June is Gay Pride Month.  President Clinton declared June “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month” in 1999 and 2000. President Obama declared June “LGBT Pride Month” during his term in office from 2009 until 2016. President Biden revived the celebration, and he declared June “LGBTQ+ Pride Month” in 2021. Several of the recognized “old masters,” including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, were gay, as are some well-known contemporary artists. In her work, Mickalene Thomas, a gay African-American woman artist, celebrates and challenges the classical canons of style and creates a new contemporary canon depicting African-American women.   

Born in 1971 in Camden, New Jersey, Mickalene Thomas grew up in Hillside and East Orange, New Jersey. She and her brother were mostly raised by their mother, Sandra “Mama Bush,” a striking 6’1’’ tall model active in the 1970’s. Mama Bush enrolled Mickalene and her brother in after-school programs at the Newark Museum and the Henry Street Settlement. Thomas moved to Portland, Oregon, to study pre-law and theater. Her friends were musicians and artists, and her interests changed. When a friend took her to the Portland Art Museum in 1994 to see the work of Carrie Mae Weems, Thomas was overwhelmed: “It was probably the first time I ever saw myself in art. Those photographs really hit the core. I felt, that’s what you can do with art? Wow. One day after I went to see the show on my own, I didn’t even think about it, I just walked to the art-supply store.” She completed a BFA in 2000 at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and an MFA in painting at Yale in 2002.

Thomas is a multimedia artist specializing in photography and mixed media painting. An excellent example of her art is “Le dejeuner sur l’herbe: Les trois Femmes Noires” (2010) (48’’ x 60’’) (photograph) in the Baltimore Museum of Art. This piece is the first stage in her process. Her chosen subject was and continues to be African-American women wearing bright and eclectic patterned clothing that she designs. In this instance, the photograph was for a larger work commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York for its restaurant. Thomas used the sculpture garden on the roof of MoMA for the setting. The women are placed in front of one of Matisse’s “Backs,” a series of four female nude bronze relief sculptures. Her choice of these sculptures was a tribute to Matisse, one of her several influences. Thomas’s photographs are considered by the art world as separate but equal to her paintings as works of art.

Thomas frequently selects famous works of the “masters” and updates them. For the large MoMA restaurant window, Thomas selected Manet’s famous and, at the time, scandalous painting “Le dejeuner sur l’herbe” (1865). The subject seems tame today, but in 1865, the idea of a nude woman seated with clothed men casually picnicking in a public park in Paris was shocking. The public and the critics responded negatively. The woman boldly and unashamedly gazes at the viewer, her straw hat and blue dress scattered on the ground at the left, along with the empty bottles, rolls, and fruit. Another woman in the background appears to be about to undress.

Thomas’s completed commission, “Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires” (2010) (10 feet tall by 24 feet wide) (mixed media collage and painting), was displayed in the 53rd Street window of the MoMA restaurant The Modern. Thomas has changed the dynamic of the composition to include only three African-American woman. Fully dressed, they wear elaborate make-up and large Afro’s. All three look confidently at the viewer, inviting the viewer’s gaze. Art historians long have commented on the concept of “the gaze,” referring to white males looking at women in paintings, male artists looking at their models, and male audiences looking at paintings of women in museums. Thomas has given African-American women a major presence in all of her art, and she has created a new legacy for “the gaze.” The painting has traveled to several locations across North America including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Seattle Art Museum. Catherina Manchanda, curator of the Seattle Art Museum commented, “These women are so grounded and perfectly comfortable in their own space… While we might be looking at them, they are also sizing us up.” 

To create the forest background, Thomas uses collaged wood panels, painted a blue sky, painted stylized trees, and placed Matisse’s bronze sculpture on a yellow wall between two of the women. The picnic still-life is created from several floral fabrics juxtaposed with well-placed but random flat color pieces. The influence of her artist muses, Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, and Faith Ringgold, to mention a few, can be seen in her tendency to include flat panels of color and interspersed lines that do not outline images, but enliven the work.

 

Essential to Thomas’s work is her lavish embellishment with rhinestones and sequins. When she was working on her master’s degree at Yale, Thomas commented, “I always felt my hand needed more. It wasn’t physical enough form. Visually, I felt the paint needed more texture, and I couldn’t figure out how to do that with oils. So, I went back to materials I had fun with.” Remembering the pointillism of Seurat and Australian aboriginal dot painting, she tried it out: “It just felt so good and right. And [these portraits] were crazy. And they were ugly and they were beautiful.” The “Dejeuner” was the largest work that Thomas had done, and it gave her the opportunity to spread her wings. She has never looked back: ”I’d embarked on this new endeavor of understanding the presence of this black body on that scale…It was always a political statement: people need to come in contact with this body, be face to face with it. It’s the ultimate sense of validation and the claiming of space.”

Thomas’s “Three Graces: Les trois Femmes Noires” (2011) is based on the poses of Botticelli’s three graces in “Primavera” (1477-82) (80’’ x 124’’). Although Botticelli’s three graces are clothed in sheer garments that hide nothing, he was soon to paint “The Birth of Venus” (1485-1486), that introduces the nude female to the canon of artistic images. Thomas’s works often includes African-American nude females, following such notable masters as Titian, Rubens, and Ingres. 

““Three Graces: Les trois Femmes Noires” (2011) (9 feet tall x 12 feet wide) (North Carolina Museum of Art) illustrates all of the elements of Thomas’s unique style. The three graces are buffed, fluffed, and dressed to the nines. Proud, strong, and totally comfortable, they are ready to party and do not care who sees them. The dresses and hair, heavily decorated with rhinestones and sequins, add to their joyful mood. The size of the figures and the viewer are on par, and the women take over the space. 

Thomas’s unusual fabric choices are also a significant part of her work. She remembers her grandmother using second-hand clothes to patch worn furniture. Her choice of fabrics come from old house dresses she finds in thrift stores: “I love house dresses — the pattern, the history, knowing that a particular woman wore this, like your grandma.” She believes the juxtaposition of the various fabrics is an “amalgamation of all of the different things we are as Americans.”

Thomas has made numerous portraits of famous African-American women, including Oprah Winfrey, Eartha Kitt, Whitney Houston, and Condoleezza Rice. Thomas’s silkscreen of “Michele O” (2008) (25’’ x 19.5’’), without the usual embellishments, was the first individual portrait of the First Lady. More recently, she had a solo exhibition Mentors, Muses and Celebrities (2017) at the Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis.  The Gordon Levy Gallery opened in 2021 Thomas exhibitions in its four locations: New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong. 

