Looking at the Masters Archives

Looking at the Masters: Hung Liu (Part 2)

May 11, 2023 by Beverly Hall Smith

Hung Liu received her second National Endowment of the Art fellowship in 1991. She and her son became American citizens in 1991. Also in 1991, she made her first visit back to China on a faculty grant from Mills College. Hung Liu asked her mother, who had returned to China, to look for any old photographs for her research project: “Most families burned their photographs, especially ones of Western-style weddings or anything that indicated you were not a proletariat or had some money. I went to libraries and found some magazines. I came out with all the dust all over my face. Nobody had touched these things forever.”

Hung Liu discovered books of photographs of high-class prostitutes from the late 19th Century until 1911 in an old Beijing film studio: “The women were doing the most hilarious things, like holding a book in hand, even though women were not allowed to learn to read and write, or driving a car, an old Ford model. The purpose was to sell themselves, pretend they were upper class. [The photos] were shocking and exotic but also familiar.” The books were a catalog used by high-ranking and wealthy men.

Hung Liu drew from her collection of prostitute photographs to create “Chinese Profile II” (1998) (80”x80’’). Profile portraits were used historically in ethnographic or anthropological studies of facial and racial prototypes. In the 21st Century women’s movements, these profiles were recognized as an attempt to avoid the “male gaze.” Her collection of black and white photographs was an opportunity to present these figures with the dignity they deserve. “Chinese Profile II” is large in scale and rich in color. She describes the process: “Between dissolving and preserving is the rich middle ground where the meaning of an image is found. I release information from the photo.”

“September 2001” (2001)

“September 2001” (2001) (66’’x66’’) was completed after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by al Qaeda. The image of a Chinese Bride in full dress is fused with the image of a 10th Century Song dynasty ink painting of a duck. The young bride wears a traditional, richly embroidered red dress and a phoenix coronet. Phoenix coronets are made from kingfisher feathers, a traditional sign of status and wealth. They are made of silver and contain precious stones and pearls. Hung Liu interpreted the expression on the young bride’s face as reflecting “a moment of uncertainly, a feeling of being on the brink” which she saw as the collective emotional response to 9/11.

Fused with the bride’s face and coronet are the wings and head of a wild duck that flies through her face like the planes flew through the Trade Center and Pentagon. The effect is an explosion. Mandarin duck is served at wedding ceremonies because the birds are considered extremely faithful, a symbol of love, devotion, affection, and fidelity. For this reason, images of ducks are carved, made in porcelain, and cast in bronze for houses and temples. The duck heads look up, but Hung Liu deliberately positions the duck head bowed because “the bride symbolizes people involuntarily wed to an unexpected relationship, a new era in our political consciousness.”

“Strange Fruit” (2002)

The title, “Strange Fruit” (2002) (80’’x160’’) was inspired by the Billie Holiday song Strange Fruit (1939) that called attention to the numerous lynchings in the American South. The painting also is known as “Comfort Women,” because they were Korean prisoners of war who were forced to serve Japanese soldiers during World War II. Hung Liu used the red paint in the background to obscure the Japanese soldiers that were visible in the original photograph. She incorporates the images of two butterflies, symbol of love. White butterflies carry souls to heaven, while black butterflies represent transformation and hope after dark times. Although neither of the butterflies is entirely white or black, any butterfly is considered good luck in China as both words butterfly and good luck sound similar when spoken.

Hung Liu began to incorporate circles in paintings at this time. In Chinese writing, a circle is used rather than a period to end a sentence. In Zen Buddhism, circles represent both wholeness and emptiness, and the cycle of life. Hung Liu completes each circle in a single brush stroke. She refers to them as “a kind of Buddhist abstraction.”

Untitled” (Seven Poses) (2005)

Hung Liu’s Seven Poses (2005) is a series of “Untitled” paintings (60”x60”) of 19th Century courtesans who provided entertainment in the form of music, poetry, and song to entertain dignitaries. Each of the paintings depicts one or two courtesans with pieces of ancient pottery, and each contains symbolic animals such as grasshoppers, sparrows, swans, and cows. All the women are posed seated since they have undergone foot-binding. In “Untitled” Hung Liu has created a painting that employs the color orange. In China, orange is associated with the harvest and represents happiness and wealth. It is a popular color used in celebrations. Oranges and tangerines are a primary food for Chinese New Year. The cow is symbolic of agriculture and nurturing; it is a gentle animal. The friendly cow licks the leg of one of the women.

Hung Liu’s signature drips and circles are present, as are Chinese characters and chop marks. In each of the seven poses, an ancient Chinese artifact is prominent in order to reinforce the historical nature of the image. Flowers are also placed in many of Hung Liu’s paintings since they too have significant symbolic meaning for Chinese people. The white flowers in this painting are magnolias, one of the most expensive flowers in China. They were considered so precious that only the emperor could own and grow them. They also were valued for their many medicinal properties. Hung Liu states, “I communicate with the characters in my paintings, prostitutes—these completely subjugated people—with reverence, sympathy, and awe.”

“Going Away, Coming Home” (2006) (10’ tall by 160’ long) can be found on the glass window of Terminal 2 at the International Airport in Oakland, California. Hung Liu painted eighty red-crowned cranes, the second rarest crane species, on the huge glass wall with enamel paint. Red brings good luck, is the color of joy, and protects against evil. The silk scroll “Auspicious Cranes” (12th Century), painted by Emperor Huizong, was hung over the roof of his palace to bring peace and prosperity to his home. From that time, cranes have been a symbol of peace, purity, wisdom, fidelity, prosperity, and longevity.

Hung Liu has placed twenty cranes on each of the four windows of the terminal, bringing the number to 80 cranes to give blessings to travelers. A second layer of glass contains images of satellite photograph close-ups of the Bay Area and the Northern California coast toward the Asian Pacific region. Departing passengers walk past an expanding image and returning passengers see the view being reduced back to the Bay Area. Hung Liu’s circles represent the endless and wholeness of the universe.

Next week, part 3 of the article on Hung Liu will continue her journey to bring understanding and information to the public through other themes in her impressive and expansive body of work.

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.

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Looking at the Masters: Hung Liu

May 4, 2023 by Beverly Hall Smith

Hung Liu was born in Changchun, China, in 1948. Her father was an officer in the army of Chiang K’ai-Shek. When Mao Zedong and the communist party took over on October 1, 1949, Hung Liu’s father was sent to prison, and her mother was forced to divorce him to save her new born daughter. Hung Liu went to live with her grandfather. She began drawing by age five: “One beautiful day in the late spring of 1954, I went outside with my grandpa, who was a middle school biology teacher. We both loved the outdoors–the wild flowers, the bugs, the birds, and everything we could see in nature. I brought my sketchbook with me as always. I was six years old, and that was the first time I tried to draw trees–there were a lot of them. I had a hard time doing it. Finally, I showed my finished drawing to grandpa–I was quite frustrated with the representation of the trees. Grandpa was like one of my teachers at school–he looked at my drawing, took a moment to meditate, then wrote down my grade–95. I guess he didn’t like the way I drew the trees. As I was just about to take my sketchbook and walk home, grandpa crossed out the 95 and put down 100! I was surprised and speechless.” (Hung Liu, 2010)

“My Secret Freedom” (1968-1972)

In 1968 Hung Liu was sent to Da Dulianghe re-education camp where she worked as a farmer for four years. She managed to make small drawings which she named “My Secret Freedom” (1968-1972). She also took photographs with a hidden camera of the peasants and gave them to them as gifts. Most families had destroyed their photographs to protect themselves.

After her release from the camp, Hung Liu attended the Beijing Teachers College as an art and education major. She received her BFA in 1975 and her MFA from the Central Academy of Fine Art in 1981. From 1981 until 1984 she taught at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing. Hung Liu was allowed to go to the United States to study art in 1984. She received an MFA (1986) in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego. She was taught only Russian realist art in her MFA program in China.

One of Hung Liu’s early works in America was “Resident Alien” (1988) (5’x7.5’), a large painting of her Green Card with her name as FORTUNE COOKIE, and the date of her birth1984, considering 1984 as the date of her rebirth. Hung Liu views fortune cookies as a symbol of her hybrid status: she was neither American nor Chinese, a multicultural condition. A rule-breaker, as she was in China, Liu made the words RESIDENT ALIEN large as a criticism of her status as an immigrant in the promised land.

“Virgin-Vessel” (1990)

Hung Liu began to teach Chinese History in1987 at the University of Texas, continuing as Assistant Professor of Art from1988 until 1990. From 1990 until she retired in 2014, she was a professor of art at Mills College in Oakland, California. Among her first works in America were paintings that criticized conditions in China. “Virgin-Vessels” (1990) (72”x48”) depicts a young Chinese girl, with a perturbed look on her face, sitting in front of mirror. Her age and her white clothing reinforce the title of the work. Her feet, which project forward, are twisted and deformed. She is a victim of Chinese foot-binding, where the toes and arch are broken and bound to the sole of the foot. Women are then unable to walk. Girls were told that it made them more marriageable, as men liked small feet. However, most of the girls were forced to sit still, and were put to work making yarn, cloth, mats, shoes, and fish nets. The practice was more an economic necessity than a way to a better marriage.

Hung Liu has placed a red square on the white costume of the girl. The color of red has been for centuries a symbol in China of the sun, fire, and the heart. It represents power, celebration, prosperity, and it is said to repel evil. It also represents fertility. Quotations from Chairman Mao is alternatively titled the Little Red Book. In the center of the red square, Hung Liu has painted a white Chinese vase/vessel. On it she has painted in the traditional Chinese style a couple on a rug having sex.

