In the Beginning: Juan Gris

Juan Gris (1887-1927), born José Victoriano González-Pérez in Madrid, moved to Paris in 1906 where he made his mark as a Cubist painter before his death at age 40. His Wikipedia entry is here and a similar reference on a site containing many images of his work is here.

His training was at Madrid's Escuela de Artes y Manufacturas when he was in his mid-teens and then studied for a while under José Maria Carbonero, an academic-oriented artist.

To help support himself, he did commercial illustration at a very competent level. His draftsmanship was good, as was his craftsmanship. These traits are also found in his cubist paintings, most of which are carefully composed and painted still-lifes that often featured musical instruments. Even his Cubist portraits -- which tend to echo portraits by Picasso made during his Cubist phase -- seem more organized and disciplined than what Picasso did.

Aside from one commercial piece, early, non-cubist works by Gris are hard to locate on the Web (I found some illustrations of popular dances, but they were undated).

Below are examples of Gris' Cubist and representational work.

Gallery

Flattery - 1908

Marcelle la Brune - lithograph - 1921

Portrait of Pablo Picasso - 1912

Pierrot with Guitar - 1925

A still life featuring musical instruments and related items

You can click on some images to get larger and sometimes sharper results if your computer and browser permit.


I find it sad that so many good artists never lived to age 40 and were unable to demonstrate further evolution. Gris, who lived less than two months beyond his 40th birthday, also presents the question of unfulfilled potential. For example, what would have been his reaction to Surrealism or Abstract Expressionism? Might he have eventually abandoned modernism?

Gris strikes me as being a highly competent artist who probably could have worked in any genre. But I doubt that he could have abandoned his craftsman-like approach to art.

The Best Spaceship Artist Ever?

The Wikipedia entry for John Berkey (1932-2008) is way too brief so far as I'm concerned. That's because he painted imaginary spaceship scenes that were astonishing when they first appeared on covers of science fiction paperbacks and continued to astonish in the years thereafter.

You need to understand the context. Pre-Berkey, sci-fi spaceships were usually depicted as (1) Buck Rogers style open-cockpit jobs, (2) Flash Gordon spindle-like craft, (3) variations on the German V-2 rocket of World War 2, (4) extrapolations of Apollo-era spacecraft or (5) combinations of these with some other details added.

Berkey introduced to the genre huge spacecraft that often combined delicate equipment detail with large, smooth, reflective surfaces. His style was basically loose, yet when reduced to book cover size, gave the impression of monster machines.

As for Berkey himself, he was a Minnesotan who from age 15 was determined to become an illustrator. His training was on-the-job at commercial art studios. In 1955 he hit the big time, being hired by Brown and Bigelow, the large St. Paul calendar company. From then to 1963 he produced around 500 illustrations for the company. After that he went freelance, continuing calendar work while moving into magazine and book cover illustration -- his long-term goal. By the early 1990s he had done about 200 book covers, most in the science fiction field.

Looking at reproductions of his work, an observer might guess that Berkey worked in oil. Not so. Most of his paintings were done in casein or a combination of casein and acrylic; occasionally he used tempera.

I used to paint in casein when doing commercial art projects in college and never came remotely close to what Berkey was able to do with it; creating smooth (non-water blotched) areas was something I found difficult and illustration board curling when the paint dried was another annoyance. Clearly Berkey's work in commercial art studios allowed him to get lots of useful tips from professional artists regarding casein-handling and other needed skills.

As for the combined casein-acrylic work, my guess is that he used acrylics to block in large areas, reserving casein for the details. If I'm wrong, please let me know.

Below are examples of Berkey's science fiction art.

Gallery

Untitled - tempera - 1971

Ships

Suspended Moment - casein - 1990

Battle of the Spiral Star - casein - 1977

Intrusion, an Unpleasant Visitor - casein and acrylic - 1990

Lines Through the Horizon - casein - 1977

If your browser allows it, click on the images for larger (and sometimes clearer) views.

Disappearing Car Marque Books

I suppose it's yet another generational thing.

Up until maybe five or ten years ago I used to see quite a few books dealing with automobile brands on bookstore shelves. Now, not very many.

I bought a lot of those histories of brands (Ford) and models (Mustang). Of course, once I'd gotten a pretty good grip regarding a subject, I'd have little need for another book. After a number of years I found that I was buying few car books. Most of my recent purchases were made while traveling in Europe and had to do with English, French and German brands.

This business about the trend toward fewer car history titles (shop manuals and similar books excluded) came to my attention over the last few months. In November I stopped by the Blackhawk museum in Danville, California and noticed that there were hardly any books on the shelves of its store. Instead I saw mostly model cars of different sizes and prices. A few weeks ago I was in the shop of the "National Automobile Museum" in Reno, Nevada (I added quote-marks because I find the name pretentious). Car books had all but disappeared. New car books, that is; what they had was lots of used books and magazines.

The conclusion that makes most sense to me is that younger people aren't as car-nutty, on average, as previous generations. When I was a kid, getting a car was a huge deal. Perhaps nowadays the Huge Deal is having an iPad.

Any thoughts and commiserations are appreciated by this confused, blind-sided blogger.

