Art history can make you a better painter

We are affected by what has happened before us, and we have the power to influence those who follow. 

Blueberry Barrens, Clary Hill, will be at Camden Falls Gallery's Autumn Hues show, opening this Thursday.

I know a painter whose flawless technique is hitched to 19^th century luminism. Another excellent painter watched him one day and sighed, “if he knew any art history, he’d be brilliant.” It was a sage comment. With a little understanding of modern art movements, my friend’s ability could be updated into something powerful, something that resonated with today’s viewers.

I’m not talking about putting on a new style like a shirt you bought at FatFace. That never works. Style is something that integrates one’s training, technique, emotional state, and personality. It’s what’s left when you’ve eliminated everything but inner truth. Done right, the artist has no more control over his or her style than he does over his autonomic nervous system. Try to put on an acquired style, and you’ll immediately be recognized as a poseur.

Downdraft snow in the Pecos, by Carol L. Douglas, oil on canvas

But note that I included training in that equation. To paint like a 19^th century luminist today means ignoring the impact of a century and a half of war, the horrors of government-sponsored genocide, and the relentless push-pull of modern urban living. It means ignoring abstract-expressionism, magical realism, the invention of movies, color photography, and the entire digital age. There’s a reason modern painting has an edge that 19^th century painting didn’t.

Beach Erosion, by Carol L. Douglas, oil on canvasboard.

With rare exceptions, my art-history posts are the least-read of anything on this blog. (I moved to this platform in 2007 and have my stats since then, with the exception of the period I was writing for the Bangor Daily News.) It’s always disappointing to write about a great artist of the past and realize nobody cares to read about him or her. But, like cod liver oil, I know art history is good for you, so I’m going to continue to offer it regularly.

None of us stand alone in the great continuum of history. We are affected by what has happened before us, and we have the power to influence those who follow. But to do that, to take our rightful places as painters or teachers, we need to be part of our epoch. To do that, we must understand where we are and where we came from.

Tricky Mary in a Pea-Soup Fog, by Carol L. Douglas, oil on canvasboard

That’s not limiting; it’s liberating. For example, observing how Bronzino painted energy into apparently-static portraits can make us better landscape or still-life painters. Our predecessors have experimented in color and composition in ways that can give us a firm foundation for our own exploration.

Understanding the goals of Rogier van der Weyden or Kazimir Malevich doesn’t make us paint like them. But understanding their place in the great sweep of time helps us to position ourselves in our place. Ultimately, that is the most important thing we learn through art history. It is the difference between a pretty painting and one that will have meaning to future generations.

Slow looking

Don’t blame people’s short attention spans. Blame your overstuffed museums.

Above the Eternal Tranquility, 1894, Isaac Levitan, courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery

A landmark study conducted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2001 found that the mean amount of time visitors spent looking at great works of art was 27.2 seconds. However, the mode—the number seen most often—was just 10 seconds. In 2017, the study was repeated at the Art Institute of Chicago, with almost exactly the same results.

There was one striking difference, however; the later study found those times included people taking selfies with the work. This was common across genders, race and age. It meant that the already scant time that museum-goers were spending looking at paintings was being deflected into the act of making self-referential photos.

Westminster Abbey with a procession of Knights of the Bath, 1749, Canaletto

Recently, Tate Modern cited a study saying their average viewer spends eight seconds looking at a piece of art. Another study declared that gallery goers spend two seconds looking at the painting and eight seconds reading the label, a trend that depresses me more than the selfies. The illustration for the latter story was of a couple reading the label for a large solid-grey canvas. Perhaps two seconds was actually too long.

Clearly, people don’t spend much time looking at paintings when they visit museums. But for some reason, museums are very popular with tourists. Among the world’s leaders are the Louvre, with 8.1 million visitors; the Met, 7 million; the Vatican Museum, 6.4 million; Tate Modern, 5.6 million; and the (US) National Gallery, with 5.2 million. That’s a lot of people milling through buildings stuffed with things nobody wants to look at.

To combat this, Tate Modern is pitching something called slow looking. They want you to look at paintings for ten minutes, but say that five minutes or half an hour are okay, too. “To keep track of time, set a quiet timer on your phone or try simply counting a number of breaths.”

Portrait of a Lady, c. 1460. Rogier van der Weyden, courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Please, no. Painting and sculpture are unique in that they don’t impose obligations on our time. Once we open a book or take a seat at a movie, we’ve obligated ourselves to sit through a narrative whose duration is laid out for us. With painting, we’re free to walk right past or to take a bench and sit for an hour.

Obviously, nobody metered the time spent looking at all the works in any of these major galleries. The Metropolitan owns 2 million pieces; the Art Institute of Chicago has about 300,000. (Of course, only a fraction of them are on display.)

