JJ Valaya, Paradox 9 (2011)

The idea of contemporary India, and a quintessential one at that—a conglomerate of many Indias, with its fluid social fabric and multitudes of people—is the paradox that confronts the photo-artist, JJ Valaya, an accomplished designer and pioneering fashion guru. Through his viewfinder, Valaya captures the fascinating multiplicity of a burgeoning city where he has lived and worked for decades, tantalizing us with loving and nostalgic glimpses of this place he knows so well: glamour and grime; sophisticated and commonplace; classical and popular; rich and poor; old and new—whether spontaneous or carefully-planned—all are framed by the photographer’s eye in different parts of Delhi, India’s capital city. artes fine arts magazine

JJ Valaya at work on streets of Delhi

Selecting his images after eight months of research and planning for cast, costumes and settings, the final shots offer telling comments about his belovedly-complex and multi-layered India, as seen through the eyes of an expert. His locations include historic sites as well as popular local dens. His characters and scenes feature some familiar people and happenings in and around Delhi. The context is contemporary and the images reflect an interesting mix of well-known personalities; but he also offers portrayals of ordinary people, spanning several generations. Original and authentic costumes, some created by Valaya himself (and others borrowed from private collections, including those representing India’s royal past), are pictured in his work. Valaya’s pictorial personalities include illustrious dancers, entertainers, actors, designers, social activists, athletes, hoteliers and models, as well as some common folks—tailors, embroiderers and master cutters—most known to the artist. “The idea was to engage anyone who projected the aura required to recreate a particular era,” explains the artist.

Prop on way to photo shoot as models stand by

The production of Valaya’s images involves long treks through the busy streets of old and new Delhi- with a five team member photography crew, camera equipment in tow. The energy and excitement that accompanies these adventures assumes unexpected twists and turns, the occasional u-turn and a frequent change of plan. The artist is quick to choose the “right site” at “the spur of the moment,” setting up an impromptu studio and installations for the shoot. The strikingly avant-garde photography team is usually followed by amazed crowds and amused onlookers, some of whom were keen to appear in the shots and happy to join in, whilst others find the whole exercise bizarre enough to offer a loud, liberal dose of hilarious comments, most wondering if it was all for a Bollywood movie! The artist notes that the palpable excitement and commotion of the spontaneous goings on around him always add another dimension to the atmospherics. In spite of this commotion, he is nevertheless able to add breathtaking images, with his signature surrealistic touch, to the collection, as if they have emerged from an other-worldly twilight zone.

JJ Valaya during shoot for Paradox 19

JJ Valaya, the Jodhpur-born couturier, has always been fascinated by what has been described as his fondness for “gold braid and tassel.” In pursuit of his passion for art photography, he shifts his gear from the manicured glamour of the fashion stage to the dust and heat, hustle and bustle of Indian streets. The quest to create a niche for himself as a photographer in the nascent fashion industry began modestly, as he could not afford to hire a professional crew to work with him. He began by organizing his own fashion shoots, editorials and campaigns. His fashion photography quickly turned to a passion, with financial success following thereafter. Gradually his fascination with the camera flowered into a full-blown affair with art photography, as well, reflected in this collection of vivid images of the city he calls his own. Using a high-resolution Canon 5d Mac 2 camera, he makes limited edition prints etched with archival ink on archival paper. His artistic imagery is closely linked to what Valaya does in fashion. Like the world of fashion, the subject, casting and costumes are all pre-planned; but unlike his fashion shoots, the frames and the locales are spontaneous. The characters wear no makeup and there is no additional styling or artificial lighting. Relying on natural light only, the emphasis is on the subject and his/her surroundings—as featured in the images of the artist at work.

Paradox 1 (2011)

Portraying the past-as-present and the mundane as high culture, Valaya encapsulates the shades and shapes of India into a series of seamless shots. His spontaneous shots freeze the moment. His discerning eye and ‘ways of seeing’ turn old dilapidated buildings, disbanded furniture and old streets in middle class neighborhoods—already buzzing and action-packed—into Art Deco curios with iconic importance. Ordinary people turn into performers for each shoot, as they adorn costumes, vintage robes and ornate jewels; seeming to relish playing the dressing-game to the hilt and assuming various roles set against carefully-selected backgrounds. While the choreographed images evoke impressions of the Indian royalty of a by-gone era, the grandeur and persona of Valaya’s images continue to live in public memory in various erstwhile states-of-mind. They also capture the intangible quality of today’s changing India, “harking back to the past, but also yearning gapingly into the future,” bringing the history and reality of the many Indias to life.

Valaya’s photo sessions sometimes entailed the occasional on-edge moment, as well as some fun-filled ones. The expedition to Jama Masjid that took place on Bakra Eid, the holy Muslim festival—one of the busiest days of the year— was one such experience. The street markets were busy, with those milling about earnestly engaged in selling and buying goats for sacrifice. A much-delayed start, given the model’s late arrival, got disrupted further when it began to pour rain just as the photography session was to start. With no readily-available shelter, the crew sat, waiting, for over two hours in the car. And just as Valaya was about to call it off for the day, the rain suddenly stopped and clouds parted just long enough for him to capture the mosque bathed in the most magical surreal sunlight. “There was a definite divinity at play!” the artist told me while describing the particular incident.

Paradox 2 (2011)

Trying to compose the picture with Neesha Singh sitting on the steps at Jantar Mantar— one of India’s most photographed monuments—was also a bizarre experience. As the artist stood at its highest point, looking down at the stairs and the shadows below, it immediately struck a chord with him. But there was a stray dog that kept following him and the model, refusing to leave them or the site. He kept coming back despite getting shooed away by people who considered the animal a nuisance. Finally, “as soon as my subject took her place, the dog simply ambled in and placed himself at her feet, as if it had just hung around to tell me that I needed him!”

And Lord Shiva as a Child, blissfully asleep, is featured in another image; while the caption accompanying it speaks of a temple dedicated to Lord Hanuman, the monkey god! The cycles parked against the railing on the sidewalk in the busy, buzzing Sarojini Nagar market made a picture-perfect backdrop for the young boy reclining on the bolster in the photographer’s frame. Assuming a look of innocence and with bare feet, he was otherwise majestically decked out in cap, jewelry, ring, necklaces and angrakha (long flowing robe), posing in a style that implied royal breeding. Captured in another frame, while the artist worked on this image, are hundreds of amused people, converging to watch the goings on.

The concept of wrestlers’ court, known as the pehelwan akhada in local parlance, is a familiar one in India. Some such wrestling courts can be found even today in the heart of Indian cities! JJ Valaya takes his viewers to one such court at Aya Nagar in South Delhi. He frames his photograph in a ‘tongue in cheek’ manner, juxtaposing the fully-decked out young urbane athlete, seated comfortably in an ornate chair in front of a line-up of well-built, bare-bodied local lads dressed in just a loin cloths or underwear. The image engagingly captures a scene of one of India’s still-relevant classes.

Left: far: Paradox 6 (2011); near: Shoot on streets of Delhi 

Paradox 8 (2011)

Another familiar Indian sight is the roadside barber, known locally as hajam or nai. His presence is another unique feature integral to the life style and culture of this country. He can often be found in the most precarious and unlikely locations. Positioning himself in the middle of a bustling, congested cityscape, he sets up his impromptu barbershop, so that passers-by— amongst the teaming millions—will find him both easy to access and affordable. With scant tools-of-the-trade, including a mirror often perched against a wall or tree trunk, a rickety chair placed opposite, shaving brush, cream and a variety of oils neatly arrayed on a shelf or table, these impromptu barber ‘shops’ can often be spotted at the boundary walls along crowded roadsides, at bus stops and railways stations—anywhere and everywhere. The barber in this Valaya photo eagerly left his customer sitting in the chair to pose for the shoot, gripping his cycle, with the fashion model perched upon it, her arm resting on the shoulders of the young woman standing by.

Paradox 17 (2011)

The artist then takes his viewers to another forgotten historic site—the Ugrasen ki Baoli at Hailey Road, near Connaught Place—in central Delhi. The dilapidated, multi-layered architectural marvel carries great social and cultural significance for India. The sunken steps offer an imposing, textural contrast to the scale of the carefully-groomed, imposing image and majestic posturing of the Maharaja walking up the stairs. The royal aura looks somewhat haunting, augmented further by the comparatively distant and diminutive appearance of the local band players who are more often spotted playing at Indian weddings. The solitary dove that, “appeared at the perfect moment in the perfect place…” right above the Maharaja’s head, seems to add another element of intrigue to the image.

Paradox 19 (2011)

The blatant play of caste politics in different regions of India is manifest in the numerous statues of the legendry scholar Ambedkar, popularly known as Babasaheb, that dot the countryside. Though born in a poor, untouchable caste, he rose to great heights and is credited with drafting the Indian constitution. Some of his statues were built to honour the great man; but hundreds of others are located at crossroads, more for the sake of form and to win votes. In this frame, the young lad, Aryan, is dressed to the hilt and seated with crossed legs in an ornate chair in the company of Valaya’s master cutter, with Ambedkar’s statue perched on a high platform in the background. Knowing that the photo shoot took place in New Delhi’s diplomatic enclave, adds complexity and interest to an already-multilayered story. And as an ironic note to the day’s shoot, ten minutes into the project, the six-year old son of one of JJ Valaya’s friend, took everyone by surprise, including his own parents, when he declared, “for the amount of work you’re making me do, you should be paying me.” It served as a jaw-dropping comment on the modern world: from scholar Ambedkar, gazing down from his lofty perch, to youthful entrepreneur, Aryan, in the mix and offering a harsh dose of reality!

Two beautiful ladies majestically seated and immaculately dressed in similar ornately embroidered sarees and elaborate jewelry, appear in another Valaya image. Representing two different generations and cultural eras, coming together despite the age gap, it also speaks of a woman’s unflinching love for shringar or adornments.  This generational play is taken to another level, spanning religious and professional interests, in the picture featuring young Ananda, grandly-attired and seated in a chair, watched over by the aged embroiderer, Mohammed, standing behind in what looks like a shanty home interior (See Paradox 9, opening image). The scene takes place in Dhobi Ghat (washermen’s colony), situated in the centre of India’s capital city!

Paradox 20 (2011)

In yet another image, a celebrated Indian artist is featured, decked out as an emperor. Wearing a sherwani (long flowing overcoat) and pagadi (turban or headdress), offset with pearls and jewels and pointed embroidered juttis (shoes), he is shown walking through the precincts of the historic monument Qutab Minar, a hot-spot for tourists (see image-in-the- making with JJ Valaya, above, right). The calligraphic markings in the background offer a nostalgic, vintage commentary on another India of an erstwhile era.

The couturier’s parallel creative voyage reflects a secretly-nursed romance with his camera which he describes as his “karmic connect.” His engaging narrative compositions reflect his ability to seize the moment, reconstructing in the real world, images that are at first, only ideas. His canvas is the vast expanse of Delhi and the cultural melting pot of the Indian nation: its spirit and atmospherics, layers of buzz and humanity all serving as sources for inspiration. Once a seat of imperial power for several dynasties—and now the capital of an independent, democratic and ever-changing India, Delhi is Ground Zero for JJ Valaya’s compelling images of India and its people, executed with cultural sensitivity and craftsmanship.

Paradox 21 (2011)

His visuals manipulate context, bringing to the fore the complex socio-cultural fabric of the nation—piercing through and poking at its seemingly inconsistent hierarchy and heroism, feudal legacy and democratic leveling—to reveal its hauteur (on the one hand) and its textural, Realpolitik, on the other. The concurrence of contrasting opposites in Valaya’s photographs represents a pastiche of different time periods, which, while not deliberately premeditated, seem somewhat stage-set, all the same. His goal of highlighting the realities, tensions and dualities of life in our contemporary Indias, is successfully portrayed in his work.

