Art News from The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal has been evolving its Saturday/Sunday edition. A few months ago some morphing yielded two new sections. One is titled "Off Duty" and it deals with fashion and lifestyle matters. The other is "Revue," dealing with everything from longer pieces related to recent news events, to science developments, the arts and books.

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I noticed a lot of good stuff in the 7/8 May edition. Off Duty had a cover piece devoted to fashion magnate Ralph Lauren's car collection, part of which is on show at the Louvre in Paris. Well, not the Louvre Louvre, but instead the Musée des Arts Décoratifs part -- you know, way out there at the western end of the north wing along the rue de Rivoli.

Anyway, Dan Neil, the WJS's pit bull automobile reviewer interviewed Lauren in Paris, trying to make him confess there might be a tennsy bit of synergy in play between the exhibit and Lauren's commercial empire. Lauren pretty much sidestepped the issue, but Neill did allow in conclusion that Lauren was indeed an actual "car guy."

Gee, I could have told him that. I've been to two Pebble Beach Concours d'Élegance and saw Lauren up close both times. One year he was standing by his Bugatti Atlantique, the other he was helping a bunch of guys pushing his 1939 Alfa Romeo around the 18th Hole site; rolls up his sleeves when need be, he does.

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Over in Reviews it was reported that Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema's "The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra: 41 B.C." was auctioned at Sotheby's for $29.2 million. Forty years ago one could hardly give his paintings away. We're making progress, realism fans!

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Art writer Karen Wilkin reviewed the book "Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter" by Patricia Albers. It seems that Mitchell was a piece of work, whatever her Abstract Expressionist abilities might have been. But the part of the review that caught my attention was this paragraph:

Ms. Albert's book is not the place to turn for an understanding of art. It is punctuated with extended, over-written and yet imprecise descriptions of paintings that fail to evoke particular images despite the self-consciously "vivid" prose and lists of colors. A discussion of "the gorgeous Canadian paintings" made in 1974 is typical. "The diptych Canada V beguiles with the bosky masses, its incantatory lights and darks, its use of white around the cut between the two panels, and its oddly right colors (pale mint, white claret, and the color of night)."

Agreed, that is pretty turgid. My personal problem is that I have an aversion to just about any written description of a painting. Ditto descriptions of music. Music must be heard and paintings (or their reproductions) viewed if they are to be comprehended at all. A few apt remarks and a decent amount of background information are usually okay, but otherwise my eyes glaze even if there's a reproduction right above all that text.

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As a final note, the section also had a short piece about Modernist collector Peter Brant. Among other quotes from him is this: "The thing is, when you look at a great work of art, it has to evoke in you something that's troublesome. If you hate it, it's probably a better indicator than if you just think it's OK. An artist is supposed to be telling you something that's not obvious or something you've not thought about in that way before."

Shh. Please don't mention this to Monet, Renoir, the Hudson River School or even poor, ignored Alma-Tadema.

Tiepolo's Female Faces

Giovannia Battista (Giambattista) Tiepolo (1696-1770) -- Wikipedia entry here -- began and cemented his career in Venice, spent a few years in Germany and died in Spain, leaving a trail of masterpieces on canvases, walls and ceilings.

Many of his subjects were religious, commissioned by churches and rulers such as Prince Bishop Karl Philip von Greiffenklau of Würzburg. Unlike typical depictions of the Virgin and female saints painted in his time and before, he injected both glamor and reality. That is, his women were both attractive and looked like people one might see in streets, cafes and shopping centers today (if costuming is ignored).

When I thumb through my books about Tiepolo I find myself noticing a certain facial type or perhaps even the same face appearing from time to time. Might he have had a favorite model? Was she a relative? A mistress? Or maybe he was simply depicting a facial type that appealed to him.

Below are examples of some of his women. Most of the images are details, sometimes not of the main subject of the painting. Not all the subjects are religious. I apologize that image quality is not top-notch; that's because I needed to crop to the faces as closely as possible, so tried to start from large images that often were not sharp.

