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Left: Tattered battle flag of the 4^th Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops- part of the ‘Divided Voices’ exhibition. artes fine arts magazine

A Prelude

On September 17, 1862, the armies of Lee and McClellan collided along the Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland. In the brutal fight that followed, 25,000 soldiers were killed or wounded—the largest number of casualties in a single day in the history of American arms. The day after the battle ended, Mathew Brady ushered in a new era in photojournalism, sending two of his photographers, Alexander Gardner and James F. Gibson, to document the battlefield strewn with the bodies of the dead “so covered with dust, torn, crushed and trampled that they resembled clods of earth and you were obliged to look twice before recognizing them as human beings.”

Portable photo field studio, complete with darkroom and head-braced chair (see detail in Figure #1, below.).

That October, Brady opened an exhibition titled “The Dead of Antietam” at his New York gallery. Before descending to sentimental platitudes (“that crown which only heroes and martyrs are permitted to wear”), The New-York Times reported that “Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war. If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our dooryard, and along the streets, he has done something very like it.” [FIGURE 1 HERE]

As visitors approach the Divided Voices exhibition, they encounter a display of period photography and photographic practice that foreshadows key themes of the exhibition: the critical position of border-state Maryland; the divisiveness that pitted neighbor against neighbor; the transformation of war’s romance and glory into horror and revulsion. Photography also establishes the exhibition’s design ethos and ambience: large photomurals in grainy grays, set off with vivid red, inflect the exhibition, evoking the war’s fog and fire, smoke and blood.

An Overview

'Divided Voices' floor plan. Fig.#2, below. Click to enlarge

Divided Voices occupies a large (4,000 s.f.) gallery. The exhibition is shaped like a large doughnut (see the accompanying floor plan), with an enormous glass case at its center, photomurals on the peripheral wall, and pylons, vitrines, and reader rails animating the landscape between the glassed-in core and the periphery. Visitors follow a linear, counter-clockwise path, returning at the conclusion to their starting point. [FLOORPLAN HERE]

Lincoln’s 1860 election generated fears for “the safety of the Union” Fig. #3, below.

The exhibition opens with a sweeping statement by Stephen A. Douglas (1854): “We are a people for Freedom and a people for Slavery. Between the two, conflict is inevitable.” The first section of the exhibition, “A Long Road to War,” exemplifies white people’s ambivalence about slavery in Maryland. Slavery persisted in some areas, but Maryland also had the largest free African American population in any slaveholding state. In fact, African American Marylanders were almost equally divided between slaves and freedmen, and Baltimore had the largest number of free blacks of any American city. The complexities of race in 1860 Maryland are briefly noted in a single large panel at the start of the exhibition: “Slavery and African American life in Maryland was as diverse as the state’s landscapes and cultures.” [FIGURE 3 HERE]

An April 1861 Baltimore riot caused first casualties of war. Fig.#4, below.

 The presidential race of 1860 and the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate, precipitated the secession of southern states. Maryland, like the other border states of Kentucky and Missouri, adhered shakily to the Union, but conflict among Marylanders intensified. The second major section of the exhibition, Divided Loyalties, shows how deeply these divisions ran, leading to riots in Baltimore in April 1861 and disruption of a critical railroad junction just 50 miles from the Federal capital. Imposition of martial law by Federal forces followed promptly (and in Baltimore lasted for the duration of the war). Here, too, contradictions abound: Baltimore Mayor George William Brown, a Southern sympathizer, vainly tried to prevent attacks on Union volunteers passing through the city, while Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks, a staunch Unionist, was himself a slaveholder. [FIGURE 4 HERE]

Zouave jackets, popular in pre-war women’s costume and related military uniform. Fig. #5, below.

In the months after Lincoln’s inauguration, thousands of Maryland men flocked to the Union and Confederate colors, anticipating a brief, heroic conflict. The romance of war faded in the face of its brutal reality. The third major section of the exhibition, “Spontaneous Combustion,” traces the process of disillusionment and describes the actual conditions of war. An exhibit on camp life stresses war’s tedium (“then drill, then drill again”), while displays on battlefield tactics, medical care, imprisonment, and mourning underscore its horrors. A torn jacket worn by Major Richard Snowden Andrews, a Maryland volunteer in the Confederate Army, exemplifies the violence of battle: the lower portion of the jacket was ripped open by an explosion; its bent buttons show the impact on Andrews’ body. Astonishingly, Andrews survived his gruesome wound, though he wore a metal plate over his abdomen for the rest of his life. As Anne Schaeffer of Frederick, Maryland, observed, “So much trouble, expense and suffering to maim and murder each other.” [FIGURE 5 HERE]

African Americans at war: USCT battle flag and a Medal of Honor winner. Fig.#6, below.

The exhibition also presents the wartime experiences of sympathizers and supporters on both sides of the conflict, especially those of women. As one Maryland woman remarked, “Never again during our lives can such opportunities for noble deeds present themselves for women.” In addition to supporting their sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers, women served as spies and nurses, raised funds for relief, sewed banners and flags. One of the many striking objects on display is a magnificent, hand-painted battle flag presented to the “4th Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops by the Colored Ladies of Baltimore.” Clara Barton and Harriet Tubman were among the Maryland women whose wartime efforts are well known, but many less-famous others, like Maria C. Hall, could look back at their wartime service with satisfaction: “I mark my Hospital days as my happiest ones.”[FIGURE 13 HERE]

The concluding area of the exhibition, The Long Reunion, recalls the aftermath of the war. Veterans’ organizations, reunions, and encampments perpetuated wartime camaraderie. Maryland Confederates far outpaced their Union counterparts in creating memorials and monuments and in publishing memoirs and histories. In effect, having lost the war, the Confederate veterans “won the peace.” As a result, the Lost Cause and the role of Marylanders in service to the Confederacy were greatly embellished. Moreover, the disaffection of Union and Confederate veterans persisted for generations after the war. Despite the overarching quote in this area (“War does not determine who is right—only who is left.”) and despite a few exceptional friendships among former enemies, the veterans “have never mixed in any manner with the other side—have no joint reunions, no joint banquets, no decoration or memorial days in common,” according to William H. Pope, Superintendent of the Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers home (1893).

Some Highlights

Divided Voices is notably successful in major ways. First, the exhibition considers a broad range of topics. The recruitment and performance of African Americans in the U.S. Colored Troops is a subject that is too little known; in this project, black soldiers are given legitimate recognition. The home front, and the roles of women in particular, are moved into the foreground, rather than being treated as an afterthought. It was unexpected in this context to find glass breast shields used by nursing women paired with a chemise with nursing slits to allow for breast feeding. Technology is given its due, both in relation to the significance of railroads and evolving weaponry, especially the remarkably destructive Minié ball. The sheer terror of battle and the horrors of maimed and slaughtered men are treated here in a compelling way.

Embedded in the exhibition are profiles of more than 30 Marylanders—black and white, notorious and unknown. Their “voices” help to personalize the issues, while providing a variety of perspectives on key events and movements. The narrative is also dramatized for visitors by two costumed living history actors representing a sergeant in the U.S. Colored Troops and the actor-assassin John Wilkes Booth; the two alternate in providing in-gallery monologues, followed by Q&A and gallery tours. Though the living history presentations are offered on a limited schedule, they are engrossing, informative, and, judging from observation of four groups of visitors, highly effective.

The “vacant chair,” abiding symbol of wartime loss. Fig.#7, below.

The real stars of Divided Voices, however, are the extraordinary array of Civil War memorabilia, much of it from the Society’s own outstanding collections. The rarity, richness, and significance of these collections are astonishing. Notable objects range from a pike used in John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, to a single home-made sock worn by an ordinary Confederate soldier, to a “Vacant Chair” used in veterans’ ceremonies to honor those killed in the war. [FIGURE 6 HERE]

The exhibition narrative is substantiated, indeed driven, by its array of objects. In addition to the above exemplary items, Divided Voices displays a 34-star U.S. flag hung by a Lincoln supporter to celebrate his election in 1860; an apron made to resemble a Confederate flag created by a Rebel sympathizer; linen and leather haversacks and a bottle of Walnut Catsup; a mourning dress from Baltimore; a naval officer’s frock coat worn by Confederate Admiral Franklin Buchanan; and a Civil War surgeon’s kit of gleaming knives and saws, frightening in this context. The concluding section of the exhibition features two imposing and unusual objects–a large wooden cabinet that housed the “Records of the Army and Navy of the Confederate States in the State of Maryland,” displayed side-by-side with an analogous chest-on-stand from the Union Club of Baltimore (1863-1872).

Bucolic painting of Harper’s Ferry with memorabilia of John Brown’s raid. Fig.#8, below.

The objects and images are artfully displayed. At the opening of the exhibition, for example, visitors are confronted with a large, idyllic painting of Harper’s Ferry by Augustus C. Weidenbach (1863). The peaceful scene is powerfully juxtaposed with objects, images, and interpretive text that present John Brown’s violent attack on Harper’s Ferry and his subsequent execution. Brown’s abortive raid was launched from a Maryland farm and, as it happens, a Maryland militia unit were the first responders. Another artful juxtaposition is found in the exhibit on prisoners of war. A photo mural depicting a skeletal prisoner serves as backdrop for a wooden rosary, charms, bracelets, and rings carved by Confederate prisoners at Point Lookout Prison. The contrast in tone, scale, and materials is striking—and memorable. [FIGURE 2 HERE]

Other objects of folk art embellish the exhibition. The final object encountered by visitors is a shadow-box titled “Antietam National Cemetery Memorial” which was created in 1886 by John Philemon Smith, who, as a seventeen-year old, had witnessed the Battle of Antietam. This assemblage includes a list of Union soldiers who died in the battle, together with hundreds of souvenirs gathered on the battlefield. The centerpiece is a miniature replica of the Private Soldier Monument, placed at the cemetery in 1880. The effect is touching.

Quotes, photomurals, objects, and casework create a powerful effect. Fig.#9, below.

The exhibition’s clean layout and design are effective in showcasing the artifacts and in conveying the overall narrative. The enormous, room-size glass case in the center displays costume and related objects representative of the battlefield and the home front. Surrounding the central glass case are large photomurals, oversize quotes in first-person voice, free-standing reader rails, and casework displaying a wide range of military memorabilia. The graphics and quotes are well-chosen and well-executed, and the lighting and casework show off the objects and texts to great advantage. The exhibition and graphic design encourage close attention and somber reflection.[FIGURE 11 HERE]

The exhibition does have minor flaws, of course. The small size of some captions and tertiary texts makes them hard to read. The interpretive copy—main and secondary panel texts—are generally short and to the point, but some texts are choppy, assemblies of simple declarative sentences presumably written that way for accessibility. These could—and should–have been crafted as cohesive paragraphs. Here is one instance where a sharp editorial eye was needed:

“To Care for Him who shall have borne the battle”

Civil War medicine is often viewed as primitive. The source of infectious diseases had not yet been discovered and antibiotics did not exist. The truth is thousands of compassionate civilians and military men stepped up to make a terrible situation better. Anesthesia was commonly used and amputations were the best way to save lives. . . .

Here, meaning and clarity fall victim to compression, omission of contextual information and rigid sentence structure. Were amputations the “best way to save lives” from infectious diseases because “antibiotics did not exist?” Alternative phrasing such as, “Anesthesia was commonly used to provide relief, while amputation of shattered limbs saved thousands of lives,” might have resolved the mystery.

Interpretive Issues

But these minor defects in execution are not the primary concern: larger and more substantial issues color and distort Divided Voices. The first of these is the exaggeration of Marylanders’ role in Confederate service. The main text panel introducing the area devoted to battlefield combat baldly states that “Maryland sent 20,000 young men south and 60,000 more to Union regiments,” clearly signaling that three Marylanders served on the Union side for every man who served with the Confederacy. Although recent scholarship puts estimates of Maryland enlistments on both sides at a much lower level, they do agree that the ratio of Union to Confederate enlistments was three-to-one. In short, among Maryland men who served, a preponderance supported the Union cause, not the cause of secession and slavery.

However, the composition of exhibition elements would suggest exactly the opposite. Among white soldiers from Maryland profiled in the array of brief biographies, only one was a Union soldier, while seven are Maryland men who fought for the Confederacy, an imbalance only slightly offset by profiles of three African American soldiers in Union service. Similarly, Confederate sympathizers who are profiled outnumber those who were Union sympathizers.

Haversacks, tinware, and other ordinary objects of everyday life in the army. Fig#10. below.

The disparity is even more pronounced in terms of visitors’ experience of the exhibition and understanding of the story in the objects selected for display. Here large-scale Confederate items overwhelm their Union counterparts. From an experiential point of view, the objects far outweigh the interpretive texts. Any unwary visitor or, for that matter, any visitor who failed to read or remember the opening line of that one text panel would leave Divided Voices believing that Marylanders, certainly white Marylanders, mostly fought on the Rebel side. Southern sentiment was strong in Maryland (which had voted overwhelmingly Democratic in the presidential election of 1860), and especially in Baltimore and Southern Maryland. But it was nonetheless outweighed by sympathy, support, and service for the Union, among both white and black Marylanders. [FIGURE 10 HERE]

How did this misleading interpretation come about? For one thing, Confederate veterans and sympathizers were assiduous in preserving the memory of “the Lost Cause.” In their version of history, heroic Southerners led by dashing cavaliers and doughty sea dogs were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and industrial strength of the North, hell-bent on destroying an idyllic agrarian culture which sought only to maintain its traditional institutions and ancient liberties. Invested in the past, those on the losing side glorified their efforts in an unequal struggle, relegating their Union opponents to roles as ciphers in mass formations led by blood-thirsty mediocrities. This mythic re-telling of “the War between the States”—the name itself a key element of the myth–was embodied and sanctified in monuments, memorials, and a vast literature that far outweighed those of the Unionists. The exhibition text is rife with ‘Lost Cause’ language:

“An isolated, rural South was strangled and overwhelmed by an industrial North. Manufacturing and manpower won the war.”

