What are they talking about?

The story of Vertumnus and Pomona comes from Roman mythology and is told in Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Pomona is a wood nymph who did not find pleasure in the wild woodland. Instead, she loved fruits and orchards and spent her days pruning, grafting, and helping her trees to flourish. She shut herself away from men, preferring to be alone in her manicured forest.  Many men sought her, but the most persistent was Vertumnus, the Roman god of orchards, who had the power to change his appearance at will.

Often he was able to approach her by assuming the form of a poor reaper or herdsman or vine pruner, but these disguises did not permit him to get close to her. He finally had a plan: he disguised himself as an old woman, admired her orchards, and when she invited him in for a closer look, told her of a suitor who loved her and would never love anyone else, one who also loved orchards and gardens. He also pointed out that the goddess Venus had shown many times that she hated hard-hearted maidens. Then he dropped his disguise and showed himself as a radiant youth.  Pomona was won over by his eloquence and beauty and thereafter her orchards had two gardeners. The subject of the painting is a popular one among artists of the time, but Flinck’s depiction is unsurpassed. 

Flinck was born in the town of Cleves. Early on, he loved drawing and sketching, but his father saw no future in art and placed his son in an apprenticeship with a silk dealer.     Young Flinck’s opportunity to pursue a career in painting came when Lambert Jacobsz., a Mennonite preacher and occasional artist, convinced the elder Flinck that a career as a painter was an honorable way to make a living.  Jacobsz. took on Flinck as an apprentice in 1629.

Four years later Flinck was a pupil in Rembandt’s studio in Amsterdam, along with Gerard Dou, Jacob Backer and Ferdinand Bol, among others. Flinck worked here for three years, going out on his own in 1636, the date of his first known painting.  For a time his work showed the influence of Rembrandt, though often he failed to capture the spiritual content of his master’s work. Despite this, some of his works were good enough to be attributed to Rembrandt himself. In the 1640s and 1650s Flinck began to incorporate touches of Flemish style in his work, particularly in his portraits. The colors in his history paintings also became typically Flemish.

In 1647 Flinck received a commission which became a milestone in his career. Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, named him painter of the allegory of the Birth of Prince William Hendricks III of Nassau. The commission was carried out with the Baroque flourishes preferred at the time, with theatrical pathos, though artistically unchallenging.

But his work came to the attention of the citizens of Amsterdam, who sought him out to have their portraits painted or to buy one of his history paintings. His portraits particularly attracted patrons and were  in demand that those of Rembrandt. This was probably because of his skill in detail and his ability to capture the best features of his sitter.

His portrait groups also became popular. One of his best--and best known--is the Peace of Münster in the museum of Amsterdam, a canvas with nineteen life-size animated figures, radiant with color and dynamically arranged. Flinck himself must have liked it, for he painted his own image in a doorway on the left of the canvas.

Continued success led to a commission to paint twelve monumental history paintings for the new town hall in Amsterdam, illustrating the revolt of Julius Civilis, a Batavian who led an insurrection against the Romans in 69 AD. He was to be paid 1,000 guilders for each of them, and he sketched four in watercolor in preparation for the commission. Unfortunately Flinck died three months after he was awarded the project, and execution of the paintings was divided among Jan Lievens, Jacob Jordaens and Rembrandt.  For some unknown reason, perhaps because it seemed too dark, the Rembrandt was later removed .

Vertumnus and Pomona has one of the most established provenances of any painting in the Gallery. It can be traced from the 18^th century when it belonged to the Parisian art dealer J. B. Lebrun, husband of the portrait painter Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun.  In 1792 Lebrun published an engraving of the picture, which served as a guide for the conservators at Oberlin University, who cleaned the picture at the time MAG acquired it. It showed that the work has been cut down on all sides since 1792, particularly at the left. The cleaning also revealed Pomona’s right hand, which had been painted over.

Source: Grove Dictionary of Art; Donald Rosenthal, “17^th-century Dutch Painting: Vertumnus and Pomona, Joins Gallery” Gallery Notes, April-May 1984; Herwig Guratzsch, Dutch and Flemish Painting, Vilo, Amsterdam, 1981; curatorial files

VICENTE'S BATTAVIA

VICENTE’S BATAVIA

   by Susan Feinstein

In 2007 a striking reinstallation of MAG’s Concourse gallery returned Esteban Vicente’s Batavia to a place beside its mid 20th-century contemporaries.

