Art Thoughts, Week 20 -- Pippin & Salvation

Woman of Samaria, Horace Pippin, (American, 1888—1946), 1940, oil on canvas, BF 986.

Horace Pippin is sometimes called a naïve painter. Naïve painting has many similarities and affinities to outsider, now mostly called visionary, painting, as well as simply self-taught artists. Naïveté in the painting world usually pertains to formal concerns (composition; depiction; color choice) rather than conceptual or otherwise. And certainly in no way can this painting by Pippin in the Barnes Foundation, Woman of Samaria, be considered naïve in any other way than formal – and even that is debatable.

The first impression upon looking at this painting is the incredible sky – an almost apocalyptic pink, emblazoned with grey clouds, sizzles in the background. The foreground is dominated by tarry blacks and deep forest greens; it is an almost inscrutable space, in the manner of Albert Pinkham Ryder. And in the middle of this edgy landscape sits Christ at the well in Samaria, a region near ancient Palestine, conversing calmly with a penitent woman come to draw water. The composition is fairly typical of a genre painting – in fact, Pippin may have drawn this image from a biblical illustration, print or other publication as self-taught artists often do – but the color is anything but typical. Another odd thing: one somehow expects Christ to be beckoning towards the woman, in an invitational manner, or emphasizing towards the well, as in the biblical story. But no; he is motioning towards the darkened woods that they are on the edge of – a foreboding place – and the woman is straining towards him, seemingly hanging on every word. The well, symbolic of offered salvation, floats in a - literally and figuratively -gray area between the distant fiery sky, and the nearer at hand dark forest.

Might this indicate that Jesus is offering the woman escape from an atmosphere of heightening danger? Is this, along with the conflagratory sky, indicating the imperative of accepting salvation – no time to consider; they are at our heels! It almost seems that way.

Another possibility, though, presents itself once one remembers that naïve and visionary art both often deal with internal drive rather than exterior impetus: or at least, the aesthetic drive usually goes that direction. That is, the artist’s reasons for deciding to create something is often not driven by outside influences, such as nature or light or a beautiful face; it is more often rather suggested by some spiritual vision, or persistent internal idea. (In this way, these artists have more affinity with conceptual art than they do with traditional realism.) So, could the bellicose pink sunset, and Jesus’ imperative gesture towards the dangers of the forest, belie not actual danger in the real, but a spiritual and psychological immediacy in the woman’s heart? Could her soul, rather than simply her body, be on the line in this painting; could the burning in the sky indicate the burning in her heart on encountering the incarnate God? Indeed, the apostles of Emmaus in the book of Acts remarked breathlessly to themselves, after realizing the Lord had been there unbeknownst to them, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us?” (And Pippin was no stranger to the dangers implicit in wartime.) In this way, Pippin’s use of almost toxic, cosmic colors speaks of a spiritual imperative; an immediacy of salvation; a time of decision at hand. And we thus arrive at another prime motive in naïve and visionary art: message. And what more classically Western spiritual message than the imperative of the gospel, as iterated through the woman of Samaria? Pippin has painted his message well.

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Art Thoughts, Week 19 -- Soutine & Chaos

The Pastry Chef (Baker Boy), Chaim Soutine, (Russian, active in France, 1893—1943), c. 1919, oil on canvas, BF 442.

In the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast, the main character Belle is aided by various anthropomorphic household objects: a clock, candelabra, and others, all highly animated, helpful and effusive. They would have found a compatriot in the chair in this painting of a young pastry chef. He is a jumpy, assertive fellow; less interested in holding the sitter, than trying to gain attention from the viewers for himself; poking out around the arm of the sitter like an insistent puppy. In fact, many other parts of this picture try to assert themselves by pulling away autonomously from the expected composition: the chef’s right ear is straining to remove itself from the head; the blood-red towel in the chef’s fists is struggling to extract itself; the cream baker’s jacket is about to twist off. Even the paint layers themselves compete against each other for attention and supremacy, creating an incredibly seething matrix, even for someone like Soutine. The whole is a truly cacophonic bazaar of shouting shapes and writhing colors; all elements conspiring to get our attention, and their own way. Yet somehow Soutine – perhaps despite himself – was able to press enough stability upon this chaos to keep it recognizable, without moving fully into Mitchell or De Kooning territory.