“Maryland raider Harry Gilmore epitomized the danger and romance of . . . hit and run cavalry tactics.”

“The embodiment of the Southern cavalier . ..”

And so on.

More fundamentally, Divided Voices, despite welcome attention to the role of African Americans in the Union forces, has mostly passed over the core issues of slavery and racism. In fairness, two large panels near the exhibition opening do touch briefly on slavery in Maryland and the efforts of Maryland slaves to secure their liberty by service in the Union cause. These, however, are compromised. The concluding sentence of the main text dealing with slavery reads: “Collectively, most slave owners viewed abolitionism and the Republican Party as a [sic] threat to their wealth, culture and political influence.”

This critical interpretive text fails to represent the views of the slaves; instead, the view of slavery presented here is that of the white masters. As if to underscore this problem, the caption of an image on the same panel (in much smaller point size than the main text) reads in part: “Free African Americans and slaves . . . saw the war as an opportunity to strike a blow against the institution of slavery. Resistance increased significantly during the war, and Maryland slaves took advantage of the turmoil by fleeing to the Union Army, to the North, or free black communities in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.” In 1860, Maryland blacks were not divided on the abolition of slavery, and blacks constituted 100% of those enslaved. Surely their “voices” should be the ones we hear first on the subject, rather than those of the minority of slave owners.

Notwithstanding other texts that evoke black Marylanders’ yearning for freedom—most notably the text panel titled “He Will Fight” and a second panel devoted to an African American celebration of the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment (1870)—there is a conspicuous silence in this exhibition on what would seem to be an important theme: the impact of the war on black Marylanders, slave and free alike. The emancipation of Maryland slaves through ratification of a state constitutional amendment in November 1864, the first such emancipation among the loyal, slave-owning Border States and arguably the most consequential “impact” of the Civil War on the State, is noted flatly in a single sentence at the end of the text panel “He Will Fight’: “Maryland abolished slavery in November 1864.” (A second, elliptical reference to the abolition of slavery in Maryland is found in the panel on the Fifteenth Amendment—“Six years after Maryland freed its slaves . . .”)

It might be argued that the long and complicated story of Maryland emancipation is unsuited to interpretation in an exhibition and that the exhibition focuses primarily on the military conflict and its repercussions, but the primal issue of slavery is invoked from the exhibition’s opening panel (and in the first sentences of the Society’s exhibition publicity). And rightly so, since the abolition of slavery in Maryland is as direct a consequence of the Civil War as the casualties of its many battles.

Of course, the struggle for emancipation preceded the war. But over the four years of brutal, bloody war, the conviction grew that Union victory must bring with it the death of slavery. This feeling established itself not only in President Lincoln, his cabinet, and Congressional leaders, but also among the hearts and minds of the rank-and-file of the Union army. The ratification of the constitutional amendment emancipating Maryland’s slaves in November 1864 was due to the votes cast by the state’s white Union soldiers. In his magisterial study, The Battle Cry of Freedom, James M. McPherson notes that “the men in blue also decided the outcome in several congressional districts, and the votes of Maryland soldiers for a state constitutional amendment abolishing slavery more than offset the slight majority of the home vote against it.” So, if the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 is worthy of note, how much more so the destruction of Maryland slavery. Yet the voices of slaves and freedmen on this decisive issue are muted.

The silence echoes, most obviously because of the Maryland Historical Society’s sponsorship of Fred Wilson’s landmark exhibition, Mining the Museum, in 1993. As Judith E. Stein reflects in Sins of Omission (Art in America, October 1993), Mining the Museum used the Society’s artifacts “to raise our awareness of institutionalized racism, making visible the subtle and insidious ways these attitudes affect the decisions museums make about what to collect and how to display it.” But Wilson had another, more positive point to make as well: African American history is American history (and all Americans should know and understand that history).

After nearly two decades of progress in acknowledging the centrality of the African American experience in Maryland, the Society seems to have taken a pause in Divided Voices, and this has skewed its curatorial emphasis and the interpretive focus of the exhibition. If the Society had, perfectly legitimately, chosen to restrict its narrative to the experiences of those who fought and died, I would raise no objection. But instead, the Society has chosen to open up the subject—the Civil War in Maryland–and then not followed through as effectively as it could.

Neither the 1864 Maryland Constitution nor the Civil War itself brought an end to racism. Neither transformed the ingrained attitudes of the white majority or the awareness of those attitudes by the black minority. Decades of segregation, discrimination, and injustice followed the war and remain among the state’s legacies of slavery and racism. But the Civil War did have a profound and lasting impact in Maryland: it freed nearly 90,000 enslaved people and put an end to efforts to legally re-enslave 90,000 free blacks.

In Adam Goodheart’s new book, 1861. The Civil War Awakening, he quotes a July 1861 colloquy between the Unionist author Nathaniel Parker Willis and an elderly black slave at Arlington House, newly evacuated by Robert E. Lee and his family and now occupied by Federal troops.

Willis: “Well, uncle, what do you think of the war?”

Slave: “Well, massa, it’s all about things we’ve been so long a putting up with.”

One hundred and fifty years of “putting up” still stand between us and the Civil War, but we can see that, here in Maryland, the Civil War was a milestone on the long, challenging road to a more just and equal society. With some modest revisions, Divided Voices can provide an even more insightful, meaningful narrative for contemporary visitors, white and black alike, for the duration of the Sesquicentennial.

By Avi Y. Decter, Contributing Writer

Avi Decter is executive director of the Jewish Museum of Maryland, in Baltimore

Exhibit now at the Maryland Historical Society www.mdhs.org

April 2011 through Spring 2015 (with annual updates)

Main Gallery: 4,000 s.f.; Introduction Area: 950 s.f.

Curators: Burton Kumerow, Alexandra Deutsch, Heather Haggstrom, and Iris America Bierlein

Exhibition Design: Charles Mack Design

Graphic Design: PJ Bogert Graphic Design

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Figure Notes:

 Figure 1. A display of photography equipment and photographic practice, c. 1860-65, introduces visitors to the first war in which photojournalism played a major role—bringing in the carnage of battle home to the public.

 Figure 2. Floor Plan. As this floor plan indicates, Divided Voices is laid out in a linear fashion with a room-size glass case at its center. Visitors follow a counter-clockwise path through the narrative, concluding their journey back at the entrance to the exhibition gallery.

 Figure 3.Lincoln won less than 3% of theMaryland vote in the 1860 presidential elections.Lincoln’s victory precipitated a secession movement across the Lower South, raising fears for “the safety of theUnion” among border state residents.

 Figure 4. The Pratt Street Riot in April 1861, in which Southern sympathizers attacked troops traveling to Washington in support of the Lincoln administration, led to the imposition of martial law in Baltimore for nearly four years.

Figure 5. The exotic Zouave jackets worn by several regiments of Union soldiers (right) had come into women’s fashion even before the war began as seen in the woman’s dress with Zouave jacket to the left.  A remarkable display of Civil War-era costume is presented in this central glass case. The mannequin on the left reveals the underpinnings of fashionable costume, including the use of “pockets” that were worn under the wearer’s skirt

 Figure 6. One of the most compelling objects on view is this tattered battle flag of the 4^th Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops, juxtaposed with a portrait of Medal of Honor winner Christian Fleetwood.

 Figure 7. The “vacant chair” became an abiding symbol of loss. BothUnion and Confederate veterans set out empty chairs at gatherings in remembrance of lost comrades.

 Figure 8. A large, bucolic oil painting of Harper’s Ferry by Augustus C. Weidenbach (1863) dominates the opening of Divided Voices. The painting serves as backdrop for weapons and other memorabilia associated with John Brown’s polarizing raid.

 Figure 9. The interplay of quotes, photomurals, objects, and casework in Divided Voices create a powerful effect. Note the canvas litter used to carry the wounded from the field of battle.

 Figure 10. The accoutrements of everyday life in the army are effectively set off against the photo mural in the background. Note the haversacks at center right and a bottle of walnut catsup at the far left.

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Left: Chris Antemann (detail), A Tea Party (2010), porcelain, decals, luster. Kamm Teapot Foundation Collection. artes fine arts magazine

Fuller Crafts Museum, Brockton, MA

When figurines succeed in pushing the envelope of our assumptions, they do so because the radical social narrative staked out by much of today’s contemporary art has not typically considered the artist working in clay, particularly on a diminutive scale. But, this exhibit challenges that premise, doing so in ways that open doors for a powerful body of work from figurative artists working in the ceramic medium. According to Gail Brown, with a long history of curating in the crafts world, “the work of these contemporary artists features diverse ideas, arresting forms, and provocative subjects [which] illustrate the continually-evolving tradition of figurative ceramics. These monumental and meaningful statements in small formats hold a fascinating disproportionate power—adding dramatic resonance and a sense of intimate communication.”

Ronna Neuenschwander, an artist exhibiting in the show (below, left), provides a prospective on mankind’s long-standing fascination with the creation of figurative talismans: “Humans have had the urge to create and possess figurines since prehistoric times. The Venus of Hohls Fels, the first of the venus figurines was made approximately 40,000 years ago, and is the oldest example of figurative prehistoric art. This figure was presumed to be an amulet related to sexuality and fertility. Likewise, the Venus of Willendorf, created in 22,000 BCE holds a power mysterious and intriguing. It is believed that people created and carried or wore figurines to give protection or the powers they desired. The attraction of figurines then and now tends to be one of identifying with certain attributes one wants to acquire. Today we create and collect these figurines to identify with their qualities- be they elite, genteel and refined, or exotic and provocative-they are powerful and desirable. By taking the gamut of these images, and disassembling them, we may get a fresh look at who we are and what we yearn to be.”

Left: (far) Ronna Neuenschwander, Breaking  the Mold I (2011), ceramic mosaic, grout. Courtesy of the artist; (near) Venus of Willendorf (24-22,000 BCE, stone. Collection Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Inspired by the past, yet distanced from it, Fresh Figurines is redolent with contemporary political and popular cultural messaging, intent on recasting gender roles, social mores and self image; re-worked with a generous infusion of traditional glazes, eerily-familiar motifs (for those of us who remember that knick-knack shelf of our childhood) and re-appropriated classical themes. Curator, Brown, makes the point in her overview of the exhibition that, “Throughout history, small-scale, self-contained article endure: from artifacts, effigies and tomb objects to exquisitely-crafted handmade figures and scenarios referencing life style and social mores, the pop culture of the day and the celebration of tribal figures, in situ. From European porcelain houses, Chinese export porcelain, and English folk ceramics, to the glut of manufactured collectibles with retail goals focused on the mantle piece and, since the days of the Grand Tour, the unrelenting, international plethora of tawdry and ubiquitous tourist souvenirs, figurines reign. The presence and persistence of these formats—from objet d’art to the commodities of the day—inspire and/or provoke.”

In its historical context, the name ‘china’ is a direct reference to the origins of porcelain in China over 3000 years ago. In the seventeenth century, trading routes were established between the Far East and Europe introducing this refined and translucent ceramic to a new continent.

The Painting Room, Meissen Factory, ca. late 19th C.

Europeans were fascinated by the beauty and mystery of porcelain. The tremendous demand for porcelain as well as the inherent difficulty in transport inspired many Europeans to attempt to replicate its qualities. Unlike cruder forms of earthenware, porcelain is industrially made, specifically with the fine, white clay of decomposed granite rock. This white clay is what gives porcelain its beautiful translucency. It was not until 1709 that German chemist, Johann Friedrich Böttger, in collaboration with two other chemists, devised a formula for porcelain. The following year, production commenced in the small town of Dresden. The factory was later moved to the more metropolitan city of Meissen as insulation from the political turmoil that was taking place in the European countries, east of Germany.

In its first few decades, the Meissen factory manufactured mostly table service. It wasn’t until the late 1730′s that a talented young sculptor by the name of Johann Joachim Kändler created small figurines in porcelain. Soon, the entire royal court community had their likenesses reproduced as delicate figurines. For many generations to follow, these intricately-executed porcelain figures served as a principle main-stay for the original Meissen Company, inspiring many other manufacturers on the Continent and in England to follow suit.

Chris Antemann (detail), A Tea Party (2010), porcelain, decals, luster. Kamm Teapot Foundation Collection

Among the forty-two artists whose sculpture makes up the eye-opening Fresh Figurines exhibit, certain pieces garnered particular attention. The show’s pièce de résistance is a multi-figure work, clearly informed by the Meissen legacy: Chris Antemann’s A Tea Party. In a cleverly-conceived display of overstatement, a banquet table is heaped with confections of every imaginable variety. This is action-central for a gathering of naked men and barely-clothed, coquettish women, languishing over tea and titillation, reminiscent of the salacious dinner-seduction scene from ThomasFielding’s 1749 fictional narrative, Tom Jones. The drama and sexual energy being played out between party guests is skillfully captured by Antemann’s deft manipulation of clay at the subtlest level. The ‘fourth wall’ is clandestinely breached by an alluring seductress, who invites the viewer into the party. She sits astride her chair, semi-concealed from her naked courtier by a fan, making sly eye contact with museum-goers, as we vicariously—if only momentarily—become part of the festivities. The artist summarizes the work when he writes, “I am expanding upon my previous parodies of decorative figurines by delving into the darker side of relationships and domestic rites: twisted tales of master and servant, the innocence of the maid, the dominance of patriarchal desire. Tricked out in frilly camouflage, these characters disregard tradition, exposing society’s cistern of unmentionables.”