“Could a man have made these images? No, not my images.” (Mickalene Thomas)

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

 

This weekend, Juneteenth will be celebrated in Chestertown and across the country. On June 19,1865, General Gordon Granger entered Galveston, Texas, with 2000 troops, and he read to the people General Order No.3. It was two years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but Texans were unaware that all slaves had been freed. This announcement affected more than 250,000 enslaved people in Texas. The first annual Jubilee Day was celebrated in Texas on June 19, 1866. Thus, the national celebration of Juneteenth was born. From that date until 2021, the number of grass roots festivals celebrating Jubilee Day, Freedom Day, Emancipation Day, or Juneteenth has increased. Juneteenth became an official state holiday in Texas in 1979. On June 19, 2014, Congressman Al Green submitted recognition of the holiday into the Congressional Record. President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law on June 17, 2021.

Until 2021, art celebrating Juneteenth consisted of posters from across the country announcing events to celebrate the holiday. Art by “the old masters” does not yet exist, but art works by contemporary artists are increasing in number. Reginald Adams (b.1972, Cheyenne, Wyoming) traveled through much of America during his youth. Adams moved to Houston in 1990, and he was introduced to the celebration of Juneteenth. For the last 20 years he and his team of artists, The Creatives, have produced more than 350 public art projects. Adams was commissioned to paint “Absolute Equality” (2021) (126 feet long by 40 feet tall) by historian Samuel Collins III. Collins, a descendent of one of the slaves freed in 1865, served as Co-Chair of the Juneteenth Legacy Project.

The mural “Absolute Equality” is painted on the wall of the Old Galveston Square Building. It once served as Union headquarters, and it was the same location where General Granger had read General Order No. 3. Adams worked with other artists, students, and community members to understand fully the meaning of Juneteenth for Texans. Adams commented, “One of the elements that we want to do is see that this mural is beyond just a beautification of a downtown building in Galveston, but also an actual story wall, where, through some new augmented reality technology, a user can take their phone and, through this application, uncover everything. We’re making history about history.”

Adams tells the story with what he calls windows to the past, nine white circles surrounding specific events and people. The circle at the lower left corner contains a painted image of a sculpted head from the Olmec (Inca) civilization (Gulf Coast of Mexico, 1200-400 BCE). It recognizes the original inhabitants of Galveston. At the top left, the white circle encloses a map of Africa and South America with red arrows that identify the shipping routes used to bring slaves to Mexico and South America.

The mural reads from left to right. The first large full circle depicts the enslaved Moorish navigator Estevanico, who was shipwrecked off the coast of Galveston in 1528. Below the circle, five young African boys, arms in shackles, walk forward along the sea coast. They are led and directed by an African man. Above them, in the third circle, is the image of Harriet Tubman of Dorchester County, Maryland. She holds a beacon lantern and beckons slaves to follow her to freedom. It is not known if Tubman ever worked in Texas, but the Underground Railroad was active there. Adams has placed her next to President Lincoln, against aa scene of black soldiers wearing Union uniforms. They are members of the 54th Massachusetts regiment, the first African-American regiment to serve in the American Civil War.

The next circle depicts President Lincoln holding the Emancipation Proclamation in his right hand and a pair of iron shackles in his left. Behind him, the Great Seal of the United States is set against a background of waving red, white and blue stripes. Five white doves are messengers of peace and freedom. At the bottom, a number of raised and shackled fists salute Lincoln.

As the American flag unfurls, three more doves and a circle of white stars lead the viewer to the next circle. Seated at a desk, General Gordon Granger signs the General Order No.1. Several of his African-American troops are present to see that the order is properly and efficiently carried out. General Granger read General Order #3 to several different groups of the Galveston population on June 17, although he did not sign that order. On discovering that General Granger had not signed General Order #3, for historical accuracy, Adams painted out the number 3 and replaced it with the number 1, a similar order that Granger had signed.

Farther to the right, and into more modern time, in the lowest circle, white doves fly over the Hotel Galvez and the seawall built to protect Galveston from flooding. Later in Galveston history, the Hotel Galvez served as a temporary White House for President Roosevelt and as a Coast Guard facility during World War II. In the uppermost circle, an astronaut stands before a golden sunset and looks toward the future of all Americans. Although the race of the astronaut is not identified, NASA has sent more than fifteen African-American astronauts, including African-American woman, on missions to space.

In the last circle, Adams depicts in silhouette contemporary African-American citizens of all ages, including the disabled, walking forward into the future. General Order #3 is written in white letters set against a black line along the bottom of the mural. The title “Absolute Equality” stands out in large letters on the wall. At the lower right corner of the wall, an American eagle, its head turned toward to future, wings spread, clasps in its beak a banner containing the date 1865. “Absolute Equality” was unveiled to the Galveston public on June 19, 2021.

Adams hoped his work would lead to conversations about contemporary social issues arising from slavery and years of inequality: “Projects like this are important to tell American history in a more accurate way. These types of projects also open up new doorways for social dialogue regarding social justice and racial equity. The magnitude, scale, and beauty of the mural make it a lot easier for people with differing opinions or attitudes around racial issues to have a more open and transparent conversation. The mural helps place a sweetness around the harsh and bitter taste of racism and social inequities.”

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

Jean Honore Fragonard (1732-1806) became one of the most popular painters of the French Rococo style. The courts of King Louis XV (1715-1774) and Louis XVI (1754-1793) were known for their luxury and excess. Although it was the age of Enlightenment, with Voltaire wanting religious toleration and Diderot publishing the first encyclopedia, Fragonard’s patrons wanted scenes of festivals, mythological lovers, and entertainments, often with sensual implications.

Fragonard’s patrons often requested series of paintings in groups of four or five. The National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.) contains four of these paintings. “Blind Man’s Bluff” (1775-76) (85’’ x 73’’) depicts a large garden of a French estate. Under a blue sky with fluffy white clouds, two fountains, formal flower beds, a variety of tall trees, marble colonnades, and a well-groomed lawn provide a romantic and breath-taking setting. At the right, members of the party enjoy a luncheon buffet while they watch a game of blind man’s bluff. Closer in, a couple enjoys sitting on the grass as they too look on.

