I did this one a little bit ago. I figured you guys might like to see it.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Cezanne
Hi all!
Well, things are starting to wind down here in Aix-en-Provence. We're taking pictures of all our work, scrambling to make it look like we've been sketching way more than we have, and everyone's starting to freak out because we're running out of time to create our masterpiece. The very first day of orientation here, we sat down with the director of the Marchutz School, Alan. The very first thing he said was, "Kids, I want you to do something. I want you to go home and write on a piece of paper 'They are not trying to get me to paint like Paul Cezanne,' and I want you to hang it on the ceiling above your bed, so it's the first thing you see when you wake up each morning." That statement was both true and false. They are not trying to get us to paint in the style of Cezanne. Really, they aren't trying to get us to paint in the style of anyone but our natural selves, which is one of the many things that makes this school so great. But if you interpret painting "like Paul Cezanne" to mean painting in a way in which the art is a true reflection of the artist's vision, in which every stroke represents a necessary relationship with every other stroke, to create a voluminous whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts, then yes, they are trying to get us to paint like Paul Cezanne. Many artists and art historians say that Cezanne was the father of modern art. What this means is that to do something great in painting right now, one should really go through Cezanne. It's the same with Giotto and Michelangelo. Alan called them "bookends in history." Everyone way back the day, in Italy, was doing their art, and then along came Giotto who took everyone's different approaches, their different theories, their different everything, and summed it all up in a way that was more true than anyone had been able to accomplish. Michelangelo did the same thing with the human subject. Everyone who was interested in the way the human figure operated in space was doing their thing, when along comes this guy, and does it so well that it is impossible to ignore him. Well that was Cezanne as well. It is seen in his color, his depth (yes, there is great depth in Cezanne), his solidity and his atmosphere.
This past Friday, we went on a trip all around Aix, Cezanne's stomping grounds, where he was born and raised, and where he spent almost all of his days as a master. We started out in the studio he had built at the end of his life, where he worked on his late still lives and portraits. While they do have some replacement stuff, much of what they have in their actually belonged to Cezanne, and can be seen in various still lives. We then went out into the cold Mistral winds for the rest of the day, to look at some real motifs.
The first place we went was the Chateau Noire. The Chateau Noire is a large estate and mansion built by the inventor of a popular furniture varnish way back when. When he went bankrupt, he sold the property to a reclusive family, who has guarded it with everything they've got now for generations. When Cezanne got big, he tried to buy the place, but the family would not sell it. Instead, apparently recognizing his talent, they rented him a space for his studio, and allowed him to paint as much as he wanted around the property.
Now is the time for the story of Leo Marchutz, the founder of our school. Leo was a German art student in the early 1900s. He was friends with an art dealer in Nuremberg, who had the opportunity to buy a Cezanne painting of Mont Sainte Victoire. Leo, a fan of Cezanne, encouraged this dealer to buy. She was reluctant because of the areas of canvas that were left white, and her feeling that the painting was not finished. Leo did his best to explain that these white areas were a necessary element of the painting, and that it was a masterpiece. He was finally able to convince her to buy the work, and it hung in her gallery for about a year. During that year, Leo would come in every day and look, draw, copy, and study the painting. When it finally sold (for a huge sum of money), the dealer thanked Leo for finding the painting by paying for a trip to Aix, so that he could see the real motif. So off he went. Upon his arrival, the German city boy went for a walk around town. Although Cezanne had been dead for a few years at this point, his coach driver was still alive, and Leo happened to bump into him on the Mirabeau, the main street in town. He asked the coachman where he could see a place where Cezanne worked, and the coachman kindly took him out the Route de Tholonet (the Marchutz School is on that street) to the Chateau Noire. Well Leo Marchutz couldn't believe what he saw when he got to the top of the hill and rounded the corner. He had been driven right into a Cezanne motif, in fact the very one that he had studied for so long, done from the terraced hilltop of the Chateau Noire. Leo immediately took up a room, just like Cezanne, at the Chateau Noire, and began to study the motifs. So great was his passion for Cezanne that Leo returned the next summer, and eventually permanently moved to Aix, living at the Chateau Noire. Leo must have become quite close with the family who lives there, who recognized an important link between the young German and the late Paul Cezanne, because he developed an important relationship with them. When the War started, Marchutz even hid out on the property so as to avoid having to help the Nazis, and, despite their best efforts, he was not found. An important event happened when John Rewald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rewald) came to Aix to study and photograph gothic architecture for his thesis. Here he met Leo, who asked to borrow his camera to take some pictures of Cezanne motifs. So the two of them went out together, lopping branches off trees, recreating and documenting Cezanne motifs. These were the first photographs of Cezanne motifs ever taken. Rewald eventually abandoned his gothic architecture project for a study of Cezanne, and later went on to be one of the most important art historians in the post impressionist era. He credits his study of Cezanne to Leo's enthusiasm. Anyway, Leo eventually moved from the Chateau Noire, about a 4 minute walk back towards town, to the place where the Marchutz school now stands. But the Marchutz-Chateau Noire connection still exists. Both professors, Alan and John, have their studios at the Chateau Noire, and Marchutz affiliates are the only people allowed to see the motifs that exist on the property. Alan and John have been allowed to bring one group of Cezanne scholars onto the property, but beyond that, only students have ever been allowed by the family onto the property. In fact, when the recent huge Cezanne retrospective that started in DC, and traveled to Paris, ended in Aix, Alan asked the family if he might bring the curator of the Smithsonian's National Gallery to come see the place, and they refused.
So there we stood, looking at things that only a hand full of people ever have the opportunity to see. People have speculated that Cezanne moved his easel during paintings, so as to gain multiple perspectives. It has also been said that up until Cezanne, art was about "this is what I see," whereas Cezanne asked the question "Is this what I see?" Well I'll be happy to explain to all of you in person why neither of these claims are true, and that's what we talked about. We did some serious looking at the motif and at the painting, and we did some reading of Cezanne's letters, and it was what Cezanne saw.
