Abstract Calendar Art

So there I was, waltzing through the local Barnes & Noble book superstore to grab a cuppa at their captive Starbucks stand when lo! I beheld three long racks devoted to calendars for 2011.

A quick eyeball estimate revealed something on the order of 250 selections, of which around 70 were devoted to art as the main topic. (Other subjects included cars, airplanes, sports, pets, comics, movie stars, nature and even one calendar whose theme was "posters for peace and justice" which might be classed as art even though it wasn't positioned with that grouping.)

Of the art-related calendars, there was one whose theme was abstract art. Closely related were calendars devoted to Paul Klee (main works are a blend of Surrealism-lite and semi-geometric abstraction), Mark Rothko (whose late work dealt with swathes of color) and Ryan McGinness (jumbles of images and design elements that result in an abstract overall effect). Then there were calendars featuring Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol and Marc Chagall -- all of whom did work that can be considered more representational than not. (Yes, Chagall is kind of a borderline case. His classical works sprinkled images of humans and other recognizeable objects across the surface of a canvas in an un-natural manner.)

Doing the math, I come up with a little more than five percent of the calendars dealing with art featuring abstraction and about ten percent explicitly related to modernism. These percentages fall to about a quarter of those numbers if the entire calendar selection is considered.

What we have here is what I'll call an anecdotal measure of the acceptance of modernism by a literate, middle-class-and-over audience. Anecdotal because there are no statistical controls and because I have no knowledge of the process by which those calendars were selected for that particular B&N store. The store in question is located less than a mile from the University of Washington and within three miles of some of Seattle's most upscale neighborhoods (Laurelhurst and Windemere, to be specific). B&N seems to allow store managers to tailor stock to fit the locality. For example, this store has a good selection of art books whereas other Seattle B&Ns are more lacking. But I don't know if this applies to seasonal items such as those calendars; for all I know, each Barnes & Noble is sent the same general selection.

Statistical and methodological uncertainties aside, what I saw makes me wonder how far hard-core modernist painting and graphic arts have actually penetrated to the general public after more than a century of "education" by all the various promoters of modernism as the "appropriate" art for our times. If that B&N is even a remotely decent example, even in educated neighborhoods people reject modernism in the privacy of their kitchens, dens and other places where calendars are hung.

Mies' Barcelona Pavilion Walk-Around

There are gobs, oodles -- whatever term for large numbers -- of photos of Mies van der Rohe's iconic "International Style" German Pavilion built for a 1929 exhibition in Barcelona, destroyed after the event, and rebuilt in the mid-1980s. The Wikipedia entry on the Barcelona Pavilion (its common name) is here and another reference is here.

Unlike most modernist architecture, the Barcelona Pavilion oozed sex appeal and thereby served as inspiration for architects who had to hide in the bomb-shelters of Theory during the hard times of the Great Depression, the distraction of World War 2 and the five or ten years of post-war sorting-out that all took place before "significant" modernist buildings began appearing in number.

I confess that when in high school and college, I loved gazing at black and white photos of the original pavilion and lamenting its loss. And despite the aesthetic ruin manifested by across-the-board modernist architecture we have to live with today, I retain a soft spot in my heart for the pavilion -- van der Rohe's only real masterpiece (in my opinion, of course).

So when I recently found myself in Barcelona for the first time, the pavilion was on my must-see list along with certain works by Antoni Gaudí that I'll deal with later.

I mentioned above that many sets of photos exist of the rebuilt pavilion; they are all over the Web. Many are of nice, professional quality. Nevertheless, I thought I'd use this post to toss in my two bits worth of photos taken during a brief visit I paid while on my way to the big museum featuring Catalonian art. Here goes:

This is the Barcelona Pavilion in its present setting (it's that low, white structure in the background). From what I read, it's sited where the original was in 1929; presumably the large, open area was filled with other pavilions then.

Here's the entrance approach for those coming from the direction of the Plaça d'Espanya. You climb those steps and deal with the fellow on the platform to pay admission.

Admission paid, I entered and was facing towards the right side of the structure.

As in 1929 this area (can I call it a "room"?) has some Barcelona Chairs and hassocks. In the background is the same statue (so far as I know) by Georg Kolbe that was in the original pavilion.

Moving past the Barcelona Chairs to the pool area and statue. I included some of the structure at the left of the photo so that you can see how it is arranged.

I've walked a few steps and am now at the back side of the interior; here's how the statue's setting looks from this position.

Doing an about-face, I see this view along the back of the structure. That small enclosure in the background might have been office space in 1929: today, it's a bookshop.

These three photos are a kind of panorama of the back side of the pavilion, something not always pictured. It's quite possible that the place I was standing was occupied by other buildings making this vista unimportant in 1929, but I cannot confirm this.

Moving towards the front, here's a view of the large pool with its stony bottom. In the shady background is that shop.

Returning almost to the entrance, I see this. The seated man is the ticket seller.

Finally, a parting shot of the Barcelona Pavilion.

What's Not Where

I'm back from Spain, Portugal and Morocco. And still wiping the jet lag cobwebs from my brain -- but post, I must.

