drawing
Women body and image, between symbol and revolution. Review by Carla Scarano.
Donne corpo e imagine, tra simbolo e rivoluzione
Women body and image, between symbol and revolution
Municipal Gallery of Modern Art
Via Francesco Crispi, 24 Rome
24/01—13/10 2019
The ideal venue of the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in via Francesco Crispi in Rome displays a vast range of pictures and sculptures from the Capitoline collections retracing the interpretation and development of the female form and her artistic personality from the end of the nineteenth century until today.
Apart from a great few names such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Rosalba Carriera, Frida Kahlo and Benedetta Cappa, women artists are a minority in the art world of the past and still struggle today to find their place. Most of the works on display testify the strong presence of the female form in all periods as a naked body studied and explored by the male gaze. Ambivalence and contradictions characterise the depiction of women as an angel figure, embodiment of the ideal mother and wife, or, on the contrary, as a threatening temptress, source of all sins. This reflects the ambiguities of the twentieth century, a time of social changes prompted by the two world wars when women showed their commitment at patriotic, social and civil levels. This commitment was acknowledged by political authorities but unfortunately no laws supporting women’s rights were promoted before the second half of the century. In fact, in Italy women were granted vote only in 1946, divorce was introduced in 1970 and abortion became legal in 1978.
The exhibition shows in different sections how women are depicted in art from the personification of the sacred and profane love to focusing on the beauty of her naked body and the Freudian exploration of her psyche. This reveals a crisis that runs across the twentieth century expressing a desire for change and emancipation often in contrast with the traditional roles of mother and wife.
In pictures such as ‘Wise Virgins and Foolish Virgins’ by Giulio Aristide Sartorio (1890) the two groups are separated in two different sections of the triptych highlighting two different aspects of femininity. A similar vision is in ‘Sacred love and profane love’ a pencil and watercolours exquisite piece by Senio (1900), in which a Red Cross nurse wrapped in a dark cloak is opposed to the vanity of a coquette in a flapping flowery dress. Naked women playing in Baths and interiors offer their voluptuous bodies to the viewer in provoking poses apparently oblivious of their identity as in Alessandro Pigna’s ‘Frigidarium’ (1882), Adolfo De Cardis’ ‘Naked woman with roses’ (1910), Camillo Innocenti’s ‘The Sultana’ (1913), or Istvan Csok’s ‘Corner of a studio’ (1905).
The beauty and gracefulness of woman’s naked body is celebrated in intimate contexts that underline its powerlessness but also its value which has allegorical and aesthetic importance in the art world. It personifies the skill of the artists and conveys their emotions expressing vitality and fragility. They also comment on the female role as in ‘Malice’ by Tommaso Bertolino (1950) where the naked composed figure with her arms crossed under her breasts communicates modesty rather than malice. The beautiful ‘Naked woman’ by Arturo Dozzi (1926) exposes her flawless form in an act of donation that is a defenceless surrendering to the viewer. Raffaele Costi’s ‘Two naked women’ (1945) is more unsettling in the expressionist depiction of two stylised nudes back to back, provoking and self-sufficient at the same time. ‘Bathers’ by Attilio Torresini (1934) is reminiscent of Manet’s ‘Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe’, but no man is present here, it is an isolated all women’s world.
In the section Gazes of the Soul, elegant middle class women communicate their emotions through their ‘looks’ captured by the artist in an exchange between viewer and sitter creating empathy. In the portraits of Amedeo Bocchi, Nicola Fabbricatore, Lionne, Marius Ledda, Antonio Donghi, Ildebrando Urbani and Vittoria Morelli there is an attentive study of the subject that highlights distinguishing personalities that seem to suggest an alternative to traditional roles. It is the representation of the intellectual woman with distinctive ideas and autonomous look. A similar view is in the works inspired by Freudian theories. Solitary women are depicted in silent interiors absorbed in their thoughts, withdrawn in their own inner space. It is an intellectual response to the classical exposed nakedness and to the roles of angel and temptress. Paintings such as Vincenzo Irolli’s ‘Waiting’ (1915), Felice Casorati’s ‘Susanna’ (1929), or ‘Old cards’ by Baccio Maria Bacci (1953), testify this alternative vision that reveals a crisis of the traditional roles and a search of identity.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is ‘The Doubt’ by Giacomo Balla (1907), a portrait of his wife Elisa, where seduction and curiosity mix in the woman’s gaze turning to the viewer. It is an invitation and a provocation to see more deeply beyond stereotypes. A similar view is found in Mafai’s ‘Women undressing’ (1934), picturing dynamic disharmonious figures that challenge the stillness of classical pictures.
The contemporary works of Giosetta Fioroni, ‘The Other Ego’ (2012), Amparo Sard, ‘Part ¼’ (2014), Paola Gandolfi, ‘Ambra Jovinelli’ (2000) and Luigi Di Sarro, ‘Untitled’ (1975), are subversive and thought-provoking. They reject the traditional roles subtly exposing the traps that imprison women as in the wired cage wrapping a crouched woman (Di Sarro), in the brick pattern that covers the woman’s figure (Fioroni), or in the nude outlined in pierced paper (Sard). the works reveal the consequences of the diminishment and exclusion from leading roles women suffered throughout centuries.
A collage of videos from the archive of Istituto Luce (Cinecittà) recreate the feminine image of the twentieth century. Different models of women are presented though motherhood and care of the family are primary. Women are seen from the male point of view, they are advertised in magazines and films and emulated by the female audience. They can be intellectual and mundane like Edda Mussolini, the Duce’s daughter, or the personification of the ideal mother like Rachele Mussolini, his wife, or Mussolini’s lover, Claretta Petacci. The queen Elena embodied love for the nation donating her golden wedding ring to the cause, a role model for many Italian women. Besides, there are the mondine (workers of paddy fields), seasonal workers in the rice fields of Po Delta and Po Valley who longed for stable works in factories that could grant them an independent life.
