Lee Mikyung

Once every year, I send a memorial to the emperor (i.e. the new director of the Art Institute) -- giving him valuable advice concerning the administration of his empire.

I realize that -- given my bad attitude -- were this a real emperor/empire -- I would have been beheaded several years ago -- but Mr. Cuno tolerates my opinions -- and is actually kind enough to write me in reply.

The problem is --- whatever I raise an issue -- he addresses it -- but not as I would have wished.

For example -- on one of my walks through the galleries, I discovered the following piece:



Ode to Balsam Flowers (detail)

The above is a small section of a 4-screen , 6-foot high, display of calligrapy --
by the Korean artist Lee Mikyung. According to the label, the script is an anachronistic, Korean style preserved by aristocratic women ( while their husbands preferred to write in Chinese characters).


Lee Mikyung was born 1918 -- and this piece was done in 1991 -- so chronologically, she would be considered a contemporary artist. (everything done after 1950 is now considered "contemporary")

I'm glad the piece is being shown --- it's a bit regimented/formal -- i.e. the characters don't seem to play with each other very much --- but each one is wonderful to study -- and god knows there are enough of them.


When I wrote to Mr. Cuno, I asked why this traditional Korean contemporary calligraher was on display --- but not-one-single traditional Euro-American -style painter was on the walls. (and god knows there are enough of those -- painters of portraits/landscape/still-life etc) Why should traditional Korean culture be honored -- but not our own ?

Last week I discovered that this problem had been solved: the Lee Mikyung had been sent to the basement -- and a different ( and much older ) Korean painting was now on display.

I suppose this is just a coincidence --- but in the same memorial, I asked why members should wish to renew their membership to the museum -- since the admitance fee is "pay what you wish" -- and the only real benefit was free admission to the high-priced special exhibits (which new museum policy has discontinued)

And now -- I have just learned that "pay what you wish" will soon be replaced by "pay $12" (or some such amount)

So once again -- my concerns were addressed -- but not in the way I would have wished !

Ancient Egypt

The Field Museum is beginning to announce its blockbuster "King Tut" exhibit -- and looking through the fat brochure -- I realized that I'm not going. I mean -- even the things that they choose to display as highlites don't interest me.

The terrible truth is that most Egyptian art doesn't interest me any more than American automobile designs. Most things are well made -- but so what? In a world of a million-choices, well-made doesn't cut it -- in any genre (even Japanese prints)

(plus.... they're going to charge me $25 .... plus ... they're not going to let me take pictures .... plus ... I'm going to be fighting a crowd ... plus ... they don't let you back in the exhibit if you have to leave to use the restroom)

(BTW -- the Field Museum had a great exhibit of Egyptian artifacts from the British museum about 2 years ago -- and I'm telling myself that it had to be much better than Tut)

So.... instead..... I decided this week to look at the (meagre) collection of Egyptology at the A.I.C. ---- and it does make me wish I lived in NYC (where the Met has tons of Egyptian stone on display)

But the A.I.C. does have a two things that are memorable -- and interestingly enough -- my good friend Tor and I agree on what they are:





These small plaques are very recent as Egyptian history goes -- at 300 BC -- they are practically mid-way between the Old Kingdom and the present day --- and I'm not even sure how Egyptian you would want to call the Ptolemaic period.



But whatever you call it -- these pieces came from Egypt -- and they're wonderful.

Utamaro

The Buckingham gallery of Japanese prints changes its display about every 6 weeks -- and about once every 10 years -- it's all Utamaro.




I worship Utamaro -- he's the Titian/Michelangelo/Botticelli of this genre -- and I think it's only custom that puts his prints (instead of European paintings) on rotating, instead of permanent, display.








He just seems to be a few steps ahead of everyone else -- in drama -- in power -- in range -- in arrangements that seem new-clever-exceptional -- the way a top athlete stands above his accomplished peers -- always innovating -- always pushing himself -- and I notice by the dates posted beside each print, that he kept getting better -- with the most exciting things done in the last five years of his life (he lived to the age of 50)





This was my favorite in the show (although it must be noted that the museum owns many more not on display -- and I remember some that I liked just as much. "A sweet disorder in the dress, kindles in clothes a wantoness"




Here's a detail of the smoke that beautiful, young, partially undressed lady is blowing -- printed not with ink -- but just with the impression of the wood block.