For starters, here are two slogans I came across:

This was taken at Casa Pepe, a road house just off the Autovia between Granada and Madrid. Pepe seems to be a huge fan of General Franco, the late Caudillo of Spain (I'll have more on Pepe's place in another post.) The slogan on the sign to the right can be translated as "This is Spain, not Europe."

I noticed this in Barcelona between the Plaça d'Espanya and the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. It's in English, presumably to get the message across to a wide foreign audience. Catalunya (better known to English speakers as Catalonia) is a region in northeastern Spain that has its own dialect which is slightly similar to dialects in southern France. Not all Catalonians consider themselves Spanish, it seems.

Do Political Paintings Age Well?

Painting overtly political subjects can be a risky task. There's the obvious risk of supporting a side that eventually loses -- will the winners seek retribution? But another risk is that, once an issue is no longer current, the paintings will be forgotten and the artist as well. Which might be why political paintings represent a rare genre.

Another consideration related to transitory political issues is painting technology. While a painting might take weeks or even months to complete, posters can be on the streets in a matter of days from when an inspiration strikes. This is why most political art is in poster form.

Before the 19th century most art was commissioned by the church, state, and rich or powerful individuals. Political content, such as it was, therefore was mostly in support of those who hired the artist. That is, anti-establishment painting subjects were rare because they were seldom funded. As painters became less reliant on traditional commission sources, they became increasingly able to create critical art.

Liberty Leading the People - Eugène Delacroix - 1830
As is noted here, Delacroix's famous work commemorates a successful regime change even though it appears to be a call to arms. The new regime (that of Louis-Philippe) eventually entered history's dustbin, but the huge painting lives on in the Louvre.

The Arsenal - Diego Rivera - 1928
The Russian revolution is glorified and a Mexican version encouraged in this mural that even includes Rivera's occasional wife Frida Kahlo as the central subject. Mexican governments at the time regarded themselves as "revolutionary" and tolerated such themes for murals on public buildings.

Eternal City - Peter Blume (1906-92) - completed 1937
I wonder how many people today would be able the grasp the context of this painting if they encountered it at New York's Museum of Modern Art and saw a plaque containing only the information above. The subject is anti-Fascism and the green jack-in-the-box figure represents Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. No one under age 70 can remember the living Mussolini who is increasing an historical footnote.

By Zina Saunders
This looks like a computer-generated "painting" (note the treatment of the plane's engine cowling) though in principle it could have been rendered in oil, acrylic or gouache. Like Blume's painting, it is likely to age poorly because it isn't very interesting artistically and deals with an ephemeral subject requiring specialized knowledge (i.e., Sarah Palin likes to hunt).

"Truther" poster by William Groshelle
Here is the sort of political-themed "art poster" common since the mid-1960s and reaching a climax during the presidency of George W. Bush (shown). Many current political-themed posters make use of computer-manipulated collages such as seen here; it's a quick way to create something with visual interest and realistic looking detail. Were this a painting, I doubt it or its artist would be long-remembered. It's too topical and historically questionable.

French Battleships: Steampunk to Sleek

The French are known for elegant design as well as a self-proclaimed devotion to la logique. For some reason, French battleships (cuirassés) designed before the Great War had looks that ranged from awkward to ugly. Perhaps logique triumphed over elegance. When battleship programs renewed in the 1930s all this changed and the new French battleships were among the most attractive in the world.

In fairness, nearly all the world's battleships designed before 1905 were awkward-looking. In part this was because they tended to sport several sets of different-sized guns. Starting with Dreadnought (launched 1906), battleships had a set of main guns and another of smaller guns for fighting off torpedo boats. In World War 2, secondary armament was devoted to anti-aircraft guns what cluttered much of the ships' superstructures. Nevertheless, appearance usually remained much less awkward than for pre-Dreadnought ships.

Below are two examples of French battleship architecture, one from each design era.

Voltaire - (Danton class) - 1911-1937
Voltaire was part of the 1906 battleship program whose initiation happened to coincide with the launching of Britain's Dreadnought, the first modern battleship. (The French Wikipedia entry on the Danton class is here.) French naval shipbuilding was a slow process, perhaps because the army was considered more vital. In any case Voltaire, which entered service in 1911, was what now is termed a "pre-Dreadnought" design that was instantly made obsolete at Dreadnought's 1906 launching.

Richelieu - 1940-1967
Richelieu (Wikipedia entry here) was still fitting out at Brest when France was about to surrender. However, it escaped and served with the Allies during World War 2. Its main armament is of interest because the eight guns are mounted in two forward turrets. Typical main armament at the time was nine guns, three to the turret, with two turrets mounted forward and one to the rear.

Airport Gate as Holding Tank

A byproduct of a recent round-trip between London and Paris was the experience of using British Airways' new Terminal 5 at London's Heathrow airport.

To most Americans, the mechanics of flight departure at Terminal 5 would be basically normal, given the usual expected minor variations between airports. But this actually is just one of two major passenger processing alternatives found around the world. Consider Heathrow's Terminal 3, where non-British Airways flights to North America originate.

