Paintings of the Week
I never recognise myself in photographs; the tall, muscular, heroic man that I know myself to be always get strangely reduced into being a short tubby Welsh bloke. This just proves that THE CAMERA ALWAYS LIES.
But self portraits by artists always intrigue me. It's said that to paint a great portrait, you have to see into the soul of your sitter. To paint yourself, therefore, you have to know yourself; you have to see past the facial features to the essence of the man or woman beneath.
There is (or at least was) a fabulous juxtaposition in the National Gallery between two portaits of Rembrandt - one as a young man, one as an old man. Because of the ways the eyes look to one side, you can stand and be stared at by both men at the same time. There is no more potent visual expression of how the boy becomes the man.
Caravaggio plays a similar trick in the self portrait below, in which he is both David AND Goliath; the young man and the older man in the same painting.
Here's a glimpse into the souls of some great artists.
Henri Matisse
Francis Bacon, 1973
Caravaggio as both David and Goliath
Artemisia Gentileschi: Self Portrait as a Lute Player
Lucian Freud
Claude Monet, 1886
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso on a bad day
Gwen John
Raphael
Michelangelo - self portrait?
Tolouse Letrec
J.M.W. Turner
Rembrandt Van Rijn as a young man
Rembrandt Van Rijn in 1660
Houses of Parliament, Sunset, by Claude Monet
This week all the paintings I feature, by various artists, are of the River Thames.
I remember when I first came to London from University, and a gang of us stood at the bank of the Thames, and looked at the light display on the roof of the Hayward Gallery, and it was well...magic. Venice has the same effect on me; so does Paris; but it's the combination of water and city that = magic.
Edinburgh is the one exception; there's a furrow through the city where the river ought to be, but there isn't one; and it's the castle on the hilltop that makes the city magic.
Years ago I had a conversation with an Indian man living in my street who talked of a region in India which locals believed was haunted; or, more accurately, it was as if the place itself had a soul. And I certainly feel that often; that's why I love certain places, which create in me certain particular moods.
My first radio play Gin and Rum was about a man obsessed with London who could actually hear and see the ghosts of those who had died in the streets of London; he had an extraordinary memory for facts, but he didn't just remember history, he felt it.
I'm not quite as bonkers as that; but I do believe cities have souls. And London's soul is best felt along the river Thames.
Several of the paintings below (and above) are by Turner, Whistler or Monet. These artists connect in complex ways. When Monet visited London in 1870-1 he visited Whistler in his studio, and saw some of the great works of Turner (who died in 1851) at the National Gallery.
Like Turner (who once allegedly had himself tied to the mast of a ship at sea in order to paint the effects of wind and water) Monet took pride in braving physical dangers to paint 'en plein air'. Ironically, though, it was the London smog which was most injurious to the health of artists; and it was the smog too which helped created the astonishing sunsets which Monet painted. Even taking into account Monet's impressionist technique, London simply doesn't look like that now.
Also featured are Canaletto, who loved London almost as much as Venice, and Fauvist Andre Derain.
A View of His Majesty's Dock Yard at Woolwich by John Clevely the Younger
Brown and Silver, Old Battersea Bridge by James McNeill Whistler
Somerset House from the Thames by Edward Dayes
The Burning of the Houses of Parliament by J.M.W. Turner
The Thames Estuary by Philip Wilson Steer
London Seen Through the Arches of Westminster Bridge by Canaletto
Nocturne in Blue and Silver by James McNeill Whistler
Old Battersea Bridge by James McNeill Whistler
Houses of Parliament, Effect of Sunlight in Fog by Claude Monet (subtly different to the top one!)
The Thames and the City of London from Richmond House by Canaletto
The Burning of the House of Lord and Commons by J.M.W. Turner (more flames than the Burning of Parliament, above)
The Pool of London by Andre Derain
And last week, I went to an exhibition at the Royal Academy of the works of Vincent Van Gogh, whose brief career alternated between bursts of astonishing creativity and bleak periods in a mental asylum. The exhibition focused around Van Gogh's life and letters - letters which he wrote to his brother Theo, often accompanied with dazzling sketches of the paintings he was working on.
