Véronique Plesch – Making, Thinking, Learning

Decisions, Decisions

I like to tell my students that our task as art historians is to retrace the artist’s decisions. Take still life, a genre that grants painters a great deal of agency, starting with the choice of the objects to be depicted and their arrangement. Even in the seventeenth century when specialization was the rule of the game (see my previous Art Historical Musings) and determined the type of still life that would be chosen (for instance, involving flowers or a certain type of foodstuff), quite some latitude remained. Consider Evaristo Baschenis, an artist, musician, and collector of instruments from Bergamo in Northern Italy, became known for his musical still lifes. In the example reproduced here, we see a theorbo, two lutes, a violin and its bow gathered on a table draped in a green fabric against which leans a cello. On the table there is also a black writing box, placed on top of a book with a musical score that hangs over the edge of the table, inviting the viewer to grab it. On top of the box rests a folded piece of paper and the box’s drawer holds a quill whose feather reaches the body of a lute. I see a bit of a visual pun here: doesn’t the feather look like it’s tickling the instrument’s rotund belly? Even before starting to apply paint on canvas (and deciding on its format and orientation), Baschenis had to select instruments from his collection and arrange them, forming a frieze-like composition in which straight lines are balanced by curved ones. He also controlled the illumination that the objects receive, with a “cellar light” that comes from the upper left corner and betrays Caravaggio’s impact. All the while, he was aiming at conveying a message with memento mori undertones as the dust that has collected on the lute shows: the instruments have been neglected for a while. This is an image of absence, or as the title of Baschenis’s debut US exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2000 suggested, A Music of Silence.

One could say that the subject matter makes you think in a certain manner, determining decisions that take place before one even starts to paint. This is true for another genre, landscape. Camille Corot painted this view of Rome more than once: the Castel Sant’Angelo is seen from across the Tiber River, with the bridge that leads to it (the Ponte Sant’Angelo) and the cupola of Saint Peter’s in the distance.

As photographs show, Corot focused on accurately capturing the view. And yet, his choice of the vista was accompanied by a slew of other decisions: first the angle to capture the Ancient Roman landmark (this painting shows the Castel Sant’ Angelo from a completely different vantage point), and the canvas’s format (the San Francisco picture is more elongated than the Clark one). He also had to determine how much of the view to include and the amount of space occupied by the sky, and plot the composition on the canvas, deciding on the location of the different elements within it. Comparing these two versions, we note that St. Peter’s cupola is more central in the first one, while in the second the buildings are somewhat dwarfed by the sky.

Thinking Serially

As these two paintings by Corot show, considering an artist’s works on the same subject matter affords revealing insights into their thought process. In the theme description for this issue of the Maine Arts Journal we reproduced Mondrian’s The Gray Tree. This 1911 painting belongs to a remarkable sequence in which we see the artist analyzing a tree’s forms and progressively distilling them into a limited vocabulary of regular shapes rendered in a palette that, similarly, becomes increasingly simplified. Eventually, after having further abridged the forms to a few types of geometric lines (horizontal, vertical, and curved), we reach Mondrian’s “classic” paintings, emblematic of the De Stijl movement, in which only the most basic lines and colors remain.

In a print by Pierre Alechinsky, a simple form consisting of two concentric circles is repeated six times, each in a square. Although the aquatint etching in red and two shades of orange possesses a casual quality that suggests a hasty sketch, the sequential placement of the donut-like shape in evenly sized frames invites the viewer to pay closer attention. Considering the circle’s size and placement, noting whether it is centrally located or interrupted by the frame, takes over the field or shrinks, allows us to witness the formal thought process that leads to this composition and recapitulates the artist’s choices.

The Medium as Teacher

Selecting the medium is another early decision, one that involves bearing in mind the effects it allows and in some cases the convenience it affords. Watercolor, for instance, is small and portable, easy to pack and ideal to use en plein air. Distemper, a less common medium, is another good example of the practical reasons behind such choices. Consisting of pigments bound by animal glue or casein, distemper is absorbed by the canvas. Although duller in effect than oil paints, distemper prevents the painting from cracking when rolled or folded, making it an ideal process for works only occasionally used and then stored, such as banners carried in religious processions or the Lenten veils (veli quaresimali or Fastentücher) that hid the altar during Lent.