During Fascism the attitude towards women was contradictory, she was supported during pregnancy and rewarded for her role of mother and wife, as big families were funded by the state, but her place was at home. It was a ‘libertà vigilata’ (freedom under surveillance), as the commentator of the video clip cleverly expresses. The interviews interestingly include both women who joined the fascist Republic of Salò and women partisans.
A visible change starts only after the second world war when women acquire the right to vote. They fought for Italian liberation during the war and gained the right to speak and participate in the political debate. The first MPs are Teresa Noce, Nadia Spano and Rita Montagnana, a minority compared to the vast male participation but a good start. The 1960s and 1970s are the years of the revolution. Feminist groups fight in streets, squares and assemblies to demonstrate in favour of divorce and abortion. Monica Vitti, Caterina Caselli and Gianna Nannini are icons of women’s emancipation. The exhibition recalls the movement in the display of feminist posters such as ‘Le streghe son tornate’ (the witches are back) and women metaphorically crucified by history. Social challenges and gender selection are still problems of today in spite of all the fights won by feminist movements. Guerrilla Girls wonder if women need to be naked to enter museums still today and how long it will be so.
The bookshop at the entrance of the museum features books by Serena Dandini, Lilli Gruber, Luciana Littizzetto and the memorable Alda Merini. They are the new role models of today’s society proposing different views in their stories, interviews, examples of women undertaking autonomous creative paths, as well as poetical and political visions. A perceptible alternative towards equality and change.
Carla Scarano © 2019.
Edvard Munch ‘Love and Angst’. Review by Barbara Lewis.
Edvard Munch
Love and Angst
The British Museum, London
Until July 21
We’ve all seen it a hundred times, identified with it and even messaged using an emoticon version of Edvard Munch’s skull-like face, clutched by hands raised in horror in a distorted, nightmarish world.
But it takes a trip to the British Museum’s expertly-curated Love and Angst to appreciate the man and the artistry that built to this moment of intense anguish, known as the Shriek in Norwegian, and for Munch not just a personal, but a universal pain – hence his original title The Scream of Nature.
Neither was it just a moment. Rather it was a part of a series of images, named by Munch The Frieze of Life, a reference to his experience of the emotions of losing his mother and a sister, then a string of affairs as he was attracted to women but unable to commit to any one of them.
The exhibition sets the scene for his restless anxiety with the observation that his life-time (1863-1944) coincided with the advent of railways that allowed him to speed between Paris, Berlin and Kristiania, as Oslo was then named, mingling as he went with fellow fine artists, novelists and playwrights, often leading to at least as much drama offstage as onstage.
His native Kristiania, ruled by strict Lutherans who were scandalised by the works of Ibsen and Munch, was stifling and restrictive.
At the start of the exhibition, Munch depicts himself as an austere Kristianian in Self-Portrait with Skeleton Arm. His head emerges from a black background, like a Lutheran preacher, and at the bottom of the frame is a skeleton’s arm as a reminder of death, which stalked Munch’s anxious world.
The portrait is a lithograph print, setting the tone for an exhibition, which is the first in London to focus on Munch’s prints taken from blocks of stone, copperplate and wood. Its version of The Scream is a stark, black and white lithograph. (Munch, whose habit was to repeatedly revisit subjects, created two paintings and two pastel versions as well as numerous prints.)
The blocks, which Munch obsessively kept, are a fabulous insight into the careful determination and innovation as he strove to express his tortured world view. Their texture and physicality makes us look anew.
Two Human Beings: The Lonely Ones is one of the most appealing examples of his use of jigsaw-style woodcuts, made up of more than one block of wood. The effect is to emphasise the isolation of the two figures, underlining their inability to be together in what otherwise would be a moment of serenity at the side of the fjord.
In Separation, Munch again takes up the loneliness theme and makes use of long wavy hair, one of his leitmotifs. It recalls the waves of the fjords and evokes the feelings that in Munch’s universe ripple through nature. The two characters move apart, tenuously linked by the sweep of the woman’s hair, or, as Munch put it “the long hair is a kind of telegraph wire”.
Apart from being long and wavy, the hair in Munch’s universe is often red, suggesting passion and death.
The two are perfectly linked in Vampire, which Munch originally called Love and Pain. It shows a woman with flame-coloured hair kissing the neck of a man against a dark, mysterious forest-like background.
His famous Madonna has black hair, but with a halo of red, echoed in the red frame that caused outrage because of its daring depiction of swirling sperm and a foetus crouching in a corner.
And then there is his late sister Johanne Sophie, who died of TB, as did his mother. Munch is haunted by the memory, which he revisits in painting after painting.
The Sick Child depicts his sister as feverish beneath her disorderly red hair, while a grief-stricken woman bows her head, crowned with black hair in a tight bun. For Munch the picture was a turning point, but it also belongs to a more sentimental tradition compared with the direct, modern appeal of Munch’s most radical work, most notably The Scream.
While one sister died, another in 1894, was diagnosed with schizophrenia, adding to Munch’s anxiety about his own mental health.
As if in a premonition, he created The Scream a year before in 1893. In an instance of Munch, as he would have said, of painting not what he sees, but what he saw, The Scream portrays his experience of walking at sunset when the setting sun turned the clouds “a blood red” and he sensed an “infinite scream passing through nature”.