In the Beginning: Picasso

When it comes to fame, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) strikes me as being right up there with Rembrandt in the minds of the general public. No other modernist artist comes close except, perhaps (in the USA, anyway), that other master of self-advertisement, Andy Warhol.

From what I've read, the young Picasso impressed other artists with his existing and potential talent even before he helped invent Cubism. I make no secret of my dislike for nearly all of Picasso's work, but I'm willing to explore the work he did when young as grist for speculation regarding his ability and whether or not he could have carved out a career as a representational painter.

For background and information about his early paintings, I consulted the first volume of John Richardson's uncompleted multi-volume biography of the artist.

Picasso's father was an artist and art teacher whose work Richardson considered inferior. Still, one can assume that Picasso could not have failed to absorb many nuts and bolts of the craft of oil painting by the time he entered his teens and began attempting serious work. While in his teens he received some formal training but did not go through the complete rigorous academic regimen still in place in the 1890s. He was done with schooling before he turned 19.

Now let's look at a sample of his paintings that basically can be considered representational in style; I've ordered them by year. Keep in mind that Picasso was born in late October of 1881 and do some subtracting from the painting dates to get an idea as to his age at the time.

Gallery

The Old Fisherman (Salmerón) - 1895

First Communion - 1896
Click on image for a larger, clearer view.

Altar Boy - 1896
Click on image for a larger, slightly clearer view. I saw this at the museum at Montserrat, a few miles west of Barcelona. It struck me as being smoothly painted, an attribute this reproduction fails to show.

Ciencia y Caridad (Science and Charity) - 1897
This was painted as a salon entry.

Moulin de la Galette - 1900
Painted the year Picasso first visited Paris.

Mujer en azul - 1901
Richardson suggests this painting reflects the influence of Goya.

Self-portrait (Yo Picasso) - 1901
The drawing is representational, the technique is "painterly" and the colors seem early Fauvist, even though Picasso wasn't identified with that movement. Richardson also notes (Page 417) that Picasso was never strongly interested in color -- a Spanish thing, it seems.

Woman in Mantilla (La Salchichona) - 1917
Here Picasso experiments: a smoothly-painted face contrasted with pointillist technique.

Portrait of Olga - 1917
Click on image for a larger, clearer view.

Olga Picasso - 1923
Here he was as representational as he ever got in the years following Cubism. Even so, this portrait and the one above simplify to the point where a bit too much crispness (from a reality standpoint) creeps in. This tack was taken by many artists in the 1920s and 30s wanting to introduce a whiff of modernism to their paintings. Click on image for a larger, clearer view.

Did Picasso have the Right Stuff to succeed in representational art?

I think he did, though I have trouble evaluating the ability displayed in the earliest, most representational, works. Richardson does not consider Picasso's mid-teens efforts outstanding, though he fails to offer a yardstick for this opinion.

My problem here is that I don't hang out around art schools of any kind, let alone those inhabited by 15-year-olds; I have no idea how good a painter that age might be.

The yardstick I do have is myself. At ages 15-20 I did not paint nearly as well as did Picasso, nor do I recall any fellow student who did. On the other hand, our training was close to non-existent. As best I remember, high school art classes basically were sessions where we fiddled around drawing or maybe using water-based media and the teacher's role was that of a gentle critic. College was more of the same, except that we got less than a bare minimum of instruction and also began working in oils.

It's too bad we can't invoke a parallel universe where Picasso studies at the Académie Julian under, say, William-Adolphe Bouguereau or perhaps elsewhere under Jean-Léon Gerôme or Carolus-Durand. If so, the kid coulda had a future.

Lacking Skills? - Here are Some Arts for You

I suppose it's nice to be one of those souls who don't mind making fools of themselves. Me? -- I try my best to avoid doing anything where my abilities are below average unless the outcome is so important that I'm willing to grit my teeth and suffer the learning curve.

Fortunately for we the talentless, American culture has degenerated to the point where one doesn't have to be skilled in order to participate or even succeed in fields of endeavor that are called "arts" -- the expansion of the definition of that term might be yet another symptom of our decline, but I'll leave that matter for another time.

Consider the following items.

Some hold teaching to be a kind of applied art. I'd call it a craft, but let's go along with the notion that there can be an art to it. Primary and secondary school teachers for the most part cannot get their jobs unless they have had a certain amount of training and practice in teaching. Presumably, therefore, they have acquired a set of teaching-related skills before becoming professional teachers.

On the other hand, most people who teach in universities lack any training in pedagogy: all they need is a Ph.D. in a field of specialization. Or perhaps not even that. As a graduate student, I had to lead "quiz sections" for an introductory Sociology course. I knew zilch about how to teach: whatever knowledge I had of teaching was from the perspective of having been a student for many, many years. I'm convinced I seriously short-changed all those super-sharp Ivy League students, including one who was the daughter of a sitting Supreme Court justice.

Literature is considered an art, though it can be difficult to pin down where it leaves off and ordinary writing begins. And writing itself doesn't require training beyond the set of skills required to make one considered "literate." Sure, there are college courses dealing with writing not to mention writers' workshops and the like. Yet none of these purportedly advanced forms of training are essential to becoming a writer of some sort. After all, just about anyone can start his own blog: I did.