“Jiu Jin Shan” (1994) is an installation commissioned by the De Young Museum in San Francisco. It was part of a larger exhibition titled The Other Side: Chinese and Mexican Immigration to America. Jiu Jin Shan is what the Chinese call San Francisco; the English translation is Old Gold Mountain. The mountain and the roadbed are formed from 200,000 fortune cookies; the railroad tracks crisscrossing the floor are taken from the Sierra Nevada section of the transcontinental railroad. Liu painted several Chinese sampans, sailing ships, on blue walls of the gallery. The ships around the room are smaller, as if they are coming from far away. When Europeans first saw Chinese ships, they called then junks.

“Three Fujins” (1995)

“Three Fujins” (1995) (96”x126”x12’’) was influenced by a photograph taken in the 1880’s during the Qing dynasty, the last imperial dynasty in China. The Fujins were concubines of the royal court. In full make-up, they are dressed in court finery with flowered headdresses. They sit rigidly, with little expression, as they pose for the camera. Hung Liu’s use of oil paint thinned with linseed oil is allowed to run in long drips of color over the painted surface. The painting is an early example of this technique, which became her signature style.

The three black wire bird cages are real, not painted. They hang from the front of the canvas and represent the caged life of the fujins who would remain trapped like birds for their entire lives.

“Rice Sweeper” (2000) (80’’x80’’) represents Hung Liu’s fully developed style. The subject is an elderly Chinese person who uses a bundle of straw to sweep up the grains of rice that have fallen by the wayside. It speaks of the hardships experienced by the common people in China during the wars and revolutions. Other Hung Liu’s paintings have a similar theme, depicting hungry children eating the small amount of rice to be had, a woman working a hand loom, and women pushing the wheel of a millstone. Hung Liu uses linseed oil to thin the paint so that it runs down the canvas, which creates a unique atmosphere.

Hung Liu places a mother hen and her two chicks at the lower left corner of “Rice Sweeper.” Chickens were domesticated in China by 6000 BCE. They are considered benevolent and faithful. Roosters represent the Sun as they crow every morning at sunrise. Balancing the composition, six small images of the Buddha are placed at the top right corner. They are seated cross-legged in the lotus position for meditation.

Four sparrows sit on the branch of a fruit tree above the rice sweeper’s head. A fifth sparrow sits on the old man’s shoulder. In China, the sparrow is an auspicious sign of happiness and the coming of spring. Hung Liu includes these symbolic references to abundance and happiness as a sign of hope in the struggle of the common people to survive.

The Chinese communist government pursued the “Four Pest” campaign from1958 until1962 to eliminate rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. Sparrows ate grain, seeds, and fruit, and the campaign was intended to increase crop yield. When it became obvious the rice crops were diminishing because the sparrows were not there to eat the huge number of insects, including locusts that attacked the rice, Mao Zedong ordered an end to the sparrow killing. He redirected efforts to the elimination of bedbugs.

Hung Liu explores many themes in her art, bringing her work world-wide attention. Part II on Hung Liu will touch another of her themes.

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Looking at the Masters: Walton Ford

April 20, 2023 by Beverly Hall Smith

As a child, Walton Ford (b.1960, Larchmont, New York) spent time hiking and fishing in Canada. Using binoculars to see details, he began to draw animals. He received a BFA at Rhode Island School of Design in film making (1982), but after a senior year spent in Italy, he became a painter. An avid reader of history, folklore, and mythology, Ford uses this knowledge to create life sized images to comment on the treatment of animals. His choice of watercolor as the medium is consistent with the painting of natural history subjects introduced in the watercolors of Albrecht Durer in the early 16th Century. Ford stated, ’It was very important to me to make them look like Audubon’s, to make them look like they were a hundred years old.”

“Nila” (1999- 2000)

In 1995 Ford’s wife received a fellowship to study tantric art in India. The family, including their one-year-old daughter, lived there for six months. At first Ford was daunted by the experience, but he gradually began to realize that the thousands of years of history and culture had something of great importance to teach him. He started to study the histories of animals and their treatment. “Nila” (1999-2000) (144”x216”) depicts a large male elephant, head held high, striding across a flat landscape. Nila is not the name of the elephant; nila in Ancient Sanskrit are the elephant’s nerve centers. The elephant trainer uses these pressure points to direct the elephant’s movement. Like African elephants, Indian elephants are sought after for their ivory and are on the critically endangered list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (INUC).

In Ford’s painting, several kinds of birds act on these nerve centers. Rather than ox-peckers, who eat ticks from the elephant’s skin and are helpful, Ford includes in the painting starlings, goldfinches, a woodpecker, and other western birds that annoy the elephant. According to Ford, the starlings represent Western tourists. European starlings are considered pests; they are aggressive toward other birds and are known to force them from their nests. They eat enormous amounts of fruit and grain intended for human consumption, causing plants to become diseased. European starlings are designated as an invasive alien species in North America. The goldfinches that plant flowers on the flat landscape represent Peace Corps volunteers, and the woodpecker represents Westerners who shop in India.

“Delirium” (2004)

“Delirium” (2004) was influenced by John James Audubon’s description of his painting of a golden eagle. Audubon’s The Birds of America (published 1827-1838) contained 435 life-sized prints. Ford’s animal paintings are intended to maintain the Audubon look, including the fine detail and scripted titles. Audubon did not paint living birds. He wrote that a golden eagle had been caught in a fox trap by a farmer, and the eagle carried the trap for more than a mile until it no longer could fly. Audubon bought the live eagle from the farmer and tried to asphyxiate it with burning charcoal and sulfur: “I was compelled to resort to a method always used as the last expedient, and the most effectual one. I thrust a long-pointed piece of steel through his heart, when my proud prisoner instantly fell dead. I sat up nearly the whole night to outlive him. I worked so constantly at the drawing it nearly cost me my life. I was suddenly seized with a spasmodic affection which much alarmed my family. The picture of the eagle took me 14 days. I never labored so incessantly.”

In “Delirium” Ford represents both the eagle’s and Audubon’s delirium. Smoke surrounds the eagle as it flies, dragging the trap. The sharp metal pin projects from the chest. The small figure of Audubon is crumpled on the snowy ground at the lower left corner of the painting.

“Condemned” (2007)

“Condemned” (2007) (21.4’’x15.75’’) (6 copper plates, etching, aquatint, drypoint print) is an image of the Carolina Parakeet, the only parrot indigenous in the Eastern United States. It was declared extinct in 1939. Ford’s print depicts the richly colored bird as it is enjoying a ripe, juicy peach. Audubon warned in 1831 that large flocks of this magnificent bird were declining: “In some districts, where twenty-five years ago they were plentiful, scarcely any are to be seen.” The loss of habitat created some of the problem, as large areas of forest were cut down for agricultural use. Farmers, who considered the birds pests, shot, and poisoned thousands of them. Their beautiful feathers also were prized as decoration for ladies’ hats. Disease was another cause of the demise of the Carolina Parakeet.

Flowing from the Carolina Parakeet’s mouth is an inscription: “I wish that you all had one neck, and that I had my hands on it.” Ford’s concern for the treatment of animals and the environment is evident in all his work. However, as he says, “I think that there’s almost no subject that you can’t treat with some humor, no matter how brutal it can seem.”

“An Encounter with Du Chaillu” (2009)

“An Encounter with Du Chaillu” (2009) (95.5’’x60’’) references Du Chaillu, a 19th Century anthropologist, who wrote about and frequently told his story about being the first white man to see a gorilla. While in Africa in 1875, he encountered a large gorilla that was trying to tear down a berry tree. The New York Times (1875) reported Du Chaillu’s talk: “The creature advanced toward him with fierce yells, beating his huge breast with his fists until it sounded like a drum, and evidently was not in the least afraid of the four men. Du Chillu did not fire until the gorilla was within twelve feet of him, and then he shot him through the heart, so that the creature fell dead before him on its face with a human-like groan.

Ford adds his spin to the Du Chaillu’s story. The giant gorilla stands upright. It has broken the barrel of the rifle. Its licks the end of the barrel with its red tongue to see what it tastes like. Ford places a pair of human legs in the ground cover at the lower right corner of the painting. It looks as if the gorilla has won this round, another of Ford’s humous twists on what is otherwise a sad, but true story. In the wild the only danger to gorillas are leopards. Gorillas are killed by poachers for bushmeat that is highly desirable among the wealthy. All gorillas are on the endangered species list of IUNC. The loss of habitat, disease, and poaching have reduced the current population of mountain gorillas to a little over 1000.

“The Graf Zeppelin” (2014)

“The Graf Zeppelin” (2014) (41’’x60’’) tells the true story of Suzie, the first female gorilla brought to an American zoo. Suzie was flown in 1929 across the Atlantic Ocean to New York City in the first-class cabin of a German Graf Zeppelin. Ford depicts Suzie in the comfortable first-class cabin with floral wallpaper, red curtains, cushioned seats, and a pillow, all color coordinated. A table is set with assorted fruits and vegetables for Suzie’s snacks. A wide window overlooks the ocean, revealing a steam ship cruising below. The window and the cabin take up three-quarters of the composition. The depiction of Suzie, sitting up-right, takes up about one-quarter of the painting. Her dark coat contrasts with the bright colors of the cabin. She makes eye contact with the viewer.