The flowing hair has gone, although the wavy lines of a malign energy pervade the image in the graphic black and white of the lithograph as if engulfing the skull-like, androgynous face at the composition’s centre. It recalls death once again, and its gender neutrality helps to explain the universal appeal as the anguished figure is neither male nor female.
It’s the climax of the British Museum exhibition but not quite the end. First, we have a gentler home-coming section as Munch forsakes his European train journeys and focuses on images inspired by the fjords of Christiania and the small town of Asgardstrand, where he bought a fisherman’s cabin.
Munch may never have found equanimity, but in Asgardstrand, he accepted a life without love and embraced his angst, without which there would have been no art. In his words: “For as long as I can remember, I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety, which I have tried to express in my art. Without this anxiety and illness, I would have been like a ship without a rudder.”
Asgardstrand was the setting for Girls on Bridge, which by comparison with The Scream possesses an almost chocolate-box calm.
The girls mark a transition from extreme emotion as we exit the world of Munch for the inevitable shop, selling screams on pencils, napkins, sketch pads, T-shirts and ear-rings for those who want to turn up to the office with an attitude or for protests on Palace Green.
Barbara Lewis © 2019.
London Grip Poetry Review – Alex Josephy
Maria C. McCarthy commends Alex Josephy’s illustrated selection of poems about Tuscany More →
Your Culture is not mine…or is it? America’s tense relationship with high culture. By Stephanie V Sears
Your culture is not mine…or is it?
America’s tense relationship with high culture.
By Stephanie V Sears.
As a half French, half American individual, I give in to a pastime common to double nationals, which consists of regularly comparing both countries of origin. A particularly provoking exercise in the case of France and the United States, because though the two nations share history, values, cultural ties, (in that profound sense of artistic, religious and philosophical influences), they also encounter some mutual irritation and bickering. My intention is to point out these differences, only in so much as they may clarify the decidedly diverging relation the two countries entertain with high culture. While this divergence may, to a certain extent, be explained historically and geographically, it cannot be so entirely.
High culture has been defined generally as” ….all that is best in a culture.”1 And the ruling consensus is that high culture includes all traditional artistic expression – ballet, poetry, theater, opera, painting, literature, classical music, film – of a quality surpassing national frontiers, by way of a universal appeal, even if such artistic work is clearly identified as originating from a particular culture. Leo Tolstoy, for one, noted the importance of a spiritual connection between the author of a work and its recipient.2 The American philosopher John Dewey,3 for another, considered that the individual artist’s creative expression could, by being ‘consumed’ by another person, reveal by the same token the character of that recipient. Finally, high culture is seen as transcending any immediate moneymaking goal.
In the 1964 French film sketch ‘Les Routiers melomanes’ (The music expert truck-drivers), starring Jean Yanne and Paul Mercey, two truck-drivers are doing their night shift together. Wearing wife-beaters, both display, in appearance and language, the plebeian coarseness expected of their profession. Yet as the one not driving, prompted by boredom, turns on a favorite radio station, we discover that they are both highly sophisticated connoisseurs of classical music, deftly able to argue the merits of a Beethoven quartet interpretation, as well as of other classical pieces; even as they continue to intersperse their highfalutin exchange with vulgar invectives directed at passing drivers. They amaze us still more, later on, by discussing the poetry of Charles Peguy, (who, to be fair, is about as easy to read as it is to listen to music by, say, Karl Heinz Stockhausen), with the same passionate expertise and sensitivity. Some of us may laugh at the contrast between blue-collar status and such an unexpected display of rarefied erudition. Some of us may not. Indeed, such socio-cultural discrepancy is not so far-fetched in France, a country renowned for its native infatuation with high culture, French or otherwise. High culture is enthusiastically promoted in public and private schools alike and, generally throughout a society that is close to its culture; literally, at every step, be it in its urban centers or in its countryside. In no other country, that I know of, is public opinion more indulgent and admiring of an individual’s inclination towards high culture. Ultimately, one’s relation to culture is considered to be a personal exchange between artist and recipient, a deeply sincere, quasi-religious one. From a French point of view, therefore, the situation depicted in the sketch ‘Les Routiers Melomanes’, may be considered as less of a joke about the contrast between social status and the expert refinement displayed by these individuals, and more of a poking fun at the native frenzy for culture in any circumstance.
I am almost certain that in the United States the sketch would be understood as a warning against class prejudice and division.
Famous actors Gerard Depardieu and Fabrice Luchini are both from very modest social backgrounds, the former having sojourned in prison in his nearly illiterate youth, the latter having begun his career as a hair-dresser’s assistant. Yet, both have risen today to fame, not only as icons of classical French literature through their enacting of well-known literary characters, but also as legitimate authorities on French literature and poetry.
Over time, French education has also inoculated citizens from former colonies with some of the same passion for French culture, and culture in general, and it is not unusual to find oneself discussing Balzac or Rimbaud, with a Senegalese taxi driver during one’s ride through Paris.
The sheer number of articles and essays published on the United States’ educational and cultural decline – tainted either with suspicion, resentment or nostalgia – as some question the value of high culture or, on the contrary, deplore its abandon, or again, propose a blending together of high and popular culture, or even the deletion of the former, deemed passé – illustrates how, in America, contrarily to France, socio-political ideology has intruded in the arts domain, and how strained and somewhat unspontaneous is the country’s relationship with high culture.