It was evident from the letters that Vincent was a staggeringly obsessive man - no, 'How are you? How are the kids?' chit chat, his letters (or the ones I read) are all about his own artistic processes and challenges and ideas. All creative people tend to be self-obsessed; Vincent was clearly at the far end of that spectrum.
There have recently been rumours that Van Gogh didn't, as the legend have it, cut his own ear off - but that he and his friend Paul Gauguin fought a duel and the ear was lopped off by Gauguin's blade; then a lie had to be told to protect Gauguin from prosecution.
However, I prefer the time-hallowed story, which is that Van Gogh in a fit of madness threatened his friend with a razor, then ran off to a brothel, cut off his ear, and handed it to a prostitute with the words, "Keep this object carefully."
The intensity of Van Gogh's vision is palpable; you feel that he saw too much, and looked too hard, for his own good. And his death was as tragic as his life was lonely; he tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the chest with a shotgun but failed, walked back to the local tavern, admitted what he had done - then later died of his injuries.
Personally, I would have been happy for him to be just a bit less talented, if that could have made him happier. I mean, I know we all love the myth of the tortured artist - but really? Doesn't it break your heart?
Anyway, here are some drawings and lesser known Van Goghs, followed by a few of the more famous ones.
NOTE: The painting of Gauguin's empty chair was (I learned at the exhibition) Vincent's way of showing the absence of the man who used to share his home, but who was forced to flee after the razor incident. In which case - what does the portrait of Vincent's empty chair symbolise? A harbinger of his own death?
Enclosed Field with a Sower in the Rain
Field with Factory
Quay with Men Unloading Sand Barges
Backyard of Old Houses in Antwerp
Avenue at D'Argenson Park at Asnieres
Coal Barges
Japonaiserie, Bridge in the Rain
Nude Woman Reclining
Paul Gauguin's Armchair
Wheatfield with Crows
Vincent's Chair with his Pipe
Self Portrait, after cutting off his ear
(For last week's feature - go left across this page to Categories and click Paintings of the Week. It's there!)
The artist William Blake was also, in his lifetime, considered to be mad. He had visions of angels and other strange creatures all his life, and held heretical views about religion that shocked his contemporaries; though to my mind many of Blake's religious ideas are no madder than the non-heretical versions.
Blake features in Alan Moore's graphic novel From Hell, where he is seen having one of his visions just as - well, I shan't give away the story.
William Wordsworth wrote of Blake: 'There was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott.'
Blake was a poet (he wrotes the verses 'And did these feet in ancient time' which are now immortalised in the anthem Jersusalem), draughtsman, painter and book illustrator. His techniques for book illustration were revolutionary at the time - blending words and images on a single plate. And many of his greatest images are illustrations of the Book of Job and other Biblical texts.
Lose yourself for a while in a madness that is richer than most sanities:
Beatrice Addressing Dante (illustration for Dante's Inferno)
Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Joseph of Arimathea among the Rocks of Albion
Nebuchadnezzar
Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun
Plate 7 of the Book of Urizen (a deity invented by Blake)
Plate 9 of the Book of Urizen
The Ancient of Days
Here are two examples of 'art brut' from Swiss artist Adolf Wolfi.
Art brut is a concept coined by the French artist Jean Dubuffet, and is sometimes called 'naive art' or 'outsider art'. It's used about artists who are untrained, sometimes uneducated; artists who don't belong to the mainstream of art but have access to a rare creative vision.
Dubuffet collected many examples of art brut; and he was particularly interested in art created by inmates of psychiatric hospitals. 'Mad art', if I can be so politically incorrect.
And that's where Wolfi comes in. He was physically and sexually abused as a child and spent his childhood in a variety of foster homes. As an adult, he was convicted of sexual molestation, and was sent to a psychiatric hospital in Switzerland; and spent his entire life behind bars. He was psychotic, and violent, suffered hallucinations; and he created some amazing pieces.
Wolfi reminds me eerily of the Joker in Arkham Asylum; deranged, and evil, but talented.