Pavel Amromin, The Photographer (2008), porcelain, glaze, underglaze, luster. Courtesy, the artist.

Another work that addresses the curatorial observation of “added drama and inverse power to the diminution of size by the material prowess, complexity of narrative, uninhibited natures and significant social comment,” is The Photographer, one of a series of works on display by Pavel Amromin. Benign-looking, floppy-eared domesticated creatures, depicted in soft, earth-tone pastel glaze, play out their small dramas on Baroque gold-trimmed stands, lush with delicate beds of grass and fanciful flowers. On closer examination, though, they are strangely hybridized human figures with dog-like heads, engaged in acts of atrocity and inhumanity. In one scene, a weapon-bearing creature, naked except for black combat boots, blithely photographs another naked, dead body—thoughtless and insensitive, perhaps; but symptomatic of our “war breaks out, details at 11!” cultural ethic.

For Amromin, the artist, “There is a long tradition in art, literature and film by which the act of war is venerated and integrated into the social fabric. Gore and terror of combat are transformed into a bittersweet adventure of shared courage, sacrifice and nobility. Chaos is turned into order and the senseless gains meaning. The same transformation occurs in the work, however while some things are sanitized and glazed over, some are left in plain sight. The figurine has long been an object representing the jubilant self-image of the patron. It asks: ‘Is this glory? Is this the dignity, purity and beauty of a soldier’s mission?’”

Cynthia Consentino, Virgin II (2011), commercial figurine, dolls legs, mixed media. Courtesy, the artist.

Fresh Figurines brings home the message of the sacred, as well as the profane. A piece by Cynthia Consentino offers a gently humanizing perspective on a familiar icon; although the artist expressed a concern at the show’s opening that it might offend some. Her Virgin II invites a reconsideration of the classic, prayerful pose of Mary, mother of the Christ Child, with parting blue robes and oversized legs in plain view. This theantropic interpretation is designed to shed light on our humanity, as well as on the subject, herself. It calls the question of idealizing our New Testament heroine and invites a more immediate (and perhaps genuine) connection to universal motherhood—someone without the trappings of myth, and capable of ‘standing on her own two feet.’

Consentino notes, “Virgin II is part of a new series of sculptures incorporating commercial figurines with sculpted parts. Taking the ubiquitous knick knack, or religious statue and altering it allows for new meaning and a broadened role for the familiar. Originally a white porcelain figurine (stopping below elbows) her lower body was sculpted and commercial doll legs were added to complete her figure. It is not meant to be irreverent but rather be a playful re-examination of an influential figure.”

Jeremy R. Brooks, Form-Form (2011), cast plaster, paint. Courtesy, the artist.

Equally as compelling as Virgin II, but for different reasons, is Jeremy Brooks’s Form-Form, an enigmatic work whose flowing organic, blue-gray painted form stands out in marked contrast to other more figurative pieces in the exhibit. Perhaps informed by Edward Tufte’s Negative Space studies or Rachael Whiteread’s 1993 groundbreaking, House, Form-Form explores a hidden construct that undergirds a familiar object: the space beneath a garden statue of Jesus. Denatured through transformation, this subtly-conceived form of rolling contours and intriguing shifts of light and dark becomes a discourse on one of many hidden structural underpinnings, forever unnoticed in our daily rituals (imagine: bridge girders beneath your commuter route; the shapes on the underside of your dining room table, the dank tunnel complex beneath a steam-emitting manhole cover).

Rachael Whiteread, House (1993), concrete.

Brooks challenges the viewer to find beauty in the mundane, in the same way that the visible Jesus that inspired his work—an iconic all-weather figure of Christian salvation—is slip-cast in Hydrocal and painted to achieve mimetic value as a model for beauty, truth and salvation. By virtue of its ubiquity, it then becomes a numbingly-familiar fixture in the landscape. What is hidden, and subsequently revealed, he believes, can also achieve renewed relevance and aesthetic appeal. He describes it this way: “Form-Form is a cast interior space of a slip-cast figurine (Jesus in the Garden). It testifies to a shifted use of material, form and concept. The work is categorized by a search for the tension that exists between an initial iconographic source […] and a related abstract form—the cast interior space of the figurine.”

Hide Sadohara, Untitled (2011), Recycled Stoneware. Courtesy, the artist.

Mortality may be the message of Hide Sadohara’s wall sculptures, Untitled: images of an aging Popeye and Olive Oyle, constructed of recycled stoneware. Reminiscent of animated cartoon shorts from the 1950s and 60s, we are asked to recall a pre-pubescent time when notions of immortality and invincibility went unexamined; a pre-politically correct period in our history when villains with black hats and curly mustaches could pummel the hero with impunity, only to then see him miraculously return to normal and save the girl! Sadohara stares into the faces of these mythic figures and imagines their humanity. No slick airbrush or forgiving artist’s hand here. In defiance of the once-heroic gods and goddesses of ancient Olympus, the tribulations of aging can be seen extracting a toll on our contemporary version of a muscle-bound, spinich-guzzling Zeus and demurring Aphrodite.

Abraham Lincoln said, “By age forty, you get the face you deserve.” For Sadohara’s once-ageless Popeye character, a hard life, fear and conflict—a roadmap of furrows, wrinkles and contorted features—seem writ large on the face of the figure. More a metaphor for the human condition than a caricature, Sadohara’s work reminds the viewer (who is compelled to make eye contact because of the way the piece is hung), that Popeye (and Olive, also on display) may have been heroes for another, simpler time; and that for each of us, the passage of time brings us closer to confronting our own frailties and demise. As the artist describes it, “My intention for this particular piece is to provoke the sense of irony by making them life size, especially when the (invited) artists were asked to execute their work within the context of the figurine format/size. I also decided to finish my work with the realistic rendition of the human anatomy. There is something unnerving about seeing cartoon characters brought to life when those same features are stuck on the face of a realistic depiction of that character.”

Paul Delaroche, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1833), o/c. National Gallery, London.

I am reminded of Paul Delaroche’s monumental 1833 narrative painting, The Execution of Lady Jane Gray—a poignant study of adolescent innocence and courage in the face of royal predatory ambition—when I view Jessica Stoller’s Untitled, in the exhibit. For generations of National Gallery visitors, the work has served as reminder of the expendable role of women at the dawn of an age when enlightened thinking would not-quite-soon-enough redefine gender and social roles, as Western Europe inched toward modernism. Stoller evokes tales of risk and mortality linked to beauty and social station in her figurative representation of a severed head resting beneath the frivolous adornments of privilege. Vibrant and attractive women gone missing, later to be found dead and dismembered, could be story ripped from today’s headlines, and then rendered here in clay.

Jessica Stoller, Untitled (2010), porcelain, china paint, luster. Courtesy, the artist.

And so, Stoller applies the modeling techniques of another, more romantic era, to weave a tale of death and perverted ambition, proffering a dose of irony in the process. Deceptively charming and initially perplexing, it is only with more careful study of the piece does the realization dawn that something is amiss here.

Stoller’s oeuvre, as she describes it (only one piece appeared in Fresh Figurines), would likely resonate with the London crowds often found studying Delaroche’s Jane Gray—a painting with appeal to generations of museum-goers—as a study in the fine line between virtuous innocence and feminine ambition, power and its perversion. As she puts it, “The figures in my work range from Rococo nobility and adolescent girls in petticoats and bows, to women evoking religious martyrs of the past. The notion of these collected objects as predominantly decorative, weak and inherently female are subverted as the figures depicted are purposely innocent and sexual, self-sacrificing and violent, powerful and unaware of the power they possess. Through figures with contorted facelifts, bound feet with miniature dimensions and oddities which inspire imitation and awe, I examine cultural ideas of perfected beauty and its relationship to the grotesque. Through seemingly benign in content and size, my figurines hint at an alternate world of intricate perversion.”

Linda Cordell, Jolie Laide Masquerade (2011), porcelain, bronze, foam. Courtesy, the artist.

With just a partial sampling of the wide variety of works on display at the Fuller Craft Museum’s Fresh Figurines reviewed here, it is well worth the trip to discover, in Gail Brown’s curated show, the enduring power of small-scale works to enthrall in the world where the focus is often on BIG. Figurative ceramics appeal, for reasons linked to our collective unconscious as a symbol-rich civilization, for their effigaic properties, their paired-association to childhood memories and comforting domiciles long-vanished, as well as to our instinctive propensity to collect. This last point ushers in a connection to the work in Fresh Figurines worth underscoring. With many of the companies producing figurines for decades, if not hundreds of years (i.e.-Meissen, Hummel, Nymphenburg, Della Robbia, Chinese traditional porcelain, to name a few), links to a contemporary audience are well-established and well-known. But, once again, these are not your grandmother’s porcelains.

While glazing and firing techniques have remained largely unchanged over the years, contemporary works imagined and executed by ceramicists are extending the boundaries of the art form to new frontiers. Politically and socially informed, technically agile and heaped with narrative purpose, today’s Fresh Figurines are not merely anchored in the past, but act as powerful and compelling messengers about a post-modern world-in-flux. I believe exhibiting artist, Linda Cordell (above left), summarizes the agenda of the contemporary ceramicist best when she says, “Figurines are social propaganda; carefully displayed vignettes announce beliefs, ideals and desires of the owners. The artifice of portraying an animal in an idealized setting defies our unease and contentious relationship with nature. The distortion and abstraction of the platform contrasts with the diminished masked object—nothing is what it seems.”

By Richard Friswell, Managing Editor

Fresh Figurines: A New Look at an Historic Art Form

Fuller Crafts Museum, Brockton, MA

Now through February 5, 2012

View their diverse collection and exhibition schedule at www.fullercraft.org

Lehmann-Made Tut-Tut, No 490 (1913). Coll. of L. J. Buehler, 1999. Gifted to Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, New Castle, PA

“Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man’s physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.” ~Charles Baudelaire

“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!” ~Charles Dickens

We may be shopping for the children in our lives, reminiscing about the holidays of our youth, or analyzing our portfolios, hoping that the decision to invest in Barbie instead of G.I. Joe this season turns out to have been the right one; whatever the case may be, whether or not they are a part of our daily lives, the December holiday season is upon us. This is the time of year when toys find themselves at center stage. artes fine arts magazine

Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, New Castle, PA

Amid parties featuring our finest china and specially prepared meals, adults understand the inherent significance of a holiday, religious or otherwise, knowing that the music, dishes, and décor are not the reasons for the celebration in and of themselves, but the expression of an historical tradition based on an event like the miracle of the oil or the birth of Jesus Christ. However, while children can be told the significance of a date on the calendar, they often cannot grasp its full meaning without something tangible to bridge the gap between mature comprehension and youthful naivety. Often, that something is a new or special toy, which stamps the occasion with the kind of wonder and delight that children then continue to associate with holidays throughout much, if not all, of their lives. In short, toys have always made the holidays special for children, and that simple fact is being recognized this season by The Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts in New Castle, Pennsylvania, as it warmly invites children and parents to come and enjoy a unique collection of antique toys which have been brought from their usual home in the Period House, Hoyt West, to the second floor of the Greek Revival style mansion known as Hoyt East, with plans to remain on display through the end of January.

Gifted by third generation furniture manufacturer, Louis J. Buehler, in 1999, just one year before he died, the Hoyt’s toy collection dates from the early 1900’s. Buehler’s grandfather, Gottlieb, had been born in Germany in 1857 where he trained as a carpenter. He emigrated to the US in 1881, bringing his woodworking skills with him, eventually settling in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he built a prosperous career making furniture. Louis succeeded him in the family business.

Left: Loius Buehler (c), with father (l) and grandfather, Gottlieb (r). c. 1920

While Louis never married or had any children of his own, he obviously cherished his possessions because, while he was still alive, he gifted a few important pieces to his nieces and nephews only to have them sell the items, which disappointed Buehler enough that he decided to give his estate to museums. Having been involved with museums throughout his life, he understood their continuous need for money, so along with his childhood treasures, furniture and art, he included The Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts in a trust providing annual support for display of the collections.

Steiff bears, early 20th c.

Some of the most noteworthy items include at least 1000 small lead figures. Some of the figures are animals and many are people, some British, German, Japanese, and American. There is a variety of turn of the century wind ups, most of which are still in working order, and a collection of at least a dozen board games that are among the few items which are not often shown.

Regularly on display in the Period House is a collection of Little Folks magazines, an educational board, a homemade doll house, built by his father, and a model of Buehler’s own house, which he built himself as a child. There is a tin tea set, a viewfinder with several slides, loads of Matchbox cars, many still in the original boxes, and a number of Steiff pieces. The Steiff bears are protected by a glass case, and the smaller of the two is most unique, with a removable head that reveals a glass vile within the cavity of the bear’s body, meant to hold candy.

Lehmann Halloh Motorcycle (1908). A 'Gyro Action' tin toy.

The toys themselves speak volumes about the material culture of childhood, a trending theme in today’s fine art galleries. They also remind us of what was happening in the areas of art, industry, science, and social progress during a previous age. Significant changes were occurring in the world of art and design during Buehler’s childhood, including a reconsideration of who sets artistic standards, and how art should be shared with the public. He would have witnessed the industrialization of America, which provided much of the subject matter for the realist movement. It was a new era, one of mass production, and popular culture grew to be a profitable national product. Tickets for a twelve-day cruise could be purchased for roughly $60, and the Ziegfeld girls earned $75 per week (Whitley 2008).