In her 2013 New York Times piece4, Patricia Cohen gives the statistics, from 2008 to 2013, of an overall decline of visits to museums, to the theater and classical music concerts, ballet shows, (despite a slight rise in attendance at jazz concerts and movies). Her conclusion remains, nonetheless, mildly optimistic as she evokes rising costs of tickets for the performing arts, the degree of accessibility to shows, and the availability of modern home technology allowing households to enjoy the arts at home. Daniel Asia, more pessimistically,5 notes ,already for the earlier period 1982 to 2008, a drop in attendance from a previous 13% to 9.3% for classical music concerts, from 12% to 9% for plays, a sharp fall of 50% for ballet. Jazz concerts – spared a decline in Ms. Cohen’s article – show a fall from 10.8% in 2002 to 7.8% in 2008.
In fact, virtual connection to culture often does replace the direct, physical connection that is yet so essential for a full impact of a performance or an exhibit on our emotions. But a more fundamental reason for this distancing with high culture, is, most probably, poor schooling – what the economist and socio-political commentator, Thomas Sowell, calls ‘gimmicky education’, one pervaded by the notion that a student must ‘feel good’ about himself rather than receive a formal education.6 The gradual disappearance of cursive writing from school (though some schools are now bringing it back after noticing the nefarious effects of its vanishing)7, may, all at once, be a symptom of this distancing and underscore a tendency to simply abandon certain cultural habits that used to link the individual more seamlessly to his history. Another cause or derivation of this cultural deficit may be the overall drop in literary reading.8 It is, however, the pervasive ideological discourse on social equality and how to achieve it, that must be held most accountable for this avalanche of sorrowful assessment of a general alienation from high culture.
Indeed, this scrutiny in favor or against high culture in America, reveals the interference of a socio-political self-consciousness in the world of the arts and high culture. The moral posturing employed in this interposition, in an attempt to impose a corresponding social framework, tampers with creative integrity as it proclaims authoritatively what is moral and ‘right’.
This is not to say that all earnest affection and cultural identification with certain American artists has disappeared. In my New England region, Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson are examples of such enduring and sincere cultural attachment. And yet…and yet one can’t help wondering, amidst the country’s current cultural climate, if there is not also, beyond a genuine appreciation, the hint of a surrender to politically correct pressure, to a tacit consensus that these poets are ‘safe’ to admire, unlike other great authors.
Jack London, Henry James, (and to include international anglophone authors) C.S.Lewis, Charles Dickens, J.R.R.Tolkien, Joseph Conrad, are all morally condemned for reasons not pertaining to the intrinsic quality of their work. Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, commonly accused of racism, is a case in point. One can’t help wondering why, then, that particular novella has been so consistently studied in America, (knowing that Conrad wrote so many other exquisitely well written stories giving central stage to non-white indigenous characters), if not to select a work that may conveniently support the discourse of pernicious colonial mentality rather than be simply read as great literature.9 The character of Fagin in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, has had the same fate.10 And such damning criticism extends even to music. Richard Wagner is a prime example of unredeemable musical offensiveness.11
The resistance against high culture entails, therefore, the suppression of works regarded as offensive, by first ridding them of a certain majesty and placing them on a level with popular and commercial culture in the name of a more ‘modern’ cultural outlook. Such a process may lead to adapting a great work by selecting parts of it and reducing that selection to an identifiable icon or slogan, that can then be introduced to the realm of marketing and commerce. Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and ‘The Kiss’ by Gustav Klimt typify such a process.
The American consumer of the arts is made uncertain of his taste for high culture in an environment in which high and popular culture become increasingly co-mingled, and in which moral criticism, condemnation, are in constant ebullition. The consumer of high arts is directed or pressured towards a more ‘omnivorous’ consumption, implying a less ‘elitist’ spectrum of culture.12 This broadening process, which, by the way, any cultivated and culturally confident individual performs on his own, at his own pace, out of natural curiosity, is force-fed to him by mass media and other forms of public prepping as an exercise in redemption or prevention from ‘elitism’.
The fundamental difference in cultural outlook between France and the United States may perhaps be reflected in the twin expressions: Down to earth and Terre a terre. The former, frequently used by Americans, conveys a positive and enviable quality. The latter, in France, connotes, to the contrary, a certain disdain and suggests a lack of aesthetic, intellectual and ultimately spiritual elevation of the sort that should spring directly from the human heart. In the American expression can be found the influence of a democratically egalitarian ideal. In the French expression can be found the remains of a chivalrous ideal fraught with romanticism, and which America characterizes with some diffidence as ‘elitism’. And yet it is not as if Americans have always been blind to those effects of a certain type of egalitarian idealism on individual self-determination and creativity. In fact, in the American passion for individual freedom and devotion to a certain view of social equality, there is a strange yet fundamental paradox. Ultimately, the two sides seem fated to clash until one is defeated one way or another. It is worrying to see individual freedom being challenged and restrained in the United States’ leading democracy, in a way somewhat reminiscent of regimes vigorously condemned by American principles.
In his time, Henry Adams noted the negative influence exerted by democratic principles on the making and enjoyment of high culture: “What Adams plays upon is important- the hurts that Democracy inescapably inflicts on the intelligent, cultivated high culture, the traditionally artistic sensibility, the individual.”13 The constant moral pressure imposed by the democratic ideal on American society gave birth, as a matter of course, to a suspicion of so-called ‘elitist’ culture and, thereby, of a taste for it. In Henry James’ book ‘The Ambassadors’, that same suspicion felt by the main character, Lambert Strether, is key to the plot in which Strether ultimately succeeds in resisting the seduction of European high culture, seen as the manifestation of a decadent society. To the contrary of Strether, Henry James’ writing, one of the most sophisticated in American literature: “privileges many of the things that American life barely tolerates and certainly has no notion or means of helping to flourish.”14 Davidoff goes on to add that such literature as James’ does not serve the large categories of activism.”15
Though noble and, in many cases, necessary, activism in the United States has also, to a considerable extent, given in to political bias and propagandizing; which, in turn, has led to an abuse of socio-political interventionism. In still more sinister fashion, however subtly it may have been conducted, activism has led to the censuring of individual freedom of thought and speech. Certain types of activism in America that are focused on culture, are clearly over-stepping the line that separates democratic values and the invasion of individual freedom.