The marble fountain at the left spurts high into the air. The female figures that form the base of the fountain may represent the Vestal Virgins, Roman maidens who served the goddess of the Hearth, Vesta. Their job was to see that the sacred fire of the hearth never went out. To be a Vestal Virgin, a young girl was required to take a vow of chastity. Another statue of a woman can be seen on a hilltop at the right. Too small to identify, it is likely a statue of the goddess Vesta, or possibly Athena, who frequently is depicted wearing a helmet because she is both the goddess of wisdom and war. 

The main attraction is the blind-folded young woman in a white gown, who turns awkwardly around trying to find one of her friends. Others in the party dodge to stay out of her reach. The game is fun, but its depiction is intended to suggest the difficulty of finding a suitable partner. Or, given the presence of the Vestal Virgins, perhaps the message would be it is better to remain unmarried. In the distance others enjoy this pleasant park.

“The Swing” (1775-76) (85” x 73”) is the companion to “Blind Man’s Bluff.” The viewer can see the matching trellis of pink and red flowers at the lower left and right corners of the two paintings when they are hung side by side. The foliage of the trees also presents a continuous view across the paintings. A young woman, dressed in pink and gold, sits on the swing. She raises her left hand to greet her friends. The swing is pulled with a rope by a gentleman who stands between the two fountains, the water flowing from the mouths of the lions. At the left corner, a gentleman in green and a woman in red play with their child in the lion fountain. Her friends watch from the lawn and talk with one another.

At the right corner of the painting, a woman in red and her companion sit on a marble platform. She is looking through a telescope. Too close to be using the telescope to look at her friend, she appears to look off into the distance. What is she looking at? Or more interesting, what is she looking for? 

Is this Fragonard work just another lovely scene of people having fun, or could there be another interpretation? Paired with the blind-folded woman seeking a mate, the back- and-forth movement of the swing and the pulling on the rope suggest the culmination of the act of love. Although these suggestions were slight, other of Fragonard’s paintings, for instance his “Swing” of 1766, leave no doubt about the intention of the artist with regard to the desires of his patrons.

“A Game of Horse and Rider” (1775-80) (45.5” x34.5”) again depicts a scene set in a large garden. However, this garden is natural, not formal, as is the subject matter. The informal garden does not have not well-designed flower beds, or carefully organized marble walls. The trunks of the tall birches at the left side crisscross each other, reaching high into the sky, with their, leaves fanning out. At the right side an old gnarled tree, missing most of its leaves, is silhouetted against the sky. There are no paths, and the grass meets a winding stream, where in the distance a gondola pulls up to the shore to let off passengers who have come to enjoy the day. 

The figures in the foreground also provide contrast. The adults at the left of the scene lounge quietly on the grass, engaged in conversation. Beyond them a young boy runs, feet flying and arms raised in anticipation of jumping into the game. The rowdy game of horse and rider takes place under to the old tree. 

The game of horse and rider is made up of two teams. The multi legged horse team braces itself against the tree. The riders race in and jump onto the horse. It is then the job of the horse to try to shake off all of the riders. This accomplished, the teams trade places. It is a rough and tumble game for boys. Meanwhile, the young man and woman may be discussing a later “tussle” of their own.

 

“A Game of Hot Cockles” (1775-80) (45.5” x 34.5”) is the companion piece to “A Game of Horse and Rider.” There is evidence that these paintings were cut down to make them shorter. However, the dates and subject matter suggest they were a part of the same series, or of a very similar series by Fragonard. He created many of these painted series. Both paintings depict a couple lounging on the grass and engaging in private conversation. The gardens contrast the natural with the formal, and have paths at the center that lead into the distance. The “Hot Cockles” garden is formal, with designed beds, steps leading to a path, and sculptures. A young couple sits on a stone bench at the left. 

A game of hot cockles is being played by a lively group of young people at the right side of the painting. The game of hot cockles, has nothing to do with cockles and muscles, but was a sensuous treat. The “penitent,” the man dressed in gold, kneels before a young woman, placing his head on her lap. How often would this have occurred? His hand placed on his back, he endures other players taking turns slapping his hand, or his bum. It is his job to decide who has slapped him. In this instance, he appears to point at either the lady in blue or the other woman who huddles with her. Of course, the “penitent” can misidentify who has slapped him in order to continue to bury his face in the woman’s lap.

Two sculptures are placed in the garden. The figure of a woman at the left is most likely a goddess, but not so identified. At the right, on top of the pedestal is the well-known sculpture titled “Menacing Cupid” by Etienne Maurice Falconet. Cupid holds his finger to his lips, and he watches the naughty game.

Fragonard’s travels to Italy, including several visits to its beautiful parks, gardens, and fountains, left an indelible mark on his imagination. Although the four paintings in the National Gallery were not painted in Italy, they reflect Fragonard’s enthusiasm for his subject. He painted with a fluid brush stroke well suited to the charm of his figures and their settings. He is described by art historians as a virtuoso. 

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) is known best for his paintings and prints. He began the study of art at age fourteen (1760), he was and so talented that he was able to set up his own studio in 1763. Goya was mentored by Ramon Bayeu y Subias, then at the Royal Tapestry Factory in Madrid to design tapestries for the El Escorial and El Prado palaces of King Charles III. The King’s painter Raphael Mengs invited Goya to become a principal designer at the Royal Tapestry works in 1774. He received the much sought-after position of principal designer in 1776. Goya was just 30 years old. His first commission was to complete the series Bayeu y Subias that had begun a few years earlier. Goya worked at the Royal Tapestry Factory from 1775 until 1792, and produced 63 cartoons. Cartoons were painted as guides for the weaving of tapestries.

 Goya’s first commission came from the Prince and Princess of Asturias, later King Charles IV and Queen Maria Luisa de Parma, for the dining room at El Escorial Palace. They wanted bright and colorful tapestries of everyday life in Spain.  Goya presented the idea for “The Parasol” in 1775, the year he arrived at the Factory. He first presented small sketches and then a full-scale cartoon. “The Parasol” (1777) (41” x 60”) (oil on linen) is the final design for the weavers. A fashionably dressed woman, in a blue, yellow, and white silk gown in the latest French style, is relaxing on the ground. Wearing red flowers in her hair, she holds a fan. Her black dog rests comfortably in her lap. Behind her, a Majo (poor person of the period) holds a green parasol to provide shade. Standing with his hand on his hip, he seems slightly discontent. It is a sunny day, but gray clouds are on the horizon. A tree blows in the wind. Goya’s painting anticipates a storm might be brewing. 