Ford commented on Suzie: “She didn’t bite or kill anybody. She’s doing that survival thing of traumatized victims of war and refugees. Suzie, the Graf Zeppelin gorilla, lived to be about forty in the Cincinnati Zoo. That’s it. A few sentences in some magazine article I read, you know? But I’m like, what does that mean? Jesus, what a journey! What was her life like? This is the beginning of a huge story for me.” Ford imagined Suzie’s thoughts, her confusion, and her fear, and he inscribed them on the painting.

Ford’s work is exhibited around the world. He has depicted both the glory and horror of the natural behavior of animals in the wild, their encounters with explorers and hunters, and imaginary animals described in myths and folklore. Recent work includes a triptych of the tar pit “La Brea” (2016), a series on animals of California (2017), and a series on the Barbary Lions from the Roman colosseum to the MGM lion in “Ars Gratia Artis” (2017). A 2022 exhibition of work based on images from the journey of the 16th Century Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca, who was shipwrecked in Florida. His claims include killing the last great auk, a member of the flightless penguin family.

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Looking at the Masters: Adelaide Labille-Guiard

March 9, 2023 by Beverly Hall Smith

Adelaide Labille-Guiard (1749-1803) was one of the eight children of Claude Edme Labille and Marie-Anne Saint-Martin. Her father owned a haberdashery shop near the Louvre in a popular section of Paris with theaters, music halls, and dance halls. It was home to many artists, since the Royal Academy was housed in the Louvre. Labille-Guiard was able to spend time in the studio of Francois Elie Vincent, a miniaturist, and she also studied pastel with Maurice Quentin de la Tour. She entered the Academy of Saint Luke in 1769. She married Louis Nicholas Guiard, a financial clerk, that same year. The marriage contract stated that she was a professional painter at the Academy of Saint Luke. They separated in 1774; there were no children. When Napoleon came to power, they were able to divorce legally. Although she continued to use the name Guiard, she married Francois Vincent, a history painter, in 1800.

“Self-Portrait with Two Students” (1785)

Labille-Guiard’s pastel portraits achieved great success when she exhibited at the Academy of Saint Luke. An exhibition in1877 was so successful that the Royal Academy, with the backing of the King, abolished the Academy of Saint Luke. The ambitious Labille-Guiard was undaunted. By 1783, her pastels had earned her an appointment to the Royal Academy. It had limited membership of women to four. Labille-Guiard was an advocate for women artists. Her “Self-Portrait with Two Students” (1785) (6’11’’ x 5’) (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City) had several purposes. Exemplary of her classical technique, it included two of her female students, Marie Gabrielle Capet (1761-1818) and Marie Marguerite Carreaux de Rosemond (d. 1785). Both students would become fine artists, although they could not become Academy members or show their work in Academy exhibitions. Labille-Guiard was determined to get them in the exhibition, one way or another.

She depicted herself in the process of teaching her students, who pay her rapt attention. She shows off her wealth, dressing in an extravagant light blue and white silk gown, with a very low neck-line. She wears a very large straw hat with a large blue bow and lots of feathers. Her father’s haberdashery skills are on full display. The toe of her elegant silver slipper rests on the easel. Clearly, she dressed herself in an outfit she would never wear when painting. In contrast, her students are simply dressed. Her well-appointed studio has a carpet on the parquet wooden floor. A gilded and carved wooden stool with a red velvet cushion holds additional paint brushes. Behind her is a classical portrait bust, and beyond that a statue of a Vestal Virgin. Specially selected Roman women who remained chaste and kept the sacred fires burning in the temple of Vesta received special rights and privileges.

“Madame Adelaide” (1787)

Princess Marie Adelaide, daughter of Louis XV and eldest aunt of Louis XVI, saw great talent in the work of Labille-Guiard. She was responsible for hiring Labille-Guiard to paint portraits of the Madames of France, women of the court who were relatives of the King. Labille-Guiard was awarded a pension of 1000 livres. The subject of “Madame Adelaide” (1787) (106” x76.3’’) (Versailles) is dressed in a flowing, burnt orange velvet coat decorated with heavy gold embroidery. It is worn over a silver and gold brocade gown with lace sleeves and jabot. Her hair adornment of ribbons and lace is not a hat, but may be another Labille-Guiard creation.

Madame Adelaide stands next to an elegant easel on which the cameo portrait of her dead parents and brother are painted. A black velvet curtain has been pulled back to display the work. The towel and pen in her hands may indicate Madame Adelaide has just signed the work. She looks out at viewers as if to get their approval. The marble inlaid floor, the gilded stool with a green velvet and gold fringed cushion, and the gold chair with the green cushioned back set the scene in a palace. On the wall behind her are four tall marble columns with Corinthian capitals. Between the columns is a carved stone relief depicting persons mourning at the side of a death bed. Barely visible between the two columns, a sculptured female figure stands upon a pedestal and holds a burning torch.

‘’Madame Louisa Elisabeth of France and Son’’ (1788)

“Madame Louisa Elisabeth of France and Son” (1788) (108’’ x63’’) (Versailles) is a posthumous portrait, the subject died of small pox at the age of 32. Her young son Ferdinand holds her hand and looks up at her. Louisa Elisabeth, relaxes against the rail of a porch and looks pensively at the viewer. She wears an elaborate black dress with gold trim, decorative red slashes on the sleeves, and stiff white lace. The bodice is very low cut, not usual in women’s portraits of the time. The red velvet curtain hanging from the roof of the porch, the red velvet on the railing, the red in her hat, and the tiny red point of her shoe tie the composition together. Her unusually well feathered hat is another Labille-Guiard creation. The sun shining across the painting from left to right creates shadows. Her silhouette, particularly her feather hat, appears on the wall behind her. The sun shines fully on the three short pillars of the balustrade, her son’s blond hair, and the hand her son holds. The sun does not shine upon the upper part of her face. The inclusion of the parrot on the balcony railing is an interesting choice. Parrots carry on conversations as they repeat words they have heard and therefore are considered messengers from God.

“Marquise de Lafayette” (1790-91)

Labille-Guiard wanted to move toward painting history subjects. She was commissioned to paint the King’s brother in a large history painting. During the French Revolution of 1789, much of the art that depicted royalty was destroyed. The portraits of the Madames of France and a major painting of Marie Antoinette that had been taken to Versailles were spared.

The “Marquise de Lafayette” (1790) (30.75’’ x 24.75’’) (National Museum of Women in the Artist) is presumed to be a portrait of the wife of the Marquis de Lafayette, well-known in France for his help to America in the American Revolution. The Marquise is dressed in a simple purple dress with little adornment and no jewelry except for earrings. She is placed in front of an ambiguous landscape, not a royal palace or park. Her attire is within the more subdued and simplistic limits of the early years of the French Revolution.

Labille-Guiard supported the French Revolution, and she found patrons among members of the National Assembly (1789-1791) including Robespierre and Talleyrand. She also was commissioned to paint some history paintings. She proposed on September 23, 1790, that an unlimited number of women be admitted to the Royal Academy and allowed to serve on the governing board. Both motions were approved, but short lived.

Labille-Guiard finally was allotted lodgings in the Louvre in 1795, and was given a new pension of 2000 livres per year. She was the first woman artist to have a studio in the Louvre. Her earlier requests were rejected because of her students were women. The Comte d’Angiviller had advised the King that “all the artists have their lodgings in the Louvre, and as one only gets to all these lodgings through corridors that are often dark, this mixing of young artists of different sexes would be very inconvenient for morals and for the decency of Your Majesty’s palace.”

“Atelier of Madame Vincent” (1808)

Labille-Guiard was able to divorce her estranged husband and marry Francois Vincent in 1800. She, her husband, and student Marie Gabrielle Capet moved to a house outside Paris in the town of Pontault-en-Brie. Labille-Guiard and Vincent adopted Capet so she would be able to inherit their estate. Unfortunately, Labille-Guiard became ill and died in 1803 at the age of 54. Her student Capet stayed on to look after Francois Vincent, who died in 1816. “Atelier of Madame Vincent” (1808) (27” x32.8”) was painted by Capet as a tribute to her teacher Labille-Guiard (Mrs. Vincent). Labille-Guiard, dressed in a simple white gown, paints a portrait of the esteemed French painter Joseph-Marie Vien (1716-1809). Capet sits to her left and looks out at viewers as if to verify they are paying attention. She prepares paint for Madame Vincent. In the black jacket just behind Madame Vincent, her husband points at something in his wife’s painting.

The room is full of watchers. Labille-Guiard and other women painters were often accused of taking credit for works painted by men. Therefore, onlookers were not unusual in the studio of a woman artist. Accusations and rumors of rivalry between women artists and flirtations with male sitters were common, but not true. Male artists’ prejudice against women artists who might steal their clients was rampant.

Labille-Guiard was considered one of the best teachers of her time, and one of the great pastel portraitists. Her reputation suffered after her death, not because she was not a great artist, but because she was a woman artist. Her works and her reputation have been researched and restored by writers in the women’s movement of the 1960s and 70s.

