Art and Symbolism

Symbolism has for a long time been a part of art. During the renaissance paintings took on both the work of the church and of the ruling class. If one was to look at say Masaccio’s “The Tribute Money” in the Brancacci Chapel of Santa Maria De Carmine in Florence, the symbolism of St. Peter Paying the tax man is meant to encourage the people to pay a newly levied tax.

In Robert Campin’s “Merode Altarpiece” he has included many symbols. Some a little harder to decipher to the modern eye. In the right panel, containing St. Joseph in his workshop he is has a mousetrap on the window sill. This was to symbolize Jesus as the trap of the devil. He is also working on wine making equipment, symbolizing the wine in the eucharist, for shadowing the crucifixion of Christ.

The question is, how do modern artist use symbolism in their works today. Or do they at all? I would argue that todays art is as full of symbolism as the works of the past. The major difference is that many modern works hold a more personal symbolism for the creator, and are less about trying to get the ruling class or church’s messages across.

If I were speaking for myself most of my art has some form of deeper symbolic meaning, though it may not be so obvious at first glance. Like most modern art and artists, those symbols are personal, and have meaning to me. They may at some point or an other “make sense” to the viewer, but that is not the primary objective.

One of my last projects was to paint a self portrait on a mirror. Why? Well the idea behind a mirror is that not only does it reflect the image of the person looking at it, but also the background/environment that it is hanging in. In other words the person looking at the portrait becomes a part of it, thus becoming me, and me them. Also since I painted no background, the environment that surrounds the piece, becomes part of the piece. A “reflection” on the fact that I have moved and travelled a great deal, and all those environments have become a part of my world, and that I have had to adapt to all of them.

Other artists use symbolism to comment on society, and modern life. I know that I often refer to Warhol, but some of his works, such as the “Campbell’s Soup Cans” and “Brillo Boxes”, were meant to reflect on our consumerist society, and obsession with brands. What is intriguing is that name Warhol itself became a brand that many wanted to consume.

Still today, artists wanting to make a political statement will often include symbolism in their art. There are for instance many paintings of the American flag that have been made for instance often either symbolizing a love for America or a hatred depending of the artist. One famous version was the one below, done by Jasper Johns.

Curator Anne Umland of the MoMa in New York, states that Johns is in effect trying to paint the familiar. In the words of the artist “something the mind already knows”. The symbolism is not so much in the painting he would continue but that it freed him to do the work, as he no longer had to design the actual piece. The question is often asked then is this a flag or a painting. It’s both in many ways. The work no matter can’t escape the symbolism that is embodied in the American Flag itself. 

       Later in 1969, during the Viet Nam war, John's painted an other american flag, one with a decidedly less romantic view perhaps of the United States than the one above, painted in the 1950s, what could be considered America's "golden age". What could he be saying here?

In the Photography of Robert Polidori, we see can see some symbolism in the urban decay of many of his works. Polidori himself has said:

“ When images are soft, they just remain evocative, or in your imagination. You get a mood, and it remains on the emotional level. The viewer has to put more of him or herself into it. When there is more detail, it’s like that old expression: There’s no fiction stranger than reality. Reality will compose the most extreme paradoxes and contradictions and adjacencies, which can’t be understood”

Polidori’s work evokes emotion in what I could best describe and a combination of decay and beauty. Some of his photographs of Chernobyl for instance really show the urgency of the people leaving, by what they left behind. For me personally a photograph taken in Beirut showing plants surviving in a destroyed apartment really gives one the sense that even after senseless tragedy, life somehow finds a way to get back on track.

These are but a few examples on how symbolism is still alive and well in the world of visual art. In my work, or that of others. Though the rules may have changed, and artist are not (always) trying to put a governments view across, but rather their own, that symbolism is often what gives meaning to art. If could be often that we see symbolism that was not meant to be there, perhaps we miss something the artist intended. In the end though the use of symbols in art is as important today as it was in the Renaissance and before.

Hergé and Warhol

  One subject people often talk about when it comes to art is how other artists influence each other, learn from one an other, and sometimes even borrow or steal ideas from each other. From the renaissance to modern times one can see how different artists have in one way or an other had some kind of influence on the works, and lives of others.

In the modern era, artists talk about their art and both inspire and teach on an other. If in the renaissance workshops tried to keep their trade secrets from each other, by the 19th Century, artists were gathering in cafes and salons to discuss art, and shape many of what became the modern art movements. 

