Matisse's Favorite Painting

I'm working my way through this biography of Henri Matisse in a belated effort to find out why there was all the fuss about him. Pages 72-74 and elsewhere deal with his purchase of and relationship to Paul Cézanne's circa 1879-82 "Three Bathers" at a time when he was nearly broke. Despite his lack of money, Matisse arranged to finance the painting because he considered it very important to his own art. He kept it for decades as a constant source of wonder and inspiration. An on-line reference dealing with this is here.

For those readers expecting any kind of halfway rational commentary regarding the painting and Matisse's longstanding relationship to it, forget the idea. Yes, to a very limited degree I can place this in the context of the Standard Art-Historical Narrative of the Triumph of Modernism. But that's about it.

You see, I've never ever in all my years viewing and reading about art been able to understand either Cézanne or Matisse. In fact, I don't really like anything either one produced. That includes the Three Bathers painting shown at the top of this post: so far as I'm concerned it's a crude piece of art having nothing of interest to me.

Obviously my take runs counter to the beliefs of a lot of famous artists, art critics and art historians who do find what they consider wonderful things in the paintings of Cézanne and Matisse. Yet somehow I don't think that I'll ever be persuaded that the two were as great as claimed.

My best guess as to why Cézanne and Matisse were venerated by modernist-leaning contemporaries is that it had something to do with the art-historical context and the timing of the appearance of their various works as well as the modernist veneration of creativity as an end in itself.

Cutaway to G.H. Davis

When I was young I used to come across illustrations by the Illustrated London News' technical guy G.H. (George Horace) Davis (1881-1960). I could find little on Davis on the Internet: this link has a biographical squib just below the portrait photos.

Not that I read the ILN anyplace but in the form of bound issues in the college library stacks, it's just that his work would be reproduced elsewhere and I would notice his distinctive signature.

Davis' specialty was cutaway illustrations where exteriors are selectively peeled away to reveal structural and functional interior details. His main subjects were airplanes and ships, though he also used his approach on other items as needed by his editor. And he did non-cutaway paintings on the side.

Here are examples of his work. Click on the images to enlarge.

Gallery

HMS Ark Royal - 1939

High-altitude aircraft - 1930s

Bristol Beaufighter - early 1940s

Hawker Hurricane - c.1940

Supermarine Spitfire - c.1940

Photo of a Spitfire and a Hurricane together

I'm pretty sure that Davis "freehanded" most of his illustrations. Compare his Hurricane and, especially, Spitfire with those in the photograph. A charitable explanation is that he had to do these drawings on a tight deadline and lacked time to work up the images mechanically from three-view drawings as an architect would do when preparing a rendering of a structure. This method or something analogous was used in Davis' time by cutaway artists for British aviation magazine who apparently were allowed longer lead-times. Artists who do paintings of aircraft also generally begin with mechanical delineation; failure to do so would run a strong risk of making a distorted image.

Another problem Davis and other aircraft cutaway specialist faced was security; too much detail might be useful to enemies in times before aircraft could be shot down and examined. For example, Davis' Beaufighter is the daytime version. The radar-equipped night fighter flew only over Britain on interceptor missions, so His Majesty's Government would be most unhappy if Davis had spilled any airborne radar-related beans in 1941 or '42.

John Whitcomb: Never-Changing Style

I recently posted the first in an occasional series of posts about illustrators who changed their style in order to maintain their careers. Those who failed to do that either had shooting star careers or were the fortunate few who successfully worked for decades with few or no adjustments. Most famous of the latter is Norman Rockwell, who never went out of style and now is on the fringe of being considered a member of the fine arts crew. J.C. Leyendecker had a long run as well, but fell out of favor after a 30-ish year run.

In the present post I deal with Jon Whitcomb (1906-1988) who also did well for decades with minor style adjustments. His brief Wikipedia entry is here. Matthew Innis provides examples of Whitcomb's work along with quotations dealing with the female face, Whitcomb's primary subject. A slightly sour take on Whitcomb is here.

For a number of Whitcomb illustrations that have dates assigned, click here. One illustration is dated 1930, but that must be incorrect, given the fashions depicted; I'd say 1940 would be closer.

This brings to mind the fact that I cannot find examples of his work from earlier than the late 1930s on the Internet (though I might have overlooked some). Whitcomb was in his early 30s by that time and surely must have been in a career-building mode before then. Illustration Magazine notes that Whitcomb is in the queue for a future article; perhaps that will reveal some early exmaples.