After an indoor picnic lunch in Alan's studio, we went across town to another motif to look at the evolution of Cezanne, and to think about what he meant when he said "I want to redo Poussin after nature." We looked at 3 paintings all done from this one spot, to see how he evolved over the years. Finally we went back across to the north east side of town, just in time to see the sun set on the mountain, and look at one of the last Mont Sainte Victoires he painted. As the Mistral winds whipped around us on top of the hill, we witnessed one of the most fortunate geographical situations in the world, the fact that the cliff side of Mont Sainte Victoire faces west. As the sun sets over the Cote D'Azur, it passes through the clear Provence sky, turning bright orange and pink, and it shines off the mountain, lighting it and the clouds up in fiery colors agains the blue, green, purple grey sky. It's amazing.
So no, they are not trying to get me to paint like Paul Cezanne. This is because, according to Cezanne, I can't, because I'm me, and I grab onto different things. But yes, they are trying to get me to paint like Paul Cezanne, because they are trying to get me to look and to really see, to be concrete and faithful to nature, without being a slave to nature, and to unify my surface in a way that creates something living.
The Marchutz school has given me something. They sometimes call it "sight and insight." I'm not sure what to call it, but it's very important, and I think it's going to drive my work from here on out. My time here has radically changed the way I see and think about the visual world. I've just begun my inevitable tasks of figuring out what to do with that, and disciplining myself so that I can get to a point where I can develop it further, and maybe even show people what I am just starting to see. Every time I say that, I hear myself sounding like a nut job, but I guess that's part of what studying art at the Marchutz school is about. This is a crazy place. I'm so happy I've come here. I can't wait to keep working so that I'll have more and better paintings to give all of you.
Well, things are starting to wind down here in Aix-en-Provence. We're taking pictures of all our work, scrambling to make it look like we've been sketching way more than we have, and everyone's starting to freak out because we're running out of time to create our masterpiece. The very first day of orientation here, we sat down with the director of the Marchutz School, Alan. The very first thing he said was, "Kids, I want you to do something. I want you to go home and write on a piece of paper 'They are not trying to get me to paint like Paul Cezanne,' and I want you to hang it on the ceiling above your bed, so it's the first thing you see when you wake up each morning." That statement was both true and false. They are not trying to get us to paint in the style of Cezanne. Really, they aren't trying to get us to paint in the style of anyone but our natural selves, which is one of the many things that makes this school so great. But if you interpret painting "like Paul Cezanne" to mean painting in a way in which the art is a true reflection of the artist's vision, in which every stroke represents a necessary relationship with every other stroke, to create a voluminous whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts, then yes, they are trying to get us to paint like Paul Cezanne. Many artists and art historians say that Cezanne was the father of modern art. What this means is that to do something great in painting right now, one should really go through Cezanne. It's the same with Giotto and Michelangelo. Alan called them "bookends in history." Everyone way back the day, in Italy, was doing their art, and then along came Giotto who took everyone's different approaches, their different theories, their different everything, and summed it all up in a way that was more true than anyone had been able to accomplish. Michelangelo did the same thing with the human subject. Everyone who was interested in the way the human figure operated in space was doing their thing, when along comes this guy, and does it so well that it is impossible to ignore him. Well that was Cezanne as well. It is seen in his color, his depth (yes, there is great depth in Cezanne), his solidity and his atmosphere.
This past Friday, we went on a trip all around Aix, Cezanne's stomping grounds, where he was born and raised, and where he spent almost all of his days as a master. We started out in the studio he had built at the end of his life, where he worked on his late still lives and portraits. While they do have some replacement stuff, much of what they have in their actually belonged to Cezanne, and can be seen in various still lives. We then went out into the cold Mistral winds for the rest of the day, to look at some real motifs.
The first place we went was the Chateau Noire. The Chateau Noire is a large estate and mansion built by the inventor of a popular furniture varnish way back when. When he went bankrupt, he sold the property to a reclusive family, who has guarded it with everything they've got now for generations. When Cezanne got big, he tried to buy the place, but the family would not sell it. Instead, apparently recognizing his talent, they rented him a space for his studio, and allowed him to paint as much as he wanted around the property.
Now is the time for the story of Leo Marchutz, the founder of our school. Leo was a German art student in the early 1900s. He was friends with an art dealer in Nuremberg, who had the opportunity to buy a Cezanne painting of Mont Sainte Victoire. Leo, a fan of Cezanne, encouraged this dealer to buy. She was reluctant because of the areas of canvas that were left white, and her feeling that the painting was not finished. Leo did his best to explain that these white areas were a necessary element of the painting, and that it was a masterpiece. He was finally able to convince her to buy the work, and it hung in her gallery for about a year. During that year, Leo would come in every day and look, draw, copy, and study the painting. When it finally sold (for a huge sum of money), the dealer thanked Leo for finding the painting by paying for a trip to Aix, so that he could see the real motif. So off he went. Upon his arrival, the German city boy went for a walk around town. Although Cezanne had been dead for a few years at this point, his coach driver was still alive, and Leo happened to bump into him on the Mirabeau, the main street in town. He asked the coachman where he could see a place where Cezanne worked, and the coachman kindly took him out the Route de Tholonet (the Marchutz School is on that street) to the Chateau Noire. Well Leo Marchutz couldn't believe what he saw when he got to the top of the hill and rounded the corner. He had been driven right into a Cezanne motif, in fact the very one that he had studied for so long, done from the terraced hilltop of the Chateau Noire. Leo immediately took up a room, just like Cezanne, at the Chateau Noire, and began to study the motifs. So great was his passion for Cezanne that Leo returned the next summer, and eventually permanently moved to Aix, living at the Chateau Noire. Leo must have become quite close with the family who lives there, who recognized an important link between the young German and the late Paul Cezanne, because he developed an important relationship with them. When the War started, Marchutz even hid out on the property so as to avoid having to help the Nazis, and, despite their best efforts, he was not found. An important event happened when John Rewald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rewald) came to Aix to study and photograph gothic architecture for his thesis. Here he met Leo, who asked to borrow his camera to take some pictures of Cezanne motifs. So the two of them went out together, lopping branches off trees, recreating and documenting Cezanne motifs. These were the first photographs of Cezanne motifs ever taken. Rewald eventually abandoned his gothic architecture project for a study of Cezanne, and later went on to be one of the most important art historians in the post impressionist era. He credits his study of Cezanne to Leo's enthusiasm. Anyway, Leo eventually moved from the Chateau Noire, about a 4 minute walk back towards town, to the place where the Marchutz school now stands. But the Marchutz-Chateau Noire connection still exists. Both professors, Alan and John, have their studios at the Chateau Noire, and Marchutz affiliates are the only people allowed to see the motifs that exist on the property. Alan and John have been allowed to bring one group of Cezanne scholars onto the property, but beyond that, only students have ever been allowed by the family onto the property. In fact, when the recent huge Cezanne retrospective that started in DC, and traveled to Paris, ended in Aix, Alan asked the family if he might bring the curator of the Smithsonian's National Gallery to come see the place, and they refused.