One such relationship I found interesting is a rather modern one. A relationship between pop artist Andy Warhol and graphic novelist Hergé. With the soon to be released Stephen Spielberg movie based on Hergé’s most famous creation Tin Tin, all things Hergé are back in the spotlight. Perhaps also being fascinated by the works of both these artists, looking at how one influenced and was important to the other is something I wanted to look further into.

If I can say I had a first true love affair with art, it would have been with the work of Hergé. I started to read The Adventures of Tin Tin when I was five or six. Already being a globe trotting kid, living in France, then the Middle East, there was something exciting about the young Belgian reporter, going on adventures around the world. Though as an artist, I am not in any way shape or form close to being a graphic novelist or illustrator, the basic and bright colour palette used by Hergé and his simplicity of use of space and line are things that definitely have made it’s way into my painting style.
What is interesting is that as Hergé became wealthier, he became himself quite a collector of art. No only did he like older Flemish works such as Breugel (who I have talked about before), and Holbein, but also modern artists such as Joan Miro, Roy Lichtenstein, famous for is graphic cartoon style, and Andy Warhol, famous for well, fame. During the 1960s, Hergé started himself to take art classes and started painting modern abstract pieces like the one below. 

   As for Andy Warhol, he is a great love of mine that was developed in my teens. Perhaps as a young gay man I started to identify with this openly gay, avant guard artist. I think I also started to be fascinated by celebrity culture, something Warhol became well know for. What I loved about the work of Warhol is that it is very graphic. It tends to be simple in line and in colour. The colours are bright, and he tended to use primary colours or red, blue, yellow. Does this sound familiar? Both Roy Lichtenstein and Warhol credited Hergé as influential in the American Pop art movement of the 1960s. Hergé’s use of artistic economy and of clear line was perfect for what became the iconic works of Warhol and Lichtenstein. 

In the late 1970s, Hergé commissioned Warhol to do his Portrait. It would be the first meeting of the two. A few years later in 1983 Hergé passed away.

What I was hoping to show in this brief article is how even today, artists, from various mediums influence one an other, even me. I also find it fascinating that artists that I love, influence one an other. A French minimalist artist named Jean Pierre Raynaud was quoted as saying about Hergé:

 "He has a precision of the kind I love in Mondrian. He has the artistic economy that you find in Matisse's drawings. He perfectly crystallises what he wants to say and, as a result, his work never ages."

When I started this Blog, the first thing I placed on here was a quote by Piete Mondrian, who perhaps more than any other artist has influenced what I do. It’s his work in New York, his linear blocks of colour that really speak to me. It truly is what I love about painting which is all about the paint, the colour of it. To see an other artist relate to work of Hergé to Mondrian in perhaps in itself why I love it so much. I should maybe now start looking to Hergé, my first true love, as my true inspiration in everything. 

Bernini and Paris Hilton

Simon Schama’s Bernini

So, what makes a great documentary. One that can hold you attention for one. If there is one thing about Simon Schama’s take on the life of Bernini is that it is entertaining. You can’t stop watching, the same way it’s hard not to look at the beauty of the great sculptures of Bernini himself.

So that said, you would think that with an opening like that, there are lots of high points to this show. Perhaps the best point, and the least entertaining, is the cinematography of it all. Boy do those sculptures and buildings pop out. The lighting on the sculpture of Apollo and Daphne is breathtaking. When you get the camera closeups of the work, you can truly see why Bernini was considered and “genius”, and master sculpture. So close to we get, we see the intimate indentations of the flesh in Bernini’s sculpture of the Rape of Proserpina where Pluto grabs the ill fated maiden’s leg.

I have to say that they do a good job of getting a good look at the works of art. Having seen some of Bernini’s work in Rome many years ago, like all great works, many are not exactly easy to get up close to anymore. Too many scared with the attacks on the Michel Angelo’s Pieta to risk other great works I suppose. So having such close up access is quite nice.

Any low points. Well I am not sure about playing up the bad boy reputation on Bernini and Borromini. Then again, the artist as “bad boy” is a cliche that had to come from somewhere right?

I have to say that the stories of rivalry and jealousy in the life of Bernini did make for an entertaining story. How accurate was it all? I am sure there are records of all the events, but some of it seemed like I was watching a historical “Entertainment Tonight”. That Bernini, Caravaggio, and Borromini were the Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Kim Kardashian of their time (only they have talent). It goes to show that fame, money and power went to people’s heads 400 years ago, and that we as people have not learned anything.