Daniel Asia,16 points out that in the USA, popular culture was always taken more seriously than high culture, partly because of the moral approach evoked above. Yet the upsurge of popular culture in the 1950s, instead of melding different racial and economic groups of Americans together, opened the way to aggravating forms of blame and division, and led to what is commonly called ‘identity politics’. Homosexuals, women, Native Americans, African-Americans, demanded to be acknowledged as significant yet, somehow, separate segments of American society. As Michael Sliwinski indicates,17 this popular movement, improperly structured because devoid of intellectual leadership, and which, later, vented its views through mainly virtual modes, gradually led to a phenomenon of protest for the sake of protesting; as if mere agitation and clamoring could culminate in the desired result, whether the result was clearly determined… or not.18 In the 1960s, culture became a political weapon towards change.19 Any residual individual aspiration to experience the arts, unfettered by politics, seemed to gradually dwindle on the American horizon like a lonesome cowboy of the past. Meanwhile, activism seemed to spread like a rash across that previously hallowed ground of creativity.
One may legitimately wonder, in such circumstances, what happens to an artist’s freedom of expression, but also to the consumer’s right to his own personal cultural inclination. What happens when whole segments of society forcefully adapt the cultural environment by way of socio-political subterfuges? What happens to that sincere and earnest search for “a shadow of the divine perfection?” (Michelangelo Buonarroti quote)
The direct encounter between artist and individual is increasingly and conveniently replaced by a ‘plug-in’, emotionally atrophied globalism. Easy access to text, image, music, etc, and the consequent fluid virtual traveling of works of art and their swift manipulation by technology, blurs more and more the distinction between the genuine creative act and the consumer; useful, and to an extent, educational, giving quick access to information, virtual engineering also facilitates, with growing shamelessness, the possibility to ‘correct’, according to current acceptable socio-economic norms, any given artistic expression.
American activism employs the ‘soft’ method of victimization to filter its demands. Even nature, in its unsullied grandeur, was once, as a purveyor of personal solace to all, left outside of political debate. But it seems that it is now also being implicated in an environmental activism that does not seek strictly to help preserve nature, but also feeds a political debate with an over-all socio-political message.
In ‘Histoire du Juif Errant’ (1990) the French writer Jean d’Ormesson wrote that one would have to travel very far indeed to no longer be able to appreciate emotions common to all mankind. In fact, unlike much of today’s activism in America, that only pretends to speak for the individual, authors like Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Dostoevsky, Steinbeck, though considered as social critics of their time and place, spoke, in fact, first and foremost to and for the individual’s sake, wherever he might be.
Any intervening force, be it religious or political, that tampers with a personal encounter between artist and consumer of the arts, is bound to lead inevitably to a culturally impoverished society and a manipulated individual; or, to what Joseph C.Hermanowiecz calls: ‘The Culture of Mediocrity’ (2013). One possible outcome of such cultural activism might be a backlash from a growing portion of society refusing to be herded into a single cultural format. Activism having such a consequence, would, therefore, increase social strife and division rather than achieve the proposed goal of a multicultural harmony.
Cultural activism in the United States attacks a perceived supremacy of European culture as a villain holding hostage the vital innards of American society. One may fear, however, and with good reason, that one form of supposed supremacy may, ironically, serve as excuse to shape another far more inescapable supremacy: of a sanitized culture ruled by a singularly undemocratic globalism. In such a case, individual imagination is bound to wither. If high culture is the self-consciousness of a society18, yet is contained or eliminated by a biased form of censorship, and replaced by cultural standards that fit a certain contrived idea of social harmony, that society is bound to become troubled and emotionally void.
Rather than diligently warn against cultural expressions arbitrarily identified as passé, racist, supremacist – a method which undermines the individual’s right to self-determination – it could be more to the point, and more inclusive, to simply acknowledge the benefits of high culture to everyone.
Through the individual, any kind of cultural encounter is possible. It has been shown that great art welcomes tribute from any kind of individual variant at the intersection of social, economic, educational factors. Here lies the magical appeal of the high arts for anyone, if experienced on the grounds of intrinsic merit; in other terms, at a level where neither ideology, racial/racist considerations, social gradings, nor commerce are given precedence over a work’s essential appeal to an individual.
Authentic human emotion creates bonds that irresistibly breach conventional social types, bringing humanity together far more efficiently than any ideology. And left to its own devices, the power of culture is unstoppable in bringing together, say, a Chinese accountant and the short stories of J.L. Borges, an Ojibwa Native American and the Indian sitar, Mike Tyson and Baroque castrato music.
In summary, to privilege high culture, is, in my humble view, a way to bypass the sadly unsatisfactory bouillabaisse of the multiculturalism offered by media and commerce, for a far more genuine meeting between individuals of different cultural origins and/or social circumstances, bolstered by the highest levels of artistic expression, where they may seek together common values.