Then there is dancing. The highfalutin' form is The Dance, but up until the mid-1950s even ordinary social dancing required the ability to execute dance steps. These included the waltz three-beat step, the four-beat foxtrot step and others. And there were "fad" dances that popped up every few years. Somebody would concoct a set of dance steps and perhaps other actions, come up with a catchy song extolling the dance and then hope both the song and the dance would become popular.

Nowadays, unless you are into Serious Tango or something similar, going dancing usually means dealing with some kind of rock-based music -- and no set dance steps. What one does is stand away from his partner and gesticulate as best he can to the tempo of the music. The skill level in this is minimal.

Time was, there was singing. To be a decent singer required a sense of pitch, a pleasing voice and perhaps formal training incorporating skills in phrasing, breathing and voice projection. Today, we have rap. Rap strikes me as closer akin to crude chant than singing. I suppose rap makes use of some skills, but you don't need to be able to sing at all to become a rapper, record your performances and become filthy rich.

A subject dear to this blog is painting, so let's consider the genre of Abstract Expressionism which is still practiced by many artists more than half a century after its heyday. Becoming a good abstract painter requires some skills in the areas of composition and color handling, among others. But there is one traditional graphic arts skill totally unnecessary: draftsmanship.

Segovia's Textured Buildings

Segovia is worth a visit if you like picturesque cities and architecture. It lies about an hour's drive to the north-northwest of Madrid, so doesn't present a large detour when trip planning. However, it deserves a minimum of half a day's time on-site, and I'd set aside an entire day to do the project justice.

Like most places in Europe, there's a new city and an old city. The old city lies atop a mesa that has been described as boat-shaped and the modern city occupies low-lying ground and nearby rounded hills. Connecting the nearest hill and the old city is an aqueduct built by the Romans that was still in service in the 19th century.

The old city has lots of narrow, winding streets, a few plazas, a fine semi-gothic cathedral and, at the sharp end of the mesa (dare I call it the "prow"?) is a Viollet-le-Duc style (though he wasn't involved here) restored Alcazar, or fortress-castle.

Aside from a few glimpses of the latter, the photos below deal with less imposing buildings found around the old city. The pictures were taken last October and are not adjusted in any way. They are concerned with various kinds of texturing found on those structures. This detailing fascinated me, and I hope you too will be interested.

This is a tower on the Alcazar, the pointed top probably a feature concocted during the 19th century restoration. Regardless of its provenance, it has a romantic flair. Note the variation in the top's cladding.

This shows part of the Alcazar's wall. See how the stonework varies near the wall's intersection with the structures at the left.

A room in the Alcazar.

Now we switch to old city street views. The projecting window can be found here and there in Spain. The one shown here is actually an enclosed balcony. I speculate that it has to do with the comparatively harsh winters experienced in the high country of central Spain; it makes a balcony useful year-round. Note the textured wall on the left. This is characteristic of Segovia. The following photos show some of the variety in textures I saw.

The picture immediately above shows a texture pattern unusual for Segovia. It's too much of a not-so-good idea, but fortunately is contrasted by the large expanse of plain stonework on the arch over the door.

What's interesting here is something I noticed in Segovia, though it might be elsewhere in Spain. It's how the roof tiles are laid. Such tiles are conventionally laid with the rounded part facing upwards on the topmost layer of tile: call it convex. But here it's the reverse. Aside from some decorative bands, the tiles are laid in a concave position.

This photo doesn't have much to do with texture. I include it because I find it charming.

This was the ultimate in texture-mix in the collection of photos I took. Half-timbering, detailing on metal gates, two kinds of brickwork, cut stone, rubbled stone -- a feast! Click on the image for a slightly larger view.

In the Beginning: Francis Picabia

Francis Picabia (1879-1953) was something of a modernist gadfly, taking on this movement and that before reverting to representational work for a considerable stretch of his career. This is summarized here in his Wikipedia entry.

Picabia is yet another member of the circa-1880 generation of painters (Pablo Picasso was another) who was aware of modernism yet received at least some traditional training before cutting loose on the exiting adventure of rejecting the past in favor of an innovative future.

In case you are not familiar with his modernist paintings, here are two examples.

Dances at the Spring - 1912

Balance - c.1919

And here are two landscapes that predated his move to modernism.

Riverbank - 1905

Sunlight on the Bank of the Loing River, Moret - 1905

As mentioned above, Picabia largely set aside modernism for a while. At first, he painted a number of works that were figurative, yet included modernist-seeming embellishments. By the early 1940s he did a large number of paintings of female nudes where poses were taken from a French magazine of the 1930s that featured girlie photos. Even a self-portrait was photo-based, as is shown below.

Mi - c.1929

Self-Portrait

Photo source for self-portrait

Viareggio - 1938

L'Espagnole - 1938

Deux nus - c.1940

This series is based on the question of how good a representational artist the modernist might have become had he never "gone modern." In Picabia's case, I see little evidence to indicate that he would have been more than a journeyman realist.