The Majas were the lower class of Spanish society, particularly in Madrid.  They defied the popular French style of clothing worn by the rich, and instead wore traditional Spanish garb that they elevated with elaborate decoration. They were well known for their shameless behavior and their flirtatious manner. They Majas were one of Goya’s favorite subjects. “The Dance of the Majas on the Banks of the Manzanares” (1777) (8.9’ x 9.67’) (oil on linen) depicts the Sequidillas, a popular country dance accompanied by a guitar. They laugh and talk, and generally enjoy themselves on the river bank. The Majas’ (females) dresses are decorated with Spanish lace and embroidery, and their hair is covered with netting. The Majos (males), wearing bright colored and decorated jackets, knee britches, and hair nets, exuberantly point their toes in the dance. Across the river at the right is a country house, and in the distant background are the towers of buildings in Madrid. Goya has again placed a wind-blown tree against a cloudy blue sky. He was quite familiar with this setting since it was not far from La Quinta de Sorto, a house and land he purchased in 1819.

During his tenure as principal designer, Goya developed seven series of cartoons on themes including the seasons, hunting, and the ages of man. Each finished cartoon was the same size as the tapestry. “The Parasol” (3’5’’ x 5’) was placed over a window in the dining room. The size of “The Dance of the Majas on the Banks of the Manzanares” (8.9’ x 9.67’), indicates it was to be hung on a wall. “Boy on a Ram” (1786-87) (50’’ x 40’’) was a smaller panel that would hang above a door. This cartoon was part of a series Goya created about the ages of man, or the passage of time. The young boy wears the fashionable skeleton suit, a high waisted and tight-fitting jacket buttoned to high-waisted trousers. Made of a festive orange and black striped fabric, the suit is decorated with a white lace color and cuffs, and complemented by a wide orange sash. 

The boy rides on a ram, the sign of Aries, recognized as the beginning of the first months of spring, March and April. The tapestry represents both youth and the coming of spring. The sky is blue and the trees are leafing out in a variety of greens. 

“The Straw Manikin” (1791-92) (8.75’ x 5.25’) is from the seventh and last suite of Goya cartoons, and it was the last cartoon Goya designed. Four colorfully dressed Majas playfully toss a manikin high into the air. The rosy-cheeked Majas smile and enjoy their game in a fresh green landscape of lawn and trees. The life-sized male manikin is totally helpless, its arms and legs hang twisted in impossible positions. Goya calls the viewer’s attention to the manikin’s facial expression by accentuating his very round rosy pink cheeks. The yellow blanket, placed at a diagonal, draws the viewer into the composition and contrasts with the deep black shadow it casts on the ground. A mass of dark gray clouds cut diagonally across the blue sky, signaling a storm is coming. 

Goya had experienced 18 years at the Spanish court beginning with the enlightened and kindly King Charles III, who reigned from 1759 until 1788. The reign of King Charles IV, from 1788 until 1808, brought corruption and disaster. All Europe witnessed the success of the American revolution of 1776, and France was in the middle its Revolution of 1789. Goya became Painter to the King in 1786 and court painter in 1789, providing him intimate knowledge of the unscrupulous behavior of the Spanish court. His royal portraits frequently depicted subtle hints of decay. His series of prints contain sarcastic and ironic images. The dark clouds and the hapless male manikin at the very least record Goya’s observations of what strong-minded women could do to weak men. Many of his royal portraits depict Queen Marie Luisa, a determined and arrogant woman who dominated her hapless husband Charles IV. 

Blanket tossing was often thought of as a harmless game, often played at carnivals in Europe. However, in Cervantes’ book Don Quixote de La Mancha, published in 1605 and 1615, Sancho Panza is roughly tossed in a blanket by thugs. They are doing it to make fun of him and to torment him. Sancho is incensed at this treatment, a carnival game usually played with dogs.

Goya’s cartoons were carefully stored in the basement of the Royal Tapestry Factory. Most of the cartoons were moved in 1858 to the basement of El Escorial. They were rediscovered in 1870 and taken to El Prado. A catalog was published in 1876. Throughout his life, Goya remained a consummate observer of human nature and produced a body of work that viewers today can enjoy. His work depicts the pleasure and beauty of the world, also its dark and destructive side.

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.
 

 

Renoir at Chatou        

August Renoir (1841-1919) and other artists began to develop a new style of painting in the late 1870’s that was later called Impressionism. They experimented and painting along the Seine in the villages of Argenteuil and Chatou, accessible by train 9 miles west of Paris. Both Renoir and Monet painted in plein air along the river. Monet was interested in the landscape. Renoir found his subject matter in the new young Bourgeoise who came in the summer to sail, row, and enjoy new cafes and entertainments that were springing up in the two towns.

Renoir’s “Oarsmen at Chatou” (1875-79) (32” x39.5”) (National Gallery of Art) is an excellent example of his favorite subject matter: the joys of rowing on the Seine. On a beautiful sunny day, two prospective customers stand casually by the river as a boatman pulls up to the shore and offers them a ride. The well-dressed young lady, in a navy skirt and orange jacket with white ruffles, shows off her flowered hat. She holds her blue skirt up, out of the wet grass, allowing her white ruffled petticoat to show. Her gentleman friend stands in a casual pose. He is dressed in the summer fashion of blue trousers, white jacket, and straw hat. A rowboat, sailboat, and barge are on the river. The white ruffles of the young lady’s dress, the white shirts of the near and far boaters, the white cabin of the barge, and the white side of a house on the distant shore move the viewer’s eye through the composition. Several houses of Chatou are visible.

The painting is composed mainly of the complementary colors, orange and blue. The woman’s orange jacket, the orange boats, and the orange roofs of the distant houses   are wrapped around by the blues of the water and sky. Renoir made the water shimmer in the sunlight with his swift touches of orange and pink. The grass on the shore is dark green with touches of red, yellow, and purple. The water and clothing of the figures are dappled with sunlight.  Renoir captures the fleeting movement of water and wind.

Renoir’s “The Rowers Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise (1879) (25.5”x 26”) (Art Institute of Chicago) depicts one of his favorite places in Chatou: the Maison Fournaise, a restaurant overlooking the Seine. Three figures are seated at a small table shaded from the sun by iron trellises covered with green plants. Flowers on the bank of the river are painted with dots of red that echo the red of the wine cork. Remnants of bread, cheese, and fruit, and empty wine bottles show that lunch is over. Seated with her back to the viewer, the young woman wears a navy-blue flannel dress popular with female boaters. Her gentlemen friends are dressed in white jackets, T-shirts, and trousers. Smoking a cigarette, the figure at the left casually leans back in his chair. The young woman apparently has said something interesting as the man to her left smiles at her. A single rower glides by, and a team of boatmen pull together on their oars.  