Batavia

Batavia glows with the spare, unexpected color palette for which Vicente was admired throughout his long and productive career: lustrous salmon; Reinhardt reds to radiant orange; earthy ochres which muddy and deepen; a range of mutable blues. Vibrant, linear streaks of color – red, blue, green, and orange – appear as frontal marks and pepper the canvas randomly. The effect is one of sensitive chromatic balance within an engaging abstract composition of organic and visual integrity.

Thick, juicy brushwork predominates, leaving evidence of multidirectional strokes. Vaguely-geometric masses are clustered in the center of the painting, extending, overlapping, and bleeding into one another. The paint thins and lightens toward the very edges of the canvas, giving these central structures the appearance of being in suspension. We see signs of Vicente’s “love-hate” affair with edges, his urge to move beyond the notion of lines as contour--or boundary--making, and his preoccupation with color’s capacity to establish structure.
 
Batavia hangs, appropriately, amid the work of Vicente’s artistic colleagues and friends, Ad Reinhardt, Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollock, and others. One of the last surviving members of this first-generation of New York School artists, Vicente enjoyed a quieter renown than that of his conspicuous contemporaries; it was, nonetheless, important, solid, and well deserved, resting upon an extensive body of extraordinary work. His experimentations with color and space are thought to be among the most brilliant in postwar American painting. 

The only Spanish-born artist of the group, Vicente started life in Turégano, a small town in Segovia, in 1903. His father was a military officer and amateur painter, who resigned his commission and moved his family to Madrid so that his six children could grow up in the capital with its multitude of artistic treasures and opportunities.

First educated by Jesuits, Vicente also briefly attended military school before leaving to become an artist. He studied sculpture at the Royal Academy of Madrid, graduating in 1924. Four years later he abandoned sculpture in favor of oil painting, and shortly thereafter left for France where the already well-established Picasso entreated him to join the enclave of Spanish artists residing in Paris.

There he met and married Estelle Charney, an American. They lived for a time on the island of Ibiza, where Vicente painted landscapes reminiscent of Pissarro and the Post-Impressionists. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he returned to Spain to support the Republicans, working as a camouflage expert. In 1936, Vicente and Charney settled permanently in New York City; he established himself as a professional portrait painter and had his first exhibition one year later.

The 1940s were a difficult time: His daughter, Mercedes, born with a heart defect, died at the age of six; he divorced Charney and married Maria Teresa Babin, a Spanish literature scholar. When he resumed painting, Vicente began to experiment with abstraction, following the lead of Europeans Picasso and Mondrian, and American modernists                                             

Stella, Davis, Avery, Dove, Marin, and Hartley.

Though described by art critic Harold Rosenberg as a leader in creating and disseminating Abstract Expressionism, Vicente’s work most often echoed the innovations of other artists like de Kooning, Guston, Hofmann and Rothko, who were his friends, or European painters, like Matisse.  According to Elizabeth Frank, his biographer, “His talent lay in his ability to borrow liberally and synthesize confidently, with elegant color combinations, bold scale and, in particular, an unerring sense of abstract composition.”

Vicente came late to his mature style. In 1950–already 47 years old–he finally integrated his two major allegiances: the Analytic Cubism of Picasso, Braque and Gris, with its gridded, faceted infrastructure, and the sensibility of Mondrian’s nearly transparent color. To these he added his distinct, drawn shapes.

Historians characterize Vicente’s work as a merging of the two schools of Abstract Expressionism, that of the color field painters (exemplified by Rothko, Newman, Still, Reinhardt and Frankenthaler) and the American action painters (such as de Kooning, Pollock, Kline, Hofmann and Leslie).
                               

In 1961 Vicente married his third wife, Harriet Peters, and they bought a farmhouse in Bridgehampton, NY, where, for the remainder of his life, they spent six months of every year, alternating with their apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Concurrent with his painting, Vicente had a distinguished career as a teacher. Among his former students are contemporary artists Chuck Close, Susan Crile, Janet Fish, Brice Marden, and Dorothea Rockburne. He taught at Black Mountain College in the summer of 1953, along with composer John Cage, poet Robert Creeley, and dancer Merce Cunningham. He was a founding member of the New York Studio School on Eighth Street, and also taught at Princeton, the University of California at Berkeley, NYU and Yale.

