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Bathers with a Turtle (Baigneuses), 1907-08, Henri Matisse
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This week some friends were discussing Thomas Kinkade, whose
work is being dragged out into the public sphere through a retrospective, which
in turn has engendered a flurry of new stories about his troubled life. (Predictably, none are positive.)
I was curious about why his landscapes said nothing about
his personal struggles. “He did not paint what he wanted to paint; everything
he painted was to sell,” said Brad Marshall.
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Steamboat Leaving Boulogne, 1864, Édouard Manet
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Then we moved on to bad moments by great painters. Karl Eric
Leitzel mentioned how bad Matisse’s Bathers
with a Turtle is, which in turn reminded me of Manet's Steamboat Leaving Boulogne and Sargent’s Spanish Dancer, in which either the head or the arms of the figure
are inexplicably stuck on backwards.
Matisse, Manet and Sargent were brilliant painters; the rare
duds in their oeuvre serve to point out just how brilliant they are. “When
painters are that innovative and pushing painting in such new directions, they
will be unsuccessful at times,” said Brad Marshall.
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Spanish Dancer,
1879-82 (preparatory oil study for the main figure in El Jaleo), John Singer Sargent
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And that is where I want to be: not painting what I know will
sell, but painting outside myself.
This week, Pastor Bill Blakely suggested that if “I Am,” is the
Lord’s name forever (Exodus 3:14), then all the “I am” statements we use to
define and limit ourselves are in fact blasphemous. Thomas Kinkade was trapped
by his “I am a great artist” statement; it was dissonant with the world’s
opinion. Instead of painting setting him free, it made him miserable.