Renoir continued the use of the colors of sunlight to create the light and shadow in this composition. Of particular note is his handling of the T-shirt and trousers of the man with the cigarette. His white clothing, in the shade of the trellis, contains a large amount of blue to create the shadows with small dashes of orange and yellow for the highlights. The white outfit contains very little white paint. If placed next to the traditional style of painting shadow on white, this white will appear brighter and whiter.

“Luncheon of the Boating Party” (1881) (4.3” x 5.8”) (Phillips Collection) is one of Renoir’s larger canvases, and it signals the end of his adherence to some of the tenants of Impressionism. His close friends are gathered together on a balcony of the Restaurant Fournaise. The viewer looks on, but does not intrude in their enjoyment of each other’s company. Renoir’s friends are depicted in this painting.  However, they were painted in his studio, in small groups or individually. The still life also was assembled and painted in the studio. Only the background landscape was painted in situ (in place). Renoir moved away from Impressionism between 1878 and 1881. He commented, “Theories don’t make good pictures. For the most part they only serve to mask the shortcomings of the artist. Theories are worked out afterwards in any case.” 

The composition is tightly organized with the table, the railing, and the iron bars of the awning placed on the diagonal. These diagonals are complemented by the opposite diagonal placement of the people. Use of diagonals lends the movement and energy experienced by the viewer. Renoir added the awning later to provide the needed shadow. The fluttering of the awning suggests the breeze that flows over the scene. A railroad bridge is barely noticeable under the stripes of the awning. Two vertical iron poles, the vertical poles of the railing, and the verticals of the wine bottles and glasses add stability to the composition. Impressionist colors depict the light and shadow underneath the awning.  Renoir’s repeated blues, oranges, yellows, purples, reds, and greens draw the viewer’s eye from one group of figures to the other.

One of the delights for viewers of “The Luncheon of the Boating Party” is imagining the various conversations that take place in the scene. All the figures are Renoir’s close friends. At the left, Aline Victorine Chariot is engaged in a conversation with her small dog. She was a seamstress, like Renoir’s mother, and would become Renoir’s wife in 1890. She was 20 years younger than Renoir and bore him his three sons. 

Leaning on the railing behind Aline is Alphonse Fournaise, Jr., son of the owner. He wears a singlet, a new fashion statement invented by an Australian athlete who tore the sleeves off his T-shirt because they were too binding. Across from Aline and at the right is the artist Gustave Caillebotte, also wearing a singlet. Both men wear the newest fashion in hats: the straw boater, fashioned after the canotier straw hats worn by gondoliers in Venice.  The charming young woman leaning on the railing beyond Fournaise is Alphonsine Fournaise, the owner’s daughter. She too wears a boater hat. She is talking with Baron Raoul Barbier, the former mayor of colonial Saigon who then lived in Paris. He was well-known as a ‘bon vivant’ (“one who lives well”). Just beyond Barbier, the young woman having a drink is actress Ellen Andree.

Leaning over the table with Caillebotte is the Visconti Adrien Maggiolo, a journalist for Le Triboulet newspaper. The handsome Maggiolo leans over to talk with Angele Legault, an opera singer at the Opera-Comique. At the top right are Eugene Pierre Lestreingez, an actor and screenwriter who would write several scripts for Renoir’s son Jean Renoir, well-known for his silent films. The other is artist Paul Lhote. The men appear to have said something risqué; the actress Jeanne Samar puts her hands up to cover her ears. Samar performed at Paris’s premier theatre Comedie-Francaise. 

The gentleman in the top hat is Charles Ephrussi, art collector, historian, and founder and editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, the major arts magazine in France. Talking with him and wearing the brown jacket and hat is Jules Laforgue, personal secretary to Ephrussi and a symbolist poet. What a fascinating group of people and what interesting topics may be under discussion among Renoir’s close friend.

The Maison Fournaise was opened in 1867 and closed in 1906. It was left abandoned until1990, when citizens of Chatou, assisted by American private funds from Friends of French art, restored and reopened it. 

“The Luncheon of the Boating Party” is the last of what Renoir considered his Impressionist painting. It continues to be considered by critics and the public alike as one of his best. It was exhibited in the 7th Impressionist Exhibition, and at least three critics considered it the best work in the show. Renoir sold the painting to Paul Durant-Ruel, a very influential art dealer and gallery owner. His son, sold the painting in 1923 to Duncan Phillips for $125,000. It remains one of the prize possessions and most popular works in the Philips Collection (Washington, D.C.).

“To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.”  (Renoir)

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

“I must have flowers, always, and always.”
Claude Monet

Claude Oscar Monet was born in Paris in 1840, but spent much of his youth at the French Normandy beach resorts of Le Havre and Sainte-Adresse. He became interested in art, and when Eugene Boudin saw Monet sketching on the beach, he introduced Monet to the new idea of painting outdoors (plein air). The Industrial Revolution had introduced tubes of oil paint with screw caps. Previously, everything was painted indoors, even landscapes, because oil paint was kept in leather pouches tied with cords. Taking pouches of paint outdoors was impossible. Portable easels also were introduced, making it easier to move outside. Boudin and Monet were among the first to experiment with this new plein air technique.

From the beginning, one of Monet’s favorite subjects was beautiful gardens. Well known for his paintings of waterlilies, Monet also was a consummate gardener. “The Artist’s House at Argenteuil” (1873) (24’’ x 29’’) depicts Monet’s wife Camille standing in the doorway of the house and his six-year-old son Jean playing with a hoop. However, the major component of the composition is the garden. Large Chinese vases filled with flowering plants stand in front of the flowers along the edge of the house. Vines grow on the walls and flower fill the beds along the path. Tall green trees help shade the sunlit path. The sun is out and the sky is blue; it is a beautiful spring day.

Monet and his family settled in Argenteuil in 1871, after spending almost two years in London, where he fled to avoid the Franco-Prussian war (1870-71). Argenteuil was down the river from Paris. Monet reengaged with his fellow artists, among them Pissarro, Degas, and Renoir. During this period, Monet and the others experimented with the style that would be called Impressionism. Painting in plein air, Monet depicted light and shadow using only the colors that appear in sunlight: purple, blue, green yellow, orange, and red.  Jean’s white outfit is tinted with blue for the shadows and touches of orange for the highlights. Likewise, the earth, largely in shadow, is composed of a mixture of blues and oranges that when mixed create a light brown. Since light, shadow, and wind constantly change outside, Monet used a flickering brush stroke full of paint to give the landscape the sense of the movement he saw. “The Artist’s House at Argenteuil” and Monet’s famous “Impression Sunrise” (1872) were among his works in the first Impressionist Exhibition of 1873.