A complete overview of Vicente’s achievement must include his drawings and works on paper. Though he occasionally made prints, and, from time to time, small, wood polychrome sculptures he fondly characterized as “toys or Divertimentos,” it is the drawings --with their expressive, graphic marks, in charcoal and black ink – that provide the most important accompaniment to his work as a painter.

Using only the finest handmade and hand painted papers, Vicente also made collages of torn paper strips, glued to paper. These “paintings with paper” dealt with the same issues in collage that he addressed in his paintings, and were a significant, integral, and highly personal part of his lifelong artistic practice.                                                         

                                                              

Vicente steadfastly refused to exhibit his art in Spain during the years of the Franco dictatorship. He has been widely embraced since that time, and in 1988 the Spanish government opened the Esteban Vicente Museum of Contemporary Art in Segovia. Vicente personally selected the works for the permanent collection.

The artist died at his home in Bridgehampton in January, 200l, just days short of his 98th birthday. The artist’s friends described him as a true gentleman who loved to tell long-winded stories and had a unique sense of humor. Once, when a reporter asked him to reveal the secret of his longevity, he responded, “I eat one mothball every day.”

Elizabeth Frank, author of the single monograph on the artist, says of the man, “In an era that tended to sanctify those who squandered their talents and wreaked havoc on personal lives, Vicente was a rare and marvelous instance of an artist who husbanded his gifts, took the trouble to learn and respect his limits, and kept faith with himself.”

*Does MAG’s painting refer to our local Batavia? The answer is unclear, though it is believed that Vicente spent some time in the Finger Lakes region (an apocryphal story attributed to Isabel Herdle). Extensive research efforts have failed to produce an alternative theory.

Source: Elizabeth Frank, Esteban Vicente, Hudson Hills Press, Inc., 1995, curatorial files

TRAVELS OF THE WEST WIND

The West Wind

TRAVELS OF THE WEST WIND

by Joan K. Yanni

The movement of Thomas Ridgeway Gould’s The West Wind to the 19^th-century galleries after decades in the tour entrance brings a sense of rediscovery to the piece. A new, bright blue wall sets off its white classical elegance and its flowing skirt. It seems to beckons us to come and look closely.

The West Wind personifies manifest destiny, the westward settling of new America. Stars around the waist indicate the patriotic theme of the piece. Though the sculpture is heavy marble, it seems to float lightly over its pedestal. The figure is on tiptoe, the wind blowing against it and outlining the contours of the body. The right hand holds the skirt, while the left curves over the bust toward the right shoulder. The head of the figure looks over the left shoulder; the wind blows the hair away from the face, showing a lovely, serene profile.

It is interesting to notice the grey veins in the marble (marble is not pure white) and to see that in some places the marble is carved so deeply that it is almost transparent. What is probably a pile of leaves and earth descends from the back of the skirt and attaches it to the marble base. It seems to be a counterweight to the body of the figure, all of which is at the front of the piece.

The West Wind was created by the American sculptor Thomas Ridgeway Gould and became his most celebrated work. Gould, born in Boston in 1818, started a career as a dry-goods merchant, carving sculptures as a hobby. When his business collapsed during the Civil War, he decided to try sculpture as a profession.

As most sculptors of the day, Gould traveled to Italy where he could study the Old Masters. Here, too, he could find plenty of Carrara marble--Michelangelo’s marble--and carvers. (At this time it was the custom for the sculptor to make clay models of his creations and have hired craftsmen copy it.) Gould went to Italy in 1869 and lived in Florence the rest of his life, returning to the US only twice, once briefly in 1878 and again in 1881, the year he died.

The West Wind was created in 1870 and bought by Hon. Demas Barnes of Brooklyn. The work was so popular that seven replicas were produced in two sizes. Daniel W. Powers of Rochester bought a duplicate, the same size as the first. Our figure is dated 1876. One of these two, it is not clear which was shown at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia-- six-month celebration of America’s founding. The confusion comes because the Barnes statue was listed in the catalogue of the exhibition as the one on display.  But another source lists the version on view as having been lent by “its owner, Mr. Powers, of Rochester, NY.” Whichever was in Philadelphia, the Barnes version is now in the St. Louis Mercantile Library and the Powers version traveled to Rochester for display in the Powers Gallery.

Powers was a prosperous Rochester banker who had been born  in Batavia in 1818, the same year as Gould. Though he came to Rochester to work in a hardware store,  by the age of 31 he had established a successful brokerage and banking business.