So there we stood, looking at things that only a hand full of people ever have the opportunity to see. People have speculated that Cezanne moved his easel during paintings, so as to gain multiple perspectives. It has also been said that up until Cezanne, art was about "this is what I see," whereas Cezanne asked the question "Is this what I see?" Well I'll be happy to explain to all of you in person why neither of these claims are true, and that's what we talked about. We did some serious looking at the motif and at the painting, and we did some reading of Cezanne's letters, and it was what Cezanne saw.
After an indoor picnic lunch in Alan's studio, we went across town to another motif to look at the evolution of Cezanne, and to think about what he meant when he said "I want to redo Poussin after nature." We looked at 3 paintings all done from this one spot, to see how he evolved over the years. Finally we went back across to the north east side of town, just in time to see the sun set on the mountain, and look at one of the last Mont Sainte Victoires he painted. As the Mistral winds whipped around us on top of the hill, we witnessed one of the most fortunate geographical situations in the world, the fact that the cliff side of Mont Sainte Victoire faces west. As the sun sets over the Cote D'Azur, it passes through the clear Provence sky, turning bright orange and pink, and it shines off the mountain, lighting it and the clouds up in fiery colors agains the blue, green, purple grey sky. It's amazing.
So no, they are not trying to get me to paint like Paul Cezanne. This is because, according to Cezanne, I can't, because I'm me, and I grab onto different things. But yes, they are trying to get me to paint like Paul Cezanne, because they are trying to get me to look and to really see, to be concrete and faithful to nature, without being a slave to nature, and to unify my surface in a way that creates something living.
The Marchutz school has given me something. They sometimes call it "sight and insight." I'm not sure what to call it, but it's very important, and I think it's going to drive my work from here on out. My time here has radically changed the way I see and think about the visual world. I've just begun my inevitable tasks of figuring out what to do with that, and disciplining myself so that I can get to a point where I can develop it further, and maybe even show people what I am just starting to see. Every time I say that, I hear myself sounding like a nut job, but I guess that's part of what studying art at the Marchutz school is about. This is a crazy place. I'm so happy I've come here. I can't wait to keep working so that I'll have more and better paintings to give all of you.
Monday, November 16, 2009
De Giverny a Paris
I'm sorry it's been so long. I've had a crazy few weeks, and it's very easy to get so caught up in what I'm doing here that I lack the time to actually reflect on it, but I have a few minutes now, so here goes...
I'm not sure how I can possibly capture what really happened 3 weeks ago in Giverny. We had been working out in the landscape by Mont Sainte Victoire, in Cezanne country, for about a month, and I had made all the progress I could out there. I was starting to understand shape, color, light, line, movement, all these artistic terms, but I had yet to really figure out how they relate to each other. My work in this period is full of empty white spaces between colors, and lots of yellow. Things were starting to make sense, but not really clicking, and I was getting frustrated. Then, on a friday afternoon, we got on a bus and headed down to the TGV station. The train ride from Aix to Paris was exceptional. I'm not sure whether we took the western rout up through Bordeaux, or the eastern one up by Lyon (I think it was the latter), but we passed first by Mont Sainte Victiore, then by Mont Ventoux, we rocketed by many hillside towns in the foothills of what may or may not have been the Alps, and then hit a flat plain. this is where the colors started getting good. As we got further and further north, the reds, yellows, and oranges started coming out. Then, all of a sudden we were in the middle of Paris, at Gare de Lyon. We took a hectic Metro ride from there to Gare du Nord, and got on a train out to Giverny, where Monet spent his later years. This whole time, nobody ever looked at our tickets, because, as to be expected in France, the train workers were on strike.
When we got out to Giverny, we walked into a dream world. There is a foundation in Giverny that owns a whole bunch of property right across from a museum (the foundation actually owns the museum, formerly dedicated to American art in France, now on loan to the French government), and just down the road from Monet's Gardens. The foundation exists for artists to come and stay, sometimes in residences, sometimes for week long seminars like ours. We were provided food by the museum cafe, and we each had our own room in a compound that included several houses and extensive gardens. Every day we went out painting or drawing as we pleased. We had a visit to Monet's house, to see his gardens as a group (although we could go back whenever we wanted) and to look at Monet's incredible collection of Japanese prints. I spent the first day or two working in watercolor, and the rest of the time in oil.
Giverny is a tough place to work, because the whole darn town looks like a Monet painting. Yet despite that I did my best to render what I saw, as I saw it, with as little regard to Monet as possible. The water colors are something I credit with the breakthrough I was to have. I was able to break through from one color into another, in a way I wasn't letting myself do with the oils, and, over the course of the week, I was even able to create a painting I'm still proud of. The watercolors themselves aren't much to look at, but they were invaluable in allowing myself to make something that is.