Here is some of his production (he presented himself as a businessman cranking out product, not as an artist):

Gallery

Advertisement for 1939 Cadillac 62
The illustration is signed, so presumably Whitcomb also did the car rendering. However, for years it was common for one artist to do the car and another one the setting. Until I get more information I'll take the signature as proof.

Magazine illustration - 1939
This was done about the same time as the car ad. It shows that Whitcomb had attained his mature style by that point.

Collier's magazine cover - 12 August 1941

"I think I love you" - magazine illustration
Archetypical Jon Whitcomb.

Woman wearing large hat
No signature, but plenty of web sites claim it's a Whitcomb. If so, I'd guess it was from the 1960s.

Minimal face
A great illustration, also likely from the 1960s (can any reader help us on this?).

Jon Whitcomb specialized in the "big face" type of illustration that emerged in women's magazines during the 1940s and remained dominant into the mid-1960s. He did it very well, creating personal fame and earning a bundle of money. Lovely though much of his work is, it's hard to argue that it's anything beyond superficial on any other dimension. From what I've read about him, it's a good chance that Whitcomb would agree as he hopped into his fancy car to head for the bank to deposit the latest check.

Artist's Name = Widespread Expression

When an artist becomes famous, the nature of that fame usually resides in the images of his work in public's mind. This is different from the fame of movie stars, actors, fashion models and others whose physical appearance is the leading "hook" for public grasping. A few artists are generally recognized by their appearance as well as their work, examples being van Gogh, Lautrec, Picasso and Warhol.

Then there is the odd case where the artist's subject matter becomes a concept that, in turn, is given the artist's name by the public. It's an odd path to artistic immortality, but there it is.

As an American, I naturally think of the Rube Goldberg machine, an elaborate, illogical sequence of odd connections that results in an outcome that could easily have been reached by simpler means.

Above is an example of a Rube Goldberg device and here is the Wikipedia entry for Goldberg who it seems earned an engineering degree from the University of California (Berkeley) before taking up the cartoonist's pen.

If I were British, I would use the term Heath Robinson to refer to the same sort of thing. Below is an example and here is his entry.

Robinson came from a family of illustrators and could whip up some nice, straight work in that field as well as his gizmo cartoons.

I don't know the inner thoughts of Goldberg and Robinson regarding the nature of their fame. But fame of a nice sort is rare, and if I had been them, I'd be happy to accept it.

When Eduardo Benito Was in Vogue

Eduardo Benito (1891-1981) was an icon of the Art Deco era. When I was young I enjoyed seeing his work while flipping through library copies of old issues of the Art Directors Annual, a publication that taught me more than any other about the history of commercial art from the late 1920s into the 1950s.

Here is the best biographical information I could find about Benito on the Internet. It seems that magazine publishing magnate Condé Nast kept Benito busy doing covers for Vanity Fair when he wasn't producing Vogue covers for him. Not a bad gig for an illustrator from Spain.

Gallery

Vogue cover - April 1927

Vanity Fair cover - August 1931

Vogue cover - August 1929

Vanity Fair cover - March 1929

Illustration - 1928

In the Beginning: Gustav Klimt

For a time Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was obscure, but now he is famous if for nothing else than his gilded painting "The Kiss." If you venture into Vienna and cast about for a souvenir, you're likely to encounter one Klimt image or another unless you are truly into stocking up on Mozart candies. His Wikipedia entry is here.

As his career proceeded, Klimt's style became increasingly loose while his colors brightened. His early works were done in a highly academic fashion with a great degree of skill. From what I've seen, I'd have to conclude that Klimt could have practiced in almost any style extant in his times and would have been successful at it. Many other modernists could not handle academic style art well and, perhaps for that reason, quickly moved to modernism because there was little in the way of alternatives.

Let's take a look at some of Klimt's pre-Kiss work:

Gallery

Fabel - Fable - 1883

Idylle - Idyl - 1884
Click on the image for a large version.

Auditorium of the Alte Burgtheater, Vienna - 1888
This was painted in gouache.

Joseph Pembauer - 1890
Here we find touches of the later Klimt such as the introduction of gilt design in the background.

Liebe - Love - 1895
The painting of the background is in a looser style.

Sonja Knips - 1898
Click on the image for a large version.

Damenbildnis - Portrait of a Lady - 1898-99
Klimt is on the cusp of abandoning his previous academic/naturalistic style for the stylized paintings best known to us today.

Blogging Note

You might have noticed that my response to comments has been slower and weaker than usual. That's because I've been traveling for most of the last two weeks. The posts you've been reading were written earlier and queued for scheduled later release. I'm writing this in artsy Taos, New Mexico and will post about it if I see anything interesting enough to merit doing so.