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Looking at the Masters: Constantino Brumidi

February 23, 2023 by Beverly Hall Smith

Constantino Brumidi (1805-1880) was born in Rome of Italian-Greek parents. A promising young artist, he was admitted as a student to the Academy of Arts in Rome when he was thirteen years old. At the Academy he learned to paint in the Classical manner. His successful career in Italy included many portrait commissions, and when Brumidi was thirty-five, Pope Gregory VI commissioned him to restore Raphael’s frescoes in the Vatican Loggia. Brumidi was a captain in the National Guard fighting on the side of Pope Pius IX against the Republic in the Roman Republic revolt of 1849. He was imprisoned for fourteen months. When the revolt ended and Pius IX regained his position, he was able to get Brumidi released from prison. However, Brumidi’s release was conditioned on his leaving Italy. The family left Italy in 1849 and reached New York in 1852. Brumidi painted altarpieces and portraits in New York City, Mexico, Philadelphia, and Maryland until he went to Washington, D.C. in 1854.

“Apotheosis of Washington’’ (1865)

In 1856, Brumidi met Captain Montgomery Meigs of the Army Corps of Engineers. Meigs was supervising the construction of buildings in the Capital. Meigs commissioned Brumidi to paint a mural in the meeting room of the House Committee on Agriculture. He was paid eight dollars per day until Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, saw the work and had Brumidi’s salary increased to $10. Brumidi’s mural was admired by everyone, and he became the painter of the Capitol.

“Apotheosis of Washington” (1865) (4,664 square feet) (180 feet above the floor) was commissioned by the Senate to be placed in the rotunda of the Capitol. Washington died in 1799, and by 1800 a commemorative print showing him ascending into heaven was popular. A statue of Washington by Horatio Greenough was commissioned by the Senate (1832) to be place in the Capitol. Unfortunately, Greenough depicted Washington seated on a throne and dressed in a Roman toga, his chest bare. The sculpture and Greenough were severely criticized, and the sculpture was removed. Brumidi did not wish to share the same fate. His Washington wears a military uniform.

Brumidi’s design was influenced by the Italian Renaissance artist Antonio da Correggio, who pioneered painting a domed ceiling with his “Assumption of the Virgin” (1522) in the Cathedral of Parma, Italy. Brumidi’s composition is essentially two circles within the dome. The center circle contains Washington, Liberty, Freedom, and thirteen young women representing the thirteen colonies. The outer circle of the dome contains the six major strengths of America: Agriculture, Mechanics, Commerce, Marine, Science, and War.

Brumidi painted all his murals in the Capitol in true fresco, a technique he introduced to the Capitol. True fresco involves painting on a freshly plastered section of wall, allowing the color to penetrate the plaster and become part of the wall.

Washington Between Liberty and Victory

The term apotheosis refers to the entrance into heaven of an individual, considered equal to the gods and therefore divine. Washington was not deified by the U.S. Senate, but he was considered to be the Father of the Country and guardian spirit of the United States. Dressed in a blue military uniform with gold epaulets, Washington holds his sword, point downward, in his left hand, and he gestures with his right hand extended toward Liberty. Liberty, a young blond woman, wears a peaked red cap, the “red cap of liberty” worn in the French Revolution. She carries Roman fasces, a bundle of rods tied together by a cord with an axe head projecting from the top. It was the Roman symbol of civil authority, and it became the symbol of American democracy, of unity and of strength. One rod breaks easily but together they are strong. Winged Victory sits at the other side of Washington. She carries the palm branch of peace and wears a laurel wreath crown of victory. She blows a victory trumpet. The depiction of these three figures sitting atop the rainbow is a reference to Genesis story about the flood and God’s covenant with humankind.

Below Washington, War is represented by the figure of Freedom and an American eagle. Freedom, also known as Columbia, derived from the name of Christopher Columbus, is clothed in red, white, and gold, and wearing armor. She wields a sword and shield, and wears a gold helmet with white stars and golden eagle. She fights five male figures who represent tyranny and the power of kings. The central figure, representing royalty, wears a full set of armor and a red cloak with an ermine lining. He falls to the ground, his golden scepter and symbol of his power falls with him. At his right, three figures, one young, one middle aged, and one old look fearfully at Freedom and fall to the ground on top of a cannon. Two menacing male figures at her left, one an old man holding two flaming torches, fall to the ground.

Agriculture

American agriculture is represented by the Roman goddesses Ceres and Flora. Ceres represents the sowing, nourishing, and harvesting of all agricultural products. Sitting among shafts of wheat, Ceres wears a crown of wheat and holds a cornucopia full of vegetables, a pineapple at the top. A male figure dressed in gold wears the red cap of liberty, which America enjoys. He hands Ceres the reins of two palomino horses that pull the McCormick reaper, the frame and wheel partially visible. Flora, the goddess of flowering plants, gathers a bouquet.

Mechanics

The mechanical advancements of America are represented by Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and the forge. He was inventor of smithing and metal working that provided Rome with its superior weapons. Vulcan stands with is right leg resting upon the barrel of a cannon. He can be identified by his hammer and anvil. Two figures at his right lift a metal fasces. Behind them smoke rises from the stack of a steam locomotive.

Commerce

Mercury, the Roman god of commerce, finance, and messenger of the gods, sits upon boxes and crates. He wears winged sandals and a winged hat, and he carries a caduceus. At his right, men shift boxes on a dolly. Mercury hands a bag of money to Robert Morris, the gentleman in the dark blue suit and powdered wig. Morris was a major financier of the American revolution. At his feet, an anchor points toward the ocean and to the next scene. Smoke arises from two chimney stacks visible in the distance.

Several of the young women who represent the thirteen colonies sit on the ring of clouds above Commerce. They hold a banner with the words E PLURIBUS UNUM.

Marine

Representing the oceans and marine life is the Roman god Neptune, holding his trident. His seashell chariot is drawn over the waves by two white seahorses, and he is accompanied by mermen and an infant on a dolphin. Venus, draped in blue, holds onto a black cable, representing the transatlantic cable that was being laid at the time.

Science

The rainbow on which Washington, Liberty, and Freedom sit, connects the two paintings of Science and Agriculture. Minerva (Greek Athena), Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, arts, and victory in war, holds a spear and wears a warrior’s helmet. She points to the three men sitting beside her: the inventors Benjamin Franklin, Samuel F. B. Morse, and Robert Fulton. The two male figures in front of them look at an electric generator and a printing press. To her right, a group of students listen, discuss, and write. Kneeling on the ground, the figure in brown may reference Euclid from Raphael’s “School of Athens.”

Brumidi continued to paint in the Capitol until his death. He collapsed while working on a scaffold 58 feet above the floor. He was able to hold onto the scaffold until rescue came. A few months later he died (1880). In his eulogy for Brumidi, Senator Justin Morrill of Vermont stated, “So long has Brumidi devoted his heart and strength to this Capitol that his love and reverence for it is not surpassed by even that of Michelangelo for St. Peter’s.”

Brumidi was buried in an unmarked grave in Glenwood Cemetery in Washington, D.C. The location of his grave was lost until it was rediscovered in February 19, 1952. A marker was placed there. In 2008, Brumidi was awarded posthumously the Congressional Medal of Honor.

“My one ambition is that I may live long enough to make beautiful the Capitol of the one country on earth in which there is liberty.” (Constantino Brumidi)

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Looking at the Masters: Joyce J Scott

February 16, 2023 by Beverly Hall Smith

Joyce Jane Scott (b.1948) has lived in Baltimore her entire life, but her reputation is world-wide. Her mother Elizabeth Talford Scott (1916-2011) was a well-known quilter who began to teach her daughter beading and quilting when Joyce was only three. Joyce Scott graduated from Eastern High School and in 1970 earned her BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. She completed an MFA degree at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Scott pursued her craft by visiting countries with strong beading traditions, such as West Africa’s Yoruba people, the Maasia of Kenya, and South America.

“Nuclear Nanny” (1983-84)

Scott’s subject matter is a commentary on social issues, such as racism, sexism, violence, and cultural stereotyping. “Nuclear Nanny” (1983-84) (32.5” x23.5”) is from Scott’s Holocaust Series. During the Cold War in 1983, the threat of nuclear war was a major topic in the news. In this work a large human skeleton is placed against a fiery red background. The long blond hair that stands on end as if electrified identifies the subject as a woman. Her red heart is visible on the white bones of the rib cage and spine. Small skeletal heads and unattached arms and legs appear around her. An image of chaos is created by the swirling blue, red, and green patterns around her. The composition is created with uneven edges; nothing is stable or secure.

To achieve this effect, Scott has used the Mola technique of cloth making she learned from the Cuna Indians in the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama and Columbia. The cloth is made from cotton and synthetic fabric and kid leather. Several different colors of cloth are sewn together on top of each other. The design is formed by cutting some parts of each layer to expose the colors beneath. Then each edge is turned under and sewn, leaving a clean edge. Sequins, glass beads, and embroidery were added on top of the cloth.

“Man Eating Watermelon” (1986)

Scott learned the peyote stitch from a Native American artist at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine in 1976. The peyote stitch is as old as ancient Egypt, and the technique allowed Scott to create three-dimensional shapes and to attach objects onto the beads without glue or wire. “Man Eating Watermelon” (1986) (8” x3”) is an example of the peyote stitch, and of Scott’s ironic wit: “I believe in messing with stereotypes…It’s important for me to use art in a manner that incites people to look and then carry something home–even if it’s subliminal…that might make a change in them.” Along with her many exhibitions, Scott often includes performances that are satirical and funny, much like Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor.