At Terminal 3 onc encounters the usual drill. First is passenger check-in coupled with a few security-related questions and details. Then one moves on through the usual security inspection process. Once "sanitized," the next destination is a mini-mall full of duty-free and other shops where you can trade your excess pounds for anything from a Cadbury candy bar to a Gucci purse. So far, pretty standard stuff.

The big difference comes when one leaves the shopping zone for the departure gate. In America, a departure gate usually amounts to a section along one side of a long, glassed-in hall where can be found a door to the aircraft ramp, a check-in desk and lots of seats for waiting passengers. But in Heathrow 3, that long hallway is flanked by what amount to holding tanks -- rooms containing the usual ramp door, desk and seating.

At least you are free to leave the tank, something you can't do elsewhere. In some cases, passengers go through a final passport inspection before entering the tank: after, they're stuck. Seems to me this was how it worked in Copenhagen.

Perhaps some people find all this lots of jolly fun. I think it's the usual processed-meat airport experience raised to the next higher power. Moreover, I don't find it necessary; the normal U.S. style procedures work just fine and eliminate some of the totalitarian overtones.

For what it's worth, here are some airports where I had that warm, fuzzy holding tank experience: Vancouver and Toronto (in the 1980s -- things might have changed since), Copenhagen and Heathrow 3. Mercifully, I can't recall how things worked at places such as DeGaulle 1, Orly-Sud, Helsinki and Frankfurt.

Tri-Motor Aircraft, 1930-1950

Most aircraft either have a single motor or a number of motors evenly divisible by 2 (2, 4, 6 etc.). Odd-number engine counts such as five and seven are possible, but only tri-motor aircraft saw significant production in the odd-count, multi-engine category.

There are two main reasons for going the three-motor design route. One has to do with safety. In the days when reciprocating engines were the norm, reliability of such motors was often questionable. In the early days of aviation, motors were comparatively crude and their design imperfectly understood. By the 1940s, engine design was pretty well understood, but reliability was compromised by the quest for ever more power. In the case of radial, air-cooled motors, the route to more power was through adding cylinders and accessories such as turbocharging. The result was complexity that led to unreliability that plagued aircraft such as the B-29 bomber and Super Constellation airliner.

So, if four engines couldn't be justified, then why not have three if the loss of one motor on a two-motor plane was too risky.

Actually, this implies that only one working motor might not have the power to maintain flight. And this is the second reason for tri-motor craft: in many cases (especially in the years around 1930) two motors weren't really sufficient to power large (at the time) transports and bombers.

Tri-motor aircraft have some disadvantages. The odd engine count precludes having engines driving propellers turning in opposite directions in order to cancel out torque effects imparted by propeller rotation. A motor mounted at the nose of an aircraft usually impaired visibility for the pilot. Post-World War 2, the center engine would also occupy space that would ordinarily be used by a radar set.

The initial heyday of tri-motors was the early 1930s. Three-engined jet airliners were common for a number of decades starting in the early 1960s. But that's a subject for another time.

Below is a gallery of tri-motor aircraft in the years before 1950.

Ford Trimotor and three-engined Boeing 727
This photo was taken in 1964 or 1965 showing both planes in American Airlines livery. I saw this restored Ford at the 1965 New York World's Fair.

Fokker F.VIIb
This was a rival to the Ford. Pictured here is the one flown by Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith on some of his long-distance flights. It also was the type of plane that crashed, killing famed Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. A factor in the crash was Fokker's use of wooden construction for the wings, spelling commercial doom for the F.VII: Fords were all-metal.

Stinson SM6000
Yet another high-wing monoplane tri-motor.

Stinson Model A
This was a low-wing tri-motor representing a trend away from high-mounted wings for monoplane transports. Several airlines used it during the mid-1930s, as indicated here.

Pander S-4

Pander S-4 at Mildenhall, England
Pander was small Dutch aircraft company (Wikipedia entry here) that built the S-4 as a prototype fast mail plane. It was perhaps the sleekest piston-engined tri-motor ever built, but unreliable. It was destroyed in a crash in the 1933 London-Melbourne competition.

Junkers Ju 52
The Ju 52 (alias Tante Ju) was by far the most successful piston-engined tri-motor, nearly 5,000 being between 1931 and 1952.

Savoia-Marchetti SM79 Sparviero
Both bomber and transport versions were built of this general design. Three motors were used for the bomber because Italy lagged behind Germany, Britain and, to a lesser degree, France in engine horsepower.

Northrop YC-125C
Three-engined planes were considered passé after World War 2, yet for some reason Northrop produced the archaic-seeming YC-125 in test-batch numbers.

Martin Martin XB-51
This flashy prototype jet attack bomber classifies as pre-1950 because its first flight took place 28 October, 1949. The "T-tail" and positioning of the forward engines are tell-tales of the influence of World War 2 German design as well as active participation by Hans Multhopp who helped design the Focke-Wulf Ta 183 fighter that was never built, but influenced the later Saab J-29 (Sweden) and MiG-15 (USSR).