He built the Powers building in 1870, a handsome many-storied fire-proof structure at Main and State Street.  Five years later, after a trip to Europe during which he bought many Old Master copies (which was customary at this time), as well as some new works and commissioned The West Wind, he opened his famous art gallery.  As he bought  art, the gallery grew from one room until it eventually occupied three floors. It was open to the public seven days a week and two evenings for the admission price of twenty-five cents.

But,back to Gould.  The sculptor had connections in Rochester before his West Wind arrived here.  He was the uncle of Marion Stratton Gould, who had died at the age of thirteen and whose mother, Mrs. Samuel Gould, created an endowment in her memory. The first purchase through the fund was El Greco’s The Apparition of the Virgin to St. Hyacinth.  Some subsequent purchases made possible by the fund were Mortimer Smith’s Home Late, Reginald Marsh’s People’s Follies, Marsden Hartley’s Waterfall, Morse Pond, Ralston Crawford’sWhitestone Bridge and Arthur Dove’s Cars in a Sleet Storm.  Mrs. Gould also bequeathed her brother-in-law’s marble relief The Ghost in Hamlet to the Gallery. Many of MAG’s most important works are still acquired through this fund.

It had been Power’s intent to donate his gallery to the city after his death, but when the city denied his request for tax relief and even tried to levy a tax on the gallery, Powers changed his will and left his fortune to his wife and children, with nothing to the city or to maintain the gallery. After this death in 1898, an auction of the best works from the gallery was held in New York City. The West Wind was not in the sale. Some of the largest paintings and sculptures had been left behind and subsequently moved from the gallery to other parts of the building to make room for office space.

In 1952 Memorial Art Gallery curator Isabel Herdle was putting together a show celebrating the 75^th birthday of the Rochester Art Club.  She looked for The West Wind in the Powers Building, but was unable to find it. It did not make the RAC show, but tenacious Isabel never gave up. According to gallery stories, she made repeated visits to the building, picture of the sculpture in hand, until in 1965 she came upon a cleaning woman and, on a whim, showed her the picture.  The woman told her exactly where the statue was: on the second floor in the shadow of a staircase next to a phone booth. After a cleaning, the marble looked as good as new.

Another tale of the sculpture must be told. For a time West Wind stood in the lobby of the Powers hotel, and lawyers who passed by on their way to a court case would rub the statue’s toe for good luck. Thus the toe is worn smooth and shiny.

When was West Wind in the lobby and not in the top floor galleries?  Too many questions spoil a good story!

Source: Elizabeth Brayer: MAGnum Opus; Susan Dodge Peters, editor: Memorial Art Gallery: An Introduction to the Collection;  Marjorie Searl, editor, Seeing America, Cynthia Culbert, Chapter 21,“Thomas Ridgeway Gould : The West Wind”; curatorial files

THE REMBRANDT ADVENTURES

                                                  THE REMBRANDT ADVENTURES

                                                                By Betsy Brayer

There is no greater master of psychological penetration than Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69). George Eastman purchased Young Man in an Armchair in 1911 after it had been examined by Wilhelm von Bode, premier Rembrandt scholar of his generation and director of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin.  It was the first old master portrait to enter the Eastman collection. By 1927 Eastman wrote that he was no longer buying landscapes but was concentrating exclusively on portraits.

Young Man in an Armchair

Although Eastman was emotionally attached to this painting, he constantly fretted about its condition. “Why are the shadows so dark and murky?” he would ask his advisors. “What happened to the signature?  Have the hands been repainted?  Is it over restored?  Did I pay too much?” After Bode’s Rochester visit in 1911, Carmen Mess of Knoedler’s conveyed some answers and advice. According to Bode, the painting was signed and dated 1660. “He [Bode] suggests your having the Rembrandt placed on an easel & so exposing it to a strong light whenever you are away from home as he claims this keeps it from getting too dark & is a good thing for the paint.” No curator today would agree with that advice! Eastman had the painting “restored” and cleaned several times. William Valentiner, director of the Detroit Institute of Arts and a Rembrandt scholar, borrowed the painting for Rembrandt exhibitions in 1924 and 1930 and sent Eastman an x-ray of the hands that was taken during the 1930 exhibition. The x-ray showed that the hands had indeed been repainted.