Valaya’s cyclorama rolls back and forth, creating a multi-layered collage of many Indias—inundated with a range of colours, smells, feelings, visuals and ‘happenings’—as the country’s gritty underbelly comes face-to-face with the elegant and sophisticated. Juxtaposing the grand with the simple, mixing the bizarre with the sensible, his photographs manage to replay history in a contemporary context. Valaya’s images also remind one of historically-sensitive Company Period artwork, including that of Raja Deen Dayal. In Valaya’s world, there are royals and commoners, palace precincts and street bazaars, pedigree pets and stray animals, well-known figures and teeming, unknown crowds, ornate settings and graffiti-strewn backgrounds— the sum of which creates a cultural free-for-all space, blurring the socio-cultural divide between this and that India, or the Indias of then and now.

By Sushma Bahl, Contributing Writer

………….

Sushma K. Bahl, MBE, is an independent curator of cultural projects, arts adviser and writer, based in Delhi. Until 2003, she led on the British Council’s cultural policy and program for India, spearheading several initiatives, including the first-ever Festival of India in Britain and the Enduring Image exhibition from the British Museum together with numerous associated events and collaborative arts-related projects. In recent years, she curated a series of art exhibitions, including Keep the Promise, raising funds for the UN’s Millennium Development Goals; Contemporary Chronicles in Miniature Art, featuring works from India and Pakistan; Vistaar and Convergence, two separate exhibitions involving collaboration between artists and designers; Annanya, an overview of contemporary Indian art and Ways of Seeing, winning the IHC Art India Award for best-curated group show. Read Shushma Bahl’s article on the Convergence exhibition here: http://www.artesmagazine.com/2011/01/new-delhi-critic-sushma-bahl-examines-link-between-art-and-applied-design/

She was also the co-director for Indian arts at the Gwacheon Hanmadang Festival in South Korea (2004); guest director for XI Triennale-India (2005); co-curator for V9/U9 Indo-UK digital art project and Art Link, Indo-German artists’ residency (2006, 2007), Project Consultant for Bharat Rang Mahotsav XII and jury member for the 14th Asian Art Biennale in Bangladesh (2010).

Sushma Bahl is author of 5000 Years of Indian Art (2011), by Roli Books (soon to be distributed in the U.S.). She has also edited and written for books on artists Thota Vaikuntam, Paresh Maity, Satish Gupta and Shuvaprasanna, amongst others, and is on the advisory panel of several arts institutions in India and abroad.

Contact her at: sushmakbahl@gmail.com

E

 Left: Tarshito (Italy), Applauses (2007) Made at Tarshito studio with Isabella De Chiara, Roma e Agnieszka Blazy, Polonia, Angela Ferrara,Bari; Martinelli Corato, and Bari, metal structure and ceramic hands. Photo: Edward Rubin. artes fine arts magazine

Marc Quinn (England), The Chromatic Archaeology of Desire (2008) Painted Bronze. Photo: Sergio Martucci

 The show was founded fourteen years ago by Paolo De Grandis, and cleverly scheduled by that chief curator to run alongside the Venice Film Festival and overlap exhibition dates with the Venice Art and Architectural Biennales; the exhibition hosts thousands during its month-long run. This year, OPEN 14 was co-curated by Carlotta Scarpa, Ebadur Rahman, Nevia Capello, Christos Savvidis, and Gloria Vallese. Vallese also curated the highly-touted Cracked Culture? The Quest for Identity in Contemporary Chinese Art , with Wang Lin. The Venice Biennale Collateral Event featured twenty-eight artists from Albania, Bangladesh, China, England, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iran, Italy, Romania, and Switzerland.

Feng Feng (China), W Fountain 2010 installation. Photo: Courtesy Arte Communications

The first work was visible even before the boat docked—The Chromatic Archaeology of Desire (2008), London-based artist Marc Quinn’s super realistic painted orchid. Perched atop a tall pedestal, it was an elegant poem in bronze, speaking to the beauty and fragility of everyday life. Down the road, were 3000 of Romanian artist Martin-Emilian Balint’s laminated cardboard figures, housed in a small, multi-level vitrine on wheels. Titled Embrace (2011), the marching figures stood shoulder-to-shoulder, seeming to offer an expression of love as they welcomed visitors to the island. Across the street, echoing similar sentiment, was Applauses (2007), above, a tall metal vase covered with hundreds of ceramic-crafted open hands. Created by Italian artist Tarshito, the vase was significantly placed at the entrance to the Grande Albergo Ausonia & Hungaria Hotel, where it appeared to applaud the arrival of its guests.

Filippo Zuriato (Italy), “Hey?!!” (2011), painted terracotta. Photo: Sergio Martucci

Several show-stopping and intellectually-challenging works welcomed viewers to the Lungomare G. Marconi, the section of the exhibition most densely arrayed with art. In city terms, it runs some five-or-six blocks. First to catch our eye, and especially hypnotic when lit up at night, was Chinese artist Feng Feng’s stunning W Fountain (2010), an intensely-bright yellow McDonald’s sign, the iconic form turned upside down. Also prominently featured in Vallese’s Cracked Culture exhibition, W Fountain is the artist’s comment on the rampant spread of Western culture—in this case, fast food. Some ten feet away, separated by a tree and some foliage—as were most of the works along this botanical stretch—was, Hey?!!, Italian artist Filippo Zuriato’s terracotta sculpture of a young Chinese boy enclosed in a wire cage. Dressed in the ubiquitous outfit of the American West—a T-shirt and jeans—the boy points to his almond-shaped eyes. The work, in which the boy boldly calls attention to himself, was open to a myriad of interpretations: possible loss of identity one; loss of freedom, another.

Ronni Ahmmed (Bangladesh), The Tomb of Qara Köz (2011), eggs, acrylic sheets, wood. Photo: Sergio Martucci

Across the avenue, enticingly situated at the entrance to the beach, was Bangladesh artist Ronni Ahmmed’s intricately constructed sculpture, The Tomb of Qara Köz (2011). Rooted in Opera Aperta, or ‘open work of art,’ as set forth by Umberto Eco’s book of the same name, and traditional Bengali theatre (both of which use history to tell their stories), Tomb was composed of three layers of 1254 glasses, each holding a cartoon-painted egg in the manner of Bassano, Veronese, and Tintoretto. The pyramidal sculpture, top-heavy in meaning, was meant to recall, as the catalog informed us, the campaign of the Mughal princess Qara Köz, who exerted powerful influence amid the Medici’s Florence. The sculpture’s three planes paid homage to Venice’s Bengali immigrants, the adventures of Pinocchio, and Fairytale, Ai Weiwei’s 2007 Documenta installation. This trio of influences inspired Ahmmed, in emulation of Weiwei, to invite 101 Bengalis visitors to his tomb, to record their secret desires, pay alms, and make their wishes come true.

Alfred Milot Mirashi (Albania), Do, Try (2011) - iron, aluminium, glue, plaster, jute, foam, gold paint, fibre glass. Photo: Sergio Martucci

 Back to the residential side of Lungomare G. Marconi—lined with a steady stream of stately mansions—could be seen Albanian artist, Alfred Milot Mirashi’s Do, Try (2011), a large, severely- bent, partially-painted golden key, reminiscent of Oldenburg’s sculptures of everyday objects. Though minimally constructed, it maximized the ideas it conjured, as everybody the world over, not only deals with keys, but uses that word in many contexts. ‘Key to my heart’ quickly came to mind, as did ‘key to the city’, among others. Though these are popular uses, according to curator Rahman, Mirashi, the artist is thinking about the human body— the twisted, tormented people “who reach out, body and soul, in their yearning for peace.” Given the key’s contorted anatomical referencing, it seems the artist’s wish for universal peace would be a long-time coming.

Marina Gavazzi (Italy), His Holiness (2011) tubes, digital print on plastic support. Photo: Sergio Martucci

Italian artist Marina Gavazzi set her incendiary sights on the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, in her four-sided installation, His Holiness (2011), particularly the shameful attempt by the Vatican’s highest echelons to cover up sex crimes against minors by priests, especially in the United States. Digital prints of the pope were printed on plastic panels, the Holy See engulfed in flames. Presumably in hell, he faced punishment for centuries of violence inflicted by the Church, in the name of their creed, against the people. The artist cited the Inquisition in her catalog essay, but the legion countries—both past and present—complicit with the Vatican’s actions, remained unnamed. Perhaps there were just too many to list, especially in such proximity to the Vatican.

Puni (Italy), Openings (2011), wood, PMMA, brass, enamel. Photo: Sergio Martucci

 The conceptual works of Puni and Marilena Vita, two Italian artists, added a bit of levity to the exhibition. Openings (2011), Puni’s installation comprised a common door, set upright on a patch of green grass. Like Mirashi’s key, Do, Try, serves as an everyday object and a universal symbol; like the key and its many interpretations, the viewer was encouraged to make of it what they would. Our first thought, given the door’s bucolic setting, was one of freedom, entering a new world. On closer examination, the words ‘Emergency Exit’ appeared on the door, exposing the other side of the coin, alerting us to the ever-present possibility of imminent danger. Also playing with our minds, as well as our eyes, was Marilena Vita’s Legs (2011), a compelling, surreal photograph, printed on vinyl, of the artist’s long legs. One set of legs is real, the other, reflected in a mirror and appearing in reverse, seems to be growing out of the first set of legs. With our perspective disoriented, our eyes work overtime to make sense of what we were looking at.

Casagrande & Recalcati (Italy), Fiori (2011), oil on board. Photo: Courtesy Arte Communications

I ended my tour of OPEN 14—which began, upon my arrival in Venice, with an orchid, and finished in the lobby of the Excelsior– just in time for a cocktail at the hotel’s renowned Blue Bar, I might add—as I stood mesmerized in front of another floral work, Fiori (2011), an astonishingly beautiful painting of flowering peonies by Milan-based artists, Sandra Casagrande and Roberto Recalcati. Melding a color palette of luxurious creams and pinks, evoking the voluptuous imagery of French Rococo painters Jean Honoré Fragonard and Francois Boucher, together with the kind of lingering Hollywood close-ups that forever etched Greta Garbo’s face in our collective memory—the artists have rendered a cinematically-exquisite floral motif in paint, whose silky petals actually appear to be opening in slow-motion. It is here, imaginatively savoring the heady aroma of the perfumed bouquet, where we get to experience the magic of art in all its multi-sensory glory. . .

By Edward Rubin, Contributing Writer

OPEN, International Exhibition of Sculpture and Installations is held In Venice, Italy in the fall of each year.

S

(Left) [IMAGE 1] Godfried Schalcken, Young Girl Eating Sweets (detail), 1680-85, oil/panel, 73 x 61″.  Collection Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo. Image courtesy Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts fine arts magazine 

Image 2: Collectors, Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo. photo: Walter Silver

Given their nationalities, it may seem obvious that they would collect Dutch and Flemish art, but it was carriages, sporting prints and a farmhouse that they owned in New Hampshire which launched their adventure as collectors. Only when Peter Sutton, then curator of European Painting at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, suggested they start collecting paintings representing the Netherlands’ Golden Age did they turn to Old Masters. 

In creating a collection composed of exemplary work of the most significant Dutch and Flemish artists of the seventeenth century, the van Otterloos have been guided by Dr. Simon H. Levie, former director of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and Dr. Frederik J. Duparc, former director of the Mauritshuis in The Hague. The works span the genres that characterize Golden Age painting: church interiors and townscapes, portraits, scenes of everyday life (“genre” painting), seascapes and landscapes, and still lifes. 

Today the van Otterloos’s collection totals 68 paintings, as well as a smaller number of additional pieces representing the decorative arts. Part of the collection has already been exhibited at the Mauritshuis. “In the Netherlands, people are familiar with Dutch painting as part of their heritage,” Mrs. van Otterloo noted, four days before the exhibition opened at Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, earlier in 2011. “We’re really excited and eager to know what people will think.” When asked what she would like visitors to be aware of, she replied, “The beauty and quality of the works. It’s a wonderful survey of Dutch painting.” 

Martin Luther attaches his 95 Theses (1517). Image not part of PEM exhibition

The exhibition was organized by The Peabody Essex in conjunction with the Mauritshuis. Dr. Frederik J. Duparc is the guest curator, and Karina Corrigan, the H. A. Crosby Forbes Curator of Asian Export Art at Peabody Essex, is the coordinating curator. 

