Dogbreath's Pantagraph: June 2013

Sunday, June 23, 2013

The Tate Modern

The Tate Modern is located in a decommissioned power plant along the Thames and thus looks unmistakeably industrial, but which has been embraced by the Tate, which is the largest of its two museums in London, for its felicitous location and size just opposite the city of London and St. Paul's cathedral, a relationship enhanced by the construction of the Millenium Bridge. Trying to take it all in in a few hours was a vain task, as was trying to take in all of London in a week. Indeed that is probably one reason I take so many photographs, as I am one who shoots first and asks questions later. That is to say I take pictures then only later figure out what they were all about.

I can't say I am am unreservedly a fan of modern art. There is some of it I like, but there is much I don't really understand. I have seen a lot of it over the years mainly in St. Louis, Washington, New York, and Chicago. I read and photographed many of the written explanations of what was featured at the Tate Modern, but even then for some of it, I realize that for some kinds of art, words are not much use. Some of the names are familiar to me, and some are new. You can cite the artist's nationality, his birth and death dates, maybe the title he gave to the work of art, and a note on the materials employed to make it, but still that doesn't always give one an insight into what it is all about. The thematic layout of the museum however was unique.
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Thomas Hirshorn (1957- )

Candelabra with Heads, by Thomas Hirshorn

One of the first works I saw, this work by Thomas Hirshorn (1957- ) shows mannequin heads embedded in large brown globs, that look like he used miles and miles of brown box tape and a few strategically constructed pieces of white 2x1 planks. The Tate Modern website (1) says this about it:

Hirschhorn is known for his sculptures and installations made from everyday materials such as cardboard, plastic and paper, bound together with brown packing tape. This work was originally part of an exhibition called Concretions, a term from geology and medicine that suggests the gradual growth of a solid mass. Hirschhorn related the theme to a broader social and spiritual petrification. Here the faces of mannequins seem to be emerging from – or submerged into – larger biomorphic forms.

I suspect these comments show that they don't have any clue as to what it is about either. Such artists usually don't explain much.

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Dan Flavin (1933-1996)

Working as I do in the lighting business, I took to Dan Flavin's Fluorescent panels a lot more. It's brightly colored and kind of spectacular in a way. Looking at it, I wondered, idly, when the 48 inch T12 bulbs burn out, where do they go to get replacements? With some wires, transformers, and light sockets, who knows what I could create?
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Francis Picabia (1879-1953)

Portrait of a doctor, by Francis Picabia

Apparently this canvas began life as a fairly straightforward portrait of a doctor friend, which, when it did not sell, and even his own daughter did not care for it, Picabia reworked it into its present form (2). To me it looks like bacteria tumbling off the body with a headdress that reminds me of spread legs in stirrups, along with along with five erect phalluses. Maybe the doctor only thinks about sex and death? Myself the cemetery tourist I guess I do too.
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Paul Delvaux (1897-1994)

Sleeping Venus by Paul Delvaux

Paul Delvaux painted this in Brussels in 1944 during the German Occupation and the last stages of the Second World War (3). I have seen a number of Delvaux paintings at the Art Institute in Chicago which are similar in that doe-eyed women inhabit a strange and surreal world. It looks like a dream sequence to me. The woman in Edwardian dress talks with a skeleton, while Venus dozes on a day bed in the altogether not far from the First National Bank, while another naked lady seems to be hailing a taxi. Again, a painter who thinks largely about sex and death and perhaps money too.
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John Heartfield (1891-1968)

Down with the Warmongers! Fight for the Soviet Union. Vote Communist.

This was part of an exhibition of left-wing cover art by John Heartfield during the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler in Germany.

The meaning of the Hitler Salute

The implication of this magazine cover by John Heartfield is that Hitler was getting money from shadowy millionaires (4). Hitler says "Millions stand behind me!" and the bottom caption says "Small man asks for great gifts."

Heartfield Cover for Kurt Tucholsky's Deutschland Deutschland ueber Alles

Tucholsky was a left-wing satirist, journalist and pacifist who was fought in vain against the fascist trends in Germany in the waning days of the Weimar Republic (5). John Heartfield was born Helmut Herzfeld, and anglicized his name during a wave of anti-British sentiment in his country (6) .

East German Stamp featuring a picture of Heartfield

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Meredith Frampton and Dod Procter,
(two British realist painters)

Marguerite Kelsey by Meredith Frampton

Meanwhile, less political artists were concerned with other things, like women, such as Meredith Frampton (1894-1984) who produced the fairly straightforward portrait above,

and Dod Procter (1890-1972). Procter, Born Doris Margaret Shaw, her most famous painting is below, which was purchased by the London newspaper "Daily Mail" in 1927. I especially like the treatment of light in this one.

Morning, by Dod Procter

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Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Nude Woman in Red Armchair by Pablo Picasso (1932)

Pablo Picasso, perhaps one of the most prolific and successful artists of his time, was capable of pleasing if stylized portraits of women, such as this one, but veered off into more bizarre representations later in his career:

Nude Woman with Necklace by Pablo Picasso (1968)

Which makes me think of the the lament of aging spouses: "What happened to the girl I married?" This is a portrait of his second wife whose marriage ended with his death in 1973. Picasso's first wife Olga Khoklova, he wed in 1918 in Paris. Their marriage disintegrated by the late 1920s but she remained married to him until her death in 1955 because they could not agree on a property settlement. In 1955 he met his second wife, Jacqueline Roque of whom the above is a representation. Picasso being Picasso, these were definitely not the only women in his life (7).

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Henri Matisse (1969-1954)

Detail of Portrait of Greta Moll (1908) by Henri Matisse

A Miro Portrait

Greta Moll was one of the first students of Matisse's academy in Paris and one of his earliest collectors, along with her husband. Like many women she was never completely happy with the portrait and disliked the bushiness of her eyebrows, among other things. You have to think, however, that she got off rather easily in view of how Matisse's contemporaries did portraits, such as Picasso previously mentioned, and Joan Miro (above). Miro's subject did not like the portrait at all, and he ended up selling it to someone else.

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Christian Schad (1894-1982)

Self Portrait by Christian Schad (1927)

A German artist, Christian Schad was most active in the 1920's and by some quirk was not included in the group of so-called Decadent Artists like Max Beckmann, George Grosz, etc., and so did not suffer the persecution that fell upon such artists in Germany. Here he is featured in a see-through shirt in front of a hatchet faced woman in a 1920s hairstyle with a freggio, a scar on her cheek, the customary practice of Neapolitan men to disfigure their women to render them less attractive to other men (9). Schad was known as something of a realist painter, who nevertheless was allied with the surrealists (10). Come to think of it this is a rather surreal painting in view of the see-through green shirt, and the industrial night scene beyond behind another thin veil.
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Leon Golub (1922-2004)

Vietnam II (1973) by Leon Golub (left side)

Leon Golub was born and educated in Chicago. His paintings were taken from current events, such as the Vietnam war or the riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. This is a large canvas occupying most of the wall of a large room at the Tate Modern. This shows three soldiers on the left confronting Vietnamese villagers on the right and with a large blank space in the middle of the canvas (11, 12).

Vietnam II (1973) by Leon Golub

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Bruce Nauman (1941- )

Violins, Violence, Silence by Bruce Nauman

Bruce Nauman was born in Fort Wayne, IN in 1941, the day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. His father was an engineer for General Electric. It is very hard to summarize or categorize Nauman, who has done audio and video projection art as well as his work with neon. He has also done performance art which is almost by definition strange and disorienting. Maybe that is the point of it all. I've seen his neon work in the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Chicago Art Institute as well. He likes plays on words like that shown above. He reminds me of another artist whose work consists of various odd messages as rolling text along a marquee of lights.
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Asger Jorn (1914-1973)

Letter to my son, by Asger Jorn

Jorn was a Danish painter who was a "situationist" and avant-garde painter and founder of "COBRA" which stood for "Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam". Before you say that your four year old son could do that, bear in mind that Jorn was here consciously recalling the style of art practiced by young children. Another painter who also adopted this approach was Karel Appel (13).

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

The British Museum, London

I can't say I saw the whole thing. I was only there for a few hours, but it is a splendid museum full of antiquities acquired in various ways from all over the world. One wonders of course how the torso of a Greek sculpture is in the British Museum while the head is in a museum in Vienna or the rest of it in Athens. At the time the British, French, Austrians and others were acquiring these objects the locals in these countries may have been indifferent at best and at worst, hostile. Early Christians as well as Muslims were not necessarily kind to the times before the advent of those great religions, although the Christians may have been worse than the Muslims in this regard.

Inside, the museum opens onto a large enclosed space known as the Great Court, which was renovated in 2001, with a large transparent dome covering the large space between wings of the museum.

The court area is primarily a place to rest, relax, and visit the museum shops. There are several places to eat, including one at the top of the round reading room. The Round reading room used to be the home of the British Library. I took the curving staircase to the top of this curious structure, but never ventured inside it.

The parts of the museum I visited were concerned with ancient Egypt, Greece, Ancient Rome, and Assyria. This figure of Ramesses II dominates one of the halls. It is huge but is itself only a fragment of the original figure, body and all. Ramesses II lived from 1303 to 1213 BC, 93 years. This was originally at the Ramuseeum in Thebes, a mortuary temple built for Ramesses II.

The museum has an extensive collection of friezes and sculptures from Nineveh in Assyria. Sennercherib (704-681 BC) chose Nineveh on the Tigris river as his new capital and constructed a palace there. Their chief rivals in the area were the Babylonians.

A third frieze shows two soldiers holding up two severed heads or perhaps shrunken heads.

An example of Cuneiform writing used by the Assyrians, and one of the earliest forms of writing.

And an example of Egyptian hieroglyphics, which were deciphered after the discovery of the Rosetta stone, which presented the same text in Greek, Demotic, and Hieroglyphics, a multilingual decree promulgated by Ptolemy V in 196 BC. The Rosetta stone is also in the British Museum.

I was getting tired by the time I took this picture. Exactly when in Egyptian history this was created I can only guess.

A female mummy I presume.

A golden faced male mummy Number 6678.

Ancient Egyptian burial in a basket.

This is one of the better preserved of the Elgin Marbles, with the heads of the two combatants a centaur and a lapith fighting. These were representations of pre-Hellenic times according to Greek mythology. These were created in 447-438 BC for the Parthenon. The 7th Earl of Elgin, who was British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire obtained permission to remove these sculptures from the Parthenon, as the Ottomans didn't much care about them, and pieces that fell from the structure tended to be burned by the locals to produce lime (1).

A particularly fine sculpture of a horse head, a fragment from a lost larger sculpture.

This was the Hermes of Kew, another antiquity that used to grace the gardens at the Royal Palace at Kew. Like many antiquities suffering the ravages of time and weather and critics, the nose and the junk was the first things to go.

This is a frieze that seems to show a series of servants bringing foodstuffs to a banquet.

This is a sculpture found in Cyprus showing both Egyptian and Phoenician influences, circa 450 BC.:

Terracotta votive head, Etruscan circa 300-200 BC.
It looks like someone who thinks they forgot to turn off the stove before leaving home, and now they are miles away.

This is an example of a stone dramatic mask to decorate a theater perhaps in Rome in the 1st-2nd century AD:

The British museum is such a massive collection of antiquities that it would be hard to do it justice if you spent a week in there. I spent maybe three or four hours there. Museum fatigue sets in and you just can't look at any more. The expanse of human history and the portion lost to human memory is mind-boggling.

The End

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles

Monday, June 17, 2013

John Paul Jones by Evan Thomas

The book begins with a glimpse of the climax of Jone's life, his battle against long odds against the British warship, the Serapis off the coast of the British Isles. He was captain of the "Bonnehomme Richard" where he famously was supposed to have said when asked if he wanted quarter, "I have not begun to fight". He apparently said no such thing, but he did refuse to surrender, and managed somehow to force the other ship to surrender, although it was his own ship that ultimately foundered.

The book is a vivid look into the crude nature of naval warfare in the age of sail, and how the American revolution began and ended. The Americans were so outmatched in every way from the beginning, clearly, if it had not been for the support of Louis XVI of France, the revolution would not have met with much success. However the political blunders and arrogance of George III and the British in general had alienated a large segment of the American colonists, and the French were keen to avenge the loss of their possessions in Canada.

At the outset, America had no navy and few resources. Congress was then as now, a place of favoritism and preferment. A professional military based on actual competence seemed foreign to most participants in the continental congress, and the best commands were not distributed according to anything like true merit or competence. Nevertheless Jones suffered through such neglect and did his best. While other captains preferred preying on British merchantmen for the financial reward that was less likely to involve getting themselves hurt or the ships sunk, Jones was much more bellicose and ambitious. He longed to terrorize the British public and ransom US prisoners, he wanted command of a fleet of ships.

He began as a merchant captain for his native Britain, but problems with crews and persons supposedly under his command led to his being undermined by them. One crew member, unwilling to take orders from him was injured, and later died, and he had to go off to the Caribbean to gather witness testimony in his defense in Scotland just to defend himself against trumped up charges. Another crew member was run through with his sword in another port, which led to his fleeing for his life, since, the political climate of the island where most of the crew members came from and the natural sympathy of the justice system of the island was quite simply stacked against him. He had little chance of a fair trial.

And so he found himself in America, a wanted man, at the time just before the revolution. He subsequently acquired the commands and engaged in the exploits that propelled him to fame, culminating in the duel between the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis.

But somehow, in spite of some of his glorious action, he was denied much of the rewards of competence and heroism. On board one ship he sailed the crew has curious ideas that a vote should determine the decisions made on board ship rather than merely those of the captain, clearly an intolerable situation in time of war. But tolerate he did.

His crews were often men who were more interested in money gained from captured ships and other property than the work of war.   In another episode during which Jones planned to kidnap the Earl of Selkirk in order to ransom him for US sailors in British jails, but did not find the Earl at home.   While his crew wanted to return to the house and rape, pillage and burn the place, to his credit Jones persuaded them to merely steal their silver plate. He felt bad enough about this to return the plate to the Earl years later.

The war effort, though ultimately successful, was hindered somewhat by the stinginess of the French and the the Continental congress in providing commands or ships.   It was also hampered by the existence of a spy in the very midst of Ben Franklin's diplomatic mission in Passy.  Delays tempted him to live it up and while he was the toast of the town after his victory over the Serapis, financial aid and new commands were not forthcoming.

His men were holed up in the Serapis, languishing and resentful, which they had taken as their own ship after the Bonhomme Richard had sunk. It was being repaired and masts replaced and renamed. Ships and payment for the sale of prizes were promised and then they were not kept. Professional rivalry with other persons in the navy and subversion by enemies nominally under his command led to severe problems. Transatlantic voyages to deliver supplies were delayed during the prime sailing season during the summer until the fall when fierce storms made the passage more perilous.   Insubordinate captain Landay was court-marshalled but subsequently challenged Jones to a duel, but Jones did not accept it.  Landay was let off through the efforts of John Adams. His fomenting of dissention among the crew led to a standoff as the ship was planning to sail away. Although the French were willing to block their exit under these circumstances, Jones allowed them to leave. Perhaps he felt he was well rid of both Landay and the insubordinate New Hampshire crew he had had to deal with.

Another ship he had been promised lay half-built at Portsmouth NH. The contractor apparently was delaying the project by selling off materials meant for the ship. Later, when a French ship went aground not far from there, the Americans, feeling responsible, gave the ship to the French.

When the war ended, Jones was still eager for action of some kind, and was recruited by Catherine of Russia to lead her navy in the Black Sea against the Turks. This ended badly, as the incompetent Russian Navy, language barriers, and unscrupulous commanders undermined his authority and ignored his commands. When anything went right, they took credit for it, when anything went wrong it was Jone's fault. In the end, his chief rival in the naval arena, Prince de Nassau-Siegen attempted to frame him for the rape of a 12 year old girl. But as it turned out, although Jones admitted having "often frolicked" with the girl "for a small cash payment" (1), he had not raped her. Apparently the Prince de Nassau-Siegen had also made a cash payment to the girl in exchange for promulgating the lie, yet in spite of being denied competent legal counsel, he was exonerated ultimately as the girl's story fell apart. If not he might have been executed or sentenced for years as a galley slave.

Leaving Russia, he went to Poland and then to Paris, where, still trying to regain the favor of Catherine, he died of interstitial nephritis and was buried somewhat forgotten in the St. Louis Cemetery, which was later a site for burial of dead animals and mass burials of those guillotined during the terror, which blossomed soon after Jone's death (1). It was the summer of 1792.

More than a hundred years later, in 1905 his body was exhumed and identified, and transported to its present resting place in the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis. He is now considered one of the fathers of the US Navy.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Jones

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Brompton Cemetery, London

Brompton Cemetery is a lot closer to central London than Highgate and is situated on a level piece of land in SW London in the borough of Kensington. To get there I took the Picadilly line to Earl's Court and walked three or four blocks south from the station.

It was established in 1840, and is one of the "magnificent seven" cemeteries of London, when, it was decided that decentralized cemeteries away from churchyards were preferable to the accepted custom before. Many old churches in the London area have churchyards, even in some situations where the church itself has disappeared, such as the one I saw on Marylebone High Street where the Methodist church was destroyed in bombing during the second world war, but the churchyard remains.

Turn Southeast on Earls Court Road and left on Old Brompton Road to get to the North entrance to the cemetery.

Brompton Cemetery North Entrance from inside the Cemetery

This cemetery is maintained by Royal Parks but is still a working cemetery. There was plenty of foot traffic, joggers, and even small children on bicycles passing through. This is the view from the central pathway.

I bought some sandwiches at a Tesco Express and sat on a park bench inside the entrance. My breakfast. Afterwards I wandered southward, encountering a military section and the grave of a young mother.

I forgot to record the details of the person interred, but I think she was rather young. A child on a bicycle stopped by to look at it before cycling on. If a cemetery is a museum of grief, these are probably the saddest sights, of people who died very young.

There was a large area of military graves, sectioned off and surrounded by an iron fence. It contained a lot of graves from soldiers who died young and in action in the first and second world wars, as well as a number of civilians who died in the heavy bombing of London during the war.

Sidney Gilbert Lewis Edwards, of the Grenadier Guards Band died October 9, 1915, at 39. A little over 2 years later his son, William Edwards, age 19, died October 30, 1917 and was buried in France. The British certainly paid a heavy price during the two World Wars that America both times belatedly entered.

This illustrates a common method of designing such stones, with lettering attached on the surface, which unfortunately ends up coming off, obliterating whatever the message was. I haven't seem graves marked this way in America.

George Osborne was 56 when he died, but he was a sergeant in the 2nd batallion of the Coldstream guards, who died in an air raid May 10, 1941.

Another common sight is a grave that features a stone covered with some kind of stucco, but which unfortunately has not stood the ravages of a little over 150 years very well.

As can be seen here, near the center of the cemetery is an enclosed area just north of the chapel. Some of the catacombs are located here at the bottom of a staircase.

This is a typical verbose Victorian grave. The first to be interred appears at the top with space for names to be added later on. For example this one reads:

the memory of

LUCY ANNA MARIA

The beloved daughter of

James and Anna Maria Ling:

Who departed this life March 14th 1849

Aged 11 years and 10 months.

Though lost to sight to memory dear.

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Also of Sarah, daughter of the above

James and Anna Maria and sister to

the above Lucy Anna Maria Ling.

who departed this life April 10th 1851

aged 7 years and 10 months

In life they loved each other

and in death they are not parted.

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Also of Harriet, sister of the above

who died June 22nd 1854

Aged 5 years and 6 months.

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Also in loving remembrance of

Anna Maria

The beloved wife of the above

James Ling

who departed this life

February 28th 1878, aged 63 years

A tender wife, a mother dear,

A sincere friend lies sleeping here.

Unfortunately I can't read the last couplet at the bottom of this stone, but you get the idea. It must have

been quite a blow to have buried three young daughters in the space of 5 years.

This next is the grave of someone named Yuri Stepanovich Chyutina. I know enough Russian to make out some of this but I'll have to also remember something about old Cyrillic, which is somewhat different from the way it is today. What looks like an "A" here is actually the Russian vowel "Ya", but I don't know what the lower case B with a cross in it could be transliterated as. This person was probably an exile from the Soviet Union. My somewhat uncertain translation below:

Holy God,

Holy ?

Holy Immortal,

Remember Us

Yurii Stepanovich Chyutina

born June 1889 died October 1928.

This next one thoughtfully included a translation in English: Archbishop Nikodem, of Richmond and Great Britain, of the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile.