All That Glitters

“The Incas called gold ‘tears of the sun’. The Egyptians knew it as ‘the flesh of the gods’”. Katie White continued in her Artnet column in 2021, “The hue has adorned tributes to deities, marked depictions of kings and queens, and symbolized opulence, power, and otherworldly spiritual splendor.”

Personally, gold for gold’s sake does not move me, though I appreciate artworks where gold has been used to enhance their beauty. The value of gold, however, was brought home to me in a very simple way. I own a few pieces of jewelry by arguably the most important jewelry maker of the Hopi tribe, Charles Loloma. I have seen prices of close to $20,000 for pieces that were nice, but not over the top. So, when an auctioneer who specialized in Native American jewelry was at one of the art fairs, I showed him a piece that I particularly prized and asked what it would bring at auction. He said, between $4,000 and $5,000. When I asked why, he replied that the stones are mounted in silver not gold. Yes, I was disappointed from the point of view of value, but it did not dampen my enjoyment of the work. In many cases, I like silver much more because it is subdued and not glitzy. I am not trying to prove anything. Here is a pendant and buckle by Charles Loloma.

I started to think about it and put “gold” in the search engine for my Missives. There was a string of Missives with the word, exceptional works like medieval objects made for the Church. The gilded silver Arm Reliquary of the Apostles, Hildesheim, ca. 1190 from the Guelph Treasure now in the Cleveland Museum of Art is an example.

Although gold is usually seen to signify wealth and greatness it has always been a source of greed that sometimes results in violence and death. Remember King Midas? When the god Dionysus offered him a wish for anything he wanted, he said he would like everything he touched to turn to gold. This delighted him until he touched his food and drink.

Hearing the word gold, one’s first thought is bullion, jewelry, or maybe a crown, certainly not a painting. But, of course, a painting using gold, on a subconscious level, attracts us by that vibrant color. A painting that has come to be famous as “The Woman in Gold” (1907) is the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt, now in the Neue Galerie in New York.

It resided at one time in the Belvedere in Viena, which has retained another great painting, “The Kiss” where Klimt also made use of gold. It is surmised that the painting is a self-portrait of the artist together with his lifelong partner, Emilie Flöge. It is also the last painting he did where he used gold leaf in his work. Picasso had his pink and blue periods but Klimt preferred gold!

If we think about it, this is nothing new. In fact, it is quite an old tradition in European imagery. In the late Medieval and early Renaissance era gold background was used to represent heaven and the proximity to God. A wonderful example of Italian gold ground painting is the panel in the Frick Collection “The Temptation of Christ on the Mountain” (1308-1311) by Duccio die Buoninsegna.

I wish I could explain why gold is a status symbol associated with wealth and power. Looking for reasons I just kept coming across the same answer… because it always has been so, over millennia.

Maybe it is because it glitters!

Art is Art is Art

Art is art, or it isn’t, why is it always necessary to categorize it ad infinitum?

The Metropolitan Museum has 17 departments the majority of which are art departments of one kind or another. A few of these include the Department of European Art, the American Wing, Ancient Near East, Arms and Armor, Asian Art, and the Costume Institute. Only recently has the Director, Max Holien, suggested that these fiefdoms cooperate with each other and “cross-fertilize” (my words) and have them possibly share their collections.

These departments include various sections and to pick on one, the American Wing includes Native American art together with American decorative arts, and paintings from the 17th through the 19th century. If the work is more recent it goes to another department that of Modern and Contemporary art.

There used to be a department of primitive art, and I am happy to tell you that today it is known as the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. Some of it you might refer to as indigenous, so why was Native American art recently moved to the American Wing? It seems rather arbitrary to me.

Your head may already be spinning with all these categories but in recent times it seems we need to create new categories… Women Artists, Black Artists, and an even newer one Queer Artists. Different groups may or may not have their own style, different from one and another but as I said in the first place, art is art… or not. That IS subjective. You can have it all in one by artist Sarah Huny Young who is a Black, Female, Queer Photographer.

My family is Jewish but my father, who was in the art business his entire life said, “There is no such thing as Jewish art, it is either art or it is not!”. The first thing I would think of when I hear the name Louise Nevelson would not be that she is Jewish! This is her “Classic Column” (1967) at the Jewish Museum, New York.

I thought the idea of art was a means of expression where individuals could deliver their message in their own way. None the less we seem to have a need to pigeonhole everything we deal with.

If you want to make a point about diversity, that is great, but do it by comparison. In the same gallery put works of art, from religious objects to portraits, that relate to each other but come from various cultures created by a Black Artist, White Artists, Female Artists, and Queer Artists. Let the viewer see a difference, if there is one. Personally, I think it is insulting to have an exhibition of works by just one group, pigeonholed ethnically or worse sexually. Why is that necessary? If I were an artist, I would want to be identified as such without qualification.

If the curator feels it is important to explain something that will enhance the viewer's understanding of the work of art that information can go on the label, not be the theme of the presentation, be it in an exhibition or a museum gallery.