Once a medium is chosen, the artist must be willing to work with it and to accept its inner logic, possibilities, and limitations. In a way, the medium demands how it wants to be handled. It is as if the artist enters in a dialogue with an opinionated interlocutor and has to be willing to think in new ways. No matter how perfect and precisely formed the image is in the artist’s mind, the medium has quite some say and often offers resistance. In so doing, it invites the artist to become aware of the logic inherent in tools and materials, of what we call “medium specificity.” In that sense, the medium is a teacher and at times, a tough and exacting one. In such cases, one must think with the medium and not try to go against its principles, or else face unfortunate outcomes. This was the case for Michelangelo when he painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling, lunettes, and the altar wall. An unforgiving medium, fresco requires rigorous adhesion to its rules and a thorough training, which Michelangelo lacked. As a result, the frescoes had to be restored many times starting in the 16th century. Even more tragic is the case of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Last Supper in Milan. In his characteristic fashion, Leonardo couldn’t refrain from experimenting, and rather than sticking to the tried and true method of fresco painting on wet plaster, he applied an unconventional combination of materials on a dry preparation (painting a secco instead of a fresco). The detail reproduced here shows in what a sorry state the mural is in today, even though the eminent restorer Pinin Brambilla Barcilon worked at it for over two decades, from 1978 to 1999. When I recount these cases in my classes, I like to explain that just like in pastry baking, you can’t improvise with fresco painting.

Not all media are inflexible teachers and some become, to borrow a French term, maîtres à penser, “masters to think.” For Wassily Kandinsky, the traditional technique of reverse glass painting known as Hinterglasmalerei became such a master. In 1908, as he started spending time in the Bavarian town of Murnau, he immersed himself in folk culture and tried his hand at Hinterglasmalerei. This meant that he had to learn to reverse the “normal” sequence of paint application, starting with details and outlines that are normally painted last. Thus, Kandinsky had to think about the process.

In Hinterglasmalerei, the application of paint on a smooth glass surface yields flat areas of color that possess a distinctive luminosity and vibrancy as they are seen behind the glass pane. The technique also tends to produce an overall simplified composition. Vivian Endicott Barnett notes that while in Murnau, Kandinsky’s “work gradually became more abstract, emphasizing the synthesis of colour, line and form over straightforward representation.” For Rose-Carol Washton, the artist’s “interest in glass painting coincides with his struggle to develop an abstract approach to painting.” I would add that learning to work with this medium acted as a guide towards achieving these goals.

We witness the lessons that Kandinsky learned from the medium in the 1909 painting reproduced here, whose festive colors and dark outlines recall Hinterglasmalerei. The intense colors anticipate the ideas that Kandinsky was soon to expound in his book On the Spiritual in Art published in 1911, just three years after encountering the medium (see for instance, chapter Five on “The Effect of Color” and Six on “The Language of Form and Color.”)

In the automatic techniques that the Surrealists exploited, such as frottage, grattage, or decalcomania, accidental shapes invite the artist to uncover what their unconscious had perceived in these randomly generated forms. Even though this modus operandi bypasses the conscious brain, this is still a form of thinking. Just as in Sigmund Freud’s technique of free association, the thoughts thus produced, albeit surprising, are never gratuitous and even profoundly eloquent. Automatism’s material and cognitive insights continue to inspire artists. For Antonio Muñiz, for instance, the discovery of fumage, a technique developed by the Austrian-Mexican Surrealist Wolfgang Paalen in which marks are produced with smoke, was “a turning point.” Muñiz explains that fumage enabled him to engage in a process that possesses “a ritualistic rhythm,” in which fire burns “outdated versions” of himself and smoke draws “skeletal maps” that bring to light “new pathways through memory, emotion, and transformation.” The undefined nature of the ethereal marks thus achieved produce “a metaphoric terrain” replete with possibilities.

Thoughts Unleashed and Recorded

While the medium unlocks a space for reflection, the entire canvas itself can become a repository for thoughts. This is the case for Stephen Hannock, an artist about whom I just wrote a chapter for a forthcoming book. The landscapes in his Vistas with Text series are inscribed with memories that were, as he puts it, “unleashed” while painting. The places he chooses to capture hold profound resonance for him, either because of personal experiences that took place there or of associations with revered forefathers. To this day, Hannock has painted over forty views of the bend in the Connecticut river known as the Oxbow, which adopt the same vantage point as Thomas Cole’s celebrated painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In Hannock’s Oxbow at the Yale Art Museum, for instance, inscriptions bear witness to the importance the place played in his life. We learn why he first came to the Pioneer Valley, when in 1969 college hockey coaches sent him to spend an extra year of high school at Deerfield Academy, where he studied with a newly-arrived art professor, Dan Hodermasky, who, to quote one of the inscriptions, “immediately proceeded to turn a traditionally stodgy school upside down” and left an indelible mark on the young man. Hannock soon met Leonard Baskin, who at the time was teaching at Smith College and with whom he apprenticed.