But whence the chaos: perhaps we have it turned around? Was the tableau less the suppressed than Soutine himself? There is some evidence for this from Soutine’s life: he had troubled and destructive episodes fueled by depression, poor health and forced exile. But despite this, the evidence in this painting seems to point to suppression by the painter of not simply himself, but more pointedly his wild perceptions of scenes that doggedly pursued him; his animalistic desire to swing paint with abandon conflicting with his need for a semblance of accuracy in depiction. Obviously his technique here is belying his current psychological state and aesthetic needs. Otherwise, his other paintings wouldn’t differ much – which they do; otherwise this painting would be de rigueur – which it’s not.

One aspect of the painting’s surface which seems to support this is the series of thicker, restraining bars of paint which Soutine has laid over the more roiling soup of undercoating, pentimenti and contrasting glazes and washes. In the center of the boy’s jacket especially, more substantial bars of navy and avocado hold in the pool of violet and sea-foam underneath. Another point of suppression can be seen in the chef’s face. The one side, with the swollen ear, is vastly different than the other, more sedate side. This is more of a difference than shading, angle or composition can explain. Together, they exhibit a Jekyll and Hyde-type vacillation of mood, which is analogous, certainly, with the conflicted paint surfaces.

A final interesting note to keep in mind is that, unlike portraits by Paula Rego or Alice Neel, it’s not the gaze in Soutine’s portraits which rivet us; it’s not necessarily by any fault of the sitter that we are arrested by the picture. It’s the conflicted and affronting paint surface and application which jars and holds us, even these nearly 100 years hence. Soutine wasn’t primarily suppressing the psyches of the sitters he painted; he was busy suppressing the wild animal of abstraction convulsing inside him.

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Art Thoughts, Week 18 -- Degas & Intent

Jockeys and Horses, Edgar Degas (French, 1834—1917), c. 1890—1895, oil on panel, BF 572.

Was Degas really finished? That’s one question which came to me while pondering Jockeys and Horses in the Barnes collection. This doubt is mostly precipitated by the plethora of more taut, almost polished compositions Degas is well known for; those glowing portraits which influenced younger artists, such as Toulouse-Lautrec and William Glackens. In fact, the execution of this painting is more akin with Degas’ pastel paintings: immediate; sensitive; obviously layered and a predominantly dry application.

The other reason for asking the question is the undisguised bravura with which Degas laid down this hazy cream sky; brushing against, and in some spots covering over the jockeys’ faces and the horses’ heads; and the similarly bold layer of mossy green emanating from the land, grabbing at the horses’ flanks and hooves. The application is so bald-faced; did Degas intend this? Or, did he just become too distracted, as he once said; beginning far too many things he hadn’t time to finish?

Degas was, simply put, by the time this painting came to be, a master; both highly individualistic and influential. So, I would like to think that he fully intended to push a little at his own envelope, which he self-proclaimed to be “realism”. This painting was done when abstraction was just a twinkle in Art’s eyes, but it is, in retrospective, more thoroughly abstract than realistic. (My faithful readers will know I consider all art to be intrinsically abstract by default, even realism, but that’s another conversation). An important point to make, regardless, is that Degas, in this sassy lathering-up of sky and kicking-up of ground, seems to have acted instinctively rather than intellectually to natural stimuli. That is, instead of a Northern Renaissance artist’s need to obtain a full cogitation on sky as a platitude – carefully parsing and then reconstructing it – Degas is brushing before he thinks; or more aptly, brushing with out needing to think – i.e. instinctually. His extensive training and intensive “field experience” had equipped him to act confidently in bold gestures of competence such as this one.

So, the question of Degas’ intent remains. But what also remains is the much more mysterious, beautiful and evanescent result of whatever was going on in Degas’ head: at that particular French racetrack, that particular misty autumn morning.

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