Here's one that the guard helpfully suggested was an inspiration for Van Gogh (with the strong floral pattern in the background) Maybe she was right -- if I were a young painter who had never seen an Utamaro before -- I think I'd start lifting ideas too.



(This jpg badly fails, by the way, to give the effect of the patterns in this design.)

Ren Yi

Ren Yi (1840-1896, Shanghai, Mynahh and Bamboo, 1892 -tribute to Zhu Da (17th c.)


The paintings on display in the A.I.C. Chinese gallery change about four times a year -- and usually I just don't care for them -- i.e. like all bad traditional art -- they just seem to be following a formula -- rather than using it to ascend to the heavens. The last exhibit of rock painters was unspeakably bad --- but this one, featuring the paintings of Ren Yi--- from the collection of Florence Ayscough -- was at least decorative -- and actually seemed related to the French, post-Impressionist decorative painters of the same era.

The exhibition includes photos of the collector, Ms. Ayscough, and properly emphasizes the role that local collectors play in a museum collection: i.e. a museum's collection is no better than the taste of those who have donated to it.

Ms. Ayscough was apparently a big fan of Ren Yi --- and the gallery walls are now exclusively dedicted to his works. They're facile -- showy -- elegant -- well-drawn --- reminds me of Singer Sargent's nearly contemporary portraits of English aristocracy --- but just like Sargent feels fluffy compared with the Baroque masters -- these painting proclaim a melacholy decline from the power of earlier Chinese painting.

I think the difference here is one of silk --- in the earlier masters, the blank silk behind the trees/birds/flowers is equally important -- so there's this tension of presentation -- foreground with background --- and a sense of eternity that is so delicious when contrasted with the brush strokes that feel so spontaneous/in-this-moment.

Without that tension -- the images just feel blowsy --- superficial --- and -- that horrible word -- decadent -- a feeling that's not diminished by the sensual colors which Ren Yi -- and the traditional Chinese brush painters of the 20th C. -- like to use.

(note: I couldn't photograph the other paintings because of the reflections on the protective glass case -- which also, by the way -- makes them difficult to see. Isn't there a better way to display this kind of thing ?)

Mogollon Hero

The A.I.C. just opened a special exhibit of pottery made by people who lived about a thousand years ago in the areas now called Arizona, northern Mexico, and New Mexico.



This is the piece that caught my attention on the first visit -- a hunter-hero, wearing a fish-swallowing-heron on his head -- with an assistant who carries a rabbit head. It is classic Mimbres, 950-1150 A.D., from New Mexico.




This powerful, rhythmic drawing is what captures me (as well, I suppose, as the small game that he hunts) -- made with all the focus and precison that hunting requires.

This is a no nonsense world -- the immersion is complete -- the focus is unbroken -- the purpose is direct -- and his arrow never misses.

And ..he's kind of a cute young guy, isn't he ? He's fleet of foot -- eyes wide open -- missing nothing -- his lithe body coiled like a spring -- and his world spins around with him at the center. He's Isao -- the hero of Mishima's novel, "Runaway Horses", and powerful capitalists (as well as rabbits, heron, and deer) had better beware.



(I wish this piece went on permanent display -- it's several notches above what the museum shows from its own collection)

Age of the Medici

About three years ago, the museum hosted one of my favorite shows of all-time --- primarly due to the inclusion of the following two objects:




In the 1540's, to celebrate the consilidation of their autocratic control over Florence (and the duchy of Tuscany)-- the Medici family began planning for a monument to brute force -- centering on the depiction of Hercules and Anteus set into a fountain. After several false-starts, Nicolo Tribolo was chosen to design the monument, and Ammanati to make the broze figures, completed in 1559.





What an incredible masterpiece ! The power that ripples through every joint and tendon -- connecting to a majestic, awesome, symphonic unity. I went to stare at it every week it was on display. It's brutal -- monstrous -- dynamic --- relentless -- just like the modern secular states that eventually would dominate world history.

Ammanati -- you rule ! -- and much longer, and much better, than the Medici ever did.