When the week came to a close, three of us went up, inspired by our time in Arles, to look at some Van Gogh in Amsterdam. I really didn't like that city. The architecture all seemed fake to me, with facades built to make every house look like it was facing the opposite direction that it was, trams that ding loudly at all hours, and don't stop for anything, despite running on the sidewalks, and thousands upon thousands of bikes. The canals were beautiful, but we found refuge from the annoying street life in the Van Gogh and Rijks Museums, where we saw about half of Van Gogh's lifetime masterpieces, and Rembrandt after Rembrandt after Rembrandt, and the coffee shops, where we enjoyed elephants, mangos, and amnesia haze.
Oh, and did I mention, we went there without our passports (we forgot them in Aix) and almost got arrested by the Dutch customs officer? Yeah, not a great trip.
Then we returned for a weekend in Aix, before ten intense days of still lives. Fast forward until this past Wednesday. We, once again, board the TGV to Paris, only this time to stay in Paris for a week of intense looking at art. We posted up in a hostel in the 4th, about a block and a half away from the magnificent Parisian city hall. After leaving our bags in our rooms, we headed down to the Grand Palais for a retrospective of late Renoir paintings. As this was not an "official visit," we were free to peruse the exhibit on our own for a few hours, before hopping back on the metro for our first lack luster meal at the hostel.
The next day began our series of seminars. We started off at the Louvre, warming up our eyes on an exhibition of Titien and Tintoretto, along with other Venician renaissance artists, then we got down to business. We, all 12 of us (professors included) sat down in front of two paintings, the first people aren't quite sure whether it's a Titien or a Georgioni, of two Venicians playing music and two muses, and the second was Rembrandt's painting of Bathsheba reading a letter. We looked at each painting for about an hour and a half to two hours, looking, and talking. Needless to say it was exhausting. The second day we were split up into groups, according to who was in the art history class I'm taking. My group looked first at a Chardin painting, and then at a Goya portrait. In the afternoon we went over to the Musée d'Orsay (in my opinion the best museum in the world) and had a look at some Pissaro, some Monet, some Sisley, and a Van Gogh, to compare styles and touches. The third day, we returned to the d'Orsay to have a more concentrated look at a Cezanne still life as compared to Monet's portrait of his first wife, Camille, as she lay dying. Camille on her death bed was among the most heartbreaking things I've ever experienced. Then, in the afternoon, we went over to the Orangerie, to have a 3 or 4 hour look at Monet's memorial to the fallen soldiers of WWI. Wow. The final day, we spent at the Musée Granet, a smaller museum, looking first at some expressionists, and then some more at Monet. We saw, but did not spend much time with, the painting that gave the Impressionist movement it's name, Impression Soleil Levant, but we looked more carefully at two Monet landscapes, an early one and a late one, to see how far he went, and then we sat in front of a large study of his lilly pads that he did, probably from the motif (as opposed to in his studio) in preparation for his more monumental work for the Orangerie.
I have to take the time, here, to explain that, while the majority of the works we looked at were impressionist, this was not the focus of the discussions. The school is teaching me a lot about vision, and how one's vision relates the the world he or she sees. It's easier to really get at this in front of an impressionist piece. The school is, in no way, trying to tell me that Monet is in any way better than Goya, or even Titien, who paint much more according to Salon styles. We looked at some pretty weak Monets and Cezannes. They are, however, helping me see why Monet, Cezanne, and the rest of the impressionists, in addition to people like Goya and Titien, consistently produced stronger paintings than someone like David (the french neo-classicist), whose paintings border on not even really being art. This is something I'm looking forward to discussing with each of you over a meal at some point.
I'm beginning to feel like I've taken up enough of your time. But I hope you can see that I've been really busy. I'm doing some exciting stuff over here in France. I can't wait to bring it back to share with you all. If you ever want to go to a museum, let me know.
I'm not sure how I can possibly capture what really happened 3 weeks ago in Giverny. We had been working out in the landscape by Mont Sainte Victoire, in Cezanne country, for about a month, and I had made all the progress I could out there. I was starting to understand shape, color, light, line, movement, all these artistic terms, but I had yet to really figure out how they relate to each other. My work in this period is full of empty white spaces between colors, and lots of yellow. Things were starting to make sense, but not really clicking, and I was getting frustrated. Then, on a friday afternoon, we got on a bus and headed down to the TGV station. The train ride from Aix to Paris was exceptional. I'm not sure whether we took the western rout up through Bordeaux, or the eastern one up by Lyon (I think it was the latter), but we passed first by Mont Sainte Victiore, then by Mont Ventoux, we rocketed by many hillside towns in the foothills of what may or may not have been the Alps, and then hit a flat plain. this is where the colors started getting good. As we got further and further north, the reds, yellows, and oranges started coming out. Then, all of a sudden we were in the middle of Paris, at Gare de Lyon. We took a hectic Metro ride from there to Gare du Nord, and got on a train out to Giverny, where Monet spent his later years. This whole time, nobody ever looked at our tickets, because, as to be expected in France, the train workers were on strike.
When we got out to Giverny, we walked into a dream world. There is a foundation in Giverny that owns a whole bunch of property right across from a museum (the foundation actually owns the museum, formerly dedicated to American art in France, now on loan to the French government), and just down the road from Monet's Gardens. The foundation exists for artists to come and stay, sometimes in residences, sometimes for week long seminars like ours. We were provided food by the museum cafe, and we each had our own room in a compound that included several houses and extensive gardens. Every day we went out painting or drawing as we pleased. We had a visit to Monet's house, to see his gardens as a group (although we could go back whenever we wanted) and to look at Monet's incredible collection of Japanese prints. I spent the first day or two working in watercolor, and the rest of the time in oil.