Monet moved his family to Giverny (1883), a small town between Paris and Rouen. The rented house was located on a 2 ½ acre site that included an apple orchard, a vegetable garden, and a barn he used as a studio. His paintings were selling well, and he accrued sufficient funds to purchase the house in 1890. He lived there until his death in 1926. From the beginning, he reorganized the gardens to suit his love of flowers and trees. The vegetable garden next to the house, was moved, and the spot became a flower garden. He sowed seeds and planted oriental poppies, peonies, sunflowers, nasturtiums, daffodils, primroses, tulips, narcissus, marigolds, pansies, azaleas, rhododendrons, foxgloves, snap dragons, clematis, roses, and irises. The flowers were organized to provide continuous color; when one species died another was there to replace it. He gardened with his artist friend Gustave Caillebotte, and they swapped seeds and cuttings, exchanging ideas and experiences. Flowers were arranged according to their colors. There always were flowers to cut for vases and large arrangements in the house. Monet built greenhouses to protect his collections of orchids. He hired two gardeners, and then four more, to work with him to fulfill his elaborate plans.

One of Monet’s favorite flowers was the iris.  Among the many types of irises, he cultivated the species “Iris Mme. Claude Monet.” His work “The Iris Garden at Giverny” (1899-1900) (35” x 36’’) depicts the vibrant arrangement of colors blue, purple, pink, and yellow that formed this garden. Art lovers are familiar with his series of waterlilies that he painted from 1903 until 1908. He also is known for his series of haystack and Rouen Cathedral paintings. He is less known for his series of iris paintings. For each series he set up a number of canvases that he worked on at the same time. He stated, “I want the unattainable. Other artists paint a bridge, a boat, a house and that’s the end. I want to paint the air that surrounds the bridge, the house, the boat, the beauty of the air in which these objects are located.” 

Monet painted gardens of irises and small groups of irises.  “Irises” (1917) depicts a small bunch of purple irises against a light blue and pink sky. It is one of a number of Monet’s small still lifes. Irises are a familiar sight in Chestertown right now. They are welcome signs of Spring.

 “The Path Through the Irises” (1914) (78.78” x 70.78”), is a very large painting of Monet’s iris garden. It depicts another image of his beloved garden and the many paths that still allow thousands of visitors to wander and wonder every year. Articles in magazines and newspapers continue reporting on this special place.

 

One aspect of Monet’s gardens that is not often reported or depicted is his cottage garden. It included cabbages, radishes, kale, turnips, peas, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, onions, endive, beets, parsnips, carrots, zucchini, celery, rhubarb, asparagus, melons, cucumbers, garlic, shallots, and Chinese artichokes, which he introduced. He was a master gardener.

“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.”
Claude Monet

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

 

The Rococo painter Marguerite Gerard (1761-1847), born in Grasse, France, specialized in genre paintings of mothers and children. Marguerite’s father Claude Gerard was a distiller of perfume. Grasse, on the hills north of Cannes, was and continues to be known as the perfume center of the world. Following the death of her mother when Gerard was fourteen, she went to live in Paris with her older sister Marie-Anne and her husband. Marie-Anne was a miniaturist and the spouse painter Jean Honore Fragonard.  Fragonard and his family lived in the Louvre, at that time the royal palace, and Gerard had access to study the royal collection and the opportunity to meet many important French artists. 

Gerard wanted to be an artist, and by 1778 she had become Fragonard’s student and assistant. Together they created nine etchings between 1770 and 1778.  “The Child and the Bulldog” (1778) (etching 6.75” x 8.75”) (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City) is Gerard’s copy of Fragonard’s original drawing titled “The First Riding Lesson.” The quality of the work suggests Gerard was talented and a quick learner, able to depict the scene accurately and artistically.  At the time, Fragonard and Marie-Anne had two children, a girl and a boy. The young boy about to ride the Bulldog likely is her nephew, Alexandre (b.1770).  Although Gerard never married or had children, she helped to raise the Fragonard children. Mothers and children became her chosen subject matter.

 Gerard and Fragonard collaborated on several of her early paintings, for example, “The Beloved Child’ (1780-85) (23.75 x 28.75’’) (Fogg Museum, Harvard University). The choice of the subject of mother and child subject was Gerard’s. A young, beautiful, and well-dressed mother pulls her child in a gilded red carriage through a lush landscape. Her pink silk dress is covered by a sheer white and green gown with a ruffled neckline.  She pulls the carriage with her pink shawl. Her hair is piled on her head in loose curls, tied with a ribbon. She smiles at her baby, who holds onto his ginger cat and waves back. Her companion, perhaps a sister or a nursemaid, pushes the carriage.

Gerard had a fondness for cats and dogs, and she often included them in her paintings. Ears flapping and tails wagging, two white dogs are enthusiastic participants in the scene. A young boy with a garden rake smiles at the baby. Flowers are clustered in the foreground, and a bouquet rests on the light pink cushion in the carriage. This happy group runs gently through the scene, their drapery flowing on the breeze.

By 1785, Gerard had established a reputation as a genre painter, depicting family life. She was the first French painter to make genre popular. Her style was largely derived from her observation of the 17th Century Dutch masters Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667) and Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681). In “Sleep My Child” (1783-1786) (21.5’’ x 17.7’’) Gerard  depicts the figure of the mother in 17th Century dress, a fur-lined jacket and heavy silk skirt. Her rendering of the texture of the skirt is particularly Dutch, and she places the mother and sleeping baby in a simple and modest interior. Gerard often depicted women playing musical instruments. In this painting the mother plays a guitar as she smiles and sings a lullaby to her sleeping baby. It is a quiet and peaceful scene.  

Gerard abandoned the typical Rococo subject matter that consisted of the frivolous treatment of the loves of the Greek gods, and amorous encounters full of sensuous innuendo. Gerard placed mother and child images in middle-class interiors to give to her subject matter the seriousness and clarity she believed it deserved. During the reign of Louis XV (1740’s until 1770’s), French nobility moved from the grandeur of the Palace at Versailles into the city of Paris. Hotels and townhouses were abundant. An educated bourgeoisie opened salons, shops, and cafes. The flamboyant party atmosphere of Versailles continued in the city. Gerard’s middle-class genre and smaller painting, that fit into the smaller rooms, only increased the market for work. Her paintings continued to sell well, and prints made from them were popular with the middle class because of their reduced price.

