Fame’s Uncertain Path

Following up on "Artistic Self-Promotion," what about those artists who were dissed in their own time, only to find appreciation and fame after they were no longer there to enjoy it? Then there were famous and respected artists, who made little money and may have been known only locally when they were alive. They became lost to history, only to be rediscovered centuries later.

The one always mentioned first is Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). He was clearly unstable from the beginning. In his few productive years, however, he produced over 850 paintings. He sold only one painting during his lifetime at a fair in Brussels in 1890: "The Red Vineyard" (1888), now in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. That same year, he committed suicide at the age of 37.

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1654), the daughter of Orazio Gentileschi (1563-1639), was already producing paintings of interest by the age of 15. Her "Susanna and the Elders," painted at the age of 17, is today in the Schönborn Collection, Pommersfelden, Germany. She even became a court painter under the patronage of the Medici. Shortly after her death, however, her reputation suffered from attributions of her work to her father—probably, partly because that is where her inspiration came from, but even more from misogyny and the belief that a woman could not equal a man's achievements. I can remember that in the middle of the last century, I began to hear more and more about her, mostly due to feminist art historians, but backed by evidence of the great paintings that Artemisia actually produced.

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) had moderate success and indeed respect locally in Delft during his lifetime. He also had a few wealthy patrons. He made his living, however, as an art dealer. When he died suddenly, he left his family in debt. It did not help that while van Gogh produced arguably more than 850 paintings in his brief career, Vermeer produced only around 35 in his entire lifetime. Acknowledgment of him as a great artist had to wait until the mid-19th century.

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), called today "The Father of Modern Art," was initially ridiculed and rejected from the Salon, with critics calling his work ugly. Change is always rejected at first. I believe that people enjoy their comfort zone and don't want it disturbed. They are also scared of what the repercussions might be—but that is a subject for another time. Cézanne represented the link between Impressionism and what we call modern art. He became a great influence on Braque and Picasso in their development of the Cubist movement. In the same period, Claude Monet (1840-1926) struggled with critics, who thought his impressionist paintings were strange and unfinished. Did it represent progress or just change?

I will end this missive with a favorite artist of mine, Salvador Dalí (1904-1989). A contemporary of Picasso, Pollock, and Mondrian, he is known best as the iconic figure of Surrealism. The movement, however, was started by the writer, poet, and theorist André Breton. Dalí joined the group in 1929 only to be thrown out by Breton in 1939. According to an Art Net article, Breton found him “too flamboyant, too political, and too fond of money”!

I think this brings my missives of the last two weeks full circle. Dalí is an artist who was thrown out of the very movement with which he is so identified because of his self-promotion.