Giverny is a tough place to work, because the whole darn town looks like a Monet painting. Yet despite that I did my best to render what I saw, as I saw it, with as little regard to Monet as possible. The water colors are something I credit with the breakthrough I was to have. I was able to break through from one color into another, in a way I wasn't letting myself do with the oils, and, over the course of the week, I was even able to create a painting I'm still proud of. The watercolors themselves aren't much to look at, but they were invaluable in allowing myself to make something that is.
When the week came to a close, three of us went up, inspired by our time in Arles, to look at some Van Gogh in Amsterdam. I really didn't like that city. The architecture all seemed fake to me, with facades built to make every house look like it was facing the opposite direction that it was, trams that ding loudly at all hours, and don't stop for anything, despite running on the sidewalks, and thousands upon thousands of bikes. The canals were beautiful, but we found refuge from the annoying street life in the Van Gogh and Rijks Museums, where we saw about half of Van Gogh's lifetime masterpieces, and Rembrandt after Rembrandt after Rembrandt, and the coffee shops, where we enjoyed elephants, mangos, and amnesia haze.
Oh, and did I mention, we went there without our passports (we forgot them in Aix) and almost got arrested by the Dutch customs officer? Yeah, not a great trip.
Then we returned for a weekend in Aix, before ten intense days of still lives. Fast forward until this past Wednesday. We, once again, board the TGV to Paris, only this time to stay in Paris for a week of intense looking at art. We posted up in a hostel in the 4th, about a block and a half away from the magnificent Parisian city hall. After leaving our bags in our rooms, we headed down to the Grand Palais for a retrospective of late Renoir paintings. As this was not an "official visit," we were free to peruse the exhibit on our own for a few hours, before hopping back on the metro for our first lack luster meal at the hostel.
The next day began our series of seminars. We started off at the Louvre, warming up our eyes on an exhibition of Titien and Tintoretto, along with other Venician renaissance artists, then we got down to business. We, all 12 of us (professors included) sat down in front of two paintings, the first people aren't quite sure whether it's a Titien or a Georgioni, of two Venicians playing music and two muses, and the second was Rembrandt's painting of Bathsheba reading a letter. We looked at each painting for about an hour and a half to two hours, looking, and talking. Needless to say it was exhausting. The second day we were split up into groups, according to who was in the art history class I'm taking. My group looked first at a Chardin painting, and then at a Goya portrait. In the afternoon we went over to the Musée d'Orsay (in my opinion the best museum in the world) and had a look at some Pissaro, some Monet, some Sisley, and a Van Gogh, to compare styles and touches. The third day, we returned to the d'Orsay to have a more concentrated look at a Cezanne still life as compared to Monet's portrait of his first wife, Camille, as she lay dying. Camille on her death bed was among the most heartbreaking things I've ever experienced. Then, in the afternoon, we went over to the Orangerie, to have a 3 or 4 hour look at Monet's memorial to the fallen soldiers of WWI. Wow. The final day, we spent at the Musée Granet, a smaller museum, looking first at some expressionists, and then some more at Monet. We saw, but did not spend much time with, the painting that gave the Impressionist movement it's name, Impression Soleil Levant, but we looked more carefully at two Monet landscapes, an early one and a late one, to see how far he went, and then we sat in front of a large study of his lilly pads that he did, probably from the motif (as opposed to in his studio) in preparation for his more monumental work for the Orangerie.
I have to take the time, here, to explain that, while the majority of the works we looked at were impressionist, this was not the focus of the discussions. The school is teaching me a lot about vision, and how one's vision relates the the world he or she sees. It's easier to really get at this in front of an impressionist piece. The school is, in no way, trying to tell me that Monet is in any way better than Goya, or even Titien, who paint much more according to Salon styles. We looked at some pretty weak Monets and Cezannes. They are, however, helping me see why Monet, Cezanne, and the rest of the impressionists, in addition to people like Goya and Titien, consistently produced stronger paintings than someone like David (the french neo-classicist), whose paintings border on not even really being art. This is something I'm looking forward to discussing with each of you over a meal at some point.
I'm beginning to feel like I've taken up enough of your time. But I hope you can see that I've been really busy. I'm doing some exciting stuff over here in France. I can't wait to bring it back to share with you all. If you ever want to go to a museum, let me know.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Van Gogh Weekend
So 40 years ago, Leo Marchutz, the founder of my school here, said "Van Gogh painted a masterpiece a day, for the last 70 days of his life." So last friday, we took a field trip to try and explore how that happened. Unfortunately, in the last few months of his life, Van Gogh was in Auvers, up north, so we couldn't be where he was then, but he spent a couple very important years in Arles and Saint-Remy, which are about an hour away from Aix. So I spent the week leading up to the field trip reading a brief biography on Van Gogh, written by his sister-in-law (no pressure, Julie) and some of his letters from that period. This was the time in Van Gogh's life when he started having his crazy attacks, and really started going off the deep end, in fact Saint-Remy is the mental institution that he checked himself into after cutting off part of his ear. I've included links to a few of the paintings we were looking at, but unfortunately you might have to copy and paste them to see them. Sorry!
So we started out at 7:30 AM and headed off to Arles. When we got there, we drove to a draw-bridge over a canal that he painted. We walked to the spot Van Gogh would have done the painting had the bridge not been moved about 300 meters to avoid being wrecked, and sat down with a reproduction of the actual painting (http://www.popartuk.com/g/l/lg8554+le-pont-de-langlois-arles-1888-vincent-van-gogh-poster.jpg). We then spent the next 2 and a half to 3 hours disecting exactly what Van Gogh had done. We were lucky enough to have beautiful clear blue skies, just like the ones Van Gogh most liked to paint in, and we could really see all the colors in nature. Van Gogh is known, among other things, for his use of color, and seeing the colors he found in nature compared to the actual nature itself was absolutely amazing, and really very inspiring artistically. My work since then has been a lot more adventurous with colors.