The theft of the Rembrandt from Eastman House in 1968 was the catalyst that brought the whole 17^th-century Dutch school to the Gallery permanently.  During Harris Prior’s years as Gallery director (1962-1975) 17 works were transferred. Minor works had been transferred in 1936 and 1950.  The Rembrandt caper was the work of amateurs. Two nights earlier (a practice run, apparently) the thieves successfully removed Eastman’s painting of Cabin Interior—Rainy Day by Arthur B. Davies.  On a January evening in 1968, a W. C. Fields film was playing in the Dryden Theatre and Nan Brown was working late for Beaumont Newhall on the third floor of the house.  The three thieves stayed after the movie—probably in the men’s room—then moved effortlessly into the house, took the painting, and exited via a window. They left the gilt frame dangling on a fence and tire tracks in snow that were identified as belonging to a small foreign car.  Harry Silver, a guard who is remembered by the insurance office as announcing, “I’m Hi-O Silver, but I left my horse outside,” spotted the open window on morning rounds.

The painting went missing for nine months. The three thieves hailed from Rochester, Buffalo, and Chicago, ages 38 to 50. A police informant in Montreal offered to buy the painting for $50,000 and negotiations ensued. On October 15, 1968, state police gathered at the Clinton County airport near Plattsburg to arrest the three who were about to load the Rembrandt, rolled and wrapped in tissue paper, aboard a small plane bound for Canada. Eventually charges were dropped: one man had turned informant and achieved immunity and the other two were wanted for “ serious” crimes in Buffalo.

As the bruised painting was rehabilitated, relined, re-varnished, remounted and repaired, the theft became the vehicle to bring it to the Gallery. By the terms of Eastman’s will, the painting belonged to the University of Rochester. After George Eastman House became an independent museum, the paintings remained there by courtesy and inertia. With a new, enlarged, temperature controlled and secure Gallery building opening in 1968, it became something of a cause for director Harris Prior to bring the whole 17^th-century Dutch and Flemish school (Hals, Rembrandt, van de Cappelle, van Dyck) to the Gallery permanently. He achieved it.

From the evidence of the Eastman correspondence, experts of that period never doubted that the painting was by Rembrandt, but its authenticity has been questioned since Eastman’s lifetime.  Between 1913 and 1990 Rembrandt’s official oeuvre shrank from 988 works to fewer than 300, thanks to the Rembrandt Research Project sponsored by the Dutch government. These experts claim that Rembrandt ran a large-scale commercial studio much as Rubens did, in which assistants worked on most of the portraits. Conceived in the 1960s, by 1989 the project had published three volumes (1584 pages) covering works up to the year 1642. Our painting dates from 1660. But commission members who saw our painting on exhibit during the Rembrandt tercentenary in 1969 and again here in 1970 wrote to a Gallery curator in 1989 that the painting’s “chances of convincing us eventually of its authenticity are practically nil.”

The authenticity debate is still not settled.  Dr. Christopher Brown, curator of 17^th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings at the National Gallery, London, rejects the “hypothesis of a flourishing studio turning out Rembrandtesque works.” He sees no documentary evidence for a studio of this type and endorses the traditional view that the artist simply worked very hard as the most sought-after portrait painter in Amsterdam. Brown cites “the fierce pace of his work” as the definitive factor in “variations in quality” in the portraits. No one ever said ours is the best Rembrandt ever seen—but there are undisputed works (such as portraits of his son Titus) that could be considered second-rate.

David Walsh, who teaches 17^th-century art at the University of Rochester, agrees with Brown. In a talk to the Memorial Art Gallery docents in 2001, Walsh, who unlike the Dutch commission, has lived with and taught from our Rembrandt for many years, said there is nothing about our painting that would cause him to doubt that it is by Rembrandt.  Also, an analysis by the Fogg Museum at Harvard showed that the materials used—canvas, pigments, etc.--are 17^th-century and typical of those favored by Rembrandt.

Betsy Brayer, the author of Magnum Opus: The Story of the Memorial Art Gallery, George Eastman, and many articles on Rochester’s architecture and art, is also a docent, graduating with the class of 1989. 

A RENAISSANCE SUIT OF ARMOR

A RENAISSANCE SUIT OF ARMOR

By Joan K. Yanni

An exciting addition to MAG’s Renaissance collection is a beautifully decorated suit of etched armor.

Suit of Armor

The armor is a partial set consisting of etched steel pieces--helmet, breastplate and tassets (thigh protectors), backplate, gorget (collar) and shoulder plates. The breastplate is dated 1562, and the other pieces date from the same period. All were made by the same workshop for the Dukes of Brunswick, and all would have been worn by the Duke’s knights and soldiers as they battled neighboring states and honed their skills in tournaments and jousts.