Gallery

An Allegory with Venus and Time (detail)
This is the sort of babe that pops up in Tiepolo's work, though she seems younger here than elsewhere.

Woman With a Mandolin (detail)
Same model, but a little older?

Beata Laduina
Same model, but with hair darkened?

Venus and Vulcan (detail)
Whoever she might be, she qualifies as his Venus.

Education of the Virgin (detail)
Now for some different faces; consider the one at the upper left. Older, and a bit more serious or stern.

The Last Communion of St. Lucy (detail)
The model for St. Lucy might be the same as for the painting above; note the longer nose than in the first several.

The Virgin Mary Appearing to Dominican Saints
St. Catherine of Siena (in white) is gorgeous. And not quite like Tiepolo's other women, pretty though they may be. Oh, and that's St. Rose of Lima next to Catherine; she's simply pretty, as is the Virgin.

Tiepolo obviously had a "modern" eye for feminine beauty. Apparently so did the people who commissioned his works, both religious and secular, because he was in demand during his long career.

Anniversary

Today marks one year since my first post here at Art Contrarian.

For a while I cross-posted material at 2Blowhards.com. But eventually Ray Sawhill, after some consultation with me and perhaps other interested parties, decided to close it down as an active site; it's still on the Internet, but new posting has ceased.

I started Art Contrarian figuring that I couldn't maintain 2Blowhards by myself, and that the blog had lost its zip when Ray "retired" from it. I made two formative decisions regarding the new blog. First, I wanted to keep politics out of it as much as possible (though I knew this would reduce commentary considerably). Second, I wanted to reduce posting to a level that I could manage without it dominating my real life. The result is a Monday-Wednesday-Friday posting schedule, though most posts are written about a week in advance and stockpiled for later release.

I'm pleased with the results. Especially pleased that readership has increased about eightfold since the early months. Thank you for visiting: I appreciate your interest in what's going on here.

Jaguar C-Type: When Race Cars Looked Like Cars

Once upon a time that ended in the late 1960s, road-racing cars looked somewhat like something one could buy from a dealer and drive away on the streets. I'll set aside so-called stock car racers and not even consider Formula types and deal with Le Mans type racers. (Here is a link containing further links to winners of the Les Vingt-Quatre Heures du Mans; click on those links to view photos of some of the winners.)

Above is a Porsche 917, the type that won Le Mans in 1970. It marks the start of Le Mans winners shaped unlike anything one is likely to drive on a street aside from a rare "supercar" -- an extremely low-production sports machine costing many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

One of the nicest-looking winners in the post - World War 2 period was the Jaguar C-Type that won in 1951 and 1953. I'm not sure that racing C-Types were street-legal, but it's easy to see that a street version could be built with suitable additions and deletions that wouldn't change its appearance much.

Below are two photos of the beauty. The first shows it in action, the second is of a restored or perhaps replica version.

Barnes & Noble's Mural Guy

Walk into a typical Barnes & Noble bookstore in the USA, seek out the Starbucks coffee shop area and you're likely to see a printed mural filled with images of authors -- images that lurk in a gray area between caricature and portraiture. I find them interesting and will gaze at them from time to time while sipping my coffee and scribbling blog post subject ideas on a paper napkin.

I've been curious who created the murals, but my habitual sloth held me back until now. Some Googling revealed the artist to be Gary Kelley, an apparent hardcore Iowan who got his art degree from the University of Northern Iowa (located in Cedar Falls, which is right by Waterloo) in 1968 and lives in Cedar Falls. This might sound provincial, yet Kelley has carved out a successful career as an illustrator without having to spend his life in the likes of Chicago or New York.

Kelley's web site is here and a biographic sketch from a local art gallery is
here.

Below are examples of his work. His range is broader than shown, so check out his web site for more.