No Mommy Me” (1991)

Another series of images Scott has used throughout her career deals with nannys. Her mother was housekeeper and nanny for white families, so Scott is familiar with the feelings of both the mother and the child in these situations. “No Mommy, Me” (1991) (15” x6” x6’’) has to be seen from more than one point of view to be fully understood. A tall African-American nanny playfully lifts a white baby over her head. The baby is not afraid, and while holding on to the nanny’s left hand, the baby thrusts her right arm in the air. The baby is having fun. From the angle of this image, the viewer also can see the brown child hugging the bottom of the nanny’s skirt as if to say, “Please play with me, mother.”

“Three Graces Oblivious While Los Angeles Burns” (1992)

On March 3, 1991, Rodney King was beaten to death by four white policemen, and in 1992 a jury found them not guilty. In Los Angeles, riots broke out lasting from April to May, resulting in the death of 63 people, 2,282 injured, more than 12,000 arrested, and property damage estimated to be over one billion dollars. Scott created in 1991 a bead sculpture titled “Rodney King’s Head Squashed Like a Watermelon” (11” x7” x6”).

The “Three Graces Oblivious While Los Angeles Burned” (1992) (21” x 10”x9”) was Scott’s response to the acquittal and the riots. The three white beaded graces represent the three Greek Graces: beauty, charm, and joy. They dance freely around the white vase Scott employs as the base of the work. The vase is covered with flat black images of buildings, orange and red fire at the top, and green bushes at the bottom. Los Angeles is on fire. Rodney King’s brown beaded head is placed on top of the vase. The black figure holding an orange stone seems ready to assault King.

“Boy with Gun” (1995)

Gun violence has been a constant for too many years. Scott’s response to this issue is “Boy with Gun” (1995) (3’). About this sculpture she stated, “I feel a responsibility in living in a land where this is happening.” The boy stands on an overturned baby carriage created with black wire. In the carriage is a large green gun which the boy grasps with his left hand. The barrel of the gun is pointed at the boy. Fortunately, no one is there to pull the trigger. The boys’ body is covered with African tribal markings that indicate he has become a man. The wood base on which the sculpture stands is covered with pennies. Life is cheap.

Scott has tackled difficult subjects with her art. Date rape, drug abuse, sex trafficking, and current events such as the genocide in Darfur are among her topics. Concerning the impact of her work on viewers, Scott states, “I don’t believe in shielding them from issues they are seeing every day. Isn’t it smarter to say ‘what is this about?’ “

“Araminta with Rifle and Veve” (2017)

Scott received in 2016 the prestigious McArthur Fellow, Genius Grant of $625,000. She said that an award of this scale was an invitation to think bigger and take more risks. The result was the 2016 exhibition Joyce J. Scott: Harriet Tubman and Other Truths at the Grounds for Sculpture in New Jersey. “Araminta with Rifle and Veve” (2017) (10’) (painted milled foam, blown glass, mixed media, and beaded staff) is an image of Harriet Tubman. She carries a rifle in her right hand and a Veve, the crooked staff in her left hand. The staff is beaded in several colors and resembles the staff associated with the Egyptian pharaohs as a symbol of their deity and power. The name Araminta means “lofty, defender, and lion,” characteristics of Tubman. Scott considers Tubman to have been “someone who was a go-getter and had the nerve. When we talk about resiliency, self-sufficiency, black pride, Black Lives Matter, black girls matter, we’re talking about her.” The statue is on display at the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis until August 30, 2023

“Harriet Tubman as Buddha” (2017)

Scott often employs images of Buddha in her sculpture. Her interest in Buddhism and Hinduism led her to create in 2013 the series of three Buddhas, of “Earth,” “Wind,” and “Fire and Water.” In Buddhism anyone can become a Buddha, and Scott found much in Harriet Tubman’s life journey similar to that of the Buddha. She stated, “He wasn’t a god. He worked really, really hard to evolve and have his greater enlightenment.” Scott’s sculpture “Harriet Tubman as Buddha” (2017) (40” x25” x10”) (blown glass, beading, found objects) confers on Tubman the spiritual status of a Buddha. Tubman sits in the lotus position that calms the mind and allows for deep meditation. The statue wears a halo, found on all statues of Buddha as a symbol of holiness. Scott compares Tubman to her mother, the highest compliment: “Harriet Tubman really makes me think about my mother. They were both thunderbolts. Neither of them was five feet tall. They were both dark skinned…and they were go-getters.”

In this same exhibition, Scott included another sculpture of Tubman: “Graffiti Harriet.” The 15-foot-tall statue was made of soil, clay, straw, and cement designed to disintegrate, to become part of the earth. The location of the Harriet Tubman exhibition in New Jersey was 40 miles from the route Tubman used to conduct slaves to freedom, and it was 175 miles from Washington, D.C. The decision to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman was under debate at the time. It is scheduled for 2030.

Scott is a sculptor, printmaker, installation artist, performer, quilter, storyteller, and jeweler. Before she learned the peyote stitch in 1976, her beadwork was confined to the making of jewelry. She has never stopped making jewelry. “War Necklace” (2022) (17” x15”) is the catalog cover image for Scott’s traveling exhibition War, What is it Good For, Absolutely Nothing, Say it Again (2023-24). Her jewelry carries the same potent messages as her other artistic pursuits.

Among other awards, Scott has received honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2018) and the California College of Art (2019). She was named Smithsonian Visionary Artist (2019), she was awarded the Gold Medal for Consummate Craftsmanship from the American Craft Council (2020), and she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letter by Johns Hopkins University (2022). The presentation of her honorary degree at Johns Hopkins recognized: “…her visible and visionary commitment to art as a conduit for honoring the rich and storied history of our ancestors and for conveying profoundly resonant commentary on cultural stereotypes, systemic racism, and healing.”

“I’d like my art to induce people to stop raping, torturing, and shooting each other. I don’t’ have the ability to end violence, racism and sexism…but my art can help them look and think. (Joyce Scott, 2015)

NOTE: In 2015 Freddie Gray was murdered in Baltimore, and that resulted in rioting during which businesses were looted. The most prominent business was the CVS pharmacy that was set on fire. Scott and her mother live in a rowhouse down the street from that CVS. Scott responded, “How did all this affect me? I am an African American woman who decided to never turn away from herself as a black woman, to never leave her community, and the uprising is happening right outside my door. People are walking up and down North Avenue. The CVS is on fire and they are using my fire hydrant to put the fire out. I see preachers in prayer circles, right outside my living room window.”

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Looking at the Masters: Caspar David Friedrich

February 2, 2023 by Beverly Hall Smith

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) was one of the most important artists of the German Romanticism movement at the beginning of the 19th Century. He was born in Greifswald on the Baltic Sea. His family were strict Lutherans. He was the sixth of ten children. His mother, two sisters, and a brother died when he was young. His interest in art was developed early, and he began to take drawing lessons at age 16. He met Ludwig Gotthard Kosengarten, a poet and preacher, whose works were metaphysical in nature. Kosengarten stated that the beauty of nature was related to the divine, beyond the perception of human senses. Kosengarten’s writings were a significant influence on Friedrich, and on the music of Franz Schubert among others.

“Cross in the Mountains” (1808)

Friedrich studied art at the Academy of Copenhagen, where he was able to visit the Royal Picture Gallery’s collection of 17th Century Dutch landscape paintings. He was taught to paint in the Neo-Classical tradition, in which the object was to copy nature precisely. However, the popular literature of the era, Icelandic legends (Prose Edda) and The Poems of Ossian (1760) (Irish mythology), greatly influenced his developing artistic style. “Cross in the Mountains” (Tetschen Altar) (1808) (45” x43”) is considered Friedrich’s first work to abandon Neo-Classical style for Romantism. The Crucifixion is silhouetted on a mountain top against a dramatic pink and gray cloudy sky. Light coming from five sources penetrates the dark clouds to focus on the mountain top and the Crucifixion. An evergreen forest surrounds the mountain top, typical of Friedrich’s native landscape. Evergreens are symbolic of everlasting life.

Friedrich designed the frame of the altarpiece, which was carved according to his specifications. At the bottom center of the frame, he placed the eye of God within a triangle surrounded by rays of heavenly light. At the left is a sheaf of wheat representing the bread of the Eucharist, and at the right are the grapes representing the wine. Above, five cherubs are placed among the palm branches. A single star is placed in the center. Friedrich intended the altarpiece to be a gift to the King Adolphus IV of Sweden in recognition of his part in resisting Napoleon’s attempts to conquer Sweden. However, Adolphus IV was deposed in 1808. Count von Thun-Hohenstein convinced Friedrich to sell the altarpiece to him for his castle chapel in Tetschen, Bohemia.

Friedrich exhibited the painting/altarpiece at the Academy in Berlin in 1810, where it received mixed reviews. Basilius Von Ramdohr, a conservative lawyer, art critic, and amateur artist, published a long article in Dresden, rejecting Friedrich’s use of landscape as a religious painting, calling it “a veritable presumption, if landscape painting were to sneak into the church and creep onto the altar.” Friedrich responded that his intention indeed was to compare the rays of evening sunlight to the Heavenly Father.

“Monk by the Sea” (1809)

“Monk by the Sea” (1809) (43” x68’’) broke with all of traditional landscapes by eliminating everything but the small figure of a solitary monk within the vast panorama of land, sea, and sky. X-rays show that Friedrich had painted two boats on either side of the monk and a flock of sea birds in the sky, but painted them out. Reactions of viewers varied, but generally unfavorable. Marie von Kugelgen, an early admirer of Friedrich’s work, wrote to a friend about her reaction to the work: “A vast endless expanse of sky…still, no wind, no moon, no storm–indeed a storm would have been some consolation for then one would at least see life and movement somewhere. On the unending sea there is no boat, no ship, not even a sea monster…and in the sand not even a blade of grass.”