Sources
1 Fahad Al Kubaisi cites Tuchman, Gaye, and Fortin 1989
2 ‘European culture’ is an invented tradition/Benjamin G. Martin/January 2017
3 Art as Experience/John Dewey/ 1934
4 A New Survey Finds a Drop in Arts Attendance/ Patricia Cohen/NYT December 2013
5 The Future of (high) Culture in America/Daniel Asia/2015
6 Inside American Education: the decline, the deception, the dogmas/ 201565 Diane Rehm Show with Thomas Sowell/ Washington DC 1993
7 Is cursive handwriting slowly dying out in America? PBS News2014
8 The long steady Decline of Literary Reading/ The Washington Post 2016
9 Out of Africa/Caryl Phillips/ 2003
10 The Faces of Fagin/Paul Vallely/2005
11 As if music could do no harm/ Alex Ross 2014/Can we forgive him?/Adrian Mourby/2000
12 Whatever happened to high culture?/Joseph Epstein/2015
13 Robert Davidoff/Genteel Tradition and the Sacred Rage/72/2016
14 Robert Davidoff/Genteel Tradition and the Sacred Rage/133/2015
15 R. Davidoff/Genteel Tradition and the Sacred Rage/134/2015
16 The Future of (high) Culture in America/Daniel Asia/ 2015
17 Michael Sliwinski/The Evolution of Activism: From the Streets to Social Media/2016.
18 Frank Tommler/Mixing high and popular culture: the impact of communication revolution/ German Pop Culture:’ how American is it?’ U. Of Michigan Press 2004
19 Roger Scruton/ High Culture is being corrupted by a Culture of Fakes/2012
Three free exhibitions at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology. Review by Carla Scarano.
Three free exhibitions at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford.
Antinous: boy made god. Until 24 Feb 2019, Gallery 8
Lui Shou-kwan Centenary Exhibition: Abstraction, Ink and Enlightenment. Until 7 April, Gallery 11
Plum Blossom and Green Willow: Surimono Poetry Prints. Until 17 May 2019, Gallery 29
Sometimes free exhibitions are as interesting as ones you pay for. This is the case of three free exhibitions displayed in three different rooms at the Ashmolean museum in Oxford. Though each exhibition is presented in only one room, they all show enough objects or pictures with effective explanatory captions that allow the viewer to successfully understand the subject.
Antinous: boy made god in Gallery 8, focuses on the figure of the handsome young man from Bithynia (present Turkey) who was the beloved lover of the emperor Hadrian from AD 123 till the boy’s death in 130. He drowned in the Nile, and there are no records to ascertain if it was an accident, suicide, or if he was killed. Possibly it was a self-sacrifice in favour of the emperor. Antinous did not hold any official or public position and was not a Roman citizen. However, his cult spread throughout the empire; he was represented in statues, busts, coins, bronze statuettes, and was celebrated in poems, hymns and festivals.
The exhibition displays several marble statues such as the beautiful ‘Antinous from Syria’, a naked bust with an inscription, ‘To the Hero Antinous’. The ‘Townley Antinous’, a head that was part of a statue, wears a wreath of ivy reminiscent of the figure of Dyonisus. His face looks down, in a modest pose as in the life-size statue of the ‘Capitoline Antinous’. This modesty represented the attitude the elders expected from a well-educated youth, similar to the ‘Venus pudica’ (modest Venus). The hairstyle, curls at the front and long hair at the back, is reminiscent of figures of heroes such as Achilles. However, there are no records of heroic acts or other particular events he performed, except the fact that he was Hadrian’s lover. He represented homoerotic attraction, which was subsequently repressed under Christianity, and had followers in local and popular worship. This widespread and enduring veneration is considered unusual by experts and though Hadrian founded a city in his honour, Antinopolis, and supported his cult, it does not seem enough to justify it. The most feasible explanation about this success is that he probably answered a need in society. The worshippers identified themselves in this country boy who became a hero and a god for them, and his life was exemplar. The exhibition also displays plaster casts and a statue of Antinous as Osiris, found at Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli in Italy. This representation as the Egyptian god of the underworld testifies the versatility and popularity of his cult.
A very different and equally engrossing exhibition is in Gallery 11. It is dedicated to the Chinese painter Lui Shou-Kwan (1919-1975), who lived in the mainland China and in Hong Kong working for a Ferry Company and teaching art. In his work he developed spiritual themes connected with Buddhism and Confucianism expressed in his landscapes and abstract paintings. His apparently loose, though carefully controlled, use of black ink in thin lines as well as in large patches reveals a traditional approach that records the physical object or landscape but aims to a spiritual connection. This is very clear in his Chan paintings (Chan meaning ‘Zen’ in Japanese) where large brushstrokes in black ink are juxtaposed to small yellow or red marks, probably linked to the symbols of colours in Buddhism where red is traditionally associate to life and virtue and yellow to renunciation and emptiness. They might allude to Zen practices focusing on meditation, a point in time and space to contemplate. The lotus pictures symbolise the openness of this practice to the world and to others, while the landscapes show the dreamlike quality of the land in its expanding, almost boundless reality, that seems to reach beyond the page. The abstract paintings are fascinating in their simplicity and yet highly evocative of a possible different dimension. The centenary exhibition dedicated to this remarkable painter displays a riveting selection of his works; this gives the viewer a deep and vivid awareness of the interests and development of his art.
In Gallery 29 the Surimono prints’ display from the Ashmolean’s collections offer an interesting view of Japanese poetry, custom and art of the early 19th century. The Surimono, meaning ‘printed thing or object’, is a woodblock print of about eight by nine inches commissioned for special occasions such as New Year greetings, the Cherry Blossom season or other particular events. They wish good luck combining images and poetry with pictures linked to nature, historical events, symbols or still life. They often illustrated a particular poem that won a competition or publicised Kabuki actors and did not have a commercial distribution but were privately published and privately owned. The text was paramount and was the main inspiration for the illustration which interpreted and added layers of meaning to the poem.