Gallery

Here's a sketch of fellow Iowan Grant Wood, best known for "American Gothic," the über-iconic image of rural Americans.

Nothing to do with Iowa, this is an illustration (or possibly a painting -- I'm not sure which) of Mata Hari, executed for espionage during the Great War.

These three images are 1920s Europe. Kelley seems to have an affinity for the 20s and 30s, an affinity I share which led me to include so many of these works. By the way, the distorted car in the lower image seems to be an Hispano-Suiza, if the radiator-cap mascot is any clue.


I suppose some folks might carp because Kelley tends to favor the bon-ton over the proletariat. But it doesn't bother me, as I'll explain in a forthcoming post.

Jack Vettriano Redux, Sort Of

The painting at the top is "Only the Deepest Red I" by Scottish painter Jack Vettriano (1951 - ), the other is by Californian R. Kenton Nelson (1954 - ). As I'll try to show in this post, the artists have a good deal of overlap, though it's far from complete.

Vettriano's website is here. Information on Nelson can be found here and
here, though it is less comprehensive.

Similarities? As you can see by their birth dates, they are near-contemporaries. Some of their paintings are filled with warm tones. There is a tendency to poster-like simplicity. They like to portray pretty women.

As for differences, Vettriano is self-taught whereas Nelson had formal art training. Nelson usually paints pleasant scenes while Vettriano often deals with demimonde sexually-related subjects, particularly in his later work. Finally, as best I can tell, Vettriano makes a lot more money from his art than does Nelson.

I've never seen neither a Vettriano nor a Nelson in person, so I dare not compare further. But you can look at the sample below and draw conclusions if you like.


Gallery

The images above are by Nelson. I don't have titles. Below are some by Vettriano.

The Parlour of Temptation

A Valentine Rose

Winter Light and Lavender

La fille à la moto

Portrait of Zara Phillips, 13th in line to the throne

Angel

Winnowing Art Books

Their time has nearly come. They lay stacked atop chairs and book cases, even tucked away in corners on the floor. Soon they will be gone. For my wife is making grumbling noises and even I can see that the book buildup in the small bedroom I use as a library / painting studio is too large even for my taste in messiness.

I know what to do; the important matter is how. Which books stay and which head for Powell's in Portland?

Keepers include references such as general art histories, potted artists' biographies and short takes on art movements. I'll hang on to most monographs about artists, particularly those I really like. Ditto similar books about architecture and industrial design.

Then there are some gray-area books. These are books I can't make up my mind about; more time is needed before I can make a stronger save / sell decision.

Books I'm discarding? Those dealing with periods of less interest are prime candidates; that means before the mid-1800s. There are exceptions, of course: Tiepolo, Velázquez and British portrait painters starting with Reynolds come to mind.

Then there are redundant books about given subjects. For instance, I have more then one book about Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Symbolism, Impressionism, skyscraper architecture, Alphonse Mucha, Tamara de Lempicka, Gustav Klimt, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Joseph Urban, Raymond Loewy, Maxfield Parrish, Tiepolo, Velázquez, Norman Rockwell, John Singer Sargent and several other people and topics. Assuming overlap in illustration subject-matter, my inclination here is to discard older works because the quality of color reproduction usually isn't as good as it has been more recently.

I'm also getting rid of books that I'm not likely to re-read. Examples here include group biographies of Surrealists and Paris Bohemians as well as those about individuals such as N.C. Wyeth and Harvey Dinnerstein.

How-to books about painting that I seldom refer to are due for the axe too.

It's somewhat easier to discard books than it was 20 years and more ago. That was when there was no Internet and getting to a library to find reference material was a hassle. I found it easier to maintain my own library where what I might need would be at hand. Nowadays I find myself downloading images and using Google and Bing to track down information about artists and movements, so even those general reference books might disappear the next time I do housecleaning.

All well and good, I suppose. But the best solution (from my perspective) is to have enough space that I don't need to get rid of so many books so often. Or at all.