The German poet, writer, and journalist Heinrich von Kleist described the painting in 1810: “Nothing could be more somber nor more disquieting than to be placed thus in the world: the one sign of life in the immensity of the kingdom of death, the lonely center of a lonely circle…the picture seems somehow apocalyptic…its monotony and boundlessness are only contained by the frame itself.”

“The Monk by the Sea” and its companion painting “Abbey in Oak Forest,” depicting the burial of a monk in a ruined church yard, were exhibited together. Their purchase by Prussian King Frederick Wilhelm III surprised the critics. Friedrich’s venture into a new style of painting took hold. The isolation and emptiness reflected for some viewers the results of Napoleon’s invasion of Germany. To those viewers, Friedrich’s paintings exhibited a patriotic image of contemporary Germany, diminished but not defeated. Friedrich was elected a member in the Prussian Academy of Art as a result of these paintings.

“The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog” (1818)

“The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog” (1818) (38.5’’ x29”) is considered by art historians to be a masterpiece of the Romantic Movement. The single male figure, dressed in dark green and holding a cane, stands on a rocky outcropping that rises dramatically in the foreground of the painting. Bearing a few green trees, jagged rocks pierce the fog. Two ridges are painted so they come to a point at the chest of the man. Mist-covered mountains and clouds stretch into infinity. Friedrich wrote, “When a region cloaks itself in mist, it appears larger and more sublime, elevating the imagination, and rousing the expectations like a veiled girl.”

Friedrich most often employed the technique “ruckenfigur.” Figures are placed with their backs to the viewer, inviting the viewer to gaze upon the scene from the same perspective, but giving no suggestion of their reaction to the scene. Friedrich stated, “The artist should paint not only what he has in front of him but also what he sees inside himself.” Friedrich sought the spiritual and the divine.

The subject has often thought to be a self-portrait, because the figure with the red hair resembled Friedrich. He dressed the figure in altdeutsche (old German clothing), the clothing of Germany’s heroic age, 16th and 17th Centuries. A Nationalist, Friedrich supported a new more liberal government and wanted to abolish the rule of the German nobility. Nationalists wore the old German clothing as a form of protest. The trend was so threatening to the German nobility that altdeutsche clothing was banned in 1819.

“Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon” (1818-1825)

Friedrich married Christiane Caroline Bommer, 19 years his junior, in January 1818. They had three children. The family lived a solitary life. Following his marriage, Friedrich often included a second figure in his paintings. “Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon” (1818-1825) (13” x 17.3’’) depicts two figures on a rugged hill top, their backs to the viewer. Critics generally refer to them as Friedrich and his wife. The man wears altdeutsche clothing, and the woman’s hand rests calmly on his shoulder. The couple stand close together, contemplating the full moon and the distant landscape.

Friedrich places the couple under several evergreen trees, their branches forming a lacy pattern against the moonlit sky. The other major element in the painting, taking up half the hill top, is an ancient tree. Its roots, partially pulled up from the earth, are exposed and form hairy fingers. The wide-spread branches are bare. The tree lists to the right, but remains standing. Throughout the ages, the Moon has always been considered as feminine and a symbol of the cycle of the seasons and of abundance. The full moon completes a heavenly cycle, the time to prepare for the future. Friedrich’s painting communicates hope for the future.

“Solitary Tree” (1822)

Friedrich’s patrons included the Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich of Russia and his wife Alexandra Feodrovna. They visited Friedrich’s studio in 1820 and purchased several paintings to take back to St. Petersburg. Their continued patronage, and that of other Russian nobles, sustained the artist when the Romantic style began to go out of favor in the 1830’s. Friedrich suffered several major episodes of depression during his life, and was said to be the “most solitary of the solitary” by his friends. “Solitary Tree” (1822) (21.6” x28”), was one of two works commissioned by Joachim Wagener, a banker and an art patron. The works were to show a morning and an evening landscape. “Solitary Tree” depicts a beautiful morning as the sun rises over a country village. A large tree at the center of the composition connects the earth and heaven. The size of the trunk indicates the tree has experienced a long life. The lower branches still support green leaves, but the top branches are dead. Friedrich organizes the top branches as a reference to the image of the dead Christ on the cross.

Under the tree, a shepherd leans on his staff and against the tree trunk. His flock of sheep graze quietly in the pasture. Like the dead branches of the tree, the artists inclusion of the shepherd and his sheep refer to the religious connections that Friedrich found in nature. The panoramic landscape beyond the tree contains a stream and stands of evergreens. A small village is nestled to the left of the tree. Bright sunlit pastures and a mountain range spread out under an early morning sky. Hardly visible, a gray church spire stands to the right of the tree at the base of the mountains. The sun has risen over the distant landscape, but sunlight has yet fully to reach the solitary tree. The tree has weathered a long life and endures.

Friedrich’s popularity declined during the last 15 years of his life as the Romantic style he helped to create was considered old fashioned. Throughout his life, he suffered from recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD). He had a stroke in1835 that left him partially paralyzed. He continued to paint, although his painting were smaller and often watercolors rather than oil. He died in 1840. An exhibition in Berlin in 1906 brought his work to the attention of expressionist painters including Bocklin, Kirchner, and Kandinsky, and to the American painters of the Hudson River School. When Hitler discovered Friedrich’s beautiful German landscape paintings, he declared Friedrich to be a forefather of Nazism. This unfortunate and inaccurate association caused a decline of interest in Friedrich. However, Friedrich’s reputation was restored in the 1950’s by the Surrealists, Abstract Expressionists, and a large number of international artists. Friedrich is now considered a painter of international importance.

“I am not so weak as to submit to the demands of the age when they go against my convictions. I spin a cocoon around myself; let others do the same. I shall leave it to time to show what will come of it: a brilliant butterfly or maggot.” (Caspar David Friedrich)

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Looking at the Masters: Marc Chagall

January 19, 2023 by Beverly Hall Smith

“The Birthday” (1915)

Marc Chagall was in love. Chagall met Bella Rosenfield in Vitebsk in 1910. For him their first meeting was all it took: “Her silence is mine, her eyes mine. It is as if she knows everything about my childhood, my present, my future, as if she can see right through me: as if she has always watched over me, somewhere next to me, though I saw her for the very first time. I knew this is she, my wife. Her pale coloring, her eyes. How big and round and black they are. They are my eyes, my soul.” Bella’s response also was love at first sight.

Chagall returned from Paris to Vitebsk in 1914 to attend his sister’s wedding and to marry Bella, and then they would return to Paris. However, World War I began, and the Russian border was closed. Chagall painted “The Birthday” (1915) (32’’ x39’’) (MoMA) a few weeks before their wedding. His ecstasy is depicted as he flies into the air to kiss Bella. He is light as a feather. Bella reciprocates, her feet lift off the floor. Chagall chose the pure complementary colors of green and red to accentuate the couple. He often depicted Bella in a black dress with a white collar and, as he described her, with black hair and black eyes. Chagall brought Bella a bouquet of flowers, another item he often included in his paintings.

The composition of this painting was carefully crafted. A rectangular blue-gray cloth with a small black pattern covers a rectangular red and orange table with round spooled legs. A round cake, a glass, a round dish of red berries, and a small purse are placed on the table. A round black stool sits on the floor. Above the table, a window with a white shade echoes the white lace collar on Bella’s dress. Outside is a Russian street. At the right side of the painting a low couch is covered with a cloth that repeats the red and orange of the table. On the floor, a small green and yellow pillow with square patches echoes the green and yellow of Bella’s bouquet. On the wall above the couch a rectangular tapestry with a paisley pattern repeats the colors used in the painting, including the bouquet of flowers. A square black clock with a round face hangs above. A blue-gray patterned cloth hangs under a window. The shapes and colors are repeated across the composition. However, none overpower Bella and Chagall as they float in air.

“Over the Town” (1918)

Unable to leave Russia, Chagall continued to paint his beloved Vitebsk and the nearby villages: “I painted everything I saw. I was satisfied with a hedge, a signpost, a flood, a chair.” By 1915, he began to exhibit his work in Moscow, and several rich collectors purchased his art. For a time after the October Revolution (Communist take-over) of 1917, avant-garde artists were in the favor of the Communist government, since their work had nothing to do with classical art favored by the Czar. “Over the Town” (Lionza, near Vitebsk) (1918) (17.7’’ x22”) (Tretyakov, Moscow) depicts Chagall and Bella flying over Lionza. Chagall later wrote, “She has flown over my pictures for many years, guiding my art.” He described the experience as “flying with luck…You run to the screen, shaking under your hand, immersion brush. LASHES red, blue, white, black. You (Bella) draw me into a whirl of colors. And suddenly you take off the floor and pull me with you.”

Chagall was made a commissioner for the arts in Vitebsk. Among other accomplishments he founded the Vitebsk College of Art in 1923. However, feuds with the art faculty led him to move to Moscow. There he painted murals for the Kamerny Theater and produced sets and costumes for the plays of Jewish writer Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916). Chagall and Bella joined the many Russian avant-garde artists who moved to France as his art fell out of favor and conditions in Russia became more restrictive. They left Russian in 1923.
They lived in France until 1941. Chagall was courted by the Surrealist artists who based their art on Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), in which he discussed dreams and the unconscious mind. Chagall rejected their ideas stating, “If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.”
Chagall met Ambrose Vollard in 1923. Vollard commissioned a series of etchings of Nikolay Gogol’s novel Dead Souls. Chagall finished 107 full plate prints in 1931. Vollard then commissioned a series of prints based on the Old Testament. Chagall completed the set of 66 plates in 1939.