Perhaps also, nothing seems sexier than the bad boy artist. It can make a rather dry subject matter to some, seem well, sexy. Caravaggio was run out of Rome as a drunken trouble maker. Bernini, well, had affairs and tried to kill his brother. He also let all the adoration go to his head, where he though he could do no wrong. Kind of like Paris (Hilton) and her ill fated singing career.

Art and Theatre

Above is a painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder entitled “Dulle Griet” (or Dull Gret/ Mad Meg in English). It was painted in about 1562. The subject matter is that of Dull Gret or Mad Meg who is a character in Flemish folklore. In the story, and the painting, she leads a group of women to pillage hell.

My interest in this painting stems from the fact that I woking as the set designer on the B.U. Drama department’s production of Caryl Churchill’s “Top Girls”. A play written in the early 1980s by Churchill as a commentary on the state of feminism in Thatcher era England.

In act one of the play, Churchill writes a “dream” sequence in which various women (both real and fictional) from history, one of which is Dull Gret, as painted by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Her character alludes to the fact that the invasion of hell is really about the the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands, which ended is the mid 1600s. What is interesting is that the revolt that was started to push the Spanish out started in 1568, not long after the painting was done.

What I find interesting in both counts in one, how symbolism in art can be used to get a message across, without it being one hundred percent obvious. I also love how two art forms I am involved in often have influence on one an other.

The symbolism of the Spanish occupation is perhaps not obvious at first, but it is there. The Spanish (though this may no be politically correct), were though of being hungry for gold, most countries were at the time. The Spanish however got a reputation for being ruthless and relentless in their hunting for the metal. The “devils” in Brueghel’s painting are surrounded with gold. They have an excess of it, and Mad Meg and the women are doing their best to get as much as they can.

What Churchill got from the painting though is not the weirdness of it, or the hunt for gold, but that it’s women who are acting as soldiers. Women who have had enough of the devils and invade hell. Dull Gret in Churchill’s play talks about losing children to the Spanish, and how she had had enough and decides to “pay the bastards”. 

As the set designer, some of the colours, especially the red in the painting, became integral to the colour scheme of the Dinner scene in which Dull Gret appears. Both I and the costume designer took cues from the painting and included them in the costumes and props of the dinner. Further bringing aspects of the painting to life.

To Leo or Not to Leo

  So Leonardo Da Vinci. Genius, lazy, crazy, or over rated? Hard to say really. One thing is for sure, very few painters are as well recognized as he is. Some of his works, one in particular, the Mona Lisa are so famous that people flock in droves to museums to see just them, sometimes by passing just as or perhaps more important works. This begs the question why then has a this man, this artist so captivated so many. 

The first recollection I have of Leonardo Da Vinci and his work was at a very early age. I must have been five or so the first time my mother took me to the Louvre in Paris. The one thing I can certainly remember is that as we neared the Mona Lisa, there seemed to be more and more people. Once you got to the painting you could hardly see the damned thing from all the people standing arround.

What is scary, some thirty years later, on my last trip to the Louvre, Nothing changed. Sure my husband wanted to see the painting, something about  never having seen such an important piece. Again, we walked through the vast galleries of the Louvre, but he closer you got to the location of Mona, the more congested it got.

It’s a shame really. I think what upsets me about it all is not that people are so interested in one painting, but that they all seem, without reservation, bypass so many other great works. The Louvre is one of the greatest collections of art in the world. It spans Centuries of human achievement in art. To add insult to injury the louvre is but one of many superb art museums in Paris (the Pompidou and the  Musée d'Orsay are my faves)

I guess maybe I am the type of guy who is not much into canons of anything.  Sure the Mona Lisa is a nice painting, but it is one of many works of art that tell a story about the development of art and culture, and one how we view it. I often feel the same way about theatre (which is my other field of study). Sure Shakespeare can be entertaining, but to some people it is the end all and be all of theatre. Some will argue that he was the most prolific and popular playwright of his time. Well if that is how we judge great past works, then the movie franchises Transformers and Twilight will be held to be the high art of the early 21st Century? I hope not.

Back to Leo. I will give him the fact that he is quite the drafts man. As a artist, I wish my drawings were quite as detailed. Like me Leonardo had many interests, and seems hard a hard time focusing just on one. Was he the best artist ever? That is debatable, but one this is sure, if you love art, spend more time looking at everything the museum you are in has to offer, you might discover pieces you like more than those you are told you are supposed to like, and bypass all others to see.