The exhibition, though displayed in a small room, offers a good range of examples from Kabuki actors, historical figures, symbolism linked to Buddhism, iconic characters of literature and legends, and festivities. The exquisite elegance of the pictures and their connection with the importance of harmony in life, convey a spiritual influence that, according to Japanese tradition, was present in the words of the poems.
The three exhibitions, though limited to one room, give a vivid and extensive view of the themes they address. The viewer cannot be but fascinated by their original finesse, vision and artistry.
Carla Scarano © 2019.
Balla: Villa Borghese. Review by Carla Scarano.
Balla: Villa Borghese
Museo Carlo Bilotti
Aranciera (Orangery) di Villa Borghese
Rome
29/11/2018 – 17/02/2019
‘Ho lavorato molto cercando sempre di ritrarre il vero ed attraverso ad esso l’intimo spirito delle cose’
Giacomo Balla
(I have always worked a lot trying to portray the truth and through it the intimate spirit of things)
The Museum Carlo Bilotti is located in the elegant edifice of the Orangery in the park of Villa Borghese. It is one of the many and interesting museums of the Municipality of Rome scattered around the capital, and is free of charge. It is hosting an engrossing exhibition of the first period of Giacomo Balla, a painter and sculptor whose works developed in the first half of 20th century going from realism to abstract art; he was also a major representative of Futurism, an avant-garde movement. Balla lived near the park in 1904 in a large apartment in via Paisiello in the chic district of Parioli. He depicted the trees and landscapes of Villa Borghese from the balcony of his study or immersed in the green just outside his house.
Villa Borghese is in the heart of the city stretching from Pincian Hill facing piazza del Popolo to Parioli for eighty hectares. Besides strolling in the beautiful park, visitors can admire the Lake Garden, various temples and fountains, piazza di Siena, venue of the renowned international horse show, look at the Water Clock and at a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, as well as visiting the Borghese Museum and Gallery and the Rome zoo (Bioparco). The Orangery is another interesting place to see. The edifice was deeply altered throughout the centuries. Its original structure dates back to the 16th century but was completely refurbished in the late 18th century by Marcantonio IV Borghese in a new project that involved the area of the Lake Garden where the Orangery was a place of leisure. The building was severely damaged during the battles of 1849, when the Roman Republic fell under the pressure of the French army. It was acquired by the Municipality of Rome in 1903 together with the rest of the park.
Museum Carlo Bilotti is an important example of collaboration between public and private enterprises. It is a meeting place of art and culture situated in the centre of Villa Borghese thanks to the donations of Carlo Bilotti, an Italian-American entrepreneur who worked in the field of cosmetics. He was a collector who opened his collection of renowned art works to the public both in Rome and in Cosenza (his home town), donating twenty-two works to the museum. They are paintings, sculptures and drawings mainly by Giorgio de Chirico, but there are also works by Larry Rivers, Andy Warhol, Gino Severini and Giacomo Manzú. Unfortunately, the room dedicated to de Chirico is temporarily closed due to repairing works. The areas dedicated to temporary exhibitions are a large part of the museum both at the ground floor and at the first floor.
In a room by the entrance, a video clip introduces Balla’s art and career from his beginnings as a student at the Royal Albertine Academy in Turin to the time he spent in Paris and his arrival in Rome where his fame soared. At first he became famous for his portraits, where he applied the techniques of light and shadow from photography. Among his students there were Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini who introduced Balla to Futurism. He signed the Manifesto of Futurism in 1910 moving to an abstract pictorial style that conveyed sensations through colours and geometrical shapes. The study of movement and speed was paramount in this period. Even his daughters’ names, Luce (light), and Elica (propeller), were inspired by this avant-garde movement. Futurism meant to destroy the past and rebuild a new future in a constant change and regeneration. It relied in slogans such as ‘we will free Italy from her innumerable museums which cover her like countless cemeteries’, or ‘a racing motor car is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace’. In politics Balla was a socialist, opposed the establishment and was involved in the literacy campaign together with Duilio Cambellotti. They meant to improve literacy in the countryside around Rome, the Agro Pontino, where there was a high percentage of illiterate peasants and very poor conditions due to the Pontine marshes and the spreading of malaria. At the end of his career, Balla embraced a more realist, figurative style again.
The exhibition displays enthralling pictures, mainly pastels, of views, trees, fountains, alleys and sculptures of Villa Borghese. The artist explored the park over and over again, simplifying the forms and modifying the colours. For Balla, Villa Borghese was like the mount of Sainte-Victoire for Cézanne, a great source of inspiration, that allowed him to investigate reality to the point of an abstract research of purity. The core of his art remained the study of light and movement throughout his career.
A few portraits on display testify his skilful use of chiaroscuro merging the lesson of the masters, such as Caravaggio, and the new techniques of photography he learned in Paris. The influence of Impressionism and Divisionism, characterized by the separation of colours in spots, are also present in some of the works, such as ‘Germogli Primaverili’ (spring buds), ‘Villa Borghese dal Balcone’ (Villa Borghese from the balcony) or the pictures of trees. They emphasise the attentive study of shades that create dynamism and movement. A nocturnal study of ‘Le Torri del Museo Borghese’ (the towers of Borghese museum) reveals a modern interpretation of light and shadow reminiscent of van Gogh’s lesson. A research of simplified forms almost to the abstraction is in ‘Fontana’ (fountain) and ‘Cantano i Tronchi’ (the trunks sing), where the lines evoke the shapes in deep contrasts with the background. Some landscapes depicting the suburbs of Rome are also on display showing how Balla was a complete artist, mastering portraits, landscapes, close up details as well as sculptures. ‘Linea di velocità + forma rumore’ (1913-1914, 1933) is the only futuristic work of the exhibition. It is an installation in chromed brass showing in its sharp angles and convoluted curves the vibrant quality he attained in his investigation of movement and speed.