Then there was this masterpiece by Christofano Allori (1557-1621) painted near the end of his life in 1616-18. Christofano was almost an exact contemporary of Caravaggio -- and like any other painter in his right mind -- followed the lead of that incredible genius -- into a world of dark, dramatic, sordid passions.





The story, as you must have guessed, celebrates that most notorious femme fatale, Judith, and her lover/victim, Holofernes, who touched her flesh just once -- and
immediately lost his head. Above is a detail of that crafty Jewess, Judith -- which, according to historians, is also a portrait of Christofano's young lover.





And this is a detail of poor Holofernes -- the great Iraqi general -- which is also said to be a portrait of the artist himself -- an aging devotee to the muse -- who also lost his head to a striking young woman. Look at the languor in her eyes -- and look at the severed power of his head -- and it tells a story that is tragic -- but not necesssarily one that should be considered cautionary.

Harihara

I was walking past this temple niche for Shiva/Vishnu from Madhya Pradesh -- and time stopped.

It wasn't the central figure -- which seemed no more than formulaic -- but the figures on the side -- as they caught the late afternoon sun -- and created an empty space between them that never left the 9th Century.







I'm doubting that photos can convey that delicious sense of space -- but here's another, slightly different view that might help reconstruct the volumes in the imagination.

The thing about deep relief is that it bites into -- includes -- the space of the room -- the space also inhabited by the viewer --- so a viewer so inclined, can become immersed in the mind of the sculptor -- which in this case -- moved ever-ever-so-slowly-and-carefully -- weighing, turning, composing every volume, every nuance.




Here's the rest of the piece (maybe the presence of Shiva/Vishnu was too powerful for me to want to photograph it the first time around)

The Persian Lover

Persians have a long tradition of sensuality and languor -- i.e. 'Oriental decadance' so disdained by their enemies, the Periclean Greeks, who fought these long-haired warriors who brought women and chefs with them as they invaded Greece. (just as Mark Antony's Roman army carried their pornography with them a few hundred years later when they invaded Persia -- much to the contemptuous amusement of the Persians who captured their baggage train)




This is how I've always imagined myself as lover --- going back to my teen years and the Persian miniatures at the Cincinnati Art Museum -- soft, sleek, dreamy, shimmering, languid, sinuous, gentle -- and usually (but not always !) alone -- in solitary reverie. Are there any such images of lovers in European painting ? Venus and Mars ? ( I've just never identified with that scary couple)

How many paintings are there in the A.I.C. ? Are there any others dedicated to the love between a man and a woman ? (I guess there are --- but I can't recall any right now.)





Seated figure style of Reza Abbasi, Isfahan, 1640 -- accompanied by lines of poetry that read: "In my hand is neither my heart nor the one who ravishes my heart"


(final note: it looks like the Persian lover may well play a decisive role in the history of my own family -- for the ONLY great-great grandchild of my immigrant, Jewish grandparents is currently a little girl named Aleaa -- whose father is a Persian lover -- and whose mother (my niece in Johnson City, Tennessee)providentially resembles an Iranian movie star.)

Tomb figures from Ancient Mexico

About 5 years ago, the museum hosted a large exhibit of terracotta figures from western Mexico -- the areas west of Mexico city, through Jalisco, and over to the Pacific coast -- and from centuries -- even a millenium -- earlier than classic Maya civilization.


It was less stately -- but more intense --- less divine -- but more human -- similar to how Etruscan figures differ from the later Roman/Hellenistic sculpture --- and it looks like I prefer those earlier periods -- on both sides of the Atlantic. Several early 20th C. sculptors and collectors shared this preference -- and by way of comparison, the exhibit also included some small pieces by Henry Moore that used similar elements -- though less deftly -- demonstrating, at least to me, the achievement in these apparently simple little pieces. Most of my favorites seem to come from Colina, in the Comala phase dated 200BC to 300 AD.








I know guys like this -- the ones who do their jobs -- don't ask any questions -- but in private put on the headphones and listen to space music. Am I the only one who feels that these pieces are connected to drug culture ? I just wonder how much of daily life -- or especially ritual life -- was conducted while under the influence. There's something psychedelic about those distorted proportions and colorful surfaces -- or -- maybe I'm just having a sixties flashback .




this is a sculptor -- rather than a figure -- at play.