What works were they measuring? There’s more content in a Roger van der Weyden altarpiece than a stripe painting by Kenneth Noland. There’s the architecture, the starched linen coifs, a blood vessel throbbing below a monk’s tonsure, the oddly-plucked hairline of a lady, and angels with wings that match their gowns.

The Harvesters, c. 1565, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, courtesy the Metropolitan Museum

One of the powerful attributes of visual art is how it can disengage you from time and place. Stand in front of a Canaletto and you’re suddenly in Venice. But that isn’t going to happen with someone at your elbow, silently pushing you along.

Of course, paintings were never intended to be hung in a crowded museum. They were originally in churches, dining rooms, drawing rooms, and public halls, as part of the experience of that place. People looked at them over many years. Perhaps the problem is not our digital age, but the massive warehouses of art we’ve created and called museums.

Resolving disagreement, the art history way

Seven Sacraments Altarpiece (detail), 1445 to 1450, Rogier van der Weyden.

Recently one of my kids asked me why I had her baptized as an infant. I answered her from an Anglo-Catholic perspective, citing the practice among early Christians and references in Acts 16 and 1 Corinthians. I added the medieval argument that, while babies don’t consent to baptism, they hardly consent to Original Sin either.

This question of infant baptism is the reason we have Baptists in the first place. They, along with their Anabaptist brethren, believe that baptism only counts along with a confession of faith. My favorite Baptist is a self-described ‘hedge preacher,’ Pastor John Nicholson of Siloam Baptist Church in Marion, AL. Knowing him convinced this Yankee that everything I thought I knew about Southern Baptists was probably wrong.

John challenged me to show him where in Scripture infant baptism was justified. I challenged him to show me where it was prohibited. Is baptism a statement of faith (as Baptists believe) or a sign of grace (as Anglo-Catholics believe)? John pointed out that Jesus was baptized as an adult; I pointed out that baptism is “the circumcision of the heart.” He pointed out that Peter said, “Repent and be baptized…”

And then one of us mentioned pictures. We both love art. Usually I answer almost every historical question not by citing literature but by looking at the art. But on the subject of infant baptism, the visual record is strangely mum.

Baptism of Christ, first half of 3rd century, Catacomb of Callixtus, Rome.

The oldest painted baptism image I know of is from the third century, from the Catacomb of Callixtus in Rome. Whatever its virtues when it was new, it’s now not much more than a smudge. The uninitiated might think that the smaller figure is a child, but it is probably Christ, as evidenced by the flying shape—most likely a dove—to the right. The figure on the left is probably a personification of the River Jordan, a charmingly pagan symbol painted into this secret Christian artwork.

Detail of Christ as the Good Shepherd (left) and the Baptism of Christ (right), Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus, 3rd century, Church of Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome.

It makes sense that Christ’s baptism would be more important for artists than the baptism of unknown people, infant or otherwise. Why baptism was associated with sarcophagi is less clear, but there are more (and better preserved) examples of third-century sarcophagi with baptism imagery than there are paintings.

It was not until the Middle Ages, when the Seven Sacraments were first enumerated, that infant baptism—or indeed the baptism of anyone but Jesus—became a subject for painting. By that point, the Church’s position on infant baptism was well established, so such paintings tell us exactly nothing.

The Baptism of St. Paul, 12th century mosaic, Palatine Chapel, Palermo, Sicily.

John had the last word on the subject, from Augustine of Hippo: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love.” If only all contentious discussions ended that way!

Maundy Thursday

Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet, 1548-49, Tintoretto (Jacopo Comin). In this version (one of at least six painted by Tintoretto) the disciples are almost buffoonish in their attempts to remove their stockings. Judas is in crimson on the left, isolated from the other disciples. At the top right is a portal through time in which the Last Supper is taking place.

Non-Christians are sometimes surprised to learn that Easter, rather than Christmas, is the most important holiday in the Christian liturgical year. (Easter is really an entire season of the church calendar, rather than a single day.)  

Within the liturgical wing of the church, Lent is a 40-day period of penance and prayer that leads up to Holy Week, which we are in now. Today is Maundy Thursday, which remembers the Last Supper as recorded in the synoptic Gospels.  The services that will be held tonight start the Paschel Triduum, or the church’s commemoration of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Seven Sacraments Altarpiece, 1445-50, by Rogier van der Weyden, shows baptism, confirmation and confession on the left and ordination, marriage and last rites on the right. The central panel includes the Eucharist in the background.

The Last Supper having been a Passover meal before the Sabbath, the service is traditionally held at the beginning of Friday as per Jewish tradition, which corresponds to Thursday evening in our western calendar. Its primary component is stripping the altar, but it may also include washing of feet by a priest or bishop and the blessing of Holy Oil.