 

“First Steps” (1788) depicts an abundance of mothers and children. Two mothers at either side of the composition hold scarves around their children who struggle to stand upright and take their first steps. The center of attention is the blond baby in the woven Rococo version of a stroller. A young girl and a small dog also look on. The babies are all chubby cherub types. The sashes used to hold the three babies who want to walk are gathered in such a way as to suggest angel wings. 

The women are dressed in the Empire style that became more and more popular as the troubles of the French government under Louis XVI (1774-1793) increased. The Empire style, introduced to Marie Antoinette by her court painter Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, was intended to recall the strength of the Roman Empire and the virtue of the government. The simple white gown suggested purity and simplicity. 

 

“Motherhood” (1795-1800) (20’’x 24’’) (Baltimore Museum of Art) depicts a simple middle-class interior, a young mother gently holds her baby while he kisses her on her cheek. A smiling maid looks on, and a fluffy white, spotted cat completes the three white elements in the composition, including the white dress of the maid, and the white dress of the mother. Gerard developed a glaze medium using several translucent colors to paint her favorite white satin dresses.

Gerard survived the Revolution and Restoration and began exhibiting in open Salon Exhibitions from 1799 until 1824, winning three medals. She maintained a studio in the Louvre, and made portraits of several of the delegates to the National Convention that tried and executed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. She contributed funds to pay war debts by selling her jewelry. Gerard survived the death of Fragonard in 1806, and the death of her sister in 1824. She became head of Fragonard’s large family. Gerard invested her earnings in real estate and government annuities, amassing a large fortune. Never married, she continued to paint tender scenes of mothers and children. Three hundred genre paintings, 80 portraits, and several miniatures are still in existence. Gerard was an independent woman of talent and means, unusual for women of her time.

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning.  She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

Emily Carr (1871-1945) is an artist whose paintings are a perfect fit for the celebration of Arbor Day on Friday, April 29. Born in Victoria, British Columbia, she was the second youngest of nine children in a strict Presbyterian household. Emily was the family rebel. She was determined to draw, and at an early age was allowed to take drawing lessons. She went on to study off and on from 1889 until 1895 at the San Francisco Art Institute, the West Minister School of Art in London in 1889, and the Academy Colarossi in Paris in 1910. Between trips to Europe, she returned to Victoria where she organized and taught art classes to ladies’ groups. Carr smoked and cussed and could be rather rude, but she was very good with children.

She began visiting Skagway and the Haida indigenous people in British Columbia. She became fascinated with the native culture of Canada. She lived with them and got to know them and their culture. The people and their totem poles became her subject matter for the next several years. Carr’s painting style is her own, but it uses the bright and penetrating colors of French artists. Her enthusiasm for her subject is represented by the careful depiction of the totem poles placed in the richly colored and wild landscape. The Indians gave her the name Klee Wyck (the laughing one), also the title of one of her books first published in 1941. It is a wonderful telling of her memoirs from her journal, and it won the Governor General’s Award for books that year. 

Carr visited British Columbia, to the Haida and Upper Skeena River from 1912 until 1927: “Whenever I could afford it, I went up North, among the Indians and the woods, and forgot all about everything in the joy of those lonely, wonderful places. I decided to try and make as good a representative collection of those old villages and wonderful totem poles as I could, for the love of the people and the love of the places and the love of the art; whether anybody liked them or not…. I painted them to please myself in my own way, but I also stuck rigidly to the facts because I knew I was painting history.”

Carr exhibited 200 of these paintings at the Dominion Hall in Vancouver in 1913. She commented, “the Indians do not make them now and they will soon be a thing of the past. I consider them real Art treasures of a passing race.”  Unfortunately, when she offered the paintings to a new Provincial museum, they were refused because they were modern representation and were considered inaccurate. 

Carr had to stop painting from 1913 until approximately 1924. She returned to Victoria, and to make a living, she ran a boarding house she named The House of All Sorts. She also raised chickens and rabbits, bred Old English Sheepdogs, and made pottery. In 1924, when Carr was in Seattle to see the exhibition Artists of the Pacific Northwest, she met Mark Tobey, an American artist from Seattle. Inspired by Tobey, Carr started painting again. She was invited in 1927 by Canada’s Group of Seven artists to participate in their exhibition. The group stated, “You are one of us.” She was welcomed and supported for the first time.

In 1930/31 Carr began a series of paintings of trees. She wrote in her journal in January 1931 about being tired of the past direction of her work:  “My old things seem dead. I want fresh contacts, more vital searching.” Carr plunged again into the British Columbian forest and found trees, but she also found logging and the destruction of the forest. “Western Forest” (1931) depicts a dense rich green forest, so dense that only a few yellow streaks of sunlight and touches of white cloud and blue sky penetrate the silent depth of the forest. The trees are majestic. 

Carr was a prolific painter and writer. A journal entry describes her feelings: “Here is a picture, a complete thought–and there another–and there. There is everywhere something sublime, something ridiculous or joyous or calm or mysterious. Tender youngness laughing at gnarled oldness, moss and ferns and leaves and twigs, light and air, depth and colour–chatting, dancing a mad joy dance, only apparently tied up in stillness and silence.”

Carr’s passion can best be expressed by her own words, written in journals and then published in several books: “What do these forests make you feel? Their weight and density, their crowded orderliness. There is scarcely room for another tree and yet there is space around each. They are profoundly solemn yet upliftingly joyous. You can find everything in them that you look for, showing how absolutely full of truth, how full of reality the juice and essence of life are in them. They teem with life, growth, expansion….”

She observed, “Trees are much more sensible than people, steadier and more enduring…I ought to stick to nature because I love trees better than people.” Carr’s work finally was reaching viewers across Canada and beyond. Her first solo exhibition was in Toronto at the Women’s Art Association in 1935. Her work was included in a group exhibition in 1938 at the Tate Gallery in London. She stepped upon the national and international stage. Her work was exhibited at the New York World’s Fair of 1939.