Next, we went briefly to an old roman road with tons of sarcophagi that Van Gogh painted (http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/vincent-van-gogh-paintings-from-the-yellow-house-3.jpg). We only were able to spend a small amount of time there, but, again, the colors van gogh found were all really there, and they were amazing to see in real life.
We then went to the mental hospital where he was briefly forced to live by the townspeople, and looked at yet another painting (http://wahooart.com/A55A04/w.nsf/3e75729998cde7c6c1256dd20064bdfa/842acf0a36dc59e4c1256ea7002b3fd7/$FILE/Vincent%20Van%20Gogh-Courtyard%20of%20the%20Hospital%20at%20Arles,%20The.jpg). To look at this one we got to go up onto the second floor.
Then it was time for lunch, but not before looking at one more (http://www.abcgallery.com/V/vangogh/vangogh37.html). In this painting there is a baby tree, which is now a HUGE tree. The bridge has been redone, but you can see what Van Gogh was up to. It was really cool.
For lunch we ate at the cafe Van Gogh painted in his "Night Cafe" painting.
In the afternoon, we went to Saint-Remy and spent some time looking at some more paintings in the actual location. What was amazing is that while he was there, he was largely kept inside, behind barred windows. I could never accomplish was he did behind bars. In particular, we looked at a series of three paintings done of a man cutting wheat in a field. We talked for a long time about what he had done as he painted the first, second, and third in the series, and why he had done it.
I really think the trip is going to have affected my own painting in a big way. Van Gogh's vivid colors give his paintings a kind of life that few other artists have achieved. He was adamant that it was not necessary to achieve the actual colors found in nature, but the relationships between colors. I'd love to get a chance to see some Van Gogh paintings in real life, because, according to my teachers, they'er incomparable to the reproductions. Unfortunately, almost all the good ones are in Amsterdam. So Nick and I are going to get high as balls and look at them in a week.
So we started out at 7:30 AM and headed off to Arles. When we got there, we drove to a draw-bridge over a canal that he painted. We walked to the spot Van Gogh would have done the painting had the bridge not been moved about 300 meters to avoid being wrecked, and sat down with a reproduction of the actual painting (http://www.popartuk.com/g/l/lg8554+le-pont-de-langlois-arles-1888-vincent-van-gogh-poster.jpg). We then spent the next 2 and a half to 3 hours disecting exactly what Van Gogh had done. We were lucky enough to have beautiful clear blue skies, just like the ones Van Gogh most liked to paint in, and we could really see all the colors in nature. Van Gogh is known, among other things, for his use of color, and seeing the colors he found in nature compared to the actual nature itself was absolutely amazing, and really very inspiring artistically. My work since then has been a lot more adventurous with colors.
Next, we went briefly to an old roman road with tons of sarcophagi that Van Gogh painted (http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/vincent-van-gogh-paintings-from-the-yellow-house-3.jpg). We only were able to spend a small amount of time there, but, again, the colors van gogh found were all really there, and they were amazing to see in real life.
We then went to the mental hospital where he was briefly forced to live by the townspeople, and looked at yet another painting (http://wahooart.com/A55A04/w.nsf/3e75729998cde7c6c1256dd20064bdfa/842acf0a36dc59e4c1256ea7002b3fd7/$FILE/Vincent%20Van%20Gogh-Courtyard%20of%20the%20Hospital%20at%20Arles,%20The.jpg). To look at this one we got to go up onto the second floor.
Then it was time for lunch, but not before looking at one more (http://www.abcgallery.com/V/vangogh/vangogh37.html). In this painting there is a baby tree, which is now a HUGE tree. The bridge has been redone, but you can see what Van Gogh was up to. It was really cool.
For lunch we ate at the cafe Van Gogh painted in his "Night Cafe" painting.
In the afternoon, we went to Saint-Remy and spent some time looking at some more paintings in the actual location. What was amazing is that while he was there, he was largely kept inside, behind barred windows. I could never accomplish was he did behind bars. In particular, we looked at a series of three paintings done of a man cutting wheat in a field. We talked for a long time about what he had done as he painted the first, second, and third in the series, and why he had done it.
I really think the trip is going to have affected my own painting in a big way. Van Gogh's vivid colors give his paintings a kind of life that few other artists have achieved. He was adamant that it was not necessary to achieve the actual colors found in nature, but the relationships between colors. I'd love to get a chance to see some Van Gogh paintings in real life, because, according to my teachers, they'er incomparable to the reproductions. Unfortunately, almost all the good ones are in Amsterdam. So Nick and I are going to get high as balls and look at them in a week.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
shittiest weekend of my LIFE
I had a pretty incredible day yesterday. School is just getting better and better. We spent the last week out in the landscape painting, which was great. It turns out painting is really difficult. But the vision aspect of the school is just getting started. We've spent a lot of time talking about things and looking at things, and I'm starting to be aware of things that I was never aware of before in the world around me, mostly pertaining to color relationships and the way the mind looks at something red and green and purple and takes all that information and tells you you're looking at a green tree. And if I want your mind to go through the same process in looking at my art, I can't just paint a green tree, because the tree is so much more than simply green when you really begin to look. So in order to paint a tree that really looks REAL, I have to break down what my mind is seeing into all the things my eyes are seeing and paint that. It's really a lot to think about, especially when you lack technical training in painting. Anyway, so that's what I've been up to in school. Nothing I would ever be learning at Kenyon.
But yesterday we took a field trip. We piled into the bus at 8:30 AM and headed north along one of the original Roman roads to the Luberon Mountains, where we spent our day in a vast valley. We stopped briefly to take a look at a castle that Camut lived in for a while. When he first found it, it was in complete disrepair, inhabited by gypsies who worked in the vinyards and cherry orchards in the area, picking the fruit. But they weren't supposed to be living in the chateau, so Camut and his other artsy type friends kicked them out, at which point the gypsies put a curse on Camut and his friends, that each would die a violent or unexpected death, which happened. Camut was hit by a car or something, and the others died in similar ways. Weird.