“Solitude” (1933)

As anti-Semitism grew in Europe, and Hitler and the Nazi party came to power in 1933, Chagall witnessed a friend being assaulted on the street in Warsaw because he was Jewish. Chagall’s “Solitude” (1933) (40’’ x62.5’’) (Tel Aviv) portrays his strong fears. A solitary Jew, cloaked in a kittel (white prayer shawl), sits on the ground. His face shows despair. Chagall titled the painting “Solitude” to signify that Jews were in a lonely, uninhabited space. Solitude seems coupled with despair. The Jew is outside the town, rejected by society. He holds a torah, a hand written scroll containing the word of God to the Jews.

An upside-down fiddle is placed next to the Jew. The fiddle is one of the items Chagall frequently used as a reference to his childhood and Jewish traditions. Music was basic to Jewish life, and the fiddle provided the music that accompanied songs of the Jews. It reminded them of the failed revolution of 1905, led by the Jewish fiddler Sormus.

A kneeling goat is the third prominent figure in the composition. Its presence represents the Old Testament sacrifice by Joseph as the replacement for his son Isaac. A goat with a red ribbon tied around its neck was part of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), when Jews ask for forgiveness of their sins. The goat was released to wander, carrying the sins of the people with it (scapegoat). The last symbol is the white angel that flies through the stormy sky. Angels, heavenly messengers, were as common in Jewish history as they are in Chagall’s paintings. Chagall’s paintings at that time were intended to awaken society to the displacement and persecution of Jews.

“White Crucifixion” (1938)

On July 19, 1937, Hitler opened the exhibition of “degenerate art.” Twenty thousand works were confiscated from German museums by Joseph Goebbels. Fifty-seven Chagall paintings were confiscated. Several were included in the exhibition. “White Crucifixion” (1938) (61’’x55’’) (Chicago Art Institute) contained the images of Jesus, the Jewish martyr.

To Chagall, Jesus was a Jew when he was crucified, and his persecution was the persecution of Jews. Jesus wears a black and white prayer shawl (tallit) and a head cloth. At the foot of the cross is a menorah with six candles. According to the Torah, the menorah made for the original Temple of Jerusalem had six candles, representing the six days of creation. A seventh candle was included to represent the Sabbath, the day of rest. However, Chagall’s menorah has only six candles; there is no day of rest.

Jews flee in all directions from the site of the crucifixion. At the lower left three men flee: one bearded, one labeled Jew, and one carrying a Torah scroll. Above them is a boat loaded with refugees fleeing from their burning town. A troop of soldiers carrying a red Nazi flag rush into the scene. Above the cross three Biblical patriarchs and a matriarch wail and pray.At the lower right, a mother cradles her child, an unrolled Torah is left on the ground, and a green clothed man flees with his belongings. Above them a synagogue burns, its contents an Ark of the Covenant (to hold the Torah), and other furnishings are tossed on the ground. The door of the synagogue remains standing. Two rampant lions of David, a star of David, and the image of the Ten Commandments can be seen. Nazi flags fly in the upper right corner.

World War II began when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Belgium and Poland were invaded in 1940. Chagall moved from Paris to Gordes in the south of France in 1940. However, the Vichy government under Marshall Petain, cooperated with the Nazis in oppressing the Jews. In 1941, the Vichy government stripped Chagall of his citizenship and arrested him. Along with 2000 others, the Chagalls were rescued by Varian Fry of the American Aid Committee. At the invitation of Alfred Barr, director of the Museum of Modern Art, the Chagalls came to New York.

The Painter, the Bride and Groom” (1970-74)

Chagall arrived in New York City one day after Germany invaded Russia. Later, he learned Vitebsk was destroyed. When Paris was liberated in 1944, the Chagalls prepared to return to Paris. However, Bella died of a viral infection. Chagall did not paint for a year: “Everything went black before my eyes. I am lost.” Although Chagall would marry again, and have a son, Bella was forever his muse. “The Painter, the Bride and Groom” (1970-74) (39.5’’ x 32’’) features Chagall and his bride floating above the ground. A blue fiddler plays for them, and a small boy, his son David, stands beside the fiddler. The painting behind them depicts a room with the painter holding a little donkey. Chagall’s pet name for his daughter Ida was Little Donkey. A vase of colorful flowers sits on the table. The room has a window, a motif Chagall often used to represent freedom. At the lower left corner, a rooster, one of Chagall’s favorite animals, represents fertility. Chagall may be riding the rooster. The painting was sold a Christies in London for $1,670,256.80.

Chagall returned to Paris in 1948. He lived in France for the rest of his life, but his career as an artist was only half over. Next week’s article will feature the last half of Chagall’s life.
“The title ‘A Russian Painter’ means more to me than any international fame…In my pictures there is not one centimeter free from nostalgia for my native land.” (Chagall)

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Looking at the Masters: Marc Chagall

January 12, 2023 by Beverly Hall Smith

Marc Chagall (1887-1985), a Jew born in Vitebsk, Russia, would become a renowned artist. His father was a herring merchant, and his mother sold groceries from their home to support their nine children. Chagall’s memories of his childhood under the Pale of Settlement, the pogroms established in Russian to greatly restrict Jews, his Hasidic Jewish upbringing, and memories of his beloved home town Vitebsk were the strongest influences on his art. As a Jew he was not allowed to attend school, except Yeshiva (Jewish school), but he was highly intelligent. His mother enrolled him in a regular high school when he was 13. He recalled his mother’s actions: “In that school, they don’t take Jews. Without a moment’s hesitation, my courageous mother walks up to a professor. She offered the headmaster 50 rubles to let me attend, which he accepted.”

At school, Chagall watched a fellow student draw. In his autobiography My Life (pub. 1923), he described it as “like a vision, a revelation in black and white.” Never having seen art before, Chagall knew what he was meant to do. He moved to St Petersburg in 1906 to attend art school. He studied under Leon Bakst, a Russian Jewish artist who would become famous as a designer of sets and costumes for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe. Bakst also introduced Chagall to the theater. Chagall remained in Russia from 1906 until 1910. He was able to move to Paris in 1910, when a member of the Russian Duma who liked him and his art, gave him a monthly stipend of 40 rubles to support his art.

“I and the Village” (1911)

Chagall saw the art of Picasso and Matisse and the other young artists of Cubism and Fauvism, and the various other “isms” then in Paris. He began to realized that Jewish traditions so much a part of his life were in decline and that he needed to document them. “I and the Village” (1911) (75”x 60’’) (MoMA) is one of his earliest paintings in Paris. Vitebsk, a busy crossroads for trade, had both churches and synagogues and a large Jewish population. Influenced by the vibrant colors of Fauvism, and the geometry of Cubism, Chagall created a dream-memory of his hometown.

Looking eye-to-eye at each other are the green face of a Jew, Chagall, and the large multicolored head of a lamb. They recognize each other and smile slightly. They are joined compositionally by a large multicolored, overlaid circle, symbol of inclusion and wholeness. Connecting the man and the lamb is a triangle formed by a hand holding a flower. The triangle extends from the center bottom of the composition to the lamb’s mouth. Enclosed in the lamb’s head is the image of a woman milking a white cow. Scenes of Vitebsk that include farm animals such as cows, sheep, chickens, and roosters are common images drawn from Chagall’s childhood memories.

Floating between the foreheads of the two main figures, are a farmer carrying a scythe and a woman dancing upside-down. Behind them arranged on a circular ground is the colorful town of Vitebsk, including a Russian Orthodox church, its dome bearing a cross, and five brightly colored houses, two of which are upside down. People and objects float in the air devoid of gravity, and existing upside-down, become another characteristic of Chagall’s art. The painting is carefully composed using primary and secondary colors and overlapping geometric shapes. Chagall created a space based in reality, but a world beyond. “I and the Village” combines Chagall’s memory, dreams, and fantasies that are so much a part of his art.

Why Chagall depicted himself as green is a question. The cultural identify of Jews was a major issue in Chagall’s time. He wrote, “Back there (Russia), still a boy, at every step I felt—or rather people made me feel!…that I was a Jew.” Throughout his life, Chagall had to deal with the perception that Jews were less than human. He frequently used green for himself and fellow Jews because to him the color green symbolized rebirth and joy.

“The Fiddler” (1912-13)

Chagall loved Paris, but in his early years there he struggled to learn the language and to earn money. “The Fiddler” (1912-13) (74”x 62’’) was painted on a brown checkered tablecloth. He leaves portions of the tablecloth unpainted on the fiddler’s shoes, pants, coat and in the brown of the houses and churches. Music and dance were an important part of the Hasidic tradition, seen as a way to commune with God. Fiddlers played throughout a person’s life, from birth, to marriage, and at death.

Chagall’s fiddler stands on one leg on the roof of a house, while his other leg kicks out into space as he dances. At his left, dressed in native costumes, three small figures dance to the music. A blue tree at the right shelters white and yellow birds. A figure in yellow floats in the clouds above the fiddler. Chagall cleverly played white triangles against the partially black earth and sky. Despite the heavy black areas that surround the fiddler, or perhaps because of them, the painting is a haunting reminder of life and death.