In addition to being historically important, the armor is also a significant artwork that illustrates Old Testament stories, classical myths, and Renaissance birds, beasts and grotesques. On the breastplate, a medallion illustrating the Old Testament story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den is inscribed in German “My life and destiny rest in God’s hands. O my lord God, I pray that you protect my soul, life and honor. 1562.”

A panel at the top of the breastplate is decorated at left and right with the Old Testament scenes of Cain killing Abel and Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac.  A center vertical panel is split into three sections. At the top is the Old Testament scene from the Book of Samuel showing Joab kissing and stabbing Amas. (King David named Amas rather than Joab head of his army; in retaliation Joab pretended to greet Amas with the traditional kiss and instead stabbed him.) Two classical figures are in the middle section, and a satyr can be seen in the lower section.  The side panels are decorated with classical and allegorical figures.

The decorations on the backplate are similar to those of the breastplate. Scenes from the story of Adam and Eve are found at the top. One shows Eve emerging from Adam’s rib; the other shows the Temptation, with the devil in the form of a snake inviting Eve to become all-knowing by tasting the apple.  Like the breastplate, the central panel of the backplate is split vertically into three sections.  At the top are two long-legged birds; the scene of Samson and the lion is in the center; a clothed half-figure surrounded by flags is in the lower panel. The side panels are decorated with classical allegorical figures.  The main bands of the helmet are decorated with a hunting motif of hounds chasing rabbits.

The era of plate armor lasted 300 years, from about 1340 to 1650.  Before that time soldiers had worn garments of chain mail, made up of hundreds of tiny metal rings hammered and linked together to form a mesh. This protected the wearer from slashing swords, but newer, deadlier weapons called for  protection  A mace was capable of crushing bones, and a lance or arrows shot from powerful longbows were able to pierce coats of mail. Arrs tried padded garments to lessen the impact when a knight was hit, and finally used pieces of solid metal.  Eventually a combination of padding and plate armor was used to produce suits of armor. The knight would put on a padded undergarment first. This not only gave him  protection in battle, but the padding made the metal plates a bit  comfortable.

                  

Another factor that called for the development of plate armor was the rapid development of firearms. The first cannon fired in Europe was in Italy in 1330.  Portable firearms appeared in armories in the 16^th century, gradually superseding bows, swords and pikes (lances some 12 feet in length) as infantry weapons.  Plate armor, made from solid metal, now had to be strong enough to protect the wearer from gun fire.

But this strength required heavier metal, which was difficult to manipulate. The armor was therefore redesigned as an ensemble of lighter pieces attached to the padded body of the soldier. The parts were articulated to allow movement, much like the tail of a lobster.  Knowledge of human anatomy was necessary for arrs to design plate armor that would bend with the movements of the body.

The parts of the fighter’s body most at risk to life-threatening injury--head, chest and shoulders--were most heavily protected.  Next highest priority was given to body parts active during combat: arms, hands, elbows, knees and legs.  Finally, feet were given protection. The amount of armor each soldier had depended on his military rank and what he could afford. The king wore full armor, specially designed and artistically decorated; the aristocratic cavalrymen, such as officers, were typically protected by a complete, or almost complete, suit of armor with as much decoration as its wearer could afford.  The foot-soldier would be issued half armor, protecting only his chest and head. These items were mass-produced, not custom-designed. The infantrymen were the most vulnerable--and expendable--in a battle.

The further development of firearms finally led to the extinction of full body armor.  Once projectiles were able to penetrate plate armor, there was no way to protect the wearer, and the armor became almost useless.

The Gallery’s armor is from a distinctive Brunswick group identified in inventories in 1667 and 1732. The bulk of this arsenal was sold off in the 19^th century, but the dukes of Brunswick kept the most attractive pieces to furnish their castle.  In 1942 the remaining pieces were transferred to Schloss Marienburg in Germany, near Hanover, to avoid capture by invading Soviet troops.

A few years ago, the Royal House of Hanover decided to sell off the bulk of the collection. MAG’s armor was acquired in 2006 from an arms and armor dealer. It had been restored by a conservator specializing in armor and is in excellent condition. According to Susan Daiss, director of education, it will attract visitors of all ages, particularly schoolchildren, and will play a critical role in the museum’s educational mission.

Source: Curator of European Art Nancy Norwood and press release by Shirley Wersinger, PR editor/graphics coordinator