In 1555, only 38 years after Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, nailed to the door of the church in Wittenburg, Germany (left), sparked the Protestant Revolution, the seventeen provinces of the Low Countries came under the control of Philip II of Spain. In 1579, the seven northern provinces, which were largely Protestant, united in the Union of Utrecht; two years later, they declared their independence from Spain. For the new United Provinces, the following century would be marked by enormous economic growth fuelled by trade, and by the unprecedented prosperity and cultural flowering known as the Dutch Golden Age. 

Image 3. Note: Reference all image detail below. Click here to enlarge

Wealthy merchants, bankers and other prosperous citizens replaced monarchs and the aristocracy as patrons and collectors of art. This led to the rise of an open art market. Paintings tended to be fairly small in size and scale, as they were purchased not for churches or palaces, but for private homes. Subject matter was secular, spanning a range of genres, including portraits, facial studies, townscapes, church interiors, scenes of daily life, home interiors, landscapes and seascapes, and still-lifes. Modesty was a virtue, though it did not preclude national pride. 

The highly detailed, lifelike rendering characteristic of Dutch painting of the era resulted in works that appeared highly realistic; but it was a deceptive realism, tempered with imagination and altered by the artist to achieve a particular end. 

Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection opens with an introduction to the Golden Age. A photograph of the van Otterloos greets visitors as they enter the first gallery. A large map shows the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Three landscapes – February by Jacob Grimmer, a miniature painted on copper by Brussels-born Jan Brueghel the Elder and entitled, Village Scene with a Canal, and Hendrick Avercamp’s larger Winter Landscape near a Village [IMAGE 3] provide visitors with views based on areas indicated on the map. 

Image 4

The low two-drawer oak and ebony ribbank cupboard, ornamented with geometric and figurative carving, is characteristic of the Southern Netherlands and is the only Flemish cupboard in the exhibition. In the seventeenth century, houses had few pieces of furniture, which took up valuable space and was expensive. Elaborately carved furniture was a status symbol. A four-drawer cupboard, or beeldenkast, of oak and ebony seen later in the exhibition, demonstrates a design associated with the Northern Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam [IMAGE 4 ]. 

Image 5

Jan van der Heyden’s View of the Westerkerk, Amsterdam [IMAGE 5, and link to video clip at end of article] in the second gallery exemplifies the genre known as townscapes. In contrast to many of his other paintings, Van der Heyden’s rendering of the church, a well-known symbol of Amsterdam, is unusually faithful to the actual structure. The church was completed in 1631 and was the largest Protestant church in the world until the construction of Christopher Wren’s St Paul’s Cathedral in London. It is still the largest Protestant church in the Netherlands and is the burial place of Rembrandt. Anne Frank mentioned the church’s set of bells (carillon) in her diary; she could not help hearing them, for the Westerkerk is located not far from the building in which she and her family hid during World War II. An interactive in the PEM exhibition gallery enables visitors to listen to the sound of those bells. 

Church interiors were also popular subjects. Such views were simultaneously scenes of everyday life in a religious setting. In the absence of crucifixes and other imagery that Dutch Protestants renounced—because they associated them with Roman Catholicism—the interior architecture of the church assumed a new importance. The Van Otterloo collection includes three examples, one by each of the three seventeenth-century masters of the genre: Gerard Houckgeest, Pieter Saenredam, and Emanuel de Witte. 

In The Nieuwe Kerk in Delft with the Tomb of William of Orange, by Gerard Houckgeest, monumental sun-dappled columns frame the tomb of the great hero of the Dutch revolt against Spain. Darker tones prevail in Emanuel de Witte’s Interior of the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam [IMAGE 6]. This latter work is one of the relatively few paintings in the exhibition executed on canvas, rather than on panel. 

Image 6

The introduction of private citizens as patrons and collectors of art contributed to the demand for portraits, a genre that ranked only below history painting in the traditional hierarchy of subject matter. Rembrandt van Rijn, the most famous portraitist of the Golden Age, arrived in Amsterdam at the age of 26 from his hometown of Leiden and in just a year was known as the finest portrait painter in the city. 

The Portrait of Aeltje Uylenburgh [IMAGE 7 ], which Rembrandt painted not long after his arrival in Amsterdam, was purchased by the van Otterloos in 2005. Rembrandt knew the sitter; he was living in her cousin’s house, and two years later, another one of her cousins would become his wife. 

Image 7

The other great portraitist of the Dutch Golden Age, Frans Hals, is represented in the van Otterloo collection by his Portrait of a Preacher. Flemish by birth, Hals was just a child when he moved with his family to Haarlem. While he is particularly well known for his group portraits of civic guards of Haarlem, he also painted a smaller number of individual portraits as well as genre scenes. 

It is difficult to imagine the Dutch Golden Age without genre painting, or scenes of daily life. Barber-Surgeon Tending a Peasant’s Foot by Isaack Koedijck [IMAGE 8] , shows a barber-surgeon, a legitimate medical practitioner in seventeenth-century Northern Netherlands, treating a patient. Koedijck and his wife spent most of the 1650s in Asia, where he was in the service of the Dutch East India Company, or VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie). The VOC, which was founded in 1602, possessed a monopoly on Dutch trading activities in Asia and played a major role in the overseas trade of the Dutch Republic. 

The placement of the open window and hanging birdcage recall the composition of The Arnolfini Portrait (also referred to as The Arnolfini Wedding) by the early fifteenth-century Flemish painter Jan van Eyck. The open book on the table in the background has only recently been identified, for Koedijck did not show the title page. An actual copy of the book may be seen in the exhibition in a display case next to the painting, while on a nearby wall, an interactive–one of three in the exhibition–invites visitors to further explore Koedijk’s painting. 

Image 8

Additional examples of genre scenes are exhibited in the fifth gallery. In Sleeping Man Having His Pockets Picked [IMAGE 9] by Nicolaes Maes, the pickpocket openly acknowledges the presence of the viewer, whom she invites to keep her secret as she puts a finger to her lips. Maes, who was a student of Rembrandt, painted genre scenes for not quite five years before beginning a long career as a successful portraitist; such scenes are therefore relatively rare. 

In the same gallery are examples of another genre of Golden Age painting associated specifically with the Dutch: the tronie, or facial study. Though related to portraiture, the tronie is not to be confused with it; a tronie is not intended to be a likeness of a specific person; the sitter, who may well be a model, is not expected to be identified. The van Otterloo collection includes three such works, exhibited side-by-side: Jacob Backer’s Young Woman Holding a Fan, Salomon de Bray’s Study of a Young Woman in Profile, and Jan Lievens’ Young Girl in Profile [IMAGE 10] . 

Image 9

While most of the art of the Dutch Golden Age drew its inspiration from contemporary life, classical antiquity also provided themes for artists, thanks in part to the availability of translations of classical writings and a high level of literacy. Twenty-year-old Aelbert Cuyp marries a classical subject to the landscape genre in Orpheus Charming the Animals [IMAGE 11 ]. Enticed by his music, an assembly of animals and surrounding trees listens to the Greek god Orpheus, whose mother, Calliope, was the muse of epic poetry. The presence of an elephant, an ostrich, two tigers and a camel – animals that would have been considered exotic – reminds us that the seventeenth century also saw the rise of cabinets de curiosités, or curiosity cabinets, which housed collections of objects ranging from natural history to antiquities, and which served as forerunners to museums. 

Contrasting with the classical setting of Orpheus Charming the Animals is Gabriël Metsu’s Old Woman Eating Porridge, a theme that was pioneered some twenty years earlier by another artist represented in the van Otterloo collection, Gerrit Dou. An elderly woman eats a bowl of porridge while her cat keeps her company at her feet. The simple interior speaks of virtue and modesty, while the fur of the cat is rendered with the same careful attention to texture that characterizes so much of Dutch Golden Age painting. 

Image 10

The small oak table, displayed near the painting, is also part of the van Otterloo collection, giving visitors to the exhibition an opportunity to see an actual table of the type depicted in Metsu’s painting. 

Landcapes and seascapes constitute a significant part of the van Otterloo collection, and are displayed in the seventh gallery. The foremost of all Dutch landscape painters, Haarlem-born Jacob van Ruisdael, is represented by three paintings: Wooded River Landscape, View of Haarlem [IMAGE 12] and Winter Landscape with Windmills. 

Seascapes reflect the importance of water in Dutch life, for water, which was ever a threat to the low-lying land, also led the nation to international power and wealth. Not surprisingly, the seventeenth century was a vital era for Dutch marine painting. Artists rendered details with the realism for which the period is renowned, even while incorporating imaginary and symbolic elements. Leiden-born Willem van de Velde the Younger is considered the most important seventeenth-century painter of the genre. His ability to convey atmospheric effects, as evidenced in works such as Fishing Boats by the Shore in a Calm, reminds us of the influence that the plein air seascapes of such later Dutch artists as Johan Barthold Jongkind exerted on the work of the young Claude Monet. 

Image 11

Also on display in this gallery is the painting that launched the van Otterloos’ Dutch and Flemish collection: Jan van Goyen’s River Landscape with Peasants in a Ferryboat. 

An exception to the smaller size and low horizons of most Dutch landscapes and seascapes is Jan Both’s Italianate Landscape with Travelers on a Path. This large fantasy landscape has never hung in the van Otterloos’ home, owing to its size; it shows the influence of Both’s visit to Italy, as well as his fondness for the light-infused work of French artist Claude Lorrain, a Both contemporary. 

Image 12

The last gallery of the exhibition is devoted to still-lifes. In contrast to the distant views and outdoor settings of landscapes and seascapes, the still-lifes present intimate, close-up views, most often of flower arrangements or food. Still Life with Flowers [IMAGE 13] by Rachel Ruysch—one of the very few women artists who achieved renown during the Golden Age—is one of several floral still-lifes in the collection. Like landscapes, still-lifes ranked lower in the hierarchy of subject matter than did portraiture and genre painting, but nevertheless enjoyed great popularity. Artists blurred the line between reality and fiction to produce aesthetically pleasing results, and thus did not hesitate to combine flowers of different seasons, no matter how realistically they might render them, in a single bouquet. 

A live, albeit sleeping, animal enters a still life in Gerrit Dou’s Sleeping Dog [IMAGE 14, below], showing a small dog curled up by an earthenware pot and a bundle of firewood. Dou, who studied under Rembrandt and achieved considerable success in his own lifetime, also painted animals and scenes of daily life. 

Image 13

Two pieces of blue-and-white kraak porcelain in Breakfast Still Life with a Ham and a Basket of Cheese by Flemish artist Pieter Claesz. remind us of the enormous importance of trade in the Dutch Golden Age. Kraak ware, produced in China for export between the late sixteenth and early decades of the seventeenth century, arrived in the Netherlands on the ships of the VOC (Dutch East India Company). Next to the painting, a small linen press made of oak, ebonized fruitwood and beech shows visitors how the Dutch expertly pressed the table-cloths and napkins that feature in Claesz.’s and a number of other Dutch works. 

The organization of the exhibition by specific genre such as portraits, still-lifes and seascapes, coupled with lively and informative wall texts, makes the exhibit accessible to visitors whatever their prior knowledge of Dutch art. The inclusion of furniture and other objects helps viewers better understand the lifestyle of the individuals and spaces portrayed in the paintings, while interactives turn them into active participants, providing opportunities to experience the collection by hearing and touch as well as by sight. The interactives also permit the inclusion of information, some of it in game format, which might otherwise have been omitted, and will help to draw in younger visitors. The overall accessibility of Golden mirrors the friendliness of the collectors themselves, both in their openness and enthusiasm in discussing their collection and their hopes for the exhibition with this writer and others, and in the remarkable generosity they have shown in their lending policy. This is an exhibition not to be missed! 

By Susan E. Schopp, Contributing Writer 

On Display at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, now through February 12, 2012 

Visit the Peabody Essex Museum site; watch and hear Bach’s Tocata in D Minor on the Westerkerk carillon at: http://www.youtube.com/user/peabodyessexmuseum#g/c/A0433BEDF9C81A8A  

 An award-winning, full-color 404-page catalogue, “Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection” accompanies the exhibition and is available through the museum Web site at: www.mfah.org  [IMAGE 14, left]. 