I don’t believe the idea of DEI is to separate one from the other but to bring them together as one, that goes for art as well as people.

If a curator is trying to teach how beading is different in various cultures, show beadwork from them. For instance, you might show a pair of moccasins by a Native American (Sioux circa 1900 at the Gilcrease Museum) and one from Nigeria (circa 1978 at the Fowler Museum, UCLA). If we don’t compare how can we learn the differences and maybe more important, the similarities.

The National Galleries

According to Wikipedia there are around 60 National Galleries worldwide. They are in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, The United Kingdom, Oceana, etc ...

Why create a national museum of art? It is meant to showcase a country's culture and preserve its historical past. It also is a way to show that the country has a national identity beyond possibly smaller institutions with more limited collections. Smaller countries may establish collections that more highly focus on the works of their own country but after a while realize that they wish to expand to the art of other countries to educate their public. One example is the National Gallery of South Africa.

What started me thinking about this was an email newsletter from the Simon Dickinson Gallery in London. The article focuses on the National Gallery in London which has just begun its third century serving the people of London, the United Kingdom, and the world. Mr. Dickinson points out that London’s National Gallery was not started by a donation from a Princely Collection such as the Uffizi in Florence which was created in order to show the collection of Medici treasures.

In 1777 there was an effort made to create a National Gallery when the Sir Robert Walpole collection was sold by his heirs in 1779. The British government would not acquire it. In the end, it was purchased by Catherine the Great and is now part of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Several more collections slipped through British hands until 1823 when the House of Commons finally agreed to purchase works from the collection of John Julius Angerstein, a friend of Sir Thomas Lawrence. The collection was, however, kept in the owner’s own home until the construction of the present building on Trafalgar Square designed by architect William Wilkins was completed. Its spacious galleries opened to the public in 1838. But that is another saga. The collection continues to grow and here is a painting I love by Henri-Pierre Danloux of the Baron de Besenval in his Salon, 1791, that Mr. Dickinson sold to his National Gallery.

Prime Minister Andrew Fisher accepted the idea of a National Gallery for Australia in 1910. What is the first thing any government does when it wishes to accomplish little? You guessed it, form a committee. This one was known as The Commonwealth Art Advisory Board. One of the original ideas was to have portraits of important Australian personages painted by Australian Artists. By 1912 the Advisory Board decided there should be a building devoted to the collection in Canberra the new city being built as Australia’s capital. However, two world wars, the Great Depression, and building out Canberra’s infrastructure all delayed their efforts for another half-century. Only in 1967 did Prime Minister Harold Holt give the green light to the actual museum building. The collection has world stature today. Here is one work from the Museum in the Indigenous tradition, Charlie Djurritjini, Ganalbingu people, Skull, Bones, Bag, 1987-88.

The National Museum of Sweden was founded as the Royal Museum in 1792 with benefactors Gustav III and Carl Gustaf Tessin. Count Tessin (1695-1770), son of an architect, was a statesman who became an important patron of the arts while serving as ambassador to France from 1739 to 1742. He is credited with bringing the French Rococo style to Sweden. His collection on its own would make it worth visiting the Museum. Renamed the National Museum in 1866, the institution’s current building was designed by the German architect Friedrich August Stüler who also designed the Neues Museum in Berlin. This portrait of Tessin was painted by Jacques-André-Joseph Aved circa 1740.

The inaugural meeting of the South African Fine Arts Association founded by Sir Thomas Butterworth Bayleys and Abraham de Schmidt occurred in 1850. They arranged the first exhibition of fine art in South Africa in a school room with the hope of establishing a National Gallery. The National Collection was founded in Cape Town in 1872 when Bayleys left 45 paintings from his private collection to the nation. With the South African Art Gallery Act of 1895 the South African Government took over the collection in trust and a board of five trustees were elected in 1896 to manage the collection. The National Gallery Act also made provision for the building of new premises, but the foundation was only laid in 1914. Today, aside from works of art from their own and other countries in Africa, the collection consists of Dutch, French, and British works from the 17th to the 19th century.

What have I left out, aside from another 56 National Galleries, is our own. The National Gallery in Washington D.C. was conceived in 1928 by the financier and collector Andrew W. Mellon. He believed the country should have its own Museum like those established in other countries. In 1936 Mellon wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt offering his collection and an endowment to pay for the building of a National Museum. He stipulated that the museum not have his name on it, knowing that many more donors would be needed. In the same year that Mellon died, 1937, Roosevelt and Congress accepted the gift. In fact, the founding benefactors were, Samuel H. Kress, Rush Kress, P. A. B. Widener, Joseph Widener, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Chester Dale, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, and Paul Mellon. Andrew Mellon ask the architect John Russel Pope to design the gallery. Although Pope died within 24 hours of Mellon the gallery was still built to their wishes and Pope’s design. When the Museum opened in 1941 Paul Mellon, Andrew’s son, gave the promised art in his father’s name. Our National Gallery is the only one, that I know of, which was built without government funds. Here is an image of Andrew Mellon with his painting by Meindert Hobbema from 1665 above the mantel.

As I have discussed before politics are part of museum life including and beyond the creation of the National Museums.

Salon des Réfusés

Already in 1667, the idea of a juried group exhibition came about. The Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture held a semi-public exhibition of works of art by Academy members considered worthy of Royal Commissions ...  an interesting topic in and of itself. It won’t surprise you that besides members of the Academy,  the jury for these Salons included government officials.

What interests me here is the rebellion just under 200 years later in 1863 when out of 5,000 artist submissions only 2,000 were accepted for the Salon. There was such an uproar that the Emperor himself, Napoleon III, sanctioned an exhibition of the rejected artists in a different part of the Palais de l’Industrie and the Salon des Refusés was born. Fearing a backlash, or being seen as inferior, 1200 artists bowed out leaving an exhibition of only 800 works of art.

Needless to say, the Salon des Réfusés show of rejected artists work was panned, as anything new and innovative invariably is. Here is one of the rejects. Imagine how many millions, no hundreds of millions, it would bring if it were to come on the art market today.

It is not a stretch that nudity was one of the issues for its original rejection, but it was the setting in a major Paris park, Bois de Boulogne, that made the work totally unacceptable. The Emperor, himself, acquired The Birth of Venus by Alexandre Cabanel, from the official Salon for his personal collection. Here a female nude was meticulously depicted in virtuoso technique in a lascivious pose, but the eroticism was cloaked in mythology!

As we all know history always repeats itself in one guise or another. Today we move from Paris to New York and the Brooklyn Museum. In an article in Hyperallergic, Rhea Nayyar announced “Opening on October 4, The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition will celebrate the museum’s 200th anniversary by spotlighting talent across the borough.” For this show, only 216 artists out of 4,000 submissions were accepted, a much smaller percentage than the Paris Salon about 150 years earlier. Do note from this how many artists must live and work in Brooklyn today. President of the Artists’ Coalition, Alicia Degener, said: “We didn’t want people to get rejected twice”.

Maybe not so surprisingly the “Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition” is presenting many of the rejected works in its own exhibition to be known as the “Salon des Réfusés 2024”. The rules are that there can only be one submission per artist, and it may not measure larger than 4x6 feet. A copy of the rejection letter from the museum must be submitted along with a $20 fee “to keep the lights on”. The plan is to include 200 artists and they have already been chosen. The show can be seen from September 21 to October 13 at the Artists Coalition in Redhook, Brooklyn.

To state the obvious, roughly 200 artists in both shows comes to 400, still only 10% of the original 4,000 submissions … can there be a Salon des Refusés des Refusés?!

Quotes for the Moment

First, let me wish you all a Happy Labor Day and as so many will say today, I cannot believe the summer is over. Now we have to again face reality.

I know this is an art blog, but it is also a platform where I can communicate with so many more people than I ever could speak with in person. I can think of few issues that are more important than what is happening in this country today. So, every once in a while, my writings will veer toward the political. For this Missive I have sought out images that for me complement favorite quotations that I have collected over the years.

Let’s start with none other than Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) who is quoted as saying “A Leader is a dealer in hope”. The idealized vision of Napoleon Crossing the Alps commissioned by Charles IV of Spain, from Jacques Louis David, now in the Napoleon Museum, Malmaison. It has been called propaganda. What do you expect in an election year? We learned from the recent Democratic Convention that one candidate is offering us hope at this time.

In this drawing by Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) called “The Accusation” from the Morgan Library let’s say the indignant Judge is yelling at the defendant. I could imagine him then quoting German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) “I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”

On the long-running series “Shark Tank, investor Rohan Oza said, “If you are not willing to break through the wall you are bound to end up behind it” We heard at the Democratic Convention the cry “We are not going back”. Both remind me of the surrealist painter, René Magritte’s, “False Mirror” (1928) in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. There have been varying interpretations of this work as there are meant to be for Surrealism. One is the eye is not just a window to the soul, but shapes reality according to our subjective experiences. For me, it is seeing beyond ourselves.

Looking way back the Greek Philosopher Plato (ca. 427 – 348 BC) said, “Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools speak because they have to say something.” Looking not quite so far back the painter Quentin Masssys (1509-1575) created this masterpiece now in the Phoebus Foundation in Antwerp. Its title, “The world feeds many fools,” was a popular Netherlandish saying.

In the 2005 film “The Interpreter”, Nicole Kidman has a wonderful line, “Vengeance is a lazy form of grief”. The works of art I could find were all about vengeance and not its insecurities, but I think a flag flown by some at the January 6th insurrection says it all, but no one has taken credit for being its creator.

One last quote, "When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." Is attributed to the writer Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)

In 1935 as the Nazi’s were gathering momentum, Lewis published a novel, “It Can’t Happen Here” which foresaw the U.S. past president. This image was posted on Facebook by a retired schoolteacher from the Southeast. Though she probably would not mind, in this climate I am not identifying her further.