Sunday, July 25, 2021

Art Eyewitness Essay: The Philadelphia Museum of Art's Core Project Triumph

 

The Triumph of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Core Project
A Photo Essay, 2017- 2021 

Original Photos by Anne Lloyd
Commentary by Ed Voves

Old friends in new surroundings. That was the image which almost immediately leapt to mind when my wife, Anne, and I paid our first visit to the newly renovated galleries and public spaces of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

The immense redesign and construction project can be traced back to initial planning in the year 2000, with construction commencing in earnest in 2017 and opening to the public just a few weeks ago on May 7, 2021. Anne and I had been honored to attend the March 2017 groundbreaking which I discussed in Frank Gehry's Master Plan for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Now, four years later, we were back to see how our "old friends" liked their new digs.

By "old friends" I mean the treasures of the Philly Museum's wonderful collection, which have been "reimagined" in the expanded gallery spaces. 

High on the list of familiar and beloved art works is Charles Willson Peale's Staircase Group (Portrait of Raphaele Peale and Titian Ramsey Peale). This nearly life-sized portrait of two of Peale's sons, complete with tromp l'oeil steps, has been placed at the entrance of a newly designed suite of galleries dedicated to telling the story of art in early America. 



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) The Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Galleries, showing a sofa designed by Benjamin Latrobe (1808). The painting (center) is Washington Allston's Scenes from the Taming of the Shrew (1809)

The "new spaces" include the Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Galleries (American art, 1600's to 1850) and the Daniel W. Dietrich II Galleries for Contemporary Art, especially works with a Philadelphia focus.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) Gallery view of the New Grit: Art & Philly Now exhibition in the Daniel W. Dietrich II Galleries



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2020) Alex Da Corte's S.O.S. (Sam on Sill)

The real "show-stopper" is the Williams Forum, a new public events site of such astonishing design that it was disorienting to take in, the first few times I have visited there.


Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) 
A dramatic view of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Williams Forum, with cantilever steps leading down from the first floor.

The redesign of the Philadelphia Museum of Art was designated as the "Core Project" because of the decision to utilize internal space within the imposing  building. Where other museums have "added-on" or "built-out" from their existing structures, the planning committee of the Philly Museum decided to "go deep."



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) 
The Philadelphia Museum of Art's East Entrance & the "Rocky" steps   

As a result of this decision, the familiar "face" of the Philadelphia Museum of Art appears little affected by the momentous changes taking place inside.

"Going deep" was possible because of a complicated series of strategic moves beginning with the acquisition of an Art-Deco style building located near the Philly Museum in 2000. Renamed after generous donors, the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building provided space for staff offices formerly housed in the museum. This now-vacated office space and other areas within the great building would provide room for the Core Project reconstruction without radically altering the distinctive facade of the museum.




Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) 
Cutaway views of the architectural model of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Core Project. The bottom photo shows the Great Stair Hall with Calder Mobile, located above the new Williams Forum.

Maintaining the exterior of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is more than a case of "keeping up appearances". Long before the steps of the museum's East Entrance entered Hollywood legend in the 1970's film Rocky, the Philadelphia Museum of Art occupied a huge place in Philly's cultural identity. Yet, the museum's history is marked by change and coping with adversity.

The Core Project represents the third major transformation experienced by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

May 10,1877 was the opening day for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Its first home was Memorial Hall, one of the buildings of the 1876 Centennial Exposition. Memorial Hall was totally inadequate as an exhibition space by the early years of the twentieth century. The present museum, a magnificent neo-classical structure built with honey-colored limestone, rose on the site of the historic Fairmount Waterworks. The iconic building greeted its first visitors in 1928 and the stage was set for a great future.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2018)      
The North pediment of the Philadelphia Museum of Art,  showing Carl Paul Jennewein's ceramic-glazed terra cotta sculpture entitled Western Civilization, 1932

The next year witnessed the Wall Street debacle followed by the 1930's Depression and World War II. Funding was scarce and the new museum struggled to keep open.

Never-the-less, the Philadelphia Museum of Art endured and thrived. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the collection had grown in quality and quantity to such an extent that many of the galleries were overwhelmed with masterpieces. Clearly a strategy for the Philly Museum was needed, one which would also provide space for the display of contemporary art, especially works by local artists.

In 2004, a long-range Facilities Master Plan was approved. Many dedicated people would play major roles in implementing this Master Plan but four deserve special recognition: Gail Harrity, President of the museum, Anne d’Harnoncourt,  Director and CEO until her passing in 2008, Timothy Rub, Director and CEO since fall 2009, and Frank Gehry, who was selected as architect in 2006.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Portrait of Frank Gehry

In accepting the challenge of the Core Project, Gehry cogently explained the guiding principle of honoring the vision of the original architect, Horace  Trumbauer and his chief designer, Julian Abele: 

The goal in all of our work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art has been to let the museum guide our hand. The brilliant architects who came before us created a strong and intelligent design that we have tried to respect, and in some cases accentuate. Our overarching goal has been to create spaces for art and for people.

The "strong and intelligent design" of the original architects of the Philadelphia Museum of Art provided 90,000 square feet of internal space for Gehry and his team to "reimagine." Needless to say, an enormous amount of planning, fund-raising and hard work was part of the process.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017)
     The Vaulted Passageway of the Philadelphia Museum of Art,  before renovations in March 2017

Along with the vacated office space mentioned earlier there were two primary areas awaiting redevelopment. The most dramatic was a corridor, 640 feet long, sited on a north-south axis. Even before the construction crews started work, the Vaulted Walkway, as it is known, was a really imposing site. Yet, for almost half a century, it had been closed to the public. 



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) 
The Van Pelt Auditorium being demolished during the
 Core Project renovations at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Most museum patrons had no idea that the Vaