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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.

Pitocchetto

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Giacomo Ceruti’s “The Beggar at Rest”

Yesterday, I decided to escape the summer heat by visiting the Getty Center and reveling in some great works of art. One of my favorite discoveries was a whole gallery full of paintings by the Italian Giacomo Ceruti (1698-1767). He was known as Pitocchetto, which means “The Little Beggar,” probably because so many of his paintings highlighted beggars, the poor, and people in humble occupations.

It’s a nice change from all the magnificent kings, princes, and nobles resplendent in gold and silk. One art critic, Mira Pajes Merriman, writes that Ceruti’s paintings confront us with

the detritus of the community; the displaced and homeless poor; the old and the young with their ubiquitous spindles, eloquent signs of their situationless poverty and unwanted labor; orphans in their orderly, joyless asylums plying their unpaid toil; urchins of the streets eking out small coins as porters, and sating them in gambling; the diseased, palsied, and deformed; lonely vagabonds; even a stranger from Africa—and all in tatters and filthy rags, almost all with eyes that address us directly…

And yet, confronted with one of his paintings, one is arrested by a different vision of the baroque era, not so different from our own tent encampments of the homeless.

“The Dwarf” by Giacomo Ceruti

One thing that sets Ceruti apart is that he allows his subjects their dignity, irrespective of the lowliness of their social status. He is above all a compassionate artist who is not above showing us an alternative picture of his times.

Folk Art: Myrlande Constant

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Haitian Hero Toussaint Louverteur

This afternoon, I once again took a walk on the UCLA campus and visited the Fowler Museum. There were two new exhibits that fascinated me, particularly the work of Myrlande Constant of Haiti. It was a strangely satisfying mix of Hieronymus Bosch and Haitian vodou (aka voodoo). On her website, the artist talks about the influence of vodou flags on her work:

Within the vodou community the flag is a sacred ritual object that identifies the hounfour and honors the spirits with whom it is associated. The sparkle of the sequin or mirror used to capture the attention of the iwa started in the temples. Drapo voudou (sequined sacred flags) are unfurled at the beginning of a ceremony. They are power points that are used for both identification and transformation. When the flag is unfurled it signals the congregants to come to order -the sacred is about to come home to roost. The spirits will soon walk next to (or in) the market woman.

As I looked around the exhibit, I found myself drawn to details rather than to the overall design, which in any case I could ill understand as I am not a practitioner of vodou. Here are a couple of examples:

Like all the works on display, the art was covered with sequins, beads, and other shiny objects. The result was that I found myself immersed in detail. Is that Baron Samedi or Papa Legba on horseback? I don’t know, now why that woman at the lower left is exposing her buttocks.

Making frequent appearances were Catholic saints and angels, though in the world of vodou, everything has a different meaning.

Sometimes, it is useful to immerse oneself in a culture one doesn’t understand. The mysteries have a role to play in our lives—a role which, I believe, is ultimately benign.

J M W Turner’s Castle in Wales

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“Conway Castle, North Wales” as Painted by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1798)

Back in 1976, I visited Britain after making some money selling a script idea. One of the places I stayed was Betws-y-Coed, from which I could visit several beauty spots in North Wales. One of them was Conwy [sic] Castle. I was elated to see at the Getty Center J M W Turner’s rendition of Conway Castle, which is what the English called it.

The Getty website describes the painting:

On a dramatic, rocky area of the northern coast of Wales looms the late medieval Conway Castle. It towers over a stormy bay while fisherman struggle to pull their boats ashore. Caught in this uproaring of the sea, the tiny figures of fishermen in their boat convey a sense of humans’ barely significant place in the order of the universe.

The Welsh landscape exerted a strong hold on Joseph Mallord William Turner, and he made several sketching trips there in the 1790s. In this early Romantic painting, Turner represented the dramatic effects of natural light, allowing sunshine breaking through the clouds to illuminate the castle and the coast beyond.

The castle was built by Edward I—the evil king in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart played by Patrick McGoohan—between 1283 and 1287. It was one of a number of fortifications he built in his effort to subdue the Welsh. Here’s what it looks like today:

Conwy Castle Today

Smart Phones and Brussels

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James Ensor’s Christ’s Entry into Brussels 1889

On Friday, I took a bus (to avoid the $20 parking fee) to the Getty Center to view the latest exhibitions and to reacquaint myself with the permanent collection. Unfortunately, the museum was mobbed. Time and time again, I was prevented from seeing a painting because some oversized bozo was stationed in front finger f—ing his smart phone, totally oblivious to the crowds and the magnificent artworks around him.

They reminded me of one of my favorite paintings in the Getty’s permanent collection, James Ensor’s Christ’s Entry into Brussels 1889. Look closely at the crowd entering with Christ who appears (with golden halo) in the center of the painting and slightly to the left. Now imagine each member of the crowd with a smart phone and not giving a tinker’s damn about anything but his or her Facebook or Instagram or whatever.

The Getty’s notes on the painting confirm my opinion:

James Ensor took on religion, politics, and art in this scene of Christ entering contemporary Brussels in a Mardi Gras parade. In response to the French pointillist style, Ensor used palette knives, spatulas, and both ends of his brush to put down patches of colors with expressive freedom. He made several preparatory drawings for the painting, including one in the J. Paul Getty Museum’s collection.

Ensor’s society is a mob, threatening to trample the viewer–a crude, ugly, chaotic, dehumanized sea of masks, frauds, clowns, and caricatures. Public, historical, and allegorical figures, along with the artist’s family and friends, make up the crowd. The haloed Christ at the center of the turbulence is in part a self-portrait: mostly ignored, a precarious, isolated visionary amidst the herdlike masses of modern society. Ensor’s Christ functions as a political spokesman for the poor and oppressed–a humble leader of the true religion, in opposition to the atheist social reformer Emile Littré, shown in bishop’s garb holding a drum major’s baton and leading on the eager, mindless crowd.

After rejection by Les XX, the artists’ association that Ensor had helped to found, the painting was not exhibited publicly until 1929. Ensor displayed Christ’s Entry prominently in his home and studio throughout his life. With its aggressive, painterly style and merging of the public with the deeply personal, Christ’s Entry was a forerunner of twentieth-century Expressionism.

I managed to enjoy my visit despite the crowds. I guess it was Spring Break for too many people, so I should have known better.

Casa de los Venados

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Mexican Folk Art from the Casa de los Venados in Valladolid, Yucatán

Perhaps the largest collection of Mexican folk art in private hands is on display at the Casa de los Venados in Valladolid, Yucatán, about a block off the Zócalo. The collection contains 3,000+ pieces of high-quality folk art. If you should ever find yourself in Yucatán, you should consider paying a visit. Not only is the museum an eye-opener, but the city of Valladolid is worth spending several days touring.

A Friendly Demon

You Can See Me Taking the Picture to the Left of the Cross

The Casa de los Venados is probably the best museum of Mexican folk art I have ever seen.