* * * 

Susan E. Schopp is an independent scholar specializing in the shipping of the Canton trade, c. 1700-1842. She holds a Diplôme d’études supérieures in museum studies and a Diplôme de recherche in East Asian art history from the Ecole du Louvre in Paris. Her current research focuses on chop boats. In her spare time she is a member of the volunteer crew of the full-size, fully operational reproduction East India ship, Friendship of Salem. 

____________________________________ 

Image References: 

² Eijk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo in their home in Massachusetts. Photo: Walter Silver. Image courtesy Peabody Essex Museum. 

³ Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Landscape near a Village, c. 1610-15. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. Image courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 

⁴ Cupboard (Beeldenkast), 1620-40. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. Photo: Walter Silver. Image courtesy Peabody Essex Museum. 

⁵ Jan van der Heyden, View of the Westerkerk, Amsterdam, c. 1667-70. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. 

⁶ Emanuel de Witte, Interior of the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, c. 1660-65. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. Image courtesy Museum of Fine  Arts, Boston. 

⁷ Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of Aeltje Uylenburgh, 1632. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. Image courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 

⁸ Isaack Koedijck, Barber-Surgeon Tending a Peasant’s Foot, c. 1649-50. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. Image courtesy Peabody Essex Museum.  

⁹ Nicolaes Maes, Sleeping Man Having His Pockets Picked, c. 1655. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. Image courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 

¹⁰ Jan Lievens, Young Girl in Profile, c. 1631-32. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. Image courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 

¹¹ Aelbert Cuyp, Orpheus Charming the Animals, c. 1640. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. 

 ¹² Jacob van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem, c. 1670-75. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. 

 ¹³ Rachel Ruysch, Still Life with Flowers, 1709. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. 

 ¹⁴ Gerrit Dou, Sleeping Dog, 1650. The Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. Image courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Carole Feuerman, Grand Catalina (2005-11) oil paint on resin (o/r), 62x38x17"

My first encounter with Grand Catalina (2005-11) came unexpectedly, as I thumbed through the pages of the gallery section of an art magazine. Her uplifted face, eyes closed, suited and capped for laps in the pool, skin still moist with droplets of water as she appears to slip from the water, riveted me in an unexpected moment of intimacy with this life-like image. Lashes and brows neatly arrayed, the pouting lips appeared ready to gasp for a breath of pool-side air. If her eyes were to finally open, I wondered if she would be surprised to see me—a stranger, so close by!? The work conveyed a sense of strength and capability, while also offering an alluring vulnerability and sensuality. In the few moments that I studied the image, I imagined that this larger-than-life-sized figure, seemingly brimming with self-assurance, would have no difficulty managing whatever the world handed her, once she finally emerged from her momentary reverie. artes fine arts magazine

Carole Feuerman with Survival of Serena, Green Cap (2006-11), o/r, 38x84x32" Photo: Alvaro Corzo V.

This, I would soon learn, was the work of New York realist sculptor, Carole Feuerman. A veteran of over four decades of creative work in many sculptural mediums—including resin, marble and bronze—Feuerman sculpts life-sized, monumental and smaller-scale works that encompass her signature trompe-l’oeil technique. Feuerman shares a hyper-realism tradition with artists like Duane Hanson and George Segal, but with a critical difference: approachability.

Reflections (1985), o/r, 75x21x21" Photo:David Finn

When hyper-realistic sculpture first appeared on the gallery and museum scene in the 1980s, these iconographic figures served as a timely, three-dimensional narrative for a human condition steeped in stereotyping and emotional objectification. It was time for the Me Generation, characterized by self-absorption and enhancing personal status. Reflecting that contemporaneous motif, Duane Hanson’s Tourists or Queeny were works based on social and class-based stereotypes, to be mentally catalogued and observed from a distant, carefully-proscribed insular world—like characters in a wax museum—seen, but seldom touched. George Segal ‘s somber, unpainted plaster cast figures were often arranged in groups, appearing like actors in an urban drama, suggesting alienation, latent aggression and indifference; or as single, expressionless figures trapped in a world of secretiveness, isolation and emotional alienation—quietly-despairing characters in a disconnected world.

For Feuerman’s work—sculpted first in plaster, then cast in bronze or resin, before being meticulously painted—the effect is not alienation, but intimacy. Her mostly-female forms appear to radiate an inner life, one of both mysterious sensuality and self-possessed consciousness, all-the-while inviting inclusion in their personal space. If the eyes are the window to the soul, her sculptures, portrayed predominantly with eyes closed, are denying us access to those deepest realms-of-consciousness that might resolve the mystery. Instead, Feuerman tantalizes and seduces the viewer, offering a voyeuristic connection to the personal space behind the eyelids of her figures. We are invited to watch a lone female figure emerging from a shower as she wraps a towel around her hair; another floating languidly in an inner tube; another appearing to stand waist-deep in a pool, hugging a large beach ball; yet another grips the end of a surfboard as a wave presumably surges around her. The artist draws the line at the act of seeing; engaging the viewer, while depriving us of the ability to ever ‘know’ the true spirit of the character. Herein lies the power of the artist’s statement.

Blue Venus (1996), o/r, 36x24x16"

Feuerman’s figures, in spite of their nakedness or isolation, exude confidence and personal power. Freshly emerged from their cleansing bath or pool, her Eve-like creations are still dripping with fresh droplets of water—a symbol of their close ties to nature’s life-giving force. As David Rubin, of the San Antonio Museum of Art said, in a recent review, “As females, these figures personify heroic archetypes, women who are proud of their bodies and triumphant in their achievements. As metaphors, they are expressive of hope and determination, and of the faith that accompanies the drive to push forward on life’s journey, regardless of the challenges or obstacles that threaten to deter us.”

Paradise (1997), o/r, 26x16x9" Photo:Alvaro Corzo V.

In no small way, this critique of Feuerman’s work is a reflection on the trajectory of her career as a sculptor. Emerging as an artist in the early years of the Feminist movement, she decided early-on to produce work that challenged the tiresome cliché of the woman as ‘the weaker sex.’ From the beginning, Feuerman committed herself to working with the human form. The raw power of her imagery, more literal and figurative than symbolic, she worked to transcend the ascription of erotic or provocative and instead, represent personal power and the pure narrative essence of objective realism in her rendering of the human body. The risks in becoming a hyper-realist were great. Functioning artistically on the verge of the simulacram threatens to produce an empty, representational shell—imitative and convincing—but devoid of emotional intent. But, Feuerman’s sculptures exceed the bounds of mere mimicry to become powerful symbols for the human experience. The philosopher, Nietzche warned that any effort to imitate reality relies too heavily on constructs of reason and language, to the exclusion of the senses. The result, he claimed, would be a mere perversion of the truth.

City Slicker (1982), o/r, 31x21x14"

But, Feuerman’s hyper-reality, guided by keen sensory instincts, borne of life experience, and finely-tuned artistic sensibilities, results in sculpture that achieves a universal truth: a strong emotional tie between subject and object—between the viewer and the viewed—that invites an intimacy and level of empathy not often found in a creative endeavor such as this. Far from detachment, a figurative work like Paradise (1997), invites us all to imagine a time when we could once again (or wished we could) float thoughtfully on a raft in a warn sea on a languorous August afternoon.

On a recent visit to Carole Feuerman’s studio, we discussed the primary motivation for her work. While one of the foremost hyper-realist sculptors in the world, she is yet modest and unassuming. She does not view her work so much erotic or sexual, as sensual and meditative. “I want to capture the universal feeling of the fleeting moment. When my figures are rendered with their eyes closed and deep in thought, it’s like I’m presenting a story in the making. I want the viewer to complete the narrative, she tells me.” Her studio assistants busy themselves during the time I am there, shaping plaster forms, readying molds, applying base coats on nearly-completed figures, all under her careful direction. “I am the only one who can paint the final layers of the skin. The difficulty comes when it is time to represent those subtle features, like veins and blemishes, which lie just below the surface and help to create a feeling of authenticity.”

Feuerman studio, interior

Tree (detail), 2009-11, o/r, 62x37x29"

In fact, Feuerman’s studio is part gallery, too. Work from several periods of her prolific career are on display, offering up a gathering of now-familiar personas who have turned out to see what comes next! The sculpting room is generously confectioned, from floor to ceiling, with plaster dust. Row upon row of shelves are stacked high with errant body parts of every type: spare heads, torsos, hands, ears and feet—a surreal, contemporary laboratory-setting for creating the next Prometheus. A work-in-progress lies prone on a work table: a life-sized male figure in plaster, slated to become an athlete doing a hand-stand. Together, we lift and balance the figure against a column, as Feuerman checks for anatomical accuracy with a view to balletic grace in the final product. This is art by consensus, as the whole production team (including this author) weighs in on the details of the final execution. Nearby, a serene female figure Tree (2009-11), nude except for a bathing cap, patiently observes. As though having just risen from the sea, in a perfectly-proportioned, 21st century version of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, she appears to be quietly marveling at all the fuss.

Across from the showroom and office area, and far-removed from the welter of plaster appendages, is the painting room. There, Feuerman’s assistants sit meditatively—like monastic scribes toiling over illuminated manuscripts—applying layer-upon-layer of paint to figures now waiting patiently for their turn to be ‘brought to life.’ Mounted on panels or sitting on table tops, the addition of lashes, brows, hair and (in some cases) acrylic water droplets, the artist’s final touches, completed with her signature style, will be the jolt of creative energy that finally animates these figures.

Butterfly (2008), o/r, 21x22.5x21" Photo:Ali Elai

Feuerman’s sculpture walks the fine line between reality and deception, inviting us to explore our emotional response to this nexus. The syncretic link is the artist’s realization of the intense physicality, passion and sensuality found in her figures’ otherwise mundane poses. “My work is about relationships,” Feuerman explains, “exploring the secret interiority of the individual and a woman’s relationship to herself. I hope to touch an emotional level that might otherwise be inaccessible. My objective is to do more than breathe life into my sculptures, but to explore the inner life of the character, much like a novel might.” Is it autobiographical, I ask? “Perhaps, but, I like to think of my works as larger than life—gods and goddesses of the Everyday.”

Critic, John Yau addressed the material connection between the viewer and Feuerman’s figures in a recent review. He states that, “[her sculptures] evoke an inner life, one that invites the viewer’s speculation as well as signals the distance between them and us. We can never know what they might be thinking. And that perhaps is the point. […] We see their bodies, but not their souls. By having their eyes closed, Feuerman inflects a fundamental aspect of her sculptures: they exist in the same physical world as we do, but they are also removed from us. This inflection causes the viewer to become self-conscious; looking is framed as an act of voyeurism.” But, unlike the voyeur, these figures are inviting us to share in the ecstasy arising from the simple sensual pleasures of water, sun and air—leading by example, rather than inclusion in their private reverie.

Water Sports (2011), o/r sculptures with interactive floor projection of water

Feuerman has recently begun to explore the kinetic effects of water on her bathing figures. “Water is the universal connection to life,” she tells me. “An important new phase in my work will be to incorporate computer technology developed recently that projects an image on the floor or wall and will respond realistically to physical touch. Sculpted figures can be bathed in a large field of blue light that realistically ripples when the movement of a toe or hand is introduced. “This kind of interactive sculpture can heighten the sense of connection to the work and give the viewer a real-time experience with the installation,” she explains. Feuerman said the technology is ready and hopes to introduce it in a number of upcoming shows, both in the U.S. and Europe.

Hands on Face (c. 2008), o/r

This latest phase in Feuerman’s oeuvre represents another round of experimentation in hyper-realistic sculpture’s ability to extend beyond the boundaries of literalism and mimicry, to endure as a rich commentary on contemporary life. Her keen observations of the smallest gesture, the portrayal of flesh as a complex, viable organ capable of sweat, blemishes and myriad flaws, the private joy of sensuality, eroticism and self-assuredness portrayed through subtle gestures and the narrative elements of her work—inviting a push-pull between the visual and tactile— have continued to resonate. As the critic, David Bourdon wrote, “What makes [Feuerman’s technical proficiency] all the more powerful is that everything she does is in the service of the figure; all her attention is devoted to achieving verisimilitude. The works are like mirrors, but, like the mirror one encounters in fairytales and myths, they reveal a deeper truth about us.”