This is a compelling exhibition that successfully presents some of Balla’s less known yet fascinating pieces centred on the theme of Villa Borghese in the enchanting atmosphere of the Orangery, immersed in one of the most beautiful parks of Rome.
Carla Scarano © 2019.
Ovid. Love, myths and other stories. Review by Carla Scarano.
Ovid. Love, myths and other stories.
Scuderie del Quirinale.
Rome.
17 October 2018 – 20 January 2019.
An enthralling survey of ancient myths is the central idea of Ovid’s exhibition at Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome. Ovid interpreted and sometimes created the tradition of classical mythology in his most famous poem, Metamorphoses. He was an aristocrat and an intellectual who clashed with emperor Augustus’ moral reforms. For this reason, Augustus exiled him to Tomis, a remote town on the Black Sea, where the poet died ten years later.
Ovid’s free thinking and open criticism to a moral interpretation of myths is clearly pointed out in the exhibition and well explained in the captions. Starting from the first room, the viewer is well aware of the paramount importance of Ovid’s works both in the past and today. From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, his books were copied by hand then published in printed editions spreading throughout Europe. Ovid’s words are still meaningful today in the installation in coloured neon, ‘Maxima Proposito (Ovid)’ (2017) by the American artist Joseph Kosuth. It is a selection of writings in English and Latin from Metamorphoses testifying the still relevant and inspirational quality of the myths.
Love is central to Ovid’s oeuvre in all its forms: eroticism, seduction, passion as well as how to discipline desire. His libertine vision was in contrast with Augustus and his wife Livia’s reforms that meant to renew pax deorum (divine harmony) and devotion to the gods, aiming to give stability to the Roman empire. Ovid clashes with this view mocking the gods as frivolous, malicious, ruthless in their revenge and insatiable in love.
The examples are numberless and well explained throughout the exhibition with engrossing works of art, mainly sculptures from the Roman period but also pictures by Botticelli, Tintoretto, Domenichino, Saraceni and Poussin, and thought-provoking descriptions. The ambiguous and falsely chaste image of Venus Pudica (modest Venus), covering her private parts, is revealed in the illicit love affair of Venus and Mars. Another example is in the slaughter of the Niobids, a ferocious massacre of young innocents by the hands of Apollo and Diana. The goddess shows her vengefulness and cruelty in the story of Actaeon as well, who sees her naked by chance and is transformed into a stag then devoured by his own hounds. In a similar way, the satyr Marsyas, who dared challenge Apollo in a music contest, loses and is flayed alive as punishment.
The best example of Ovid’s exposure of the gods’ eccentricities and his criticism of Augustus’ policy, is expressed in the way he narrates Jupiter’s affairs, revealing the lack of morality of the lord of heavens and protector of Rome. Ovid’s Jupiter is a seducer, an insatiable lover, using any means in order to fulfil his desires. His victims are defenceless girls, young men and honest married women he conquers using trickeries and disguises. He transforms into a swan to rape Leda, a white bull to abduct Europa, an eagle to kidnap Ganymede, and golden rain to conquer Danaë. The gods worshipped by Augustus are not impeccable examples of morality, on the contrary, they are capricious and subjected by their passions and whims, eventually cruel to the extreme. Ovid’s undermining of the reputation of the gods brought Augustus to exile him.
The exhibition continues on to the second floor focusing on stories of love, rape and abandonment such as the myths of Ariadne, Proserpina and Ganymede. Love is an obsession, so powerful that it cannot be controlled. It triggers action and eventually transforms the victim in a goddess or dooms her forever. Women are usually powerless in the face of the authority of the gods. They are forced to submit both to rape and to transformation or to invoke transformation to avoid rape as in Apollo and Daphne’s story.
The most tragic story is the myth of Narcissus, where Echo, who is desperately in love with him, consumes herself to the point of being reduced to her voice. Narcissus rejects whoever is in love with him and finally loses his head for his own image reflected in water. As Tiresias predicted ‘so long as he never knows himself’ he will live. This is an ambiguous prophesy that implies the dangers of egocentrism. The only character who seems to thrive after his abduction, rape and abandonment is Ganymede. He is not punished or transformed but ‘promoted’ to the role of cup-bearer of the gods.
At the end of Metamorphoses, Ovid envisages his future everlasting fame. His works will be used by great writers such as Francis Bacon, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Joyce, T.S Eliot and Bob Dylan. The poet’s emphasis on change, a constant becoming of all the forms and aspects of the universe, reflects our modern vision of life. This lack of stability, that Ovid took from the philosopher Heraclitus, stresses the proximity of all the forms: humans, gods, animals, plants and minerals. There is a reciprocal influence and a constant tension between the different natures where new shapes keep what is possible of the old ones, which are never completely effaced in the transformation, as Calvino claims in his essay ‘Ovidio e la contiguità universale’ (Ovid and the universal proximity). Eventually, it is not a total change but a process. For the preservation of the species, survival is fundamental: ‘everything changes, nothing dies, the everything flows, and every image is transformed in movement’.
The exhibition shows in an effective, stimulating way how Ovid’s works influenced our culture and storytelling from ancient time until today, thanks to a vision centred on the constant becoming of being human. It entails transformation but also continuity and encompasses all forms present in nature. Interesting descriptions and significant works of art complete the display giving a thorough perspective to the viewer.
Carla Scarano © 2019.
The Citi exhibition: Manga. Review by Carla Scarano.
July 19, 2019 by Carla Scarano • art, books, drawing, exhibitions, fiction, year 2019 • Tags: art, books, Carla Scarano, drawing, exhibitions •
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