Carr did not miss the destruction of her beloved forest by the logging industry. As her tree series continued so did logging, and her paintings and journals included her thoughts on this sad trend. Titled “Odd and Ends” (1939) (26.5’’ x 42’’) a journal entry describes her thoughts: “Growth had repaired all the damage and hidden the scars. There were second-growth trees, lusty and fine, tall-standing, bracken and sword ferns, sallal, rose and blackberry vines, useless trees that nobody cuts, trees ill-shaped and twisty that stood at the foot of those mighty arrow-straight monarchs long since chewed by steel teeth in the mighty mills, chewed into utility, nailed into houses, churches, telephone poles, all the ‘woodsyness’ extracted, nothing remaining but wood.” 

 

Carr suffered a heart attack in 1937, and another in 1939. A stoke in 1940, and a third heart attack in 1942, left her with limited movement. She lived with her sister and wrote seven books about her life. She was to be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of British Columbia, but she died just before the ceremony. In 1952, Emily Carr work was chosen to represent Canada in its first entry into the Venice Biennale. Emily Carr, whose art was scorned by the art market until she was 50 years old, never stopped painting, never stopped writing, and never stopped loving the natives and trees of British Columbia.

Note: “Crazy Stair” (1913) sold in 2013 for $3.39 million. “Skedans (Haida Gwaii)” (1912) sold at auction in 2019 for an undisclosed amount between $3 and $5 million. “Cordova Drift” (1931) sold in 2021 for $3.36 million.

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning.  She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

 

 

 

The elephant is a metaphor that awakens the yearning for forgotten conversations between humans, the Earth and all living things…It is a poignant metaphor, when you think about the size of this powerful animal, and the shrinking environment that surrounds it. (Andries Botha, 2010)

To celebrate Earth Day this Friday, April 22, 2022, meet Andries Botha (b.1952), artist and political activist from Durban, South Africa. Botha graduated from the University of Natal in the 1970’s. His prints and sculptures have won many awards. Beyond his career as an artist, he has founded several art related organizations in South Africa: Community Arts Workshops (1984-86); Bheka Plambile (1994), creative training for women; Create Africa South (1999), to promote creativity in South Africa; and the NGO Create South Africa Trust (2002); Human Elephant Foundation (2009); and the Andries Botha Foundation (2012). 

Botha’s “You Can Buy My Heart and My Soul” (2006), consists of nine life-sized elephant sculptures, each made from driftwood and wooden pallets nailed to a metal skeleton. The elephant mothers and babies walk across De Panne beach in Belgium. The elephant parade takes the viewer’s breath away. They are a magnificent and an unforgettable presence on this white sandy beach.  Botha purposely creates his sculptures from recycled materials, as he states, “to prove that art should also play a part of man’s struggle to achieve a perfect balance in living in accordance with nature’s laws. There is no need to destroy more in order to create something.”

Botha placed these elephants on the De Panne Beach for a very specific purpose. De Panne beach is the widest beach in Belgium, a perfect place for family vacations. The sculptures are placed on the beach in front of what was Belgian King Leopold’s (1865-1909) holiday residence. During his reign, Leopold gained control of the Belgian Congo. He purchased much of the land for himself to avoid government control. He plundered the Congo for ivory and later for rubber. He was responsible for the slaughter of thousands of elephants, and his bloody rule also caused the deaths of as many as 10 million Congolese. Botha’s elephants walk away from Belgium into the sea toward Africa.

In the Summer of 2007, this writer walked out of the train station in Antwerp, Belgium, onto Queen Astridplein and encountered six of these elephants. They were an unexpected and a remarkable sight. Nothing prevented viewers from walking around them and touching them. Skillfully crafted, each had a distinct character. They were a reminder of the presence of many magnificent endangered species and our awakening to the climate crisis. Their impact made a lasting impression.

Nomklubulwane is the Zulu Goddess of rain, nature, and fertility. She represents Mother Earth. The Goddess is referred to as “she who chooses the state of an animal.” Botha has said his elephants “represent the world of nature from which we have removed ourselves and for which we increasingly yearn.”  Botha founded the Human Elephant Foundation in 2009. He describes it as “a partnership to catalyze a new creative language that expands environmental awareness and commitment.”  He made 20 elephant sculptures of various recycled materials that have toured the world to raise public awareness.

One of the twenty “Nomklubulwane” (2009) (this one recycled tires) (10’ tall x 18’ long x 6’ wide) traveled around the world. This one now stands outside the historical Museum Beelden ann Zee in the Hague, Belgium. Like all her recycled sisters, she represents the waste humans generate every day, and she inspires the viewer to reflect on the consequences for the environment. “Nomklubulwane” in the Hague is part of an exhibition sponsored by the Rainbow Nation, a South African organization named after Archbishop Desmund Tutu’s term for post-apartheid South Africa beginning in 1994. In a speech one month after his election, President Nelson Mandela stated: “Each of us is as intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country as are the famous jacaranda trees of Pretoria and mimosa trees of the bushveld–a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.”  

The twenty elephants were sent on a world-wide tour from Durban, South Africa, including Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Chicago, Montana, and Detroit. The tour was sponsored by several organizations in partnership with the Human Elephant Foundation.

Once again, this writer was privileged to encounter a Botha elephant. The Detroit elephant was exhibited on the campus of Marygrove College in Detroit, one of the two colleges where this writer taught art history. The Marygrove art faculty collaborated with several Detroit elementary school art teachers to make small chicken wire elephants from Botha’s model. They were distributed to the schools. The students at each school learned about the elephants, other endangered species, and conservation. Each school class decided how to decorate an elephant. The elephants were then exhibited at the various schools and at the Marygrove college art gallery. The blue Detroit School Elephant (2010) is woven of plastic blue trash bags and is embellishment with beads.

This colorful Detroit School Elephant (2010) has ribbons wrapped around the trunk, and ribbons were used to attach messages and pictures. Some students drew pictures of flowers, trees, and nature. Others wrote messages about the environment. Many of the children made pledges to plant trees or flowers.

 Andries Botha continues to create sculptures to generate awareness of the Earth’s climate crisis.  In 2016, a retrospective exhibition titled Being Here (and there) displayed Botha’s work over a period of 40 years. Botha has been on a personal journey that involved moving from being a private person to one exhibiting in public places and receiving world-wide attention. He comments, “Most of my major works were made as part of my own meditation on self within the frightening, or challenging South African space, exhibited (mostly abroad) as part of larger group show, then crated and stored (hidden again). The complex South African context unashamedly frames the universal human experience, mine as well. It is difficult to imagine expressing myself in any other way.” 

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning.  She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.