The General's Daughter (detail), 2008, o/r. Photo:David Finn

In her conversation with me, the artist underscored that she wants her sculptures to function as a book, revealing glimpses of the inner life of her characters. But, while messaging in the visual arts, unlike story-telling, is denied the luxury of unfolding over time, Feuerman’s work nevertheless embodies the element of time as an essential component of its impact on the viewer. Her narrative is never fully disclosed, often hidden behind closed eyes and self-satisfied gestures of confidence and eroticism. This rarified atmosphere of self-confidence, mystery and anticipation opens the door to a range of reactions and feelings. Each work, carefully crafted to defy simple interpretation and deflect full disclosure, becomes a Rorschach test—or perhaps a tabula rasa—onto which we project our own impulses, thoughts and emotions. Feuerman’s sculptures may seem frozen in time, but they persist in revealing themselves at particular moments of intimacy, heightened sensory awareness and vulnerability; thereby inviting us to consider our physicality, and our own stories, during an encounter with her work; asking whether we could embrace, once again, the sensual world that we, too, once knew this well.

By Richard Friswell, Managing Editor

Carole Feuerman’s awards and schedule of past, present and future exhibitions are too numerous to mention here. To see more of her work and learn more about the artist and her accomplishments, go to: http://www.carolefeuerman.com/

Or Jim Kemper Fine Art’s artnet site at: http://www.jimkempnerfineart.com/

O

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

Barkley Hendricks, 'Black River from the Elgin Road View' (2005), o/c. Courtesy the artist & Jack Shainman Gallery, NY.

Before even seeing it, I made a judgment on this show. And I was right. The landscapes that Barkley Hendricks has made are revelatory in ways so precise and disarming that they trained me instantly. An enlarged capacity to respond to them was guaranteed simply by looking.

Eleven of these scenes share a single tight space in the gallery. Not crowded, the varied shapes of the canvases obviously invite congregation, like an assemblage of mezzotints on a Victorian parlor wall. Each tondo and oval and lunette is like a shifting image in a lantern slide show, introducing a distant country to a dazzled audience. artes fine arts magazine

'My Back to the Bulldozer' (2008), o/c. Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, NY.

This is Jamaica, but it is also resonant of Vietnam or any colonial landscape with violence just beneath its fantasy of paradise. On one canvas where an unpainted edge reveals the impasto around it, there is a literal equivalent to the many strata of memory that the surfaces of things can keep from us. But the process of exposing this underground is not all the work of nature; Hendricks is reading excavation, and not erosion, in the piece entitled My Back to the Bulldozer. The machine is made visible by the damage it has done. One single gouge of red earth across a wounded field tells the story of every other ravaged ground. A human mark has remade in the earth, and is now remarked by the hand of the painter.

These multiple small panels move the observer from stone to meadow to surf to darkening clouds, all the fragments from which the world is assembled. But each one is as complete in itself, as any of John Constable’s studies for patches of sky. A separate series of larger watercolors achieves a similar effect by different means. In both Turquoise Sky and Three Trees, the thin edge of a verdant horizon forces the eye up to the airy processions that push out over the paper’s end.

’Turquoise Sky’ (Lovers Leap Series) (1991), w/c on paper. Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, NY.

Two of Hendricks’ signature full length portraits are hung at either side of the landscape grouping, making a frame out of another of the artist’s visions of the world. Set apart that way, they even more emphatically evoke the tradition which celebrates those figures of self-confident splendor found in the court paintings of Goya and Thomas Lawrence.

There is a further variation on that theme in two large format color photographs (The Twins and Swimming Pool Attendant) which go beyond being a record of a tourist’s encounter – or an anthropologist’s – to measure out the balance of stance and demeanor in the human figure. They are a reminder that the mysteries of affect have long been one of this artist’s central subjects.

‘Swimming Pool Attendant’ (1977), Chromographic print. Courtesy W. Benton Museum of Art, Storrs, CT.

Another grouping of work assembles a small constellation of unfamiliar fruits, and although only one of them includes the term ‘erotic’ in its title (and suggested by its framing) all of them are sensually charged, their taste and smell made tactile. But these are not Nature’s version of adult toys. Rather, they might serve as sexual reliquaries or votives – especially where the image is touched with gold leaf – small, but deeply felt prayers of thanks for passion’s gift.

There is thanksgiving, too, in the banana leaves which are both botanical record and exercises in form. That these are domesticated plants is a surprise revealed in the delicate pencil outline of their clay pots.

But for all the varieties of mastery here, the landscapes are what I went to again before I left, making sure of my remembering. There should be room for them in anyone’s memory.

By Stephen Kobasa, Contributing Writer

Barkley L. Hendricks: Some Like it Hot, focuses on the artist’s work created in response to his travels to Jamaica and West Africa. With their compelling scenery and inhabitants, these tropical regions have provided him with a wealth of inspiration, and the resulting photographs and paintings represent a significant portion of his creative output. The exhibition includes large-scale figurative paintings, a series of landscapes on lunette and tondo shaped canvases, renderings in oil and watercolor of fruits and vegetation, and photographs selected from his prolific production in that medium—among them a suite of photographs of activist and Afrobeat icon Fela Kuti  (left) that will be exhibited for the first time.

Now, through December 18, 2011

The William Benton Museum of Art,

University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT

860-486-1705

www.thebenton.org

I step from the cool marble lobby of a mid-town office building into the blazing sunlight of a New York City summer afternoon. Glancing left and right in the glare, I accommodate my eyes and my will to the next event on my schedule. In the distance the heat rises from the streets and sidewalks of 5th Avenue in visible waves. A maze of stoplights and brake lights blink back at me. My next meeting is in Queens, across the East River, in a large warehouse, turned artist’s studio. Today, I had planned to go subterranean, taking the ‘4’ down to Grand Central, then transferring to the ’7’ train to Queens. But, the heat and the extra weight in my backpack of a large book given to me at my last meeting prove too much. I step to the curb and raise my hand in that casual pointing-to-the-sky way that New Yorkers do to hail a cab.

Within seconds, a yellow Checker pulls up, just missing my toes. I open the back door, throw my pack onto the seat and crawl in. I lean forward and give the driver the address of my destination. He presses a button or two on his meter and we are off! artes fine arts magazine

I am separated from the front seat and the driver by the customary plastic divider, with a small rectangular window in the center. The passenger space is festooned with all the information I should ever need to know about rates, liability and precautions…with my safety in mind, of course. The irony of this strikes me as the driver reaches speeds of close to sixty between stops—and in heavy traffic. His favorite toy seems to be his horn and the sides of his vehicle appear to come dangerously close to brushing both pedestrians and other encroaching vehicles off the road as we speed south to the Queensboro Bridge. I sit rod-stiff, gripping my pack and staring at the side of the driver’s head, trying my best to telepathically communicate the message: “Slow down. I want to live!”

“Are you English?” he suddenly says, in fractured English.

“Excuse me, did you ask me a question? I say, having heard the inquiry, but being momentarily disarmed by how this man can manage to initiate a discussion when I believe he should be using all of his mental faculties to win at the game of “Chicken” he is playing with the other cab drivers on Lexington Avenue.

“Are you English?” he repeats

“Uh…no, American. Why do you ask?”

“I think you sound English when you tell me where you are going. I am in America for six months and I try to learn the difference. Where I am from, you are all English.”

I now dare to drop my eyes from the windshield re-enactment of Bullitt and Steve McQueen’s high speed chase through the streets of San Francisco, to glance at the picture and name on the license posted in a frame on the back of the driver’s seat. In his photograph, he is dark skinned, with a shock of disorderly black hair and dark eyes. I catch his first name as Adam…last name unintelligible.

“Are you Israeli? I ask, using all of my deductive skills to decipher the word, a-dam, meaning ‘first man’ in Hebrew and draw an immediate conclusion from this bit of trivia. I am also trying to pigeonhole the possible ethnic origins of this nascent conversationalist, as he grips the steering wheel of our bright-yellow death wagon. To my chagrin, his eyes are now cast in my general direction, as we careen down 59th Street.

“No, I am Palestinian, from West Bank. I live with my brother’s family in Astoria. Big Arab neighborhood there. Why do you think I am a Jew?”

“Because of your name, ‘Adam’. That is a common name for Jewish men,” I say, trying to rescue my erudition and keep from being dumped into the East River, as we now cross the bridge and I glance through the back window at the Manhattan skyline falling away—hopefully not, in my case, for the last time.

“It is Arab name, too. We both have Adam in our religion. Do you like politics?” he asks, as though trying to spare me the embarrassment I already felt. “I am glad Bush is gone,” he adds, not waiting for an answer to his question. “He hated Palestinians and Sadat. He made nice to Sadat in front of cameras, but he was really a Jew lover.”

“I didn’t like Bush either,” I say, trying to win this man’s loyalty back and talk my way out of a possible hostage-for-cash situation, as I imagine myself missing the upcoming meeting and find myself, instead, bound and gagged in some darkened back room in his brother’s house. “But I think everyone wants peace in the Middle East. It’s just very hard to figure out how to do it so both sides get what they want.”

“We stand a better chance with Obama,” Adam says, “He’s Arab, too, so he is on our side.”

“Adam,” I say, reflexively leaning forward to engage him, knowing full well that I might be throwing my tenuous grasp on my own safety out the window, “Obama is an American. That has been proven time and time again. His interests are exactly the same as yours and mine. He just wants this big problem to be fixed.” I hesitate for a moment then shift the focus away from this no-win situation. “You’ve been here for six months. Did you come to be with your family?”

“I stay with my brother while I am here for two years to make money. My wife and kids are back home. My son is smart and he wants to go to American college to be engineer. The only way we can do that if I work here to send money home. Then, my son comes to U.S. for school. My son is very smart…not like his father.”

“I think you’re smart for having a plan and carrying it out. You must miss your family,” I say, relaxing a bit now that we have diffused the situation and found some common ground. “And you get to see your brother a lot,” I add.

The cab moves out of heavy stop-and-go traffic on the bridge and into the borough of Queens. A jumble of small retail shops, warehouses and poorly-parked trucks covered with graffiti line the narrow side streets that Adam takes, in a zigzag route to my destination. He drives with the confidence of someone who is in familiar territory and I ask him if his family lives nearby.

“Yes, just a few blocks for here, he replies. Then he adds, almost as a random afterthought, “Do you know why the Jews don’t eat pork?”

“Why? “I ask, watching the meter tick off the dollars and wondering if I won’t have to pay if I suddenly disappear down a dark alley and into the back of a waiting van, the cold steel floor against my cheek as I am rushed out of the city to an unceremonious encounter with a New Jersey backwater landfill.

“Because,” Adam carefully explains, “when God made the world, he put lots of animals here, including pigs. The pigs grew so fast that there were too many of them. So when God decided to add people, he turned some of the pigs into Jews. That is why Jews don’t eat pork. They would be eating their relatives.”

I sit dumbfounded by this logic, my mouth agape in disbelief. I weigh the odds of my safe arrival at my destination against the need to speak out once more against this astounding explanation. I, of course, cast safety to the wind and respond, “Adam, that is the most preposterous thing I have ever heard! You brag about your intelligent son and how you want him to come to school in the U.S. Does he believe this, too? Did you teach him this nonsense?”

“All Arabs believe this. The kids have their own ideas, but my generation has many stories about why the Jews are the way they are.”

“And you think there can be peace in Palestine if people keep thinking like this?” I ask.

“The Koran teaches these things and it is not our place to question it. God will decide who will win.”

“Adam, God has nothing to do with this. It’s about people like Obama, Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority who will solve this problem. Hamas needs to stop shooting mortars into Israel and Israel should stop expanding settlements on the West Bank for any of this to work out. But nothing positive can ever happen if you keep talking this nonsense about the Jews and pigs!

I am angry now and disbelieving that I am having a heated debate with a cab driver about an issue that I had never given much thought to. I am leaning forward, close to the tiny window separating us, eager to engage the discussion. Adam has now turned in his seat and is smiling back at me. “We’re here,” he says.

I look around in disbelief. The yellow death mobile is parked in front of a towering warehouse on a deeply-shadowed side street, far from the hustle of Queens’ main thoroughfares. It appears, after all, that I might live to tell the tale.

“Thank you,” I say, “I hope I didn’t offend you.”

“In our country we talk like this all the time,” Adam says. “It is good to have these debates. I like that you say what you feel.”

I open the door, grateful to have solid ground under my feet. I reach for my pack and pay my fare through the open side window of the cab. As I turn to go, surveying my isolated surroundings, I turn back to the cab as Adam is making a note on a clip board propped against the steering wheel. “Adam, my meeting will take about an hour. Do you think you could work the streets of Queens for a while and pick me up here for the ride back to Grand Central?”

Adam reaches to his dashboard for a business card and scribbles his cell phone number on the back. “Call me five minutes before you are ready to leave and I will be here for you.”

Later, when I emerge from my meeting, having followed his instructions, the shiny yellow cab sits idling, a sunny beacon in the dull gray surrounding of this warehouse district. Adam is behind the wheel and has someone else with him in the front seat (takes two to drag a body, I briefly consider). I open the back door to toss my back pack in, only to find a flat white object, about the size of a shirt box, sitting in my place on the seat. Cautiously, I move it aside, listening for a tell-tale tick-tock-tick-tock and climb in.

Adam turns to me and says, “This is my nephew, Shamir. He is my brother’s son and he goes to school here in Queens. I wanted him to meet you.”

I extend my reach through the small window to introduce myself. A broad-faced boy, with apple-red cheeks and widely-set, black eyes, Shamir shakes my hand and offers me a demurring smile, eyes slightly downcast. As we speak, the cab slowly pulls away.

“Shamir is going to go to college too,” Adam says as he guides the cab, more cautiously this time, toward Queens Boulevard. “I went to the house to get him because I want him to meet a smart American man and to know that he could be that also.” He looks at Shamir for signs of recognition for the importance of this message. Shamir now trains his dark eyes on me, but says nothing.

“Thank you, Adam,” I say. “I take that as a good sign,” hinting at our previous debate.

“And box in the back seat…that is for you.”

I reach for the small box and am surprised by its heft. Given its size, I can’t imagine what might be inside that could weigh this much and still not be life-threatening. I carefully open the top to discover an assortment of rich, honey and almond-soaked deserts, in neat rows. There is a well-ordered line of triangle-cut baklava, honey oozing from the sides; six glazed brown cookies with a toasted almond pressed into the center of each and a third row of flaky-crusted rolled creations, a creamed confection spilling out of each end. All sit on neatly-arrayed, pierced paper doilies, evoking an image of a family dinner table presentation from another, slower-paced world.

“My God, Adam, what is this?” I say in utter disbelief.

It’s from my brother’s bakery, he announces proudly. “I want you to have a taste of my homeland and to remember our talk. Take them with you on the train and share them with your family at home.”

I thank him profusely and we talk eagerly about his son and wife and family back home. We avoid politics. Shamir sits quietly and attentively, not missing a word, appearing proud to be in his uncle’s cab on such an important occasion.

We get to the station in good time, the majority of traffic flowing out of the city as we drive in-town, late in the day. On 42nd Street, Adam pulls over to the curb near the station entrance. I lean forward through the window to shake his hand in thanks and farewell and to say goodbye to Shamir, as well. I gather up my possessions, including my gift, nudge the door open with my foot and turn my attention back to the tiny window.

“How much do I owe you?” I ask.

“Nothing,” Adam said. “My compliments.”

“Sane judgment abhors nothing so much as a picture perpetrated with no technical knowledge, although with plenty of care and diligence.” ~Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)

The sixteenth century marked the dawn of a new age of inquiry, understood by many as the earliest beginnings of the modern age. Religious fervor, superstition and broadly-held, ancient views of the structure of the Universe, planet Earth and the natural order of all life forms were slowly giving way to rational examination and the application of objective observation to everyday phenomena. Scientific study, a novel and often theologically dangerous pursuit, had finally begun to attract the attention of a select few. With the help of the newly-invented moveable print, paper production (a concept brought west from China, via the Silk Road), the application of mass-produced texts and illustrations spawned a widening community of intellectuals; and with them, a body of knowledge that would soon comprise a Northern European Renaissance in the arts and sciences. These analytical trends would form a systematic model for understanding the mysteries of nature that persists to the present day.

Above: Hendrick Goltzius, The Great Hercules, 1589. See End Note #1, below. artes fine arts magazine

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, one of Harvard University Museums, Cambridge, MA

Harvard University’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum has mounted an extraordinary collection of original sixteenth century images, in a show entitled, Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe. According to Susan Dackerman, Curator of Prints for the museum, artists did not simply work as illustrators in the service of the scientific community. “The prints, drawings, books, maps and scientific instruments of the period suggest that artists played a more active role in facilitating the understanding of new concepts in astronomy, geography, natural history and anatomy, by using their representational skills to give them visual form.” She points out that the production of scientific images and objects was often ”a collaborative enterprise among artists, astronomers, cartographers, botanists, medical practitioners and instrument makers.”

The flexibility and economy of multiple-copy, paper printmaking meant that images could be widely and inexpensively circulated, folded, cut, hand-colored and assembled into various functional objects. Curator Dackerman notes that the exhibition contains several examples of sundials, globes, astrolabes and anatomical models and employs facsimiles of many of these objects “installed throughout the galleries to give visitors a unique, hands-on opportunity to manipulate and appreciate the functions of the early modern devices.”

Categories of knowledge in the 16th century were organized very differently than by contemporary standards. Professional occupations based on empirical investigation were just coming into their own and, as a result, many realms of scientific inquiry which, today, would be worthy of study and life-time devotion, were grouped together. As such, the Sackler exhibition skillfully promotes visitor understanding of these groupings—room-by-room— by carefully combining objects and images into relational paradigms, as if seen through 16th century eyes!

One important category, touching on topics as far reaching as the Solar System and immediate as human physiognomy, was natural philosophy. Not to be viewed in the current sense of the philosopher’s role, they set aside superstition and dogma to examine the physical universe as it was perceptible to the senses—seeking to understand and explain natural events through the application of knowledge and reason. This new field included natural history, which described particular properties of objects in the natural world, and because it included the study of plants, animals and minerals, it was closely associated with the study of medicine. There was also the field of mathematics, which included arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and astrology. Because the mechanical arts (engineering, architecture) were so closely akin to applied mathematics, it also included an examination of issues associated with navigation—a field in need of practical and immediate solutions, given the nascent efforts at global exploration and discovery.

Stradanus (Jan van der Straet), From Nova reperta (New inventions and discoveries of modern times), c. 1599-1603. See End Note #2.

Dackerman observes that, ”during this period, methods of inquiry changed from relying solely on ancient texts to incorporating observation and hands-on experience [with] nature. Cosmographers, medical practitioners, and natural historians, as well as artists, used these new methods in the pursuit of knowledge.” As an example, documentarian Stadamus (Jan van der Straet) produced a catalogue, Nova reperta, illustrating nineteen new inventions, including a plate by an unknown engraver showing the various stages of copper plate engraving and printing. Far from being illustrative, careful observers of the illustration could become acquainted with the printing process for their own purposes Printmaking was truly revolutionary because of the power of mass-produced information to distribute and educate a broader swath of an increasingly literate population.

In fact, Stradanus’s Nova reperta: New inventions and discoveries of modern times (c.1599-1603) features the printing press as the central design element on the title page of his publication. Positioned on either side of the press are two medallions celebrating exploration—the discovery of the Americas on the left, and a star symbolizing the discovery of true north on the right. The exhibition catalogue calls attention to the “string of prints draped above the printing press, emphasizing the mediums capacity for multiples and its key role in disseminating new knowledge.

As noted, paper’s ease of manipulation and the fecundity of prints contributed to their efficacy in producing and spreading knowledge. An excellent example of this in the exhibit is Peter Apian’s The emperor’s astronomy (1540). The lavishly-colored dials, with multiple moving parts, allowed the user to show the movement of the planets, calculate lunar eclipses, and tell time. In this text, which features both northern and southern celestial hemispheres—reflecting an expanded view of a Eurocentric world and the influence of Albrecht Durer’s celestial charts (also appearing in this exhibition)—highlights the ways in which printed material served as a medium of exchange for scientific information among artists and cosmographers in Nuremberg, a dynamic center for the production of scientific instruments and prints in northern Europe, at the time.

Right: Heinrich Vogtherr the elder, Anatomy, or, a Faithful Reproduction of the Body of a Female, Strasbourg: Jacob Fröhlich (1544). (near: viewing flap raised; far: flap lowered). End Note #3.

As a fascinating example of manipulated content (what, today would be called a `pop-up’ book), the exhibit offers Heinrich Vogtherr, the elder’s Anatomy, or, a faithful reproduction of the torso of a female (and male). Both the original and a hands-on facsimile of the illustrations are available for examination by museum-goers. Curatorial notes explain that, ‘Vogtherr exploited the adaptability of paper to illustrate an understanding of human anatomy gained by methods of direct observation, surgery and dissection; the latter being considered controversial in the 16th century.’ Confounding the age-old museum admonition: Do Not Touch, this and other displays produce a curious, secret delight in manipulating the pieces of the illustrated text, in full view of museum personnel; delving deeper into the layers of skin, organs and bone, in much the same way that fascinated Renaissance readers must have done. The power of intellectual discovery remains undiminished as a fact of human nature, then as now.

Unknown woodcutter, Anatomy of the Bones of the Human Body (1493). End Note #4.

In a move from sophisticated to quaintly naïve, is the anonymously-produced woodcut with hand-coloring, Anatomy of the Bones of the Human Body (1493). The earliest known example of a printed representation of the human skeleton; curling banners, inscribed in Latin, float like well-ordered Pringles beside articulated bones. A grinning skull—a Renaissance version of an amiable Freddy Kruger—seems eager to reveal all to his audience of curious viewers, proffering a half-hearted wave from the crest of a grassy, green knoll. A text box tells us that the print was “made in Paris by the very learned man, Master Richard Helian, doctor of arts and medicine.” It also notes that the image was “successfully multiplied through the art of printing.” This version of ‘outsider art’ may be viewed as mildly humorous by today’s standards. But, it would be a mistake to underestimate the significant value of such illustrations as edifying for a 16thcentury population, for whom even the most basic features of the human body would have been shrouded in mystery and meritriciousness. Simplified versions of this very image appeared in a number of subsequent instructional medical treatises.

Andreas Vesalius, Title page, Seven books on the fabric of the human body (1543). End Note #5.

Instructional manuals and guide books (vade mecum) of all kinds were being generated during this period. Publications, like Leonhart Fuchs’s encyclopedia (1542) extolled the virtues of direct observation of plant species for purposes of identification. Another, a how-to manual, entitled Intrument book (1533), by Peter Apian, captures the passion-of-the-day for learning about the natural world and conveys the importance of measurement. Underscoring the use of standardized instruments was key to the creation of a uniform and consistent body of knowledge about natural phenomena, making it available to a broader audience. Instrument book contained images of devices that could be cut out and assembled, with directions for their use. Around the same time, Andreas Vesalius published, Seven books on the fabric of the human body, a ground-breaking atlas of anatomy for physicians and scholars. Sackler Museum exhibition organizers point out that, “Its title page makes a powerful statement in favor of observation and experiential learning [in the progression of knowledge]. At the center of the image, Vesalius, the teacher performs a dissection, holding back the flesh of a cadaver to give excited onlookers a better view of the internal organs.” They also note that the classical architectural backdrop, in which the scene occurs, visually reinforces the spirit of ancient Greco-Roman revivalism that so colored Renaissance thinking.

Albrecht Dürer, Melancholia I (1514). End Note #6.