Here's my picks from the AIC's permanent installation -- and all of them come from this same period. (they do have a large Mayan architectural relief -- which might once have been awesome -- but it's condition has suffered badly over the past thousand years)





Love these dancers -- especially in comparison to each other -- each different, but moving to the same rhythm -- so I'm thinking of the "California Raisins" -- as they danced to "Heard it through the Grapevine"






This weird guy called a "chieftain" -- and I've noted how their chieftains/leaders are sitting rather than standing tall -- sitting , perhaps, because they're so stoned, they'd fall over if they tried to stand.




Not an especially good looking woman -- but probably quite vigorous.





This mime is not Mexican -- he's Tang Dynasty Chinese (from the Field Museum) -- but he reminded me of the Mexican acrobat pictured further above. All these things come from tombs -- and I like the idea of providing

Eyes of the Prophet

My favorite European sculpture in the A.I.C. has always been this fragment from Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. It was knocked off the facade back in the 1790's by ramapaging sans coulottes -- and who can blame them for wanting to keep the eyes of God from looking at the brave new secular world they were trying to build ? But the power of this abused fragment is so great, it could not be kept from public display -- and here it is, 200 years later still passing judgement on the frivolities of modern life.

Corners of Renoir

One of my 40-year favorites at the A.I.C. is Renoir's "On the Terrace" of 1881" -- that adorable woman in the red hat with the cute kid never fails to send me into ecstasy -- and today was no exception -- except that this time, instead of stepping back to take-it-all-in, I stepped forward to dive into the corners -- which was an equally rewarding trip.



It was this upper-left corner that first got me -- the colorful dipping and jumping through space -- the feel of thick paint or thin -- just where it needs to be one way or the other. The happy sense of eternal youth on an eternal Saturday afternoon in Spring. This is how it looks to be happy.





This section reminded me of the Chinese bamboo painting noted back in November (which is , BTW, equally great, but now off to storage for another 10 years) It's just a nice trip to follow a paint-filled brush as it cuts through, measures, and composes space in one bliss-ful movement. (I'm ignoring, this time, the explosion of color among the flowers on the hat -- it's too exciting for words)




Finally, we've got the up-front left corner --- where R. has given us the joy of colors that are intense but controlled -- and the joy of string (though not quite as exhuberent as the string of Vermeer). And look around the edges of that sleeve !--where it's sharp and where it's loose -- and how it works with the balls of yarn.


Renoir is so mellow ! -- he saunters, casually through the space of his painting -- fit for the lines: ".. the wandering orange and curious peach into my hands themselvs do reach"

Maybe someday I'll write about the young woman and child -- but for today, I'm just sticking to the corners.

Girodet on various visits

First week: I must have seen this guy back when I toured the Louve all those years ago - but when time is limited -- and Rubens. Poussin, and Delacroix beckon -- I didn't give him a moment's notice. Now though -- with a show all his own -- he's an oasis of splendor in the most threadbare of exhibition schedules the A.I.C. has ever had.

There's a self-portrait right at the beginning of the show that I might pick as his first and last great painting. He was 28 -- it was 1791 -- he was David's crack assistant breaking into his own career -- European history was being made on a day-to-day basis at the national assembly - and he portrays a young man who is sharp, keen, and hungry (much -- much more exciting than the later self-portrait in the Hermitage which is all over Google).

Of course he went on to make many great paintings -- he was a master of space, form, and color -- but he was not a prophet. He mirrored the taste of the rising bourgeoise -- seeking the shallow comfort of gorgeous but petty sensuality that at least never sunk to the sentimentality of Bouguereau and the later academy -- and that deserves to be called decorative -- but what decorations ! I can't imagine living a room surrounded by his life-size figures -- it would be so electric, I would never be relaxed.

The piece shown above was at the show -- and, though thorougly delightful (far more so in person) -- shows the pettiness of his concerns. The lady depicted as Danae was a customer who had rejected his portrait of her -- so he painted her as a goldigger -- her husband as the turkey -- and somewhere in all the detail, a portrait of her lover. The lady was scandalized by society and the painter had his revenge -- but what a cheap use of his great talents.