The depicted landscape is thus filled with memories that emerged during the making of the painting. In this close-up of the lower left corner, the text along the road that runs diagonally reads: “This way to Skinner Park / where Cole and Alfred Leslie drew the Oxbow,” while that along the other road explains: “This way to Mt Holyoke Museum + John Stomberg (from the Williams Museum).” Further memories are supplemented by images as can be seen at the top left of this detail, where we read: “This is the new underground Bowdoin Museum / in order to preserve the Stanford / White foundation . . . They dug beneath / Leonard Baskin’s / first museum show / was at Bowdoin.” Also accompanied by a photo is the inscription on the right: “This is Frank Moore / at our wedding / with Maria, Nancy and Lisa Hodermasky.” As Stephen told me during a recent conversation, when painting, artists are not constantly focused on the task at hand and may allow their minds to wander. Thus, the words (and images) that he embeds in his vistas also act as records of his thoughts at precise moments in the artwork’s making.

In 1967 Sol LeWitt published an essay in Artforum in which he advocates for an approach to art—conceptual art—that isthe opposite of Hannock’s personal and emotional investment in the making of the artwork:

When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. This kind of art is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive, it is involved with all types of mental processes and it is purposeless.

We are lucky at Colby College to own several works by LeWitt: sculptures, drawings, and the large scale works he referred to as “wall drawings.” Readers might recall the monumental Seven Walls built out of concrete blocks that was acquired and installed in 2002 on the lawn next to the museum. Although the work was dismantled in April 2024, it remains in the museum’s collections as a set of instructions: “Seven 12’ x 12’ concrete block panels, which overlap each other at angles to form an overall length of 68’.” This document, just like a musical score, allows the work to be manifested. The same is true for Wall Drawing #803—Wavy Color Bands Within a Grey, Red, Yellow and Blue Border, which was visible in the museum’s lobby until major construction took place. First drawn in 1996 and “redrawn” in 2007, it was not reinstalled when the museum reopened in 2013. Also familiar to passersby is LeWitt’s monumental Wall Drawing #559 inside the Alfond-Lunder Family Pavilion and visible from Mayflower Hill Drive (a time-lapse captured its installation in 2013 by a team of eight). A smaller wall drawing graces a staircase connecting the Upper and Lower Jetté Galleries. At first glance, Wall Drawing #250 consists of three straight lines and a circle, drawn in yellow, red, black, and blue crayon. A closer look reveals a network of lines drawn in graphite, along with four blocks of texts that give instructions to construct and plot the three lines and circle in relationship to each other.

What is striking is the fact that many of these directions are expressed as a hypothetical occurrence: the yellow line, for instance, “is drawn from a point where two lines would cross if one line were drawn from a point halfway between the two points where a line from the middle of the blue line to the end of the red line would cross the black circle . . ..” Although materialized on a wall in Waterville, the composition presents itself as the product of a reflection. Similarly, the viewer who cares to read the text must think about the geometric construction and mentally retrace the steps in its genesis.

This duality between the making and the thinking—making as thinking and thinking of the making—was potently expressed by Pierre Soulages, who declared:

Mon travail est toujours un dialogue entre ce qui apparaît sur la toile pendant que je peins et mes réactions devant ce qui apparaît: c’est un échange continuel. Je ne travaille pas en état de transe: je contrôle. Je contrôle et je laisse aller. C’est un échange entre ces deux choses- là.

My work is always a dialogue between what appears on the canvas while I paint and my reactions in front of what appears: it is a continual exchange. I do not work in a state of trance: I control. I control and let go. It’s an exchange between these two things.

 

References

Barnett, Vivian Endicott. “Kandinsky, Vasily.” Grove Art Online. 2003.

Kandinsky, Wassily. Über das Geistige in der Kunst: Insbesondere in der Malerei. Munich: R. Piper & Co., 1911. English: On the Spiritual in Art. Ed. and trans. Hilla Rebay. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1946.

LeWitt, Sol. “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art.” Artforum 5.10 (1967): 79–83.

Muñiz, Antonio. Website.

Plesch, Véronique. “A Place Haunted by Words: Space, Time, and Memory in Stephen Hannock’s Vistas with Text.” In Stephen Hannock, Moving Water, Fleeting Light. North Adams: The Artist Book Foundation. Forthcoming.

Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective, MASS MoCA.

Soulages, Pierre. Écrits et propos. Paris: Hermann, 2009. Quote is on page 40.

The Still Lifes of Evaristo Baschenis: The Music of Silence. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 17 November 2000–4 March 2001.

Washton, Rose-Carol. “Kandinsky’s Paintings on Glass.” Art Forum 5.6 (1967): 23–25.

 

Image at top: Evaristo Baschenis, Musical Instruments, oil on canvas, 29.5 x 42.5 in. (75 x 108 cm), c. 1670, Accademia Carrara, Bergamo (photo: Wikimedia Commons).