General View of the Island
Irren Anstalt Band Hain
Edward Hopper (1882-1967) was one of of the great portrait painters of small town America. His paintings look like movie stills - and his style is much imitated by cinematographers. The movies Psycho and Blade Runner are both strongly influenced by Hopper's style, even to the the point of echoing specific paintings.
Hopper painted landscapes and seascapes, but his iconic pieces are cityscapes: interior and exterior images of the places where we dwell.
Imagine a jazz saxophone in the background, and taste that cherry pie:
Night Hawks
Chop Suey
Hotel Room
Summer Interior
House by the Railroad: This was the inspiration for the house in Psycho.
The beautiful painting above is by Vermeer; and it could only be by Vermeer. Even if you didn't recognise the actual painting, there's no other artist who paints domestic scenes with such care and lyrical attention to detail. Of course I'm no expert. If I were an expert I might think that this
is by Vermeer.
In fact, it's a fake painted by Hans Van Meegeren, one of the great forgers of all time, who was an inspiration for me when I wrote my radio thriller The Art of Deception. It's an incompetent and annoying piece, which doesn't look a bit like Vermeer; but that doesn't mean Van Meegeren was an idiot. Quite the opposite; his early Vermeer forgeries were very skilful, and looked pretty close to the real thing. But 'experts' dismissed them as forgeries. And so cunningly he invented a whole new style of paintings which he called early Vermeer; and his forgeries were the only surviving examples of this style.
It worked! Van Meegeren made a fortune, and he even sold a fake Vermeer to Goering.
But nothing can beat the real thing:
The Procuress
Girl with a Pearl Earring
This week, just to annoy that puritancial Calvinist Archie Tait, here's some gratuitous nudity.
Grand Odalisque by Ingres
Note: An odalisque is a female slave in a harem - a popular subject with many male painters throughout the centuries. (Harumph!)
Nude Study of Hector by Jacques Louis David
This week, just for fun, here are two great paintings that have inspired two great songs.
Mona Lisa or La Gioconda by Leonardo da Vinci
Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
Last year I wrote a radio serial about art and art forgery called The Art of Deception, which was broadcast in 5 x 15 minute episodes on BBC Radio 4; this year, I've just been commissioned to write the sequel.
This is a great opportunity to develop the characters, and work with the same actors. And also a chance to immerse myself, again, in the wonderful world of great art. This is by way of contrast to my day job, which means immersing myself in all things science fiction - aliens, parallel dimensions and the like.
So while I'm doing the research, I thought I'd start up this new regular item on Debatable Spaces. Every Sunday, I'll look at two paintings that I love. I might compare and contrast; I might talk about the artist; I might just show the damn things on the grounds that a picture is worth a thousand words.
The first two paintings have always been favourites of mine, and I saw them first when they were hanging side by side in the National Gallery. They are Claude Lorrain's Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba; and J.M.W Turner's Dido Buildilng Carthage.
The two paintings are closely linked; because (as I learned at a recent Tate Britain exhibition) in his youth Turner was an arrogant and absurdly competitive man who set himself the task of emulating and excelling the achievements of all the greats. In this he had limited success. He painted in the style of Watteau, extremely badly. His attempt to paint in the style of Rembrandt was frankly embarrassing. He took on Poussin at his own game, and emerged with discredit. But he also created virtual copies of paintings by landscape artists like William Van Der Velde with (in my view) considerable success.
And it was his mimicry of Claude Lorrain (1600-1662), often just called Claude for reasons I've never fathomed, that proved most fruitful. Claude was a great painter of landscape, and a great painter of light; and that proved to be Turner's genius. Many of Turner's paintings are marred by ineptly drawn people (sorry! but they're crap!) but he was the genius of light. And this comparison between Claude and Turner showed how Turner emulated, but did not copy.
Turner loved Dido Building Carthage so much he asked that he be wrapped in the canvas when he was buried - an arrogant and stupid idea that was typical of the man. (Luckily, he was ignored.) It shows the founding of the Carthaginian Empire by Dido, daughter King of Tyre. It needs to be seen in its full glory of course; but here's a glimpse of both paintings.
Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba by Claude Lorrain
Dido Building Carthage by J.M.W.Turner