Anyway, after looking at the castle, we went through a ravine that during the war had been controlled by the resistance, and then up along a ridge towards the town of Bonnieux, a town of about 1400 that sits up on the hillside. We sat at a bit of a distance, looking at the way the town sat on the hill, and its relationship with the landscape, for about an hour and a half, just talking about it, making sure we were seeing everything. I'll attach a picture of what we were looking at. The town itself is made up of 16th and 17th century architecture, but the church up at the top is 12th century, and it's pretty amazing. Maybe someone can tell me what the tree made of horizontals on top of the hill is? Anyway, after looking at the hillside for a long time, we had about 40 minutes to explore the town and see everything up close. Beautiful. Then we bought some bread and local cheese and sausage and some pastries and headed across the valley.
All the way across the valley was the town of Lacoste, a little bigger, but not much, and equally beautiful. In Lacoste, we walked down into what used to be a terraced farmland, and is now a terraced oak forest. The trees look more like live oaks in Georgia than anything else, and we picnicked at the site where John, our teacher, had camped out for a month in the forest painting with the founder of our school, Leo Marchutz, back in the 70s. After a nice relaxing lunch, we headed into some other woods to check it out. We wandered around on this wooded plateau, where we found some ruins of old stone farmhouses. The word farmhouse is misleading, because you think of a farmhouse and you think of something quaint and modest. These were huge and elaborate, stone and plaster houses dating back hundreds and hundreds of years. The most recent was 18th century. There was also an old borie, a stone (but no cement) beehive-shaped building that was built during one of the plagues. It's extraordinarily complex inside and really cool looking, with many rooms and a hallway. Very cool.
After we had experienced the woods, we drove to a Cistertian monastery to look at its architecture. We spent the whole time in silence, like the monks do, only talking at the very end to reflect on what we had seen. It was simplistically beautiful, with GREAT acoustics (for the gregorian chants they do 3 or 4 times a day). The way the monastery supports itself is by farming wheat and lavender, which, unfortunately, had just been harvested a few weeks ago, although I can hardly complain because it was still breathtaking.
This week has more painting in store for me, so hopefully I'll start to get better. And then on friday we skip class to go on another field trip to Arles to study the area that Van Gogh loved to paint. After that, on Saturday, we spend the day sailing around off the coast of Marseille. It really stinks here, and I wish I could be back in cold, grey Ohio.
But yesterday we took a field trip. We piled into the bus at 8:30 AM and headed north along one of the original Roman roads to the Luberon Mountains, where we spent our day in a vast valley. We stopped briefly to take a look at a castle that Camut lived in for a while. When he first found it, it was in complete disrepair, inhabited by gypsies who worked in the vinyards and cherry orchards in the area, picking the fruit. But they weren't supposed to be living in the chateau, so Camut and his other artsy type friends kicked them out, at which point the gypsies put a curse on Camut and his friends, that each would die a violent or unexpected death, which happened. Camut was hit by a car or something, and the others died in similar ways. Weird.
Anyway, after looking at the castle, we went through a ravine that during the war had been controlled by the resistance, and then up along a ridge towards the town of Bonnieux, a town of about 1400 that sits up on the hillside. We sat at a bit of a distance, looking at the way the town sat on the hill, and its relationship with the landscape, for about an hour and a half, just talking about it, making sure we were seeing everything. I'll attach a picture of what we were looking at. The town itself is made up of 16th and 17th century architecture, but the church up at the top is 12th century, and it's pretty amazing. Maybe someone can tell me what the tree made of horizontals on top of the hill is? Anyway, after looking at the hillside for a long time, we had about 40 minutes to explore the town and see everything up close. Beautiful. Then we bought some bread and local cheese and sausage and some pastries and headed across the valley.
All the way across the valley was the town of Lacoste, a little bigger, but not much, and equally beautiful. In Lacoste, we walked down into what used to be a terraced farmland, and is now a terraced oak forest. The trees look more like live oaks in Georgia than anything else, and we picnicked at the site where John, our teacher, had camped out for a month in the forest painting with the founder of our school, Leo Marchutz, back in the 70s. After a nice relaxing lunch, we headed into some other woods to check it out. We wandered around on this wooded plateau, where we found some ruins of old stone farmhouses. The word farmhouse is misleading, because you think of a farmhouse and you think of something quaint and modest. These were huge and elaborate, stone and plaster houses dating back hundreds and hundreds of years. The most recent was 18th century. There was also an old borie, a stone (but no cement) beehive-shaped building that was built during one of the plagues. It's extraordinarily complex inside and really cool looking, with many rooms and a hallway. Very cool.
After we had experienced the woods, we drove to a Cistertian monastery to look at its architecture. We spent the whole time in silence, like the monks do, only talking at the very end to reflect on what we had seen. It was simplistically beautiful, with GREAT acoustics (for the gregorian chants they do 3 or 4 times a day). The way the monastery supports itself is by farming wheat and lavender, which, unfortunately, had just been harvested a few weeks ago, although I can hardly complain because it was still breathtaking.
This week has more painting in store for me, so hopefully I'll start to get better. And then on friday we skip class to go on another field trip to Arles to study the area that Van Gogh loved to paint. After that, on Saturday, we spend the day sailing around off the coast of Marseille. It really stinks here, and I wish I could be back in cold, grey Ohio.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Nice and Cassis... Jacques Cousteau!
So I've finally gotten around to writing about Nice and Cassis, the two coastal towns I visited this past weekend.