“Paris, no word sounded sweeter to me!” Chagall reveled in his new life: “No academy could have given me all I discovered by getting my teeth into the exhibitions, the shop windows, and the museums of Paris.” Paris proved to be one of the major turning points in Chagall’s life, although he remained homesick for Vitebsk. After his initial adjustment period, he became a welcomed member of the Paris avant-garde.

“Paris Through the Window (1913) (53” x 56”) (Guggenheim Museum, New York) expresses his delight in Paris and the influence of his new friend and colleague Robert Delaunay. Delaunay had developed a style called Orphism (named after the Greek musician) that brought bright colors to Cubism and had influenced the use of pure colors in “I and the Village” and “The Fiddler.”

Positioning himself in the lower right corner, Chagall is Janus, the two-faced figure. The face at the right looks back to Vitebsk, while the blue face at the left looks to the future. The window is rainbow colored. A yellow cat with a remarkable human face sits on the window ledge and looks into the sky, where a parachutist, Chagall, floats past the Eiffel tower. A man wearing a black suit and carrying a cane, and a woman in green and black wearing a hat, float in the white clouds at the base of the Eiffel tower. The city of Paris stretches across the canvas.

Smaller details catch the viewer’s attention. On the ground behind the window, a steam train puffs along, upside down. In front of the window, a chair supports a yellow pot full of brightly colored flowers. Beside it, in a light beige triangle is the artist’s signature. The two-faced portrait of the artist includes his blue fingers spread open to display a yellow heart on the palm of his hand. Is Chagall in love with Paris? Yes. Is he in love with Vitebsk? Yes. Is he in love with a woman? Yes.

Through his art, Chagall tells many stories of his life and loves. He uses his art to express his response to world in which he lived: World War I, the Russian Revolution, Nazism and World War II, and the aftermath of war.

Closing note: This article deals with Chagall’s early art. His long career will be discussed in future articles in the SPY, as his art has much to say about the world today.

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Looking at the Masters: Franz Marc

January 5, 2023 by Beverly Hall Smith

The art world went through major changes at the beginning of the 20th Century, as did the world at large. European artists were moving far from the classical traditions of the past 500 years (1400-1899). Absolute representation of the world was no longer the goal of the new Paris avant-garde. Picasso led artists into the direction of Cubism, inspired by the geometry of the then available African sculpture. Matisse started the expressionistic style of Fauvism, inspired by the flowing lines of Art Nouveau and an emotional attachment to strong colors inspired by van Gogh, Gauguin, and Munch. The Japanese woodcut had inspired a relaxation of the traditional rules of perspective.

This new wave of art and artists also had a strong presence in Germany. Franz Marc (1880-1916), a native of Munich, was one of the prominent artists arising in Germany. The son of a minor landscape painter, Marc began to paint early in his life. After fulfilling his military service, he studied art at the Munich Academy of Fine Art from 1900 until1902. Unsatisfied with the traditional realism being taught, he went to Paris in 1903, and for the first time saw Japanese woodcuts. Returning to Paris in 1907, he discovered the strong color palettes of Gauguin, van Gogh, and Matisse, and the new Cubist work of Picasso and Delaunay. Marc wrote in 1908, ‘’I am trying to heighten my sense of the organic rhythm that beats in all things, to develop a pantheistic sympathy with the shivering and flow of blood in nature, in trees, in animals, in the air…I am trying to make a picture from it with new movement and with colors which are a mockery of the old kings of studio pictures.”

“Red Deer II” (1912)

Marc’s interest in painting animals began early. He supported himself by giving animal anatomy lessons from 1904 until 1910. His painted series of horses, cows and bulls, dogs, foxes, and deer which he studied from life and at the zoo. “Red Deer” (1912) (39’’x 27’’) is an example of his moving away from realism to find what he described as “the inner mystical construction of the world.” Marc thought that animals represented the innocence lost by man, and that animals were one with the rhythm of nature. In this painting, the sweeping curves of the “Red Deer” are applied equally to the deer and the landscape. The clouds, mountains, paths, and plants are integrated into a symbiotic relationship with the deer. The beauty, strength, and grace of nature is revealed.

“Deer in the Forest” (1913)

“Deer in the Forest” (1913) (40” x41”) (Phillips Collection, Washington, DC.) expresses Marc’s concept of what a painting should depict: “I can paint a picture: ‘The Deer.’ However, I may also wish to paint a picture ‘The Deer Feels.’ How infinitely more delicate the artist’s sensibilities must be to paint that.” Four brown deer nestle together in the forest, while a fifth curls up nearby. The trees surround them and provide shelter. Marc has composed the four deer in a triangle, the most stable composition artists have used for centuries. The surrounding environment is composed of geometrical Cubist shapes.

A solitary bird flies over, and like the deer, seems undisturbed by a glowing red behind it and the black swirls that suggest a coming storm. Questioning the state of the world in which he lived, Marc asked, “must they (paintings) not be full of wires and tension. Of the effects of modern lights, of the spirit of chemical analysis which beaks forces apart and arbitrarily joins them together?” Very much aware of the new scientific discoveries of Rutherford in1911, the study of the atom, Marc’s reaction was immediate “Today we dissect nature, which is always illusory, and put it back together again in accordance with our will. We see through matter. Matter is something which man today can tolerate at most; he cannot acknowledge it.” Marc’s colleague Kandinsky stated; “The crumbling of the atom was to my soul like the crumbling of the whole world. Suddenly the heaviest walls toppled. Everything became uncertain, tottering and weak.”

“Animal Fates” (1913)

“Animal Fates” (1913) (6’5’’ x 8’10’’) is extremely large and takes a different direction from most of Marc’s paintings. The animals are in extreme danger. The composition is crisscrossed with slashing forms in red, black, and dark blue. The forest is burning, and a large tree trunk falls diagonally across the composition.

Marc’s choices of colors were intentional. He describes his theory in detail: “Blue is the male principle, severe and spiritual. Yellow is the female principle, gentle, cheerful and sensual. Red is matter, brutal and heavy, the color that has to come into conflict with, and succumbs to the other two…But then if you mix blue and yellow to make green, you rouse red, matter the earth, but here, as painter, I always sense a difference: it is never possible altogether to subdue eternal matter.”

The two powerful green horses at the upper left of the painting symbolize power, referring to the horsepower of engines. They are caught in the burning red forest. The horse on the left cries out in agony. At the lower left, two red boars symbolize ferocious male strength but are subsumed by the fire. The central figure of the composition is a blue male deer. His exaggerated posture, neck thrown back parallel with the falling tree trunk, illustrates his fear and imminent death. The red tree trunk will surely crush him. At the middle right, four reddish-brown deer, their noses all pointed into the forest, are perhaps the only possible survivors. Marc, along with many, anticipated the conflagration of World War I. On the back of the canvas Marc wrote, ”and all being is flaming, suffering.”

“Deer in the Forest” (1913-14)

Marc and Kandinsky were founding members of the Blue Rider group in Munich in 1911. Both loved horses and the color blue, thus the name of the group. They also agreed on many philosophical points. They believed in the symbolism of colors. Marc expressed their view: “Namely the one great truth is that there is not great pure art without religion, that the more religious art has been the more artistic it has been.” The purpose of the group was not only to mount art exhibitions but also to introduce the proletariat to new ideas. The first Blue Rider Almanac (1912) contained woodcuts and announced the artists’ purpose “to create forms which could take their place on the altars of the future intellectual religion.” Kandinsky’s book On the Spiritual in Art (1912) has never gone out of publication.

“Deer in the Forest” (1913-14) (43’’ X 39’’) clearly represents the idea of spiritual. It does not refer to a religion, but that art had the power to evoke inner emotions and feelings. The composition is made up of three deer, all lying comfortably and at peace. The top most deer is the blue male. His body stretches from side to side of the composition as to protect the other two deer. At the left, the doe, composed of green, yellow and reddish brown, looks toward the male. Between the two is the faun. Marc has chosen the natural camouflage coloring of a faun, with some of the forest colors, light spring green and blue, to integrate the faun into the setting.

The light green shape at the upper left of the composition resembles the new growth of a plant. At the right, balanced against the plant, is a rich array of purples. From the top center, a yellow stripe representing sunlight enters the scene. The introduction of square shapes and black outlines were intended to remind the viewer of the leaded glass in church windows.

“Animals in a Landscape” (1914)

As World War I approached, Marc’s paintings began to show his apprehension and fear. In “Animals in a Landscape” (1914) (43’’x 39’’) powerful red takes control of the composition. Placed within the red is a large bull with black horns. His head is pointed in the direction of a yellow deer, partially integrated into the green forest, her front legs in the blue water. She does not yet feel the wrath of the red. At the upper left, a yellow cow rests peacefully, still unaware of the red danger moving in her direction. Tall black serpents command the right edge of the painting. The red menace emanates from the serpents, and it is in position to sweep over all in the painting.

In his last paintings, Marc began to see an ugliness in nature he had thought existed only in humans, and he expressed his disgust with the modern world. For a short time, his paintings were abstract. He served in WWI as a cavalry officer, and he was put to work camouflaging artillery. His respect and love for nature returned, and in a letter to his wife in 1915 he wrote, “People with their lack of piety, especially men, never touched my true feelings. But animals with their virginal sense of life awakened all that was good in me.” Unfortunately, Marc was sent to the front and died at the battle of Verdun on March 4, 1916. The order to withdraw him from the front and from combat because he was a notable artist came a few days later. Beside his body was his sketchbook” Magic Moments, Plant Life Coming into Creation.”

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