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Artemisia

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“The Triumph of Galatea” by Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1656)

During Women’s History Month in 2024, I would like to honor several women whom I think have made a substantial contribution to our civilization. All of them lived in a time when the very thought of a woman’s contribution in anything other than childbirth, the domestic arts, or copulation was considered to be revolutionary.

The name of Galatea is not mentioned much today, but remember that it is coupled with the name of Pygmalion. Galatea was the statue of a lovely nymph that came to life when the sculptor fell in love with the image he created. It was that tale that led to George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and, later still, to the musical My Fair Lady.

Artemisia Gentileschi was a noted artist in her own lifetime. According to Wikipedia, “For many years Gentileschi was regarded as a curiosity, but her life and art have been reexamined by scholars in the 20th and 21st centuries, with the recognition of her talents exemplified by major exhibitions at internationally esteemed fine art institutions, such as the National Gallery in London.”

Off the Grid: Salvation Mountain

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The Ultimate Art Installation

Right in the middle of Slab City is a gaudy hillside painted in neon colors with all the Christian mottos you can think of. It is primarily the work of Leonard Knight (1931-2014). After his demise, however, volunteers have stepped in to maintain the giant art installation—and they’ve done a good job of it. Former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer once paid tribute to it as “a unique and visionary sculpture… a national treasure… profoundly strange and beautifully accessible, and worthy of the international acclaim it receives.”

Although my brother and I are about as far from Evangelical Christianity as it is possible to be, we were both awed by the mountain’s primitive beauty and evident sincerity.

The Star Attraction of Slab City

It’s worth a trip to Slab City if for no other reason than to look around Salvation Mountain. There’s no admission charge or any pressure to donate, but it’s worth contributing to the upkeep of such a fascinating work. As the Folk Art Society of America stated, it is “a folk art site worthy of preservation and protection.”

If you’re interested in reading more about the place, you can check out the Salvation Mountain website.

Horse and Rider from Albania

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What survives from the ancient Greeks and Romans? There are certainly architectural ruins, statuary, funerary monuments, steles, coins, jewels, and even glassware. But everything made of paper, wood, and other materials that disintegrate over time are gone without a trace. And so much that has survived has been damaged.

One of the surprises of my visit yesterday to the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades was a whole gallery dedicated to a small bronze statuette of a horse and rider that was discovered in Babunjë, Albania, in 1939. At the time, that part of what is now Albania was a Greek colony. Although the lower legs of the horse are lost, the statuette is an almost perfect expression of the Greek élan in horseback riding.

Here is an even better view of the figure:

It’s a pity that the exhibition has closed—yesterday was the last day—because I would have loved to study it some more. Oh well, ars longa vita brevis.

The Good Emperor

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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (AD 121-180)

When Edward Gibbon came to write The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he began with what he regarded as a golden age in the affairs of men, namely, the reign of the five “good” Antonine emperors. These were Nerva (AD 96-98), Trajan (AD 98-117), Hadrian (AD 117-138), Antoninus Pius (AD 138-161), and Marcus Aurelius (AD 161-180).

Among all the Roman emperors, it was only Marcus Aurelius who, in his Meditations, published a work of Stoic philosophy that is read to this day. It was he who wrote:

When you first rise in the morning tell yourself: I will encounter busybodies, ingrates, egomaniacs, liars, the jealous and cranks. They are all stricken with these afflictions because they don’t know the difference between good and evil. Because I have understood the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, I know that these wrong-doers are still akin to me . . . and that none can do me harm, or implicate me in ugliness—nor can I be angry at my relatives or hate them. For we are made for cooperation.

Today was the last day at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades for a 3½-pound gold head of the emperor to be on display, so I felt I just had to see it. So I drove out to the Villa with my 90-year-old neighbor Luis to see it and check out the permanent collections as well.

It was well worth seeing, even though I developed a bad case of museum legs which tired me out after five hours. I visit the museum two or three times a year, and i love it more each time. And now I feel I should re-read the Meditations. I mean, how many world leaders ever wrote a major work of philosophy that still has worth in today’s world?

Rambles, Dreams, and Shadows

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Two Men Cruising Central Park

In last Thursday’s visit to the Getty Center, I concentrated on the prints of William Blake, but I also checked the photography exhibits, which are always changing and always interesting. I particularly enjoyed the “Rambles, Dreams, and Shadows” exhibit consisting mostly of cityscapes by Arthur Tress (born 1940).

Tress had a particular vision of a New York City shrouded in mystery. In the photo above, only one human figure is readily visible, until you notice the shadow of another in the upper right of the image.

Boy on Bike Crossing Williamsburg Bridge

I love this image of the cyclist on the long straight bridge with no other human beings in sight. There is a sort of last man on earth feeling about this image that appealed to me.

Boy in Tin Cone, Bronx

What the … ? Another mysterious image, this time of a boy wearing a metallic cone that gives him an otherworldly aspect, especially as the feet do not quite seem to match with the boy’s head.

Where Lions Roam

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Self Portrait of William Blake

William Blake was not only a visionary artist, but also a visionary poet, whose works range from simple lyrical pieces to long, complicated prophetic books redolent of the Old Testament. For these latter, he invented his own mythology, with beings named Enitharmon, Los, Urizen, Albion, and such like.

The excerpt below is taken from my favorite Blake poem, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” In it the character of Rintrah appears as a personification of the just wrath of a prophet.

THE ARGUMENT

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden’d air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.

Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along
The vale of death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow,
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees.

Then the perilous path was planted,
And a river and a spring
On every cliff and tomb,
And on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth;

Till the villain left the paths of ease,
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man into barren climes.

Now the sneaking serpent walks
In mild humility,
And the just man rages in the wilds
Where lions roam.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden’d air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.

Here is a link to an interesting video called The Otherworldly Art of William Blake: YouTube Video.

Old Testament Visionary

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William Blake’s “Nebuchadnezzar” (1795)

As I said in yesterday’s post, William Blake (1757-1827) was that rarity who was not only a great poet but a great visual artist. What I found interesting was his predilection for Old Testament subjects, especially the books of the Old Testament prophets.

Take Nebuchadnezzar II, the subject of the above illustration. According to the Book of Daniel, the Babylonian king has a dream that is interpreted by Daniel to mean that he would be deposed and die of insanity after living like an animal for seven years. The text from the King James version of Daniel 4:31 is “And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field: they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.”

Satan Exults Over the Recumbent Eve After the Forbidden Fruit Incident

Here from Genesis is an image of Satan as a serpent coiled around the naked body of Eve as one of God’s angels (Michael?) points the way to the exit from Eden with his spear. It is interesting how the story from Genesis had resulted for centuries in women being held to blame for original sin and the expulsion from Eden. It’s just like the Jews unjustly being thought of as Christ-killers when it was actually the doing of Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest of the Temple and his cronies.

Blake never really took to painting, but as a print maker, he had few equals.

Renoir in the Waiting Room

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Auguste Renoir’s “Bal du Moulin de la Galette” (1876)

There I was, waiting for a full hour beyond my appointment time at my physician’s office. Going through my mind was the question “What should I write about for my blog tonight?” Hanging in the waiting room were two reproductions of paintings by Pierre Auguste Renoir, one of which was “Bal du Moulin de la Galette.”

The thought suddenly came to me that no other artist depicted women so radiantly. In the above painting, it seems that there is a soft spotlight on every woman’s face. The men do not quite receive the same treatment. That tendency is even more pronounced in “La Promenade” at the Getty Center in Los Angeles:

Auguste Renoir’s “La Promenade” (1870)

The following is from an earlier post about the painter from December 2, 2021:

What I find truly amazing is that much of the same sensibility was passed on to his son, Jean, who became one of the great motion picture directors. There are times when the viewer feels that the father could have directed the same scene in the same way…..

Some of the same feeling is in his earlier The Rules of the Game (1939), which is set in the present day. The men in the film all fly around the Marquise de la Chesnaye (played by Nora Gregor) like moths circling a flame.

Of course, Jean Renoir was very conscious of his father’s work, appearing in several of the paintings. He also wrote a beautiful biography of him called Renoir, My Father, which is available in a New York Review edition and is well worth reading.

Although I was in my doctor’s waiting room for a long time, my mind kept flitting back to the father and son whose paintings and films have influenced me so much.

America’s Love Affair With Billionaires

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Elon Musk

Why do Americans shower their billionaires with a level of adoration normally reserved for deities and saints? I think back to the Medicis and the Borgias during the Italian Renaissance. As J. H. Plumb wrote, “Commercial capitalism, struggling the the framework of feudalism, learned, through Italy, not only how to express itself in art and learning, but also how to make an art of life itself.”

Not so today, however! Donald Trump has given us golden toilet bowls, ornate golf courses, and tried to take away our democracy. Elon Musk managed to convince thousands of Americans that he was a genius—until he spent $44 billion buying Twitter and running it into the ground. After his latest anti-Semitic tirade, I think even most Tesla owners are rethinking their allegiances.

I cannot think of a billionaire today who has done anything but engage in self-aggrandizement. Instead of a Renaissance, we are now in a period that can only be described as Anti-Renaissance.

What ever happened to patronage of the arts? Oh, it still exists at the millionaire level; but not among the Trumps, Musks, and Bezoses of this world. The think the last billionaire to show any moves in this direction was Bill Gates of Microsoft fame.

Pedestrians Are Always Suspect

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Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) with Drawing of Orpheus

He was, to quote Wikipedia:

French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost artists of the surrealist, avant-garde, and Dadaist movements and an influential figure in early 20th century art.

He was, to quote one newspaper essay, a Renaissance man.

In the United States, he is probably best known for his films La Belle et la Bête (1946) and Orphée (1950). Although he created some paintings, he is probably better known for his line drawings, many referring to Greek myths such as the drawing of Orpheus illustrated above and used in the titles of his film on Orpheus.

“The Birth of Pegasus” (1953)

With his surrealist and Dada experience, Cocteau’s work is sometimes underestimated because the artist never took himself that seriously. I love the scene in Le Testament d’Orphée (1960) where the poet (played by Cocteau himself) is arrested by motorcycle cops who, when asked what the charge was, say, “Pedestrians are always suspect!”

There is no lack of artists who take themselves very seriously. Even his film masterpiece Orphée is not only profound, but profoundly funny in spots.