Symbolism and allegory, two other features of classical thought, frequently found their way into Northern Renaissance prints. Cornelius Cort combined allegory and anatomical information to represent the five senses, thus conveying the importance of direct experience in our understanding of the natural world. His print series contains multiple symbolic references to objects and animals associated with the senses. A spider web evokes the sense of touch, rays of sun suggest sight. Accompanying texts then assign each sense to corresponding organs, both internal and external. Albrecht Durer, a master printer and intellectual giant in his time, sought to capture various emotions through the same clever use of signs and symbols appearing in his work. In his, Melancholia I (1514), the gloomy, angelic figure of Genius, head canted against her idle hand, is surrounded by the tools-of-the-trade of geometry and architect. Symbols too numerous to detail abound in this image, but the interface between the human psyche and natural (and metaphysical) forces, for Durer, identifies these two essential elements, as requisite in an evolving understanding of the human condition and intellectual pursuits.

Visual metaphors, too, are also artistically employed to convey national power and prestige. Jan Saenredam’s Map of Northern Netherlands (1589), even accounting for its marginal embellishments, is technically accurate. For historian, maps such as these, clearly revealing artistic influences in its production, yields a wealth of information about the land and coastline of 16th century Netherlands. Exhibition organizers note that, “The inclusion of a compass rose, as well as dividers and a distance/measurement key in the lower left corner, suggests the print’s use in navigation. However, the map also functions as an allegorical image of a nation on the rise. Nationalistic overtones are apparent in the crest with the lion, a symbol of the Netherlands. The ships in the harbor likely referred not only to the explorations being undertaken, but also to the nation’s [maritime] might; the vessel on the left is firing a cannon.”

Hans Baldung, called Grien, Dissection of the Scalp (l.) and Brain (r.), 1541. End Note #7.

One outgrowth of this period of scientific investigation and observation was to begin to move away from the ancient belief in the causal connection between human personality and the presence of absence of enigmatic humours coursing through the body. While not wholly abandoned for another two hundred years, the exhibition contains early examples of anatomical dissections of the brain, postulating relationships between human behavior and neurological structures. Hans Baldung created woodcut images of the human brain. Designed as instructional sheets, anatomical detailing is sparse and supporting descriptive material lacking. But, as an historical marker for the creation of prepared material for use in later instruction and training, the exhibition’s, Baldung: Study of the Mouth and Tongue and Study of the Head, from Walter Ryff’s carefully-named, On the most sublime, elevated and noble creature of all creature (1541), stands out as a cautious, yet brazen foray into the realm of objective observation—and a tenuous challenge of old-world, Biblical views of human sanctity.

Georg Glockendon the elder, after Hans Burgkmair the elder, People of Africa and India (detail),1511. End Note #8.

As if by extension, other investigators, working in conjunction with artists, began to explore the influence of physical environment on cultural characteristics. Continental exploration of Africa and the Americas was open far-flung doors previously unknown or little-understood, exotic cultures. In a print by Hans Burgkmair, a series of frieze-style images detail a trading journey from West Africa to India made by Tyrolean merchant Balthasar Springer in 1505 (People of Africa and India, 1511). Exhibition material points out that, “…notes and sketches in Springer’s journal provided the source material for [the] image, which ‘maps’ the people, plants and animals from foreign land forms. Before the 16th century, peoples, plants and animals of foreign lands were relegated to the margins of maps. Here, they are the primary subjects. The [image] offers impressions of family life, social hierarchy, and material culture, as well as information about plants and animals. These images might have been among the first representations of human beings in Africa and India that sixteenth-century Europeans saw.”

Jacques de Gheyn II, Great Lion, c. 1590. See End Note #9.

Observation of life on earth was not confined to humans and plant life. Many fascinating and dramatic images of the animal kingdom were rendered, as well. Probably drawn and or engraved for first-hand observation, Jacques de Gheyn’s Great Lion (c. 1590), was one of the most popular prints of its time. The natural posture of the creature, the eye for realistic detail (paws, skin folds) and the sense of power of the creature (long a symbol of power, the engraving bears the inscription, ‘fearless, but alert’), this image may owe its popularity to the perception by the viewer that one was standing before the animal. But, its most important contribution to the lexicon of images being produced during this critical period in nascent scientific observation was the apparent transition from the antediluvian notion of a superordinated representation of species, to the specific: this image is about one particular lion and its observable traits, not a class or species.

Jan Saenredam, Beached Whale near Beverwijk, 1602. End Note #10.

In the realm of the specific, an incident on the waterfront of Beverwijk, Netherlands, in 1602, provided residents there with the opportunity to observe a rare phenomenon in nature—the beaching of a full-sized Sperm whale. As curious members of the community are pictured gathering around the leviathan, in an engraving by Jan Saenredam, naturalists are also represented, as they can be seen gathering numeric data from the creature. Measurements of length and girth—even blowhole size—are recorded in an effort to understand this particular mystery of the deep. The artist, too, is pictured in the lower left corner of the image, recording both the excitement of the event and the work of investigators for later use in preparing the engraving. For ‘Pursuit of Knowledge’ exhibition organizers, the scene portrayed epitomizes the melding of scientific investigation and artistic collaboration at a defining moment in early modern history.

Surely to be counted as one of the geniuses of the Northern European, early Renaissance was Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). He was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the region ever since. His vast body of work includes altarpieces and religious works, numerous portraits and self-portraits, and copper engravings. His watercolors mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. In his lifetime, he was also known to produce a number of theoretical treatises, involving principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions, which were published posthumously.

Albrecht Dürer, Rhinoceros, 1515. See End Note #11.

The Sackler Museum exhibition contains several important examples of Durer’s printmaking. As iconic example of a Dürer animal rendering (though not, as in the case of Saenredam’s Whale or de Gheyn’s Great Lion, for first hand observation), is Rhinoceros (1515). Consider a remarkable creature—defying even the most fantastical imaginings of Europeans of that time—Dürer produced a dramatic portrait of the animal. It was (and still is!) captivating, by reason of the artist’s au fait command of the woodcut medium and for the primal power evident in his subject. Claiming that it was a ‘faithful’ rendering, the image appeared time-and-again as collectable prints and in animal encyclopediae. Exhibition organizers point out that, “with the exaggerated tactility of its plated hide…it can be seen to embody the process of which it is a product: printing itself.

Albrecht Dürer and Johannes Stabius, after Conrad Heinfogel, Map of the Northern Celestial Hemisphere, 1515. End Note # 12.

As further evidence of his technical proclivity across a wide range of subjects are Durer’s celestial charts. On view are Durer’s (working with astronomers, Johannes Stabius and Conrad Heinfogel) Maps of the Northern and Southern Celestial Hemisphere (1515). Exhibition notes explain that, “Durer’s celestial charts are the first known printed maps of the northern and southern celestial hemispheres. Based on Ptolemy’s 2nd century catalogue of the stars, they document what, in the 16th century, was current knowledge of the skys. The artist presents a 3-dimensional concept—a celestial sphere- in 2-dimensional form by flattening it. Line of longitude radiate from the center.” Durer’s vivid animation of the colorful creatures inhabiting the twelve signs of the zodiac, overlaying the observable constellations, represents a melding of objective science and ancient belief-systems drawn from astrology that characterized the transition from superstition to science during the early Renaissance.

Hendrick Goltzius, Portrait of Nicolaus Petri van Deventer, 1595. End Note #13.

Emblematic of the exhibition’s motif—the mutually-enriching relationship between art and science during a period when the boundary between the two was not as sharply drawn as today—is dramatically embodied in a rendering by the little-known, Hendrick Goltzius. A portrait of the mathematician and astronomer Nicholaus Petri van Deventer, rendered during this epochal period, projects all the same regal bearing as portraits of kings and princes by other, better-known artists. And like other portraits, commissioned to extol the interests and influence of a monarch, this image was devised as a promotional device to promote the subject’s manuals on mathematics, accounting and the use of globes. Petri is pictures with globe and dividers, with other instruments, like a sextant and rulers on the table. Above his right shoulder is a polyhedron, symbol of proficiency in geometry; above the left, an armillary sphere, denoting knowledge in the field of astronomy. These tropes are intended to communicate to the sophisticated reader that Petri is a master in various disciplines and in the world around him. As noted in the exhibition text, “Despite the inscription at the top of the print (‘Man proposes and God disposes’), Goltzius presents [his client in a flattering light], as an expert in full control.”

The rich collection of over 200 prints and artifacts on exhibit at Harvard’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum is drawn from the university’s extensive collection. The exhibition reinforces the premise that there were close and mutually-beneficial links between artists and scientists, emphasizing that exchanges of influence could work both ways. Artists-as-skilled-technicians and scientists eager to shed the medieval label of extraneous dabblers found solace and respect in one another’s skills. The invention and expanded use of the printing press, paper production and broader dissemination of printed images and text created a ‘perfect storm’ in the late 16th century—the powers of observation and the desire to investigate any-and-all features of the natural world combined with the artist’s ability to give form and substance to those discoveries. This partnership gave rise to a period of prodigious learning known as the Northern European Renaissance.

By Richard Friswell, Managing Editor

The exhibition, Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe will be on display at Harvard’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum until December, 10, 2011 and then at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL from January 17th-April 8, 2012.

__________________________________

 End Notes:

Image 1. Hendrick Goltzius, The Great Hercules, 1589, engraving sheet. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gray Collection of Engravings Fund, G4613. Photo: Department of Digital Imaging and Visual Resources, Harvard Art Museums, © 2011 President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, one of Harvard University Museums, Cambridge, MA

Image 2. Stradanus (Jan van der Straet), From Nova reperta (New inventions and discoveries of modern times), c. 1599-1603. Hans Collaert the younger, after Nostradanus, Title Page (detail). Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston, BF.1998.9.10.

Hans von Gersdorff and Hans Wechtlin the elder, Instruments for Use in Cranial Surgery, in Gersdorff, Field manual for the treatment of wounds, 1540. End Note #14.

Image 3. Heinrich Vogtherr the elder, Anatomy, or, a Faithful Reproduction of the Body of a Female, Strasbourg: Jacob Fröhlich, 1544. Woodcuts with hand-coloring and letterpress. Boston Medical Library in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, ff QM33.A16. Photo: Boston Medical Library in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine. (left: viewing flap raised; right: flap lowered)

Image 4. Unknown woodcutter, Anatomy of the Bones of the Human Body (1493). Woodcut with hand- coloring. Photo: Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München.

Image 5. Andreas Vesalius and unknown woodcutter, Title Page, from Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica libri septum (Seven books on the fabric of the human body), Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1543. Woodcut and letterpress image. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with the SmithKline Beckman Corporation Fund, 1949, 1949-97-41a.

Image 6. Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514. Engraving. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of William Gray from the collection of Francis Calley Gray, G1098. Photo: Department of Digital Imaging and Visual Resources, Harvard Art Museums, © 2011 President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Image 7. Hans Baldung, called Grien, Dissection of the Scalp (left), Exposure of the Hemispheres of the Brain (right), from Walter Ryff, Des Aller furtrefflischsten, höchsten und adelichsten geschöpffs aller Creaturen […] (On the most sublime, elevated, and noble creature of all creatures), Strasbourg, 1541. Woodcuts and letterpress and hand coloring, sheets. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with the SmithKline Beckman Corporation Fund, 1982-40-1f-o.

Image 8. Georg Glockendon the elder, after Hans Burgkmair the elder, People of Africa and India (detail), Neuremberg, 1511. Woodcut and letterpress from five blocks on six sheets, frieze. Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University. Purchased with the Susan A.E. Morse Fund, 1962, Typ 520.11.428 F.

Georg Brentel the younger, from Pamphlet describing the construction and function of a conical sundial, 1615. See End Note #15.

Image 9. Jacques de Gheyn II, Great Lion, c. 1590. Engraving. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Anonymous Fund for the Acquisition of Prints Older than 150 Years, 2009.46. Photo: Department of Digital Imaging and Visual Resources, Harvard Art Museums, © 2011 President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Image 10. Jan Saenredam, Beached Whale near Beverwijk, 1602. Engraving. New Bedford Whaling Museum, Kendall Collection, 2001.100.6017.

Image 11. Albrecht Dürer, Rhinoceros, 1515. Woodcut and letterpress. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Stephen Bullard Memorial Fund, by exchange, 68.247. Photo: Photograph © 2011 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Image 12. Albrecht Dürer and Johannes Stabius, after Conrad Heinfogel, Map of the Northern Celestial Hemisphere, 1515. Woodcut with handcoloring. Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, Inv. 118930. Photo: Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München.

Image 13. Hendrick Goltzius, Portrait of Nicolaus Petri van Deventer, 1595. Engraving. Harvard University Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of John S. Newberry, M6486. Photo: Department of Digital Imaging and Visual Resources, Harvard Art Museums, © 2011 President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Image 14. Hans von Gersdorff and Hans Wechtlin the elder, Instruments for Use in Cranial Surgery, in Gersdorff’s Field manual for the treatment of wounds, Strasbourg: Hans Schott, 1540. Book with woodcuts with hand-coloring. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with the SmithKline Beckman Corporation Fund, 1949-97-11. Photo: Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Image 15. Georg Brentel the younger, from Pamphlet describing the construction and function of a conical sundial, Lauingen: Jacob Winter, 1615. Pamphlet with engravings and woodcuts. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Anonymous Fund for the Acquisition of Prints Older than 150 Years, 2007.205. Photo: Department of Digital Imaging and Visual Resources, Harvard Art Museums, © 2011 President and Fellows of Harvard College.

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

Karen Jacobsen, Chorus of Tubeworms, w/c, 48x48" Photo:Muscarelle Museum of Art staff

“Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive.”  ~Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

“The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.” ~ Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.” ~ Jules Verne , 20,000 Leagues under the Sea

Imagine, if you can, that your destination is a leviathan labyrinth, teeming with “never-before-seen” but now, “never-to-be forgotten”, vegetation, organisms and sea creatures, all thriving in abyssal sea vents, assuming a palette of cool, delicate gray and browns, juxtaposed with ochre, hot pink, red and oranges.

Experiencing Beyond the Edge of the Sea  is to embark on that deep ocean adventure –the thrill of the aqua-blue-through-black descent and search, primordial discoveries, and finally, the artful, intelligently-rendered seascapes that dramatically animate the voyage. artes fine arts magazine

Tu'i Malila Vents, Lau Basin, mixed media, 32x40"

The project is the other-worldly culmination of work by submersible pilot/ marine scientist, Cindy Lee Van Dover and artist/collaborator, Karen Jacobsen. The women have together pioneered numerous forays into the deep, culling their combined efforts’ trove to include 75 (plus five specially-commissioned) mixed media works, for the traveling exhibit–originally exhibited at The College of William and Mary’s, Muscarelle Museum. In speaking of the project’s import, museum director Aaron H. De Groft, references prehistoric cave painters and the likes of Darwin and Audubon, adding that “these two incredible women are as forward thinking and cutting edge for our time as earlier vanguards, Matilda of Canossa, Isabella d’Estes, and Maria de’Medici…”

“The deep sea is not an obvious place to dedicate a life to science . Few of us find our way there. It has none of the enviro-political cachet of an Amazonian rainforest, Alaskan tundra, or Arctic ice shelf. When I first became interested in the deep sea, there was not even the fantasia world tenanted by alien-looking and gigantically proportioned tubeworms to attract notice. Their discovery, among many others, was still several years away.” ~Cindy Lee Van Dover, The Octopus Garden, p.9.

Dr Cindy Less Van Dover, Alvin pilot, Exhibit curator

“My decision [as an artist] is to be in the field amidst my subject matter—this is not a novel inspiration. I follow in the footsteps of other naturalist artists, including the plein air painters, the Fauvists, and the others who have done the same thing for centuries. But my motif, my plein air, is plein eau (water), and I am submerged not at scuba depths but at bone-crushing depths of a mile or more beneath the surface of the sea.” ~Karen Jacobsen, Exhibition Catalogue: Beyond the Edge of the Sea, p. 20.

It was the mid-1970’s when three-person submersibles, Alvin and Cyana, were first built and available to the scientific community, allowing researchers to dive two and one-half miles down for deep sea exploration, revealing a “riot of life” thriving in sulfide-laden geothermal hot springs.

Aosisia species (probably new), Saguaro, Pacific Antarctic Ridge, 2334 meters (2005)

Not surprisingly, Cindy Van Dover was the first woman to pilot the Alvin and has availed her scientific mission of discovery of its technology in over one-hundred dives. Her technical expertise, paired with Karen Jacobsen’s naturalistic, creative sensibility in Beyond the Edge of the Sea, has gained the attention and respect of former NASA Astronaut and fellow-Alvin diver, Dr. Katherine D. Sullivan. She recounts in the show’s comprehensive catalogue, how her own admittedly stale memory of space travel only came to life when jogged, “like a bolt of lightening,” by a piece of inspirational music. And that from the first woman to walk in space! “Nearly a quarter of a century has passed, “she muses, “but this music has lost none of its effect: I’m instantly back in orbit when I hear it, completely absorbed in a flood of vivid memories.”

“Beyond the Edge of the Sea worked similar magic on me,” Sullivan continues, ”transporting me back to the pressure sphere of Alvin …nobody is ‘doing’ art or ‘doing’ science at moments like this. Instead, every fiber and cognitive circuit of your being is alert and active at once…open on all levels to learning, that most quintessential human activity.”

“Reaching the sea floor is a study in understatement. Although the technological feat seems akin to sending a man into orbit about the earth, Alvin dives up to 4,500 meters [14,000+feet] below the surface of the sea, day in and day out, following a routine that is stunningly anticlimactic. There is no countdown, no army of personnel to supervise the launch or recovery. Even the audience of curious scientists diminishes to naught after they have watched one of two launches […] The submersible’s and ship’s crews pride themselves on making the whole operation seem effortless. ~Cindy Lee Van Dover, The Octopus Garden, p.29.

Deep-Diving Human Occupied Vessel, Alvin. Photo: Mark Spear, Woods Hole Oceanographic Instit., MA

“The descent to the seafloor in Alvin is a lesson in the blue color palette, from vibrant tropical hues of cyan, cerulean, and turquoise, into more saturated cobalt, ultramarine, Prussian blue, indigo, anthraquinone deep blue, and on into inky black layers below 500 meters, where the last light fades away and there can be no more color. We sink further into darkness. Cindy slips a tape of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons into the player and the music seems alive as it rolls around the sphere.  Through the view port, small animal—zooplankton—flare like tiny shooting stars through space.” ~ Karen Jacobsen, Exhibition Catalogue: Beyond the Edge of the Sea, p.22.

The exhibition’s vibrant collection is especially attractive and effective in its uniquely intuitive blend of art and science– the “alien” life forms so sensitively and respectfully treated as to take on a naturalistic, rather than freakishly clinical, tone. Jacobsen confirms that she is devoted to striving to “emphasize a specific morphological attribute or behavior….once I immerse myself in an illustration, I always find some marvelous biological ingenuity, something beautiful and unique about the animal.”

Welk Snail, Hermit Crab, 6-Armed Starfish, Bering Sea (2003)

It is with a similarly respectful manner and sense of wonder that Cindy Van Dover shares her bottomless wealth of deep ocean knowledge and interpretation of its creatures, their behaviors and environments. She has also garnered the inclusion of several essays by other prominent members of the scientific community for Beyond the Edge of the Sea.

In his contribution to the exhibit catalogue, NASA’s John D. Rummel recalls chief Galapagos Rift scientist, Jack Corliss’ findings: “While details may be debated, this hypothesis offers a viable explanation of how life could both arise in an energetically and chemically dynamic environment capable of forming new organic molecules and, once established, survive recurrent asteroid impacts of Earth….then life might just as easily arise on other worlds where hot rock and water react to form hot springs.”

“The stunning implication is that submarine hydrothermal systems, fueled by the heat of volcanic processes, can support life in the absence of sunlight. Vent water may be the ultimate soup in the sorcerer’s kettle […] Deep-sea vents may have been the site where life originated on the planet.” ~Cindy Lee Van Dover, The Octopus Garden, p.56.

Eyeless Shrimp, Rainbow, Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 2314 meters (2001)

“As we approach the periphery of the vent area, clues tell us we are getting close […] Soon we see the first white clams and mounds of mussels sitting in cracks between pillows of basalt. The sulfur yellow of the mussels against the blackness is a visual delight […] Small snails bejewel the mussels and lobster-like galatheid crabs perch like sentries atop the mounds. This is a warm and colorful oasis of life in a cold desert of black. ~ Karen Jacobsen, Exhibition Catalogue: Beyond the Edge of the Sea, p.23.

That possibility (or, if you prefer, probability) connects NASA’s astrobiological research for extraterrestrial life forms with that of man’s search for earth’s own biological origins.

Since Alvin’s earliest explorations, research from subsequent voyages has yielded and strengthened evidence suggesting that life on earth likely spawned in a young, deep-sea environment, and it has also strengthened Cindy Van Dover’s resolve to continue her ocean mission.

Lavender Octopus on Mussels, West Florida Escarpment Seep, 3293 meters (2000)

“Since the discovery of the hydrothermal vents in 1977,” says Van Dover, “the pace of exploration in the deep sea has steadily increased…Man has observed less than one percent of the seafloor…During the twentieth century, the deep sea became accessible. In this twenty-first century,” she predicts, “the deep sea will become known.”

And, thanks to the collaborative, innovative success of Cindy Van Dover and Karen Jacobsen in Beyond the Edge of the Sea, we, too, are able to share in that knowledge—and beauty—of the deep.

By Katherine Arcano, Contributing Editor

___________________________________ 

Beyond the Edge of the Sea will be showing at the Ebling Library for the Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from September 16, 2011-January 31, 2012. Beyond the Edge was brought to UW in conjunction with UW-Madison’s Geology Museum, with funding provided by the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

Scientific & Expeditionary Illustrator, Karen Jacobsen, at her shipboard work station (2003)

This exhibition is a collaborative effort involving Cindy Lee Van Dover, U.S. Navy-qualified, deep-diving Alvin pilot-in-command and explorer, with more than one-hundred dives to her credit. She is currently the Harvey W. Smith Professor of Biological Oceanography in the Division of Marine Science and Conservation of the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, where she serves as Chair of the Division, Director of the Undergraduate Certificate in Marine Science and Conservation, and Director of the Marine Laboratory.

Dr. Van Dover is the author of numerous scientific articles, as well as The Octopus’s Garden; Hypothermal Vents and other Mysteries of the Deep Sea. New York: Addison Wesley Press, 1996.

Scientific and expeditionary illustrator, Karen Jacobsen, has worked jointly with Dr. Van Dover for 15-years, accompanying her on numerous dives around the world and recording the findings of the Alvin’s deep sea explorations, both while on board the mothership, the research vessel (R/V) Atlantis, and back in her studio.

Crab species found with Whale Fall #7, Sagami Bay, 923 meters (2006)

The exhibition, Beyond the Edge of the Sea: Diversity of Life in the Deep Ocean Wilderness, curated by Dr. Van Dover, highlights the findings of numerous dives and represents a commitment on the part of these two experts to merge the language of science and art in unique and innovative ways. They bring the little-known and rarely observed world of undersea life to light in dramatic and colorful terms. Cindy and Karen have candidly shared their thoughts, feelings and observations, providing the world with extraordinary documentation of their shared experience, in the hopes of increasing understanding and appreciation for our deep-ocean environments.

The exhibition, Beyond the Edge of the Sea is available for showing at select venues. Please contact traveling exhibitions at the Muscarelle Museum of Art at The College of William & Mary, museum@wm.edu

Or go to the Web site: http//:web.wm.edu/muscarelle/exhibitions/traveling/beyond/images.html

Or contact the principles at:

Dr. Aaron de Groft, Director, Muscarelle Museum of Art: adegroft@wm.org

Dr. Cindy Van Dover: c.vandover@duke.edu or http://oceanography.ml.duke.edu/vandover/

Karen Jacobsen: insituart@gmail.com

In collaboration with: The Muscarelle Museum of Art; The College of William and Mary; Duke University and The North Carolina Maritime Museum.

With financial support from: The National Science Foundation and the NASA Astrobiology Institute