It seems fitting for Buehler’s collection, which includes such a charming group of tin toys, to have made its home in New Castle, Pennsylvania, which was known as the tin plate capital of the world in the early 1900’s, boasting the largest tin plate mill in America at that time.

Production of tin toys began in the mid 1800’s as an inexpensive alternative to wooden toys. Initially they were hand painted, until a process known as “offset lithography” began being used to print designs on flat tinplate, which was then shaped using dies and assembled with tabs. Leading tin toy manufacturer Ernst Paul Lehmann, of Germany, produced original, high quality designs, but eventually their proliferation tapered off in the U.S., when American manufacturers like Louis Marx and Company, amid post-World War I anti-German sentiment, tapped into a newly discovered supply of tin ore in Illinois.

'My Friend' celluloid & metal swimming figure, Japan, 1930s.

Again, war had an impact on tin toys, when the need for raw materials during World War II, halted production altogether; afterwards, under the Marshall Plan, Japan took over “all of the low profit, high labor manufacturing and the U.S. companies could sell the imported tin toy product. It worked better than expected, and Japan became a tin toy manufacturing force until the end of the 1950’s…In the 1960’s, cheaper plastic and new government safety regulations ended the reign of tin toys” (Konter 2010).

Perhaps the most remarkable piece on display at the Hoyt is a 1908 Lehmann Halloh Motorcycle, a ‘Gyro-Action’ mechanical tin toy, featuring rubber-coated wheels and a young male rider, clad with tall red socks, white skull cap, and blue jacket. The piece is in excellent condition, valued at roughly $2,900.00, with working gears and minimal wear. Another notable tin toy, a 1913 Lehmann Tut Tut No. 490, wind-up automobile in very good condition, features a red German eagle on the side and a driver blowing a horn (see above). This piece would likely sell for about $700 at auction. Comparatively, a red Louis Marx & Co. No. 7 Coo Coo Car tin wind up in somewhat better condition is worth slightly less.

Jolly Jocko and Hiking Bear (c. 1930).

While some certainly do it for the money, according to toy expert Robert Skingle, of Skingle Antiques, many collectors enjoy antique toys for a combination of two other reasons–the nostalgic sentiment that they convey, and the artistic quality of the toys’ design, all the way down to the graphics on the original packaging. From Japan in the 1930’s, a blond-haired, blue-eyed My Friend clockwork celluloid-and-metal girl swimmer wears a red bathing suit, and rotates her arms in a freestyle swim stroke. Its original box, decorated with red seagulls flying above the ocean upon which a sailboat can be seen in the distance, and a swimmer who appears to be soaring with them, features the Kuramochi trademark, CK. The Hoyt takes great pride in having this rare childhood plaything, complete with the original box, among those on display.

Wind-up tin alligator with skirted rider, 1930s.

Among the most charismatic toys in the Hoyt’s collection is a 1930’s wind up tin toy tribal figure riding atop an alligator, complete with original string reins, putting its value at approximately $250. A variety of wind ups are covered with soft fur, including an endearing monkey called Jolly Jacko who gazes into a pink hand mirror while combing his hair. He is joined by Stinky the Skunk, who hops when wound, wearing around his neck the original red ribbon with comical tag that reads ‘Caution,’ and Hiking Bear, who carries a red walking stick and, naturally, hikes.

Home-made motor yacht, made by Buehler father & son, 1930s.

Three large and lovely painted wooden boats, despite being safely perched on wooden stands, appear as if they are ready to set sail down a small and winding creek in a young child’s back yard. A popular pastime, Buehler and his grandfather built their own working sailboats, some of which were motorized. The open deck of one boat in particular features exquisite detail, including eight portholes, a life buoy, three fabric flags, a red and white striped canopy with a blue party light suspended beneath it, movable search light and throttle, spinning metal propeller, and an anchor whose tiny chain slinks gracefully in and out of a hole in the bow. The boat is wired so that, at one time, the spot light and a light inside the cabin would illuminate.

Of all the toys in the collection, the board games suggest, most clearly, the daily thoughts, actions, and expectations of young children during the first half of the twentieth century.  Perhaps this is because they implicitly require the participation of more than one child, and therefore one can imagine the interaction–including bits of conversation and mannerisms–that certainly played out among the living, breathing members of an older generation when it was young. It could be that the games inspire an adult viewer’s imagination more so than the individual toys, which primarily elicit nostalgic sensations; this, presumably, would not be the case for young visitors of the Hoyt, who would, hypothetically, reach for the wind ups or boats first.

Gilbert Co., Electric Eye (1935), 'an electric marvel'

The selection of games includes The Standard Radio Game, King Kong Oriental Checkers by Sam Gabriel & Sons Co., NY, and All Star Comics Playing Card Game by King Features Syndicate, 1934. Two exceptionally interesting games in the collection are the 1935 Gilbert Electric Eye, and the Playbox. Best known, perhaps, for its Erector Sets, The Gilbert Company produced a variety of scientific toys that tell of the technology of the day. Called ‘an electric marvel,’ this photoelectric device was surely a thing of wonder for the few affluent young boys whose families could afford such a cutting-edge plaything. The detailed instruction manual accompanying the Electric Eye proclaims its ability to turn on lights and radios, operate a burglar alarm, start and stop electric trains, and ring the door bell—all from a distance.

Parents Assoc., Pleasant Hill, OH, The Playbox, early 1900s, taught manners and skills

The set requires batteries, including a 22 volt dry cell, and two ‘C’ cells in the Power Pack to operate the low voltage relay. The switch linking the low voltage (sensitive) relay and the operating (power) relay is a primitive form of amplification. The Electric Eye is just one of the Gilbert company’s many products that targeted, through focused advertising campaigns, young boys who dreamed of adult achievement (“My Experience…”). To today’s children, this game would still appear to be scientifically challenging, but to an adult, it is the equivalent of, perhaps, a rotary telephone.

The Playbox, an educational toy from the early 1900’s produced by the Parents Association in Pleasant Hill, Ohio, claims to teach and drill children on a long list of skills, both academic and social, including Arithmetic, Astronomy, Botany, Geography, Ambition, Good Manners, Self-Control, and Tidiness. The sturdy metal box houses nearly 80 individual game pieces, including dominoes, checkers, ten-pins, marbles, a jointed ruler, and four brightly colored metal Versatilla Men, above which is written, ‘A place for everything and everything in its place.’ The most endearing feature of the Playbox is the black-and-white photo on the inside of the lid wherein several children, wearing tall white socks and Mary Janes, play a game together with pieces set atop a chair on the rug in front of a fireplace.

That photo, while not related to the Buehler household, appears as if it could have been taken just down the hall from where these items are displayed; The Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts boasts a unique setting in which the period opulence and grandeur subtly blend with a sense of intimacy and comfort. This atmosphere somehow transcends the years which have passed since the mansion was occupied as a residence. So while the vintage toy collection displayed there may be received in different ways by children and adults, the glimpse into the past, through the lens of childhood trifles, is sure to engender pleasant feelings for all.

Above: The Buehler homestead (l) and a model of the house, built by Louis Buehler as a child (r), in the collection of the museum.

Certainly, those with an interest in vintage toys should plan to visit the Hoyt, where an impressive permanent art collection and variety of seasonal exhibits, as well as the beauty of the facility itself, make for a satisfying museum experience.

By Autumn Miller, Contributing Writer

Visit the Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts collection at www.hoytartcenter.org

___________________________________________

Works Cited:

Konter, Stanley. Tin Toy History. Retrieved Nov. 13, 2011 from VirtualBargains.com.

My Experience with Gilbert Science Sets. Lindy Week Review. Retrieved Nov. 13, 2011 from Jitterbuzz.com

Skingle, Robert. Telephone interview. 15 Nov. 2011.

Whitley, Peggy. ‘1910-1919.’ American Cultural History. Lone Star College-Kingwood Library, 1999. Web. 7 Feb. 2011.

Above: Louis Marx & Co. No.7 Coo Coo Car (c. 1920) 

The crowds at Comic Con `11

As a treat and a belated birthday present, I was fortunate enough to go to New York City Comic Con, one of the East Coast’s largest ‘popular culture’ events, including some of the best-known comic and graphic novel artists, and my favorite– anime and manga characters. The editor of ARTES e-magazine arranged press passes for the event for me and my parents (because I am under 18) and the first thing that stood out for me was how easy our access to the convention was. We had decided that it might be fun to use this opportunity to apply my writing skills to describe the event, becoming the youngest writer to contribute a feature story to the magazine. I was very excited about the possibilities to be at this amazing show and on my first official writing assignment, telling the story from a young-person’s perspective. artes fine arts magazine

Marel Comics' Super Hero Line-Up

My mother, father and I stepped from the subway and out onto the street, walking the four blustery blocks to the Javitz Center, on the city’s West Side. Once outside the building, we were immediately surrounded by a group of costumed, and delightfully geeky convention-goers. Some were just talking to their companions about comic book characters, many were in costume. Among the jovial, costumed pedestrians, one had a rubber snake wrapped around his chest and carried a yellow, construction paper fez. It was now ten a.m., and as we moved at a brisk pace to the main entrance, thanks to our press passes, people wielding megaphones and clad in lime green Comic-Con shirts directed us swiftly past a tight-packed line of people waiting to get in.  After registering and avoiding a half hour’s wait, we entered the main exhibition area, to discover that the size of the projected crowd was still manageable. By this time I was beaming from ear-to-ear, being a longtime lover of manga and anime (short for animation)—the American comics’ Japanese counterpart. Upon entry to the first big room, banners hung from overhead, and tables were loaded with Japanese merchandise. Some tables were edgy, like one that played eerie music and sold metal-studded everything.

That's me road testing an uber-cool Wacom tablet

Other tables were eye popping. One vended fluorescent cat ears, tails, and spiked, punk respirators that were props for cosplaying. Cosplaying is dressing up as a character from an anime or video game series. I loved pointing out to my parents my knowledge of anime characters. A lot of people cosplayed, even as American pop-culture characters. I couldn’t help hugging a few—like a person that cosplayed Jareth from Jim Henson’s movie Labyrinth.

Despite their being a lot of people zipping around, they were all very friendly. It was entertaining to hear them exclaim some of the same thoughts that I had been thinking to myself. If there ever was a term, “All geeks think alike” it would most definitely apply to this convention. There were people beta-testing the newest video games at desks lined with beautiful artwork, and people on a platform trying out the Lets Dance 3 game for the Wii .

Authentic, vintage Japanese hair pieces

Other electronics consisted of Wacom tablets where you draw on a track pad that was connected to a screen; or you could draw directly on a touch screen. While I was waiting to try out the touch screen, to compare it to my tablet at home, there was a lady that was drawing a character with expert strokes. We struck up a conversation and it turned out that she publishes a Internet comic. When I attempted to draw on the screen, I found it rather clumsy because it was an old model, but it also furthered my respect for the artist before me.

Prototypes of action figures in glass cases were swarmed with fans, and occasional uproars came from stages where they talked of video games and ‘fandom.’  The big thing for every vendor was Katanas – Japanese swords – that you could buy, along with other pointy ninja weapons. Unfortunately, you had to be eighteen to hold one, so I wasn’t allowed. Some stalls exhibited intricate action figures, imported games from Japan, and there was also shelf-upon-shelf of Manga.

Upstairs, after a quick lunch break at the cafeteria (where there was a lot of options for good food) we toured the main anime portion of the convention. This room was smaller, but wasn’t crowded and there was a lot more opportunity to talk to the artists.

Art by Zeiva

I was overjoyed to meet an artist that had been a longtime favorite of mine (username Zeiva) that I had followed on an art sharing website—Deviantart. She lives in California, but came to sell absolutely beautiful prints of her digital art. It was fabulous to talk to her about her art and she was very nice, and I couldn’t resist getting a couple of her gorgeous prints. I was star-struck to meet one of my idols. The tables on this higher level were mostly handmade craft artists, there was a lot of clay figures, stickers and buttons. One of the most reoccurring themes for pins were Hayao Miyazaki movies, such as Spirited Away, Doctor Who, Kingdom Hearts and oddly enough, the kid show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. This show, seemingly intended for young girls has earned itself a fan-base of much older viewers, mostly guys, but seems deserving of the vast variety of viewers. Internet centered video’s, called Memes, were also featured, such as Nyan Cat. Beyond these stalls was a big, open atrium with a fantastic view of the Hudson River, complete with food services and demos of card games. Cosplayers unwound at tables and there was a live show discussing various anime-related subjects.

art by Zeiva

Downstairs was another mammoth room, mostly featuring small comic book presses and reading areas. It was mainly focused around the drawn, American comics, which ranged from superhero to realistic dramas. This area connected to the first we had explored earlier in the morning. By this time, it was about three in the afternoon and the crowds were so dense, you had to plow through them, or possibly maneuver through them like a game of Tetris. My parents and I concurred that it was about time to leave, deeming that it was too busy to get anywhere. After soaking in all that I could, I knew it would be better to go, after enjoying myself to the fullest over those last hours. My experience was that it would be difficult to return to a stall later in the day because the isles became too dense with people. But, the turnout of all the fans and junkies was very good for these traveling artists who pay to have stalls and meet the spectacular people that popped up at this convention.