The Seven Sacraments Altarpiece, 1445-50, by Rogier van der Weyden, shows the use of chrism, or holy oil, in the sacraments of baptism and confirmation on the left. 

The English word Maundy comes from the opening of the phrase spoken by Jesus to the Apostles after washing their feet at the Last Supper: Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos. (“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”)

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Six Days of Advent: The Annunciation to Mary

The Annunciation Triptych, 1440, by Rogier van der Weyden, has the compressed version from the Gospel of Luke, almost in comic-book form—Zecheriah praying in his lonely temple, Gabriel surprising Mary while she reads Scripture, Mary meeting with Elizabeth, in whose womb the young John the Baptist leaps in recognition.

The story of the Incarnation opens not with the Angel Gabriel’s appearance to Mary, but with his appearance to an old temple priest. Zechariah reacted with all-too-human skepticism to the idea that his post-menopausal wife would give birth to a son who “will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah.” 

Virgin of the Annunciation, 1512, by Matthias Grünewald, also shows Mary at her studies, but clothed in the most exuberant pleats, which reinforce the ecstatic nature of the moment.

A few months later, Gabriel returned to Israel, this time to Nazareth in Galilee, to talk to a young woman who was engaged to be married.

In contrast, Antonello da Messina’s Virgin Annunciate, 1476, is taking the news with remarkable composure.

 “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

The angel Gabriel in Sondro Botticelli’s 1481 fresco seems to be leaning over an imaginary wall for a friendly chat.

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” (from Luke 1:26-38)

In Hendrick Terbrugghen’s 1624 Annunciation, Gabriel has dirty feet.

Mary understood that being pregnant by someone other than her betrothed threatened her engagement, her reputation, and even her life (as she could be stoned for adultery). The early Renaissance painters would have understood her predicament better than we, for whom illegitimacy is no big deal.  If the Baby Jesus were conceived today, sadly, nobody would much notice.

Albrecht Durer’s Annunciation from The Life of the Virgin, 1502, sets the scene in an amazing series of arches that suggest the very heavens themselves.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Nothing lasts forever

The Descent from the Cross (c. 1435), by Rogier van der Weyden. The majority of his work was probably destroyed; we can only guess at its extent.

I recently wrote about the destruction of Egyptian antiquities during their recent political revolutions. This is by no means the only targeting of antiquities in the current Muslim insurgency. The demolition of the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban in 2001 is the most memorable example, but Hindu sites across Asia have also been targeted.

Iconoclasm—the deliberate destruction or mutilation of religious art and symbols for politico-religious motives—has a long and broad history. Sometimes this occurs to oppress a disfavored religion or ideology, and sometimes it occurs to purify a movement from within.

English Altarpiece (c. 14th century) destroyed during the Dissolution.

The Protestant Reformation, in particular, showed marked hostility to graven images—at least until it could replace the preceding genre with its own. As a fan of Rogier van der Weyden, Jan van Eyck, Robert Campin and other Early Netherlandish Painters, I’ve often wondered about the destroyed altarpieces of northern Europe. There were certainly masterworks we will never know about; were there great painters also lost to history forever?

Bildersturm (or Beeldenstorm, if you’re Dutch) was a series of violent outbreaks against religious icons during the 16^th century. In France, these took the form of unofficial attacks by Huguenots that were resisted by the Catholic majority. In Germany and England, looting was organized by the government (after forcible conversion of the population). In the Low Countries, the religious revolution was closely tied with the political revolution that was the Eighty Years War.

Relief in the Cathedral of Saint Martin, Utrecht, damaged during 16th century spasm of Reformation iconoclasm.

Protestant leaders like Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin actively suppressed religious imagery within churches under their control. Martin Luther was less dogmatic, allowing artists like Lucas Cranach to create Protestant altarpieces to replace the Catholic ones. (These Lutheran altarpieces, in turn, were subsequently threatened by a wave of Calvinism a few decades later.)

In the Lowlands, the furor touched off on August 10, 1566, when the chapel of the Sint-Laurensklooster in Steenvoorde (now in northern France) was looted. This touched off a wave of iconoclastic destruction that rapidly spread north. Within two weeks, the attacks had spread to Antwerp, Ghent and Amsterdam.

Looting of the Churches of Lyon by the Calvinists 1562, by Antoine Caron.

In England, Henry VIII had already looted the rich monastic properties of their treasure, but it took the Civil War and the Commonwealth to finish the destruction of English medieval church art. Between the dissolution of the monasteries in 1535 and the restoration of Charles II in 1660, almost the entire treasury of pre-Reformation art in England was destroyed.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!