On Saturday, we all piled into a bus and headed towards Nice. It's about two hours away from Aix, and it was just about the prettiest drive I've ever done. Leaving Aix, we went south east, passing the long part of Mont Sainte Victoire. That mountain is enormous. Climbing it next weekend, as I hope to do, will be quite the adventure. It's pretty tall, but what's most impressive is that its cliff face must stretch for three miles! Very impressive. Then we wound through the countryside, passing by small french town after small french town, and loads of rolling hills, all covered in beautifully scraggly brush and dwarfed, stunted trees. We passed by Cannes, where we got our first glimpse of the Mediterranean, and soon arrived in the aptly named Nice.
Upon arrival in the French Riviera, we got paninis at an outdoor cafe, and walked over to the pebbled beaches, where we met up with some of the other IAU kids. Most of the early afternoon, we floated in the clear blue water. It's impressive how far down you can see, and how steeply the shore drops off. You can get about 50 feet out and you're in 20 foot deep water. The really amazing part is that you'd really have to try pretty hard to drown, not only because of the total lack of waves and current, but because the water is so salty, should you get tired treading water or swimming, you can just relax and end up with all 10 toes out of the water, floating on your back.
After a couple hours of sea side play time, we decided to climb up to the top of the hill and get a good look at the city. So we walked up the maze of stairs and walkways leading to the top of a shockingly steep hill on the eastern edge of the city, where we found vast views and a waterfall. I was puzzled at how a waterfall could start at the top of such a steep hill, and nobody could really give me an answer, but there it was. After some serious photo taking, we wandered back down, through the market in the old city, and back to the bus that took us back to Aix via a restaurant.
The next day we woke up bright and early to go to Cassis, a coastal fishing village, still unspoiled by foreign tourism. After checking out the harbor and the shops for a half hour or so, we went with the same people we had explored Nice with on about a 90 minute hike to the west, to explore a series of inlets in the cliffs, known as "les calanques," each with it's own little "hidden" beach. There we spent the day picknicking on baguette sandwiches, lounging by the beach, and, at the suggestion of a funny elderly french couple who had docked their yacht in the calanque, jumping off the tall, white cliffs. It was pretty great. Eventually we had to tear ourselves away from our little paradise we had discovered, and walk back to the boat.
After the excitement of this weekend, this week has been pretty slow. I'm learning a lot about drawing, tho, between the advice I've been getting from my teachers and the help on the side that all the other students can give me (they pretty much all have previous training in drawing). So I'm learning helpful technique tidbits from my fellow students, and from my teachers, i'm slowly learning how to create a vibrant and cohesive world of my own on the page, instead of just copying down what I see. Every day I spend here, I get happier and happier with my decision to come here. As I told mom yesterday, I really think I'm going to grow a bunch here. I'm trying very hard to buy into the whole attitude they have that, regardless of my previous experience (or lack thereof) I became an artist as soon as I started at Marchutz, and I think the more I'm able to get myself to think that way, the more success I'll have in the program.
That's all for now, but I'll have more to say soon, as we leave for Oktoberfest in 24 hours!
On Saturday, we all piled into a bus and headed towards Nice. It's about two hours away from Aix, and it was just about the prettiest drive I've ever done. Leaving Aix, we went south east, passing the long part of Mont Sainte Victoire. That mountain is enormous. Climbing it next weekend, as I hope to do, will be quite the adventure. It's pretty tall, but what's most impressive is that its cliff face must stretch for three miles! Very impressive. Then we wound through the countryside, passing by small french town after small french town, and loads of rolling hills, all covered in beautifully scraggly brush and dwarfed, stunted trees. We passed by Cannes, where we got our first glimpse of the Mediterranean, and soon arrived in the aptly named Nice.
Upon arrival in the French Riviera, we got paninis at an outdoor cafe, and walked over to the pebbled beaches, where we met up with some of the other IAU kids. Most of the early afternoon, we floated in the clear blue water. It's impressive how far down you can see, and how steeply the shore drops off. You can get about 50 feet out and you're in 20 foot deep water. The really amazing part is that you'd really have to try pretty hard to drown, not only because of the total lack of waves and current, but because the water is so salty, should you get tired treading water or swimming, you can just relax and end up with all 10 toes out of the water, floating on your back.
After a couple hours of sea side play time, we decided to climb up to the top of the hill and get a good look at the city. So we walked up the maze of stairs and walkways leading to the top of a shockingly steep hill on the eastern edge of the city, where we found vast views and a waterfall. I was puzzled at how a waterfall could start at the top of such a steep hill, and nobody could really give me an answer, but there it was. After some serious photo taking, we wandered back down, through the market in the old city, and back to the bus that took us back to Aix via a restaurant.
The next day we woke up bright and early to go to Cassis, a coastal fishing village, still unspoiled by foreign tourism. After checking out the harbor and the shops for a half hour or so, we went with the same people we had explored Nice with on about a 90 minute hike to the west, to explore a series of inlets in the cliffs, known as "les calanques," each with it's own little "hidden" beach. There we spent the day picknicking on baguette sandwiches, lounging by the beach, and, at the suggestion of a funny elderly french couple who had docked their yacht in the calanque, jumping off the tall, white cliffs. It was pretty great. Eventually we had to tear ourselves away from our little paradise we had discovered, and walk back to the boat.
After the excitement of this weekend, this week has been pretty slow. I'm learning a lot about drawing, tho, between the advice I've been getting from my teachers and the help on the side that all the other students can give me (they pretty much all have previous training in drawing). So I'm learning helpful technique tidbits from my fellow students, and from my teachers, i'm slowly learning how to create a vibrant and cohesive world of my own on the page, instead of just copying down what I see. Every day I spend here, I get happier and happier with my decision to come here. As I told mom yesterday, I really think I'm going to grow a bunch here. I'm trying very hard to buy into the whole attitude they have that, regardless of my previous experience (or lack thereof) I became an artist as soon as I started at Marchutz, and I think the more I'm able to get myself to think that way, the more success I'll have in the program.
That's all for now, but I'll have more to say soon, as we leave for Oktoberfest in 24 hours!
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