Whether you are a fan or not, this trade show is an amazing experience, and an experience you should have at least once in your life. Even after the convention, I have memories I will relish for years to come. Hope to see you at Comic Con 2012!

By Sasha Rubin, Contributing Student Writer

Vince Fraser. Bling Pop (2006-2007), digital print. Courtesy of the artist.

When I was about 12 years old looking through some Playboy magazines purloined from my father’s closet, I studied imagery that resembled some of the postmodern feminist works found in the Ringling Museum exhibition Beyond Bling: Voices of Hip-Hop in Art. What submerged in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s during hippie years, feminist years, and corporate power years has re-emerged here looking fresher than before the days of bra-burning and women wearing neck ties. A cluster of elderly women gazing at Mickalene Thomas’s work, Naughty Girls (Need Love, too), 2009, inquired, “How do you think she got into that pose and remained that way long enough for a photograph, much less a painting?” If you have to ask… fine arts magazine

Sofia Maldonado, Concrete Jungle Divas (2010), Gold dust, acrylic paint, urethane. 36 x 84” each. Courtesy: Magnan Metz Gallery, NY.

The artist Sofia Maldonado goes so seamlessly into her characters that their depiction is both objectified and personified. What was once dysfunctional and hidden from view is embraced here, examined, and brought to life in figures that jump off the picture plane and into your consciousness faster that you can say faux leopard bikini. The question becomes not, why are these pictures on the wall? But, what took them so long to get there? 

Matthew McLendon, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, has balanced as compellingly the male imagery in the exhibition narrative. African American male portraiture by Kehinde Wiley, (Simon Georgel, 2006), lavish machismo with its underlying nod to the down-low and in-your-face materialism, to the squeamishly accurate and meticulously rendered photography of Vince Fraser, (Bling Pop, 2006-2007, above), gathers fleeting and nostalgic notions into a collective of gender bending identity. Virile, sensate men may not have been driven as far underground as Playboy bunnies once were, but they have burst forth just as flagrantly. Perhaps it was when Sean Combs put his fist in the air wearing a Nike sweat suit on Times Square that we could no longer look away. 

Michael Anderson, Black Music vs. Helvetica (2009). Courtesy: Claire Oliver, NY

Beyond Bling comprises ten international artists’ works in paint, collage, and photographic mediums that bear witness to the gods and goddesses of ghetto fabulousness, Asian enclaves and Latino cultures. Integration into the cultural mainstream is now substituted as being the cultural mainstream. The imagery signals more than the fusion of High/Low Art envisioned by the late and brilliant MoMA curator Kirk Varnedoe; it goes past the de rigueur, pitch-perfect capture of cultural role models to encapsulate a contemporary compendium of what to wear on the red carpet. The cult of celebrity derived from pin-up princesses and princes may be the ultimate crossover anointing, but really the exhibition is non-tautalogical. It’s Why fight the feeling? First we have to go there – immerse, not step away – to evolve the dialogue as to where this moment takes us. 

Beyond Bling, a thoughtful installation in a museum known for its formidable Old Masters collection, (another assemblage of portraiture and mythologies, after all), imparts the power of Hip-Hop influenced art without intimidation. Once perceived as undermining or subversive, here the viewer revels in the art, an after effect of its displacement. The statement is, this is what it means to be alive in the multiplicity and diversity of the 21st century: Dr. McLendon made his opening remark simply: “This is the art of our time.” 

Gajin Fujita, Sky High (2007), Gold leaf, acrylic, spray paint, marker, Mean Streak on panel, Courtesy: LA Louver, Venice, CA

To mount an exhibition of art influenced by the street: graffiti –Gajin Fujita’s Sky High, where beauty and street script merge in Asian mural painting –skateboarding, break dancing, and the towering legacy of Hip-Hop – possibly the first return of linguistic concern concentrated in art since Beat poetry – means the walls are disappearing outside and the art, and the artists, are coming inside. (The extraordinarily resonant Sofia Maldonado will complete a one month residency at the Ringling Museum campus.) King Yo on the queen, yo! By Iona Rozeal Brown (2010), sums up this conflation of the ritualized and fetishized with what once was too precious and sterile – art – notes that art still serves to deify urban gods, and takes as its subject, life. In this way, Beyond Bling becomes a contemporary classic. 

By Diane Dewey, Contributing Writer 

On Exhibition from May 21-August 14, 2011 

John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida 

www.ringling.org

Gorham silver coffee pot (c. 1932)

How can you explain the allure of silver? Like its rich cousin, gold, silver is one of those rare earth elements that has served the imagination and creative hand of artisans over the ages- often with breathtakingly beautiful results. Silver in its purest form is soft and pliable, reflective and lustrous when polished to a high shine and filled with beautiful light-effects when cut, shaped, hammered or cast.

Over the ages, silversmiths have taken their inspiration largely from nature to create works of art with both utility and beauty. Most familiar are the elaborate coffee services, candelabras and jewelry fashioned in the style of 19th Century Romanticism. These pieces showcased the craftsman’s skill with elaborate floral scenes and design elements inspired by the classical Revivalist style of the Romans and Greeks. In America, the austere, but elegant creations of the colonial silver-making tradition, popularized by our most famous silversmith, Paul Revere, can be found in many well-to-do homes.fine arts magazine

Chrysler Building, NYC, 1930. An Art Deco masterpiece

But few are aware that silver design flourished well into the 20th Century, reflecting the new sensibility of an industrial age, where streamlined utilitarianism became the guiding principle of the newly-defined modern lifestyle. In the first quarter of the 1900s, many were ready to throw off the mantle of Victorian sensibilities and embrace the spirit of “The New”. Advances in science, manufacturing and inventions such as the airplane, the automobile and wireless communication were shrinking the world. Speed and radical reform became the watchwords of a new and outspoken group of intellectuals called, The Futurists.

The public fervor surrounding this new industrial age inspired many artisans to redefine traditional approaches to their craft. They increasingly sought inspiration in the changing world around them, rather than in the lessons of generations past. Notably, Cubism had emerged from the artists’ studios of Paris and the International Style of architecture (Bauhaus) was employing the fundamental lines of the square and the minimalist effects of glass in their building designs.

Silver makers, too, began to figure the clean lines of geometric shapes into their designs. Some of the most beautiful examples of this radical new objets d’art were being created in French studios. A handful of progressive designers, many coming from families with a long heritage of working in precious metals and jewels, set the stage for this revolution in form.

Covered serving piece by Jean Puiforcat (1930s). Note industrial chain incorporated into design

To learn more, I traveled to the lower west side of New York City to meet an expert on the topic of 20th century silver. Audrey Friedman has spent a lifetime collecting and learning about modern silver, glass and artifacts and her Primavera Gallery contains some of the most beautiful examples from that period.

She explained that the Paris exhibit of 1925, Exposition des Arts Decoratifs introduced the public to a new design movement, Art Moderne, later deriving the name Art Deco from this show. Here, artisans like Jean Puiforcat, Tétard Fréres and Maison Desny would exhibit their sterling and silver plate creations to the acclaim of some and the disdain of others. But there was no mistaking the reality that modern sensibilities were taking hold in a field that had been dominated by traditionalist views.

Gorham silver brooch (c. 1934)

The event was originally scheduled to be held some years earlier, but was delayed because of World War I. “If the show had come off earlier, the silver of the time would have had a very different look,” according to Audrey. “The Deco ‘look’ was heavily influenced by the sleek and aerodynamic appearance of the machinery of the time and the technological advances made possible by industrial expansion. Ironically, the complexity and beauty of these early modernist designs meant that they could only have been turned out, one at a time, by the hand of the craftsman, himself.”

In the handful of years that followed, before the Great Depression of 1929 changed the face of the American economy, retailers attempted to promote the Art Deco style for use in the American home, but with little success. Audrey points out that resistance here was due to, “the American view that silver was something to be passed on by previous generations, hinting at inherited wealth; or at the very least, that classic silver could be purchased to become an ‘instant heirloom’.”

Georg Jensen, ‘Pyramid’ Sterling Silver Tea Service, Waste Bowl and Waiter Tray (1927)

Nevertheless, a number of well-known European silver designers were rushed to New England factory studios and, by the following year, 1926, several American companies, including Gorham, International Silver, Reed and Barton and, to a lesser extent, Tiffany & Co. were embracing the cause of modernist design; although some would argue that their offerings were more heavily inspired by architecture than by a desire to capture pure form. In spite of these constraints, many of these New England manufacturers made timeless designs in the modern style right up until the eve of World War II.

To see some period pieces from the American school of Art Deco silver, I called on my friend and colleague, Bernard de Maillard, of Westport’s Léonce Antiques. As if by sleight-of-hand, he made several beautiful examples of mid-20th century silver magically appear from the back row of one of his many display cases.

Georg Jensen, 'Lily of the Valley' flatware pattern (c. 1925-1935)

He explained that the Art Deco movement allowed room for design influences from an earlier, more stylized period. Here, European moderne geometrics are supplanted by softer, more graceful lines inspired by nature. Taking their cue from the turn-of-the-century Swedish designer, Jorge Jensen, these silver pieces are designed to appeal to the eye using the same modernist’s techniques of form, balance and surface effects, but with a very different result. “Many of these companies are now history,” Bernard says, “leaving us with examples of the period that will never be replicated.”

With such a broad range of unique designs to choose from, consider including several examples of modern silver in your collection. But, I have to confess that, for pure geometric symmetry, quality of craftsmanship, luxury of detail and balance in the hand, these functional works of art beg to be used and enjoyed!

By Richard Friswell, Managing Editor

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DEFINITION OF TERMS

Understanding 20th Century design means differentiating between several design movements that may sound alike, but have different influences and objectives. There is some overlap as certain styles emerged from others:

Romanticism (1780-1880)- An artistic and intellectual movement in Western culture that rejected established values in favor of individualism and reason. The life and times of the ancient Greeks and Romans were idealized and impacted all phases of artistic design. Nature was extolled and its themes were idealized in painting, literature, functional art (silver, ceramics, furniture, architecture, etc.). It was in response to overblown sentimentality and flourishes of Romanticism and Victorianism that many of the late 19th century artists, writers and craftsmen rebelled.

Art Nouveau (1880-1914)- An international style of design, begun in Paris, using highly stylized, flowing and curvilinear designs incorporating floral and plant-like motifs to create repeating abstract and geometric patterns.

Arts and Craft – A British (1880- 1910) and American (1910-1925) aesthetic movement, founded in response to the increased use of industrialized methods, emphasizing the importance of hand crafting and natural inspiration; sometimes called the Craftsmen Style.

Modern (1880-1945)- A period or fervent social, cultural and political changes, defined by a shift in power and influence from Europe to the U.S. and reflected in a rejection of Victorian values for a more open social value system, artistic experimentation, innovations in manufacturing and scientific research and the realignment of the world political map by two global wars.

Art Deco (1920-1939)- A functional art movement that incorporated several influences [Cubism, Symbolism, Bauhaus Internationalism, industrial design and Modernism] into the design of everyday objects

Art Moderne (1920-1925)- The early name for geometric functional art design until the Paris show of 1925, Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, lent its shorthand title to the movement, Art Deco.

I

A recent visitor to the gallery commented, “A part of Harry Wishard lived several hundred years ago.” Her observation was insightful. Wishard’s representational paintings don’t simply give us a historical glimpse of old Hawaii. They transport us into that world. There is a keen intimacy between the painter and his subject that is startlingly apparent. As viewers we are ushered into this almost sacred realm where Hawaiian heritage connects with the land or aina.  

(Above) Harry Wishard, Pohaku Opio (Hanalei), 2010, 20×30″ available as Giclee on canvas fine arts magazine  

Harry Wishard, Stream Above Honokane (2010), 20x30"

Unlike viewers of Edouard Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass, we are neither caught off-guard nor embarrassed by Wishard’s scenes. Awe, reverence, and respect are our responses. If great art is autobiographical, Wishard’s paintings tell his story. Growing up on a plantation in Hawaii, Wishard lived a Huckleberry Finn existence—hunting, fishing, hiking, surfing and painting. It is this natural landscape of his childhood innocence where he is most comfortable. His paintings beckon us to follow him deep into the forest, to crouch on a stream rock overlooking a vast canyon, to fly like a seagull into lush waterfalls, and to feel the surf tumble at our feet.  

What keeps his paintings from being sentimental or simply nostalgic? His realistic style is meticulously accurate in foliage, geography, atmosphere, color and light. Using the centuries old glazing process of the masters, which he learned as a boy by watching his uncle, renowned artist Lloyd Sexton, he recreates forest terrains, stream beds, and ocean scenes he has explored all his life. Although related to Sexton by marriage, Wishard is self-taught.  

Harry Wishard, Kawai Nui (2010) 26 x 42”, frame: koa, green suede liner, gold fillet

His limited formal training may also be what keeps his art fresh. He continually experiments with painting techniques and insists on having fun with his subjects. Recently he began using an abbreviated form of pointillism and the vivid colors of the California Impressionists. Clearly his images have become lighter and brighter over the years.  

Although Wishard depicts idealized scenes of long ago, his personal love of the islands and the vantage point he selects for his paintings immerse us directly into his scenes. As observers we are always clear where we are in the painting—waist deep in the waves, walking along a forest trail, or at the top of a lava formed hillside (pu’u). This double connection: first between the painter and his scene, and secondly between the viewer and the painting is present in the best Wishard works.  

As viewers we are transported inside the painting until we feel our spirits join hands with Wishard and journey back to our true island home. His framed paintings literally function as windows of a world of long ago where panoramic vistas of snow capped mountains fall into lush canyon walls and blush colored Ohia trees.  