Public Monuments

During the Quattrocento (or 15th Century), the de’Medici family grew in importance. So did the role of “public art” and monuments that were meant to solidify the importance of Florence as the “new Rome” of the Renaissance. 

When Cosimo de’Medici commissioned Filippo Brunelleschi to finish the dome of the Florence Cathedral (top photo above), he wanted to make a statement. His statement was that his family had the power and money to finish the largest dome in Europe. That it was his architect that could finish the project that no one else could finish. It was his patronage of this dome that would put his family and his city on the map.

Public monuments throughout history have been an important way for the ruling class to show it’s power and wealth, and for a city or state to show itself as cultured, advanced, and powerful. Ancient Egyptians build monuments on some of the grandest scale ever scene with the Pyramids at Giza.

Even today cities try to get noticed through the building of monuments and art. Two modern examples close to home are Daniel Libeskind “Crystal” for the Royal Ontario Museum (bottom picture above), and the sculpture “Cloud Gate” by Anish Kapoor, in Chicago.

Both of these cities have recently gone through a period of “monument” building and filling their cities with art. Both in attempts to put themselves on the map as cities of culture and of the future.

Daniel Libeskind “Crystals” are meant to modernize the very “period” Royal Ontario Museum building. It was commissioned with a thirty-million dollar donation by billionaire Michael Lee-Chin, whose name it now bares. Though the style was controversial, putting such modern “crystals” on the very traditional R.O.M. building. It was thought however that it would help put both the museum, and the city on the map.

Chicago is an other city which seems to love public art. There is a public Picasso statue, the “bean”, and the new statue of Marilyn Monroe. All of these very public pieces of art are meant to cement Chicago as a city of culture, and modernity. Much in the way the dome of Florence was meant to make it known that it was the new power in the world.

These are just two modern examples of how public art or monuments are still used today to by either patrons and or governments to make a statement about things. Much like the aristocracy of the Renaissance, todays rich donate money to have their names live on through art and monuments. In turn the cities and institutions like Quattrocento Florence and it’s cathedral benefit from having new construction, and attract new visitors. The people of the cities can boast of the marvels of their home, and the innovation of the people who live there.

Patrons, Collectors and Cash oh My!

One of the most important relationship an artist can have is with a patron of some kind. Though the nature of patron/artist relationships have changed over the centuries, it still is an important one.

During the Renaissance, art depended solely on patrons to be made. Those patrons could be a person, the church, or a guild or organization. These patrons would commission a workshop to produce a piece of art. In Florence many pieces during the Quatroncento (14th century) were commissioned by the Medici family. 

Under the control of Cosimo de’ Medici, his family rose to power and used it’s vast wealth to commission what are now some of the most famous pieces of art, and forever changed the face of Florence.

This relationship allowed many workshops and artists in them to produce  vast amounts of art. By also having a “forward” thinking patron allowed many of these artists and artisans to push the boundaries of art beyond what had been socially acceptable during previous times. 

This part of the relationship is crucial. Because art for this particular patron started to become a symbol of wealth and status, as well as taste, Cosimo de’Medici pushed the workshops and their masters to produce art no one else had.

In some ways this relationship still holds true today. For many up-and-coming artists, having a patron with financial means can make a huge difference, if they are willing to take a chance on them.

Though there are still private commissions to this day, patronage now takes form more in either the willing to represent an artist (such as a gallery), or someone willing to subsidize a gallery show for a certain artist, furthering their exposure.

Today the word patron is mostly reserved for those donating money or art to institutional art galleries (such as the Guggenheim foundation). The term “collector” is more often used for those who purchase art. However I would argue that the function of a collector and a patron of the Quatrocento are not that different. 

Perhaps more that in any other time since the Renaissance this relationship is returning. If one was to look at the rise in fame and popularity of Andy Warhol, we could see how rich, and famous patrons gave rise to the popularity and value of his art. Warhol became a very wealthy artist during his lifetime. Many celebrities and rich socialites got him to paint portraits of them, many of which have become famous, and very valuable. These famous patrons and hangers on gave the Warhol name so much cachet that he was able to then make reproductions of his work that the masses wanted to buy.

This is not so different to the patronage of Florence workshops by the de’Medici’s. Their patronage of certain workshops gave not only work, but cachet to those workshops. To play “keep up with the de’Medici’s”, people would then flock to those approved “workshops” and order their own art, perhaps done by assistant at a lower cost, but it would still be a “Brunelleschi”. In modern times people would by a silkscreen made in Warhol’s factory, but they could still call it a “Warhol”.