This is a detail of a very large (and early) painting (which follows) -- showing among all those leaves, I hope, his powerful sense of space -- as well as a hommage to the great master of large-scale dramatic painting: Tintoretto.

There were many more great paintings which I couldn't find on the internet -- but they really have to be seen full-size to get the effect.
Given his abilities - and his frivolous nature -- my greated regret is that he didn't make explicit pornography. I think he could have rivaled the Japanese.

................Second Visit.............
Here's the self-portrait mentioned above -- something about how the facial features line up with how the space is proportioned -- something about the red lips -- and there you have it -- the integrity, the courage, the passion, the drama of a young man.













The first paintings I noticed this time around were the classical historical tableaux -- spinning off from David's "Death of Socrates" or "Oath of the Horatii" -- but almost immediately, it's apparent that the timeless, heroic, serious Classical detachment is gone -- and instead, we're getting some kind of elaborate cartoon -- with grimacing faces that forget they're actors on a Classical stage. (detail of "Joseph and his Brothers" shown above -- and doesn't look like a scene from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ?)

Girodet may be the greatest French painter between David and Gericault/Delacroix -- but in comparison with them -- well --- let's just say he feels like a lightweight.





The next painting I noticed this time was the Ossian fantasy he painted for Napoleon (detail shown above) - and with the pretense of classicism gone -- the silliness is actually more enjoyable -- demonic British ghosts battling heroic French ghosts -- surrounded by beautiful ghostly young women, glowing with a supernatural light. It's like the best cover art that trashy pulp fiction has ever had. Napoleon, apparently, didn't like it -- but I think he lacked a sense of humor.



The last paintings that I saw on this visit were the portraits that he did of an older physician, Dr. Trioson, who cared for Girodet when he was a young orphan, and formally adopted him as an adult. I don't know the story behind their relationship -- but the physician is presented as a very kind, caring, rational, and level-headed man -- perhaps a foil to the artist's own whimsical, poetic nature. Actually -- on this visit -- this portrait was the painting that moved me the most. Girodet knows nothing about half-measures --and the character of that father figure jumps out of the frame.

The following is a link to an essay based on the 1911 entry in the Encyclopedia Brittanica:
click here
You'll notice that the painter is taken to task for trying to express Romantic sentiments within a Classical style -- but I don't know that I want to follow this progression-of-styles approach that is the foundation of academic art history. As I read the character of Girodet the orphan -- I think cherished a fantasy life that semed much more attractive than the cruel world -- and that's where he took his painting. If he were directing films today -- I'd see him as a Steven Spielberg -- and if making movies were an option back in 1800, I think he would have preferred that to painting.

A few American Luminists

I was on my mission to complete the tour of 19th C. American sculpture at the A.I.C.-- but I couldn't help noticing some of the paintings in the gallery that day -- and -- well -- maybe -- these appealed to me more.

John Kensett (1816-1872) Almy Pond, Newport , 1857


I don't remember any of this genre from Cincinnati -- but I do remember being stopped by Kensett at the Met -- and stopping viewers at the Met is the most that any painter can aspire for. There's the glowing -- there's the minimalism --there's, let's face it -- Puritan art -- a bit more geometric and a bit less sensual than its Dutch counterparts. And lack of sensuality provokes sensuality -- at least in me.

Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823-1880) Morning in the Hudson, Haverstraw Bay, 1866



I don't remember ever seeing Gifford before -- but I like him just as much - maybe more -- because the severe geometry begins to feel mystical: i.e. that big boat in the middle of all those triangles should be boring, but it's not. It turns out that late in their careers, Kensett and Gifford traveled together to view the wild west. Ahh --those were the days. I wonder if they ever made it into an episode of "Maverick" or "Gunsmoke". In Cincinnati, I grew up with the French landscape painters of that day (Daubigny, Rousseau, Corot etc)-- but now I guess I like their American peers as much if not more. These painters are the worthy compatriots of Hawthorne and Melville.

(Note: these two paintings are on loan from the Terra Foundation -- and a sad reminder of what the Terra Museum was -- and could have been if it's board of directors had not pulled the plug.)