Elmer Adams, various Mediterranean-style vases, Mango, Milo and Cook Pine, 40" to 70" tall.

Wishard’s art translates into a desire to conserve and preserve all that is unique to the islands. The best of his paintings literally take our breath away so that for a moment we can feel the wind against our cheek and the water lapping at our feet.  

Wishard Gallery is host to other ground-breaking artists as well; notable among them are wood workers Elmer Adams and Tai Lake, sculptor Holly Young, photographers Michael Cromwell and Julie Eliason, and fellow painters Lynn Capell and Edwin Kayton.  

Recently deceased wood turner Elmer Adams has several pieces in the gallery. Using massive logs of Mango, Milo, and Cook Pine, Adams created gigantic Mediterranean style vases measuring over 40” tall, 70” in circumference, and weighing less than 10 pounds!  To do this he custom built a lathe made to handle the weight and large logs. He devised a series of 2” X 3” steel beams with a hollowing tool the size of a pencil attached to the end. These allowed him to hollow out wood length weighing up to 170 pounds from a distance of eleven feet. The results are stunningly light, graceful, yet massive wooden vessels.  

Tai Lake, Trestle Table, Kao wood, ebony inlay, 90" x 40"

Preeminent Koa craftsman Tai Lake is also represented in the gallery. Tai’s work tours with the SOFA shows. You only have to look at his Koa table to understand why he was chosen President of the Hawaii Wood Guild and the Hawaii Forest Industry Association. Tai designs and builds fine furniture from island hardwoods and from the Koa forest project he manages in Kailua-Kona. His work has received numerous awards, and images of his work have been published nationally.  

The Koa dining table in the gallery is over 90” inches long and 40” wide. Aside from the Ebony inlay, there is not a ninety degree angle anywhere. Every edge of this red Koa table is slightly curved. The legs are fashioned after a Kyoto temple and allow for people seated at the corners to have ample leg room. Although large in dimension, this classic table is both elegant and unassuming. His dining table chair legs and back duplicate the arc of the table leg creating an overall unity to the set.  

Sculptress Holly Young uses bronze and marble to build life size monuments, as well as portraits, reliefs and abstracts. A former biochemist, Young’s work has gone from the chemical to the realms of the alchemist. Her sculptures capture the harmony, gratitude and peace she feels when sculpting.  

Photographer Michael Cromwell’s work is reminiscent of Georgia O’Keefe canvases in size and focus, but his subject is Hawaiian flora. Julie Eliason uses her marine biologist background to strengthen her sea images and to create unique borders for her photographic paintings. (Photos on right, left-to-right: Julie Eliason, Dancing Light; Michael Cromwell, Amber Night Bloom)  

Lynn Capell, Young Girl in Hammock (2008) 30 x 50”, oil on masonite

Lynn Capell loads her oil brush and palette knife for her mason board paintings. Gauguin and Hawaiian artist Madge Tennet appear to have influenced Capell. Her paintings depict modern scenes with a relaxed but haunting loneliness. Loosely painted couples cling together in a dance hall amid dim lights. A girl lounges in bed with a TV in the foreground. Seascapes are un-peopled.  

Prize winning Edwin Kayton uses muted tones to capture the Hawaiian cowboy “paniolo” life. Pau Hana (“finished work”) shows the back of the cowboy as he and his horse gallop toward home. Comin’ in Outta the Rain, one of his most popular paintings, unites horse and cowboy as they struggle against pouring rain.  

By Nancy Slain, Guest Contributor  

Wishard Gallery, Parker Ranch Center, Waimea, Hawaii  

Representing over 30 different artists, Wishard Gallery is definitely the place to visit, when you come to the Big Island of Hawaii, or at our website www.wishardgallery.com. For further information or to view more artists and their work, contact Nancy Slain at art@wishardgallery.com, or by phone at (808) 887-2278. [Right: Wishard's, The Front Yard (2010), 30 x 40”]

Traditional & Contemporary side-by-side at recent fashion event, with student-designer,Varshaben Uttambhai (left)

Editor’s Note: The western-most district of Kutch, in the state of Gujarat is one of the most ecologically and ethnically diverse districts in India.  Close to the Pakistan border and subject to a massive earthquake in 2001, the people have a reputation for strength and resilience. Kutch is a celebrated for its art, crafts, music, dance, people and nature. A plethora of brilliant hues, profusion of design, superfluity of culture, a cornucopia of music and dance— together in the arid lands of Kutch—creates a mosaic of culture and design tradition which reflects the identity and spirit of the region.   

At the forefront of present-day Indian culture is the convergence of the traditional and the modern. This phenomenon affects issues from politics to religion to the arts as people strive to move forward economically and professionally while maintaining their heritage, identity, and individuality. A pursuit exists for a balance between what was and what is, especially for those with a direct link to tradition. In Kutch, where the legacy of intricate embroidery stretches back centuries and is still visible in the everyday dress of its residents, the past stands arm in arm with the present. fine arts magazine

The survival of Kutchi art depends on the combination of the two, and the successful artist is the one who is able to work with a connection to both worlds. For the traditional artisans of Kala Raksha (literally “Art Preservation”) located near the regional capital of Bhuj, the idea of Artisan Design combines the old and the new in a way that allows them to sustain the essence of their craft while competing in the international market and ever-evolving world of fashion design. 

A Kala Raksha coordinatior, Pabiben Lakhman, displays examples of colorful 'Rabari' embroidery

Historically, Indian art made no distinction between craft and design. The traditional artisan would create, from beginning to end, a product reflecting the lifestyle and environment of that individual. Artisan Design is a trademark that celebrates the traditional artisan’s autonomy over his/her artistic expression. It ensures that every product bearing its symbol is conceived, constructed, and priced by the artisan, and in doing so provides rural artisans the opportunity to succeed in a market where designers, laborers, and merchants work separately for disproportionate compensation. Artisan Design is the driving force behind the Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya (the nation’s first design school for artisans, located near the Gulf of Kutch), now beginning its sixth year of classes. At the school, students from the region learn to incorporate each aspect of the trade so that they may not only continue to grow within their medium, but may also receive appropriate compensation and gain respect and social status within their communities.   

Kala Raksha's universally popular, Pabi-bags

Lachuben Raja, a Rabari embroiderer with no formal education, graduated from the Vidhyalaya in 2006 (and has been a coordinator with Kala Raksha since 1994). She has taught embroidery at the US Embassy School in Delhi and has traveled to Australia and the United States for exhibitions, workshops, and seminars. This level of artisan involvement is unique to Kala Raksha and is a revolutionary step in modern business, where the division of labor often comes at the expense of traditional artists; it helps the artisan avoid marginalization as well as promotes their creative expression, which in turn introduces innovative products to the public.   

Graduating student, Salmabai Ismailbhai, makes a presentation

While mass production tends to flood the market with impersonal merchandise, Artisan Design ensures a close relationship between producer and consumer. The artist studies the trends of the market, develops and enhances those trends, while applying his/her creative perspectives, and ultimately delivers fairly-priced products to buyers who may be assured of each item’s authenticity. This model is best exemplified by the success of another Kala Raksha coordinator, Pabiben Lakhman (above), whose use of the art form Hari Jari led her to create the now world-renowned Pabi-Bag. The rampant success of this bag has landed it in Hollywood and Bollywood films alike, and the public’s constant and seemingly ceaseless demand for it has made it a staple at every Kala Raksha exhibition.   

Artisan Design benefits traditional artisans from a variety of backgrounds. Salmabai Ismailbhai, a Jat embroiderer, also grew up without a formal education. She learned the basic skills of embroidery by watching her mother and grandfather (Kala Raksha contributors themselves), and when she enrolled at the Vidhyalaya, she blossomed as both artist and individual. Shedding her initial timidity, she graduated in 2009, winning the award for Most Promising Artisan for her fresh garment collection. She learned to read and write through Kala Raksha’s basic education classes, and she now claims, “My art is my livelihood, my capability, and a means to independence.”   

A Vashaben Uttambhai design on the runway

The Vidhyalaya has provided similar opportunities to Suf embroiderer Varshaben Uttambhai. A resident of Sumraser-Sheikh (home of the Kala Raksha Trust), Varshaben completed her formal education through the seventh grade, yet turned to embroidery when she was unable to continue her schooling in the nearby city of Bhuj. Since graduating from the Vidhyalaya in 2008, she has participated in exhibitions in Delhi, Mumbai, and Ahmedabad, and she believes that an increase in the creativity of her designs will result in a higher demand for Suf products in the future. The Artisan Design philosophy supports these women to flourish artistically and economically as they surpass the limitations of those from similar backgrounds to realize a new level of personal creativity, self-worth, and social standing.   

Designer Suleman (R) takes a bow at recent Kala Raksha Design School event

Suleman Umarfaruqbhai Khatri, on the other hand, came to Kala Raksha from a somewhat different angle. Having become disenchanted with the troubling ethics of a career in law, he chose to return to the family art of Bandhani and partnered his valuable business experience with his brother’s skill for craft. He realized that art must change with the times, and now, after studying the art himself, he and his brother work to bring the traditional into the modern. He exemplifies the evolved artisan whose success depends as much on the knowledge of the market’s fluctuations as on the intricacies of the craft.   

In the arena of traditional arts, any form of stagnation will soon render a medium antique. The market is worldwide, and in order to compete and thrive in such an environment, the artist must become worldwide as well. The challenge put forth to traditional artisans is to adapt to the requisite changes while maintaining the cultural and individual identities that continue to serve as the foundation of their art. Artisan Design guarantees artisans the opportunity to benefit from their own creative exploration, the result of which is to provide the market with Fair-Trade products that fuse together the most desirable traits of tradition and innovation.   

By Ben Bellizzi, Guest Contributor 

To learn more about Kala Raksha and see ‘global village’ products for sale, go to: www.equalcraft.com  

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FYI:  Kutch district (also spelled, Kachchh) is district of Gujarat state in western India. Covering an area of 45,612 km², it is the largest district of India.   

Kutch district embroiderers (including Lachuben Raja, right) plying their craft

The district is also famous for ecologically important Banni grasslands with their seasonal marshy wetlands which form the outer belt of the Rann of Kutch.  

Kachchh literally means something which intermittently becomes wet and dry; a large part of this district is known as Rann of Kachchh which is shallow wetland which submerges in water during the rainy season and becomes dry during other seasons. The same word is also used in the languages of Sanskrit origin for a tortoise and garments to be worn while having a bath. The Rann is famous for its marshy salt flats which become snow white after the shallow water dries up each season before the monsoon rains. 

Kachchh District is surrounded by the Gulf of Kachchh and the Arabian Sea in south and west, while northern and eastern parts are surrounded by the Great and Small Rann (seasonal wetlands) of Kachchh. When there were not many dams built on its rivers, the Rann of Kachchh remained wetlands for a large part of the year. Even today, the region remains wet for a significant part of year.   

Ed Bing Lee, BURGER 2 (2006), 5x5x5”, waxed linen, linen, cotton floss, cotton. All photo credits in this story: Ken Yanoviak

When a Pittsburgh gallery representative asked Ed Bing Lee if he could create a teapot for an upcoming exhibition he thought, “of course, that’s child’s play.” Then his imagination went to work. “I like the idea of taking an art form that already exists and then reinterpreting it,” Lee says. “I knew I could do a regular teapot, but if you look at something and it leads you to something else, that’s what I like.” Leafing through reproductions of “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji,” by the Japanese printmaker Katsushika Hokusai, Lee found a favorite, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” created during the 1820s. Lee envisioned the great wave washing up over the top of the teapot and a fully-occupied fishing boat projecting underneath as the spout. Four and a half months and countless knots later, Lee completed the 8”x 8”x 8” teapot (see the video story, below).fine arts magazine

POPCORNY 1 (2007) 10x8x8”, synthetic ribbons, shoe lacing

Ed Bing Lee’s parents immigrated to San Francisco, where the artist was born, from Canton, China, at the beginning of the 1920s. In the fourth grade Lee had a teacher with a particular interest in art notice his drawing ability and she continued to encourage him to draw throughout his high school years. He won a scholarship to the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design in San Francisco, and later received a bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State College, where one of his part-time jobs involved model-making. “I loved the idea of constructing stuff,” he says. Because he wanted to further his art studies and live in New York, Lee enrolled in Brooklyn College, receiving a master’s degree in painting and graphics. A classmate, who was a director of Boris Knoll fabrics, urged him to join their studio, which he did for several years. Later, he became head of the design department at Craftex Mills, near Philadelphia. His expertise in the textile market led to teaching posts at the University of the Arts and Moore College of Art, both in Philadelphia. And his teaching led to a class in off-loom techniques and to Lee’s discovery of knotting. “I thought of all the off-loom techniques, this was the most direct. It had the greatest freedom,” Lee says. “You can go two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or you can do both at the same time. And there’s no machinery.” That’s important. No machinery. Ed Bing Lee is strictly hands-on.

TEMOKU 2 (2010) 6x5x5”, paper ribbon, waxed linen

At the University of Pennsylvania, he studied art history, obtaining a second master’s degree, and he started using his favorite paintings to inspire his work. He thought how like pointillism his knots were and he began creating two-dimensional pieces that incorporated segments of George Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”. But just reproducing parts of the painting would be boring. What would today’s picnickers take to the park? Fast food, of course. So Lee introduced images of sundaes, hamburgers, and Coca-Cola containers to his interpretations of Seurat’s work. In later two-dimensional pieces he chose Vermeer, Gauguin and others to inform his designs. Inevitably, he began experimenting with three-dimensional works. Visits to various natural history museums inspired a series on the earth crust, on minerals and rocks, and on exquisite orchids. Lee creates his pieces by axial weaving, by rotating them as he works. Using the double half-hitch knot, which he sometimes ties vertically, and other times horizontally, depending on the texture he wants to achieve, he works with DMC embroidery floss, Belgian linen and synthetic ribbons. His pieces seldom contain any form of support. For the most part, his work is hollow. The tension in the knots creates the shape. Viewers of his art frequently ask how many knots are in a piece. In the flat, two-dimensional works, it’s approximately five hundred per square inch. In the three-dimensional ones, well, you’ll just have to count them.

An admirer of two California artists, watercolorist Mark Adams, and Wayne Thiebaud, best known for his brightly-colored pies, cakes and other foodstuffs, their work inspired Lee to begin his “Delectables” series. He created assorted pies, ice cream cones, popcorn stuffed in a container covered in the American flag, a hot dog on a bun, and one of everybody’s favorites, a hamburger with all the fixin’s. Amazingly, the tomato on the hamburger was made by knotting single-ply embroidery thread. Lee likes to work with pieces in a series. “If you do only one piece, you have no idea of its possibilities,” he says. “I always find if a work doesn’t lead your mind to expand, you’re at a dead end. Each time I pick an idea and it doesn’t go far enough, I abandon it. I always want to work on something that will make me think, make me want to do the work, to find the solution. Challenge moves my work forward.”

BRAMBLE (2009) 4x5x5”, synthetic raffia

Challenge brought him to one of his most recent series which he named “Meditation on the Chawan.” Chawans are bowls, usually antique, used for mixing matcha, a powered green tea used in the Japanese tea ceremony. Lee chose the chawan because he wanted to train himself to think differently, to complete a structure that wasn’t totally enclosed, but still had body and volume. He moved from using waxed linen, which is very strong and structural, to ribbons, paper, even shoe laces. “Moving into ribbons, which have no body whatsoever, I wanted to still achieve volume just by the technique of knotting,” Lee says. “Just thinking about structure that way, with this floppy material, gave me the confidence that I can do certain things just by imagination and by thinking it through. And I sought to explore the concept of unity in variety. I wanted the series to be an open-ended adventure.” In 18 months, he completed 40 chawans (all approximately 4”x 4”x 4”), experimenting with different knotting techniques in addition to new materials.

Earthcrust Series: ATACAMA (2003), 3x4x1”, linen, cotton, waxed linen

He compares the experience to going back to school and says without it the cranes probably never would have materialized. Displayed in Lee’s studio is a fold-out greeting card depicting an elegant illustration of cranes. He always enjoyed looking at it, but only Ed Bing Lee would look at it and envision a teapot. But if you can turn “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” into a teapot, why not three cranes? And there’s the series thing. One teapot does not explore enough possibilities. The cranes teapot (12”x10”x10”) took Lee three and a half months to complete, and he has other ideas for teapots under development. In addition to his teapots, he wants to explore something different based on a favorite jungle scene by Henri Rousseau. “It’s always been one of my favorite paintings – charming, imaginative, a flight of fancy,” Lee says. “It’s a real challenge to my imagination.” He also wants to work on other designs that allow him to borrow the geometric, soaring arcs of Frank Stella’s work.

A recipient of numerous awards, including the 2007 Pew Fellowship in the Arts, awarded annually to 12 outstanding Philadelphia-area artists, Lee’s work is in numerous private collections, and regularly shown throughout the U.S. and at Philadelphia’s Snyderman-Works Gallery, where his art has been represented for over 30 years. At 77, Lee continues to create from fully-formed images in his mind. Often he will work on three or more pieces simultaneously, occasionally stopping to make sketches on scraps of paper or to record random thoughts in a notebook about a work as it progresses. His studio, high above the Philadelphia skyline, is lined with meticulously-organized threads, his collection of art books, and examples of work from throughout his career. Working at a small table, he does what he most values – challenge his imagination with endless exploration, one knot at a time.

By Kathleen McCann, Contributing Writer

Kathleen McCann writes about the visual arts from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Watch master, Ed Bing Lee working in his studio at:

Jacobus Agnesius (attrib.), St. Sebastian, ivory, 25.2" tall (c.1638). Image courtesy Andrew Butterfield Fine Art

  The Saint Sebastian by Jacobus Agnesius is one of the largest and most spectacular ivory statues ever made. In its luscious yet exacting portrayal of the human body, its grim depiction of emotional and physical suffering, and its suggestion of the exaltation of religious release, it concentrates the essence of Baroque art in a unique way. Not only is it significantly larger than almost any other ivory figure to survive, but it was made in emulation of the grandeur and the seriousness of monumental marble sculpture. Jacobus Agnesius aspired to carve this ivory in the spirit of the Laocoon or Gianlorenzo Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne. The result is a work of extraordinary power and beauty, one that epitomizes the Baroque artistic ideal to express the strongest, deepest and most sublime emotions via an extreme muscular tension and contortion of the human body. Morevoer, spanning 64 centimeters (25.2 in.) from the right foot to the left index finger, it is amongst the largest ivory figures ever made. As the size alone indicates, the hitherto unpublished Saint Sebastian, now in a New York private collection, must have been a very important commission for Jacobus Agnesius, whose oeuvre is systematically reconstructed and analyzed in the following pages. fine arts magazine    

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Apollo & Daphne, marble (1622-25), Galleria Borghese, Rome

The statuette represents a young man with a heroic, muscular build, and long and thick curly hair, who is naked save for a loincloth. He stands on his right foot, with his left leg, bent at the knee, raised and extended behind him. His arms are crossed in a complex, asymmetrical position as they jut upward over his head and in front of his body. Cords of rope bind his left wrist and right elbow. His torso arcs forcefully to the proper left, and he throws his head back over his left shoulder. As originally mounted, the figure was shown tied to a tree, which was made either of wood or metal. The figure’s complex and twisting stance is meant to convey both the weight of his body hanging down from the tree (note, for example, the tension of his painfully extended arms), and the violent thrusts of his body as he writhes in pain and tries to free himself.    

The anatomy is rendered with astonishing precision. Every detail of the musculature and skeleton is recorded. On the back of the figure, for instance, the artist has correctly noted the trapezius, deltoid, infraspinatus and latissimus dorsi muscles; he has even carefully indicated the vertebrae of the spine as they ascend the median furrow. Likewise, Agnesius has depicted the bones, muscles and cartilage of the arms, chest, and rib cage with great exactitude. Studying the thorax, one can see such details as the manubrium, the xyphoid process and floating ribs all precisely indicated.    

Jean-Antoine Houdon, Acorche (1767)

So exacting is his depiction of anatomy that the sculptor even emphatically displays the tortuous deformation of the body. The left arm has been wrenched out of the shoulder socket, and the rib cage is nearly being ripped apart by the weight and strain of his body struggling against the bonds. There is almost no comparison for such precise rendering of human anatomy in ivory; and even in bronze statuettes, there are few works that show such careful observation and articulation. The outstanding precision of the Saint Sebastian is evident even when it is viewed in contrast with works made specifically to display scientific knowledge of anatomy, such as the écorché figures by Willem van Tetrode (or later those by Houdon). Given this degree of detail, it is possible that, like Leonardo and Michelangelo, the ivory sculptor had dissected corpses in the course of his artistic training. Moreover, owing to the frequency of public torture and execution in Baroque Europe (especially during the Thirty Years War), he may very well have seen bodies that had been wracked and broken like that of Saint Sebastian, and used this knowledge when making the statuette. He would not be the only Renaissance and Baroque artist to learn from seeing such events. One recalls, for example, the famous drawings of hanged men by Leonardo and Pisanello; and within the seventeenth century, one thinks especially of Jacques Callot and his frightening prints of The Miseries of War.    

The emphasis on suffering in the ivory statuette is also evident in the treatment of the features of the face. The eyebrows are drawn together, the eyes are rolling back into the head, and the mouth is open, revealing the precisely rendered tongue and teeth. The open mouth gives the impression that he is moaning or exhaling with pain. He is in extremis. The saint is swooning with anguish.    

Jacques Callot, The Miseries of War (the Hanging Tree), 1633

Who was the artist who carved the Saint Sebastian? The expansive pose of the entire body set in motion, as well as the precise rendering of the musculature, and the active and tightly wrapped drapery folds are immediately comparable to a three-figure group representing the Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (Albi, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec), which is dated and signed in ink, “1638 / Jacobus Agnesius / Caluensis Sculp[sit].” Although we have a date, a name, and probably even a place, it has not been possible to identify the artist with any documented personality anywhere in Europe. Moreover, to this day there has been enormous confusion regarding Agnesius’s oeuvre. In particular, his work has been mixed up with that of Adam Lenckhardt (1610–1661).    

J. Agnesius, St. Sebastian (detail)

Most recently, in the catalogue of the ivories in the Louvre, Philippe Malgouyres attributed a figure of Saint Sebastian at the Louvre (Inv. Thiers 158) to Agnesius, but underscored the differences of this work with another one of almost identical pose in the collection of the prince of Liechtenstein, which traditionally has been attributed to Lenckhardt (inv. No. 306). Yet the figures in Paris and Vienna are so close to each other that Christian Theuerkauff in his biographic survey of Lenckhardt’s oeuvre (1995) even disparaged the ivory in the Louvre as a “much later” replica after the figure in the Liechtenstein collection, which he accepted as an autograph work by Lenckhardt.    

Adam Lenckhardt, Neptune, ivory (c.1650)

 Clarity is achieved as soon as one tests the shaky ground upon which the Liechtenstein figure’s attribution to Lenckhardt is based. It goes back to a description in an inventory of the belongings of Prince Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein (1611–1684), which was drawn up not long after 1678, and reads in translation: “A holy Sebastian of ivory, tied to a tree of metal, standing on a black base, by Lenkhart” (“Ein heyliger Sebastian von helffenbein, angebunden an Einen metallenen Baumb, stehet auf einem Schwartzen postamente, von Lenkhart”). Ever since Edmund Wilhelm Braun in 1913 connected this document with the ivory figure of Saint Sebastian extant in the Liechtenstein collection, it was thought to be a fixed star of Lenckhardt’s oeuvre. However, even from a documentary standpoint alone, it is far from likely that the inventoried work would refer to the existing ivory figure. To start with, the existing figure is not at all tied to a tree of metal, but of dark wood—which Theuerkauff confusingly calls “wood of the iron tree” (“Holz des Eisenbaumes”). Whereas the present wood base and tree may well be later replacements, there is no indication at all that the ivory figure might have originally been tied to a tree of metal – which would have been, most likely, of bronze. Neither is Saint Sebastian’s unusual pose mentioned in the inventory, nor are any measurements provided that would give a clue to the described figure’s possible identity with the existing Saint Sebastian. The description could refer to almost any existing ivory figure (granted that it would have been later separated from its original tree), if it weren’t for Lenckhardt’s name. (See below left: Adam Lenckhardt [attrib.], St Sebastian tied to a tree, 1642)  The Vienna-based artist from Würzburg is, by the way, the only sculptor whose name recurs numerous times in the inventory, and who, according to further documents, benefited from Prince Karl Eusebius’s patronage over many years. No less than nine ivory sculptures are attributed to Lenckhardt in the inventory: apart from the Saint Sebastian, there were two Crucifixes (both untraced ); the Deposition from the Cross (now in the Cleveland Museum of Art); Neptune Abducting Venus and Neptune with a Dolphin (both photographed in 1866, when they were in the collection of Nathaniel von Rothschild, but presently untraced); The Choice of Paris (formerly Gotha, Schlossmuseum; missing since 1945); Perseus Liberating Andromeda (Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum); and Orpheus with two further figures (untraced). It would be highly unusual for the Saint Sebastian to be the only work by Lenckhardt to have survived in the Liechtenstein collection, when all the other ivories by him described in the inventory of Karl Eusebius left the collection in the nineteenth century following a change of taste within the princely house. Although it might seem counterintuitive, there would have to be some peculiar reason for a ninth work by the artist to remain among the family’s possessions.    

Agnesius looks at the human body with an anatomist’s eye, and exploits the landscape of bones and muscles in order to achieve a maximum of expression. Lenckhardt, however, is very much interested in the surface of the skin. Lenckhardt has a particular penchant for rendering the fine creases of the worn-out skin at the base of the neck, and at the junctures of the arms and legs, as it is masterfully demonstrated by his Neptune at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and by his Saint Jerome at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.    

Artus Quellinus, Mercurius (1650), Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

The differences between Agnesius and Lenckhardt are even more pronounced in the way the hair and beards are sculpted. In works by Lenkhardt, the extremely fine, virtually individual rendering of each hair showcases his talent in microcarving; by contrast, Agnesius sculpts the hair in a much broader and more gestural way. In the drapery of his figures, Lenckhardt loves to alternate smooth surfaces with deeply undercut folds, and to enliven convex wads with series of grooves applied in a staccato-like fashion, whereas Agnesius prefers textiles which are tightly wrapped around his figures’ bodies and are defined by energetically engraved, often parallel lines. Finally, as the perhaps most distinctive feature that sets Agnesius aside not only from Lenckhardt, but from all other ivory sculptors of his time, the sculptor does not limit his search for extreme expression to the anatomy, the pathognomy of the suffering face, and the speedy linear texturing of the fabrics. On the contrary, he invents unique, highly strained and twisted poses for his figures, putting their bodies into unprecedented tension, and offering astonishing and unexpected views from all conceivable sides and angles.    

Even in terms of technique, the two artists could hardly be more different from each other. Whereas Lenckhardt follows the old ideal to carve his figures and figural groups out of a single tusk wherever possible, for Agnesius size matters very much, and he has no problem carving his figure’s arms separately, for instance, or adding small parts where the tusk was not large enough to allow his artistic conception. The newly discovered Saint Sebastian is principally carved from one piece of ivory, which extends from the figure’s feet up to the middle of his biceps. Agnesius added two separately carved units, one for each arm, to the main segment of ivory.    

Ivory statuettes larger than 40 centimeters in height are rare in the history of European art, and most are considerably smaller, whereas the present work is 64 centimeters in height. It is nearly twice as big as what is normally considered large for an ivory sculpture. From the entire Baroque period, only around a dozen works of comparable scale are extant, most of which are crucifixes. These include the Corpus by Georg Petel in the Residenz, Munich (65.5 cm.), and another Corpus by him in Hillerød, Denmark (68 cm.). A notable exception of a different subject matter is the pair of Mercury (56 cm.) and Venus (54 cm.), which has been attributed to Artus Quellinus the Elder, in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg—but these are about 10 centimeters (4 in.) shorter than our sculpture.    

Given the rarity and expensiveness of ivory in the seventeenth century, which was imported from Africa and India, it is no surprise that whenever we have information about the original patronage of works on this scale—such as the Munich Corpus made for a member of the Fugger family—all were highly important commissions carried out for the noblest and wealthiest of families. Apart from the value of the material, there is a natural limitation to the size of works carved in ivory, due to the size and shape of the raw elephant tusks, which are curved and, except for the tip, hollow. It is notable how ingeniously Agnesius planned the Saint Sebastian so that the figure would fit within the outlines of the curved piece of ivory from which he carved it.    

Once the misattribution of the Liechtenstein Saint Sebastian has been discarded, Agnesius’s oeuvre emerges as a very homogenous and highly distinctive group of works. The two figures of Saint Sebastian with raised arms in the Louvre and in the Liechtenstein collection are similar enough to be considered autograph variations, whereas a somewhat simplified and smaller version, which was auctioned more than thirty years ago (Christie’s, London, June 23, 1982, lot 63), is probably a nineteenth-century copy after the version in the Louvre, since the rendering of the hair and drapery folds are somewhat clumsy, and it shows the very same tree trunk and shape of the base as those added by Adolphe Thiers in the nineteenth century to the ivory now in the Louvre.    

Diego Velazquez, Christ after the Flagellation Contemplated by the Christian Soul (1628-29), Nat'l Gall. London

 The present prince of Liechtenstein, Hans Adam II, acquired another ivory statuette of Saint Sebastian in 2007. In that version the saint, whose body is again appended from his long, raised arms, has fallen onto his knees—reminding the beholder of Velazquez’s famous painting of the Flagellation of Christ, where the Savior has broken down and fallen onto his knees. In consequence of the attribution to Lenckhardt of the Liechtenstein’s Saint Sebastian, the second statuette has also been attributed to this master in the Liechtenstein Museum’s catalogue of recent acquisitions. But there can be no doubt that, like the other, it is actually a work by Agnesius as well.    

With the Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew in Albi, another work of the same subject in a private collection may be associated. The composition is compressed into a much narrower perimeter, and one of the executioners kneels below the saint, who is as usual shown hanging from his stretched arms. A similar stretching of the arms can also be seen in a group of Saint Sebastian with two angels climbing on a tree in the convent of Saint Clare in Estella (Navarra), which Maria Margerita Estella Marcos related to the Saint Sebastian in the Louvre. Thematically, Agnesius evidently chose to interpret a very limited range of subjects that would be particularly conducive to his artistic thrust. But, with the exception of the close replication of the figures of Saint Sebastian in Vienna and Paris, Agnesius always succeeded in thrashing out highly diverse versions of the same theme in a most inventive way.    

Map of Swabia, Southern Germany (1572)

All works by Agnesius stand out for their impressive size. For example, the Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew in Albi is 38 centimeters high, the Louvre Saint Sebastian is 42.4 centimeters high, and the Liechtenstein examples measure 43.5 centimeters and 32 centimeters. The Saint Sebastian presented here is by far the largest of all. Furthermore, compared to his other four ivories of this subject, it shows the most dynamic and complex pose.    

With a consistent core of Agnesius’s work established, it is possible to return to the question of his stylistic stance and his artistic influences, in order to better place him both geographically and within the artistic movements of the seventeenth century. An initial clue is given by the inscription—although not actually by what is probably a toponymic, “Caluensis,” which in the past had been argued would refer to the Swabian city of Calw rather than any of the Italian and French towns named Calvi. But this remains highly hypothetical as long as no such artist is otherwise documented. So far in the discussions about the sculptor’s origins no attention has been paid to the fact that the artist’s ink signature on the Saint Bartholomew in Albi is not written in Korrent or Fraktur script, which were employed in Germany at the time, but in Antiqua-based letters, as it was customary for inscriptions in Italy (and France). Naturally, the inscription’s romance characters, which are also consistent with the Latin language in which the artist signed, would not exclude that the sculptor might have been a German artist active in Italy. Indeed, the caricatural rendering of the two torturers is reminiscent of late Gothic depictions of the Flagellation of Christ, which a sculptor from Germany would have known from the churches of his home country. But a sculptor from Northern Italy or France would have been equally familiar with late-Gothic physiognomic exaggerations of the evil characters within sacred histories.    

Michelangelo Buonarotti, Punishment of Haman, Sistine Chapel detail (1508-1512)

What is virtually certain is that Agnesius must have been intimately familiar with the art on view in Rome from the Classical, Renaissance and Baroque eras. The allusions of his works to the monuments there are so strong that they do not seem to have been diluted by intermediary sources such as prints or drawings, but instead must appear to be the result of extended personal study of the monuments themselves. For example, the two figures of Saint Sebastian hanging from their wrists, which are tied together above vertically stretched arms (Louvre and Liechtenstein collection), are indeed reminiscent of the ancient marbles of Marsyas being flayed by Apollo, of which two famous examples in the Medici collections in Rome and Florence would have been on every artist’s and grand tourist’s not-to-be-missed-list.    

The twisted pose of the newly discovered Saint Sebastian recalls Michelangelo’s fresco of the Punishment of Haman on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The basic subject is the same—a man bound to a tree—and the pose of the two figures is extremely similar; indeed, the placement of the legs, with the weight on the right foot and the left foot back is identical, and the the arcing of the torso and the head is also very alike.    

Peter Paul Rubens, Laocoon, drawing after Vatican sculpture (1601-2)

A major source for Michelangelo in the Punishment of Haman was the Laocoon , and Agnesius, too, drew inspiration from that sculpture, one of the most famous of all works of classical art. Beginning in the late sixteenth and continuing throughout the seventeenth century, the Laocoon was often spoken of by both artists and critics as an exemplum doloris—a model of noble suffering—perfect for imitating in images of scenes from the passion of Jesus or the martyrdom of saints. Agnesius surely had this model in mind when carving his statue of Saint Sebeastian: the heroic canon of the body, the strong swell and thrust of the torso, the turn of the head, and even the features of the face, with the eyebrows drawn tightly together in pain, but the mouth opened only barely, not screaming loudly in pain but moaning in dignity—all have their ultimate source in the classical sculpture.    

It is striking to compare Agnesius’s statue with the most famous copies after the Laocoon made by a northern Baroque artist, Peter Paul Rubens’s series of luminous drawings of the sculpture. The norm in copying the monument had been to record its composition from a vantage sufficiently distant to permit taking in the whole sculpture. But instead Rubens drew his studies from unexpected angles and from vantages set quite close to the sculpture, thereby permitting him to capture more fully the intensity and pathos of the marble. If one compares Agnesius’s statue with some of Rubens’s views, one sees that Agnesius, too, sought to emulate not only the composition, but also the exalted power and drama of the marble. Few Renaissance or Baroque sculptures are so successful in their recreation of the force and passion of the classical monument.    

G. L. Bernini, Ecstacy of St. Theresa, marble (1645-52), Cornaro Chapel, Rome

The sculpture of Bernini would appear to have been another important stimulus for Agnesius. This can be seen, for example, by comparison of the ivory with Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, where the combination of raised arms and turned head makes for a similar effect. Bernini’s fascination with showing a figure in extremis, and giving the delirium of anguish or death a nearly sexual charge, also seem to have interested Agnesius. It is enough to examine the ivory in relation to such works of Bernini as his marble statues of Saint Sebastian and Saint Lawrence; it can also be usefully compared to some later works by the artist, such as the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa and the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni.    

According to legend Saint Sebastian was a middle-aged man, but in art he was regularly depicted as youth of ideal beauty. The sensuality, even the forthright sexual appeal, of such images was commented on throughout the Renaissance and Baroque periods. In his life of Fra Bartolomeo, Vasari tells of a painting of Saint Sebastian by the artist that for its “melting beauty” inspired lust in the women who saw it. Similarly, a contemporary of Agnesius, the Spanish author Pedro Calderon wrote, “the ephebe Saint Sebastian covered in arrows is the Heavenly Cupid for women today.” The traditional emphasis on the physical beauty of Saint Sebastian was very much alive in the seventeenth century. For instance, this can be seen in Bernini’s sculpture, notably inspired in part by the Barberini Faun, or in Anthony van Dyck’s and Guido Reni’s pictures of the subject. And it is clear in Agnesius’s statue as well.    

Guido Reni, St. Sebastian (c.1626) Musei di Strada Nuova, Palazzo Rosso, Genoa

The figure of Saint Sebastian was frequently depicted in Renaissance and Baroque art—including ivory sculpture—in order for the artist to disp lay his bravura command in the depiction of the male nude. But Agnesius went far beyond a mere display of technical skill. Emulating some of the most celebrated models of heroic gravitas in Classical, Renaissance and Baroque art, he wanted to achieve the very same level of expressive power and exalted seriousness in ivory sculpture, which artists like Bernini had reached in marble. Even the most skeptical and discerning of critics would need to concede that in the Saint Sebastian presented here, Agnesius achieved just that. Jacobus Agnesius was one of the supreme sculptors in ivory during the Baroque. Like his contemporaries, the Master of the Furies, Leonhard Kern and Georg Petel, Agnesius helped make ivory sculpture one of the most sought-after and emblematic artistic media of the seventeenth century.    

By Eike D. Schmidt, Ph.D. © 2011    

Eike D. Schmidt is the James Ford Bell Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture and head of the Department of Decorative Arts, Textiles & Sculpture at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA). In this capacity Schmidt leads one of the MIA’s largest and most diverse curatorial departments, with more than 18,000 works in various mediums from America and Europe, from the Middle Ages to the present. Schmidt comes to the museum from Sotheby’s, London, where he has worked as the Director of the European Sculpture and Works of Art Department. Schmidt comes to this position from Southeby’s, London, where he worked as the director of the European Sculpture and Works of Art Department. Prior to that post, he was with the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, as Associate Curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts. Schmidt also worked at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., as a research associate and a research curator in the Department of Sculpture, and at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, Italy.    

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Bibliographic Notes:    

There is no monographic article on Agnesius so far, but his individual works have been published, under different names, in various contexts. A very brief note, which summarizes the hypotheses about the sculptor’s origin, but mentions the group in Albi as his only work, can be found in the Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon. Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, vol. 1, Leipzig and Munich, 1992, p. 528. Agnesius’ Saint Bartholomew group in Albi was published by P. Frantz Marcou in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 23, 1900, pp. 492–493.    

The Saint Sebastian hanging from a tree with both arms raised was first misattributed to Adam Lenckhardt by Edmund Wilhelm Braun, “Der Wiener Elfenbeinbildhauer Adam Lenckhardt,” Kunst und Kunsthandwerk, 16, 1913, pp. 318–320. This was carried over throughout the subsequent literature on the artist, including the most recent catalogue raisonné by Christian Theuerkauff, “Adam Lenckhardt (1610–1661),” Apoll Schindet Marsyas. Über das Schreckliche in der Kunst. Adam Lenckhardts Elfenbeingruppe, ed. by Reinhold Baumstark and Peter Volk, exhibition catalogue, Munich, 1995, pp. 93–139. The inventory of Prince Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein, in which ivory statuettes by Adam Lenckhardt are mentioned, was published by Victor Fleischer, Fürst Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein als Bauherr und Kunstsammler (1611–1684), Vienna and Leipzig, 1910, appendix III, pp. 223–229.    

For the Louvre’s version of Saint Sebastian, see Philippe Malgouyres, Ivoires de la Renaissance et des Temps modernes. La collection du musée du Louvre, Paris, 2010, no. 11, pp. 34–36.    

The kneeling Saint Sebastian acquired in 2007 by the Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna, was published by Johann Kräftner (ed.), Der Fürst als Sammler: Neuerwerbungen unter Hans-Adam II. von und zu Liechtenstein, exhibition catalogue, Vienna, 2010, p. 272.    

For the Saint Sebastian in the convent of Saint Clare in Estella, see Maria Margarita Estella Marcos, La escultura barroca de marfil en España: las escuelas europeas y las coloniales, Madrid, 1984, vol. 1, fig. 148, and vol. 2, no. 155, p. 96.    

Pedro Calderon’s interpretation of Saint Sebastian is quoted by Richard Spear, The “Divine” Guido: Religion, Sex, Money and Art in the World of Guido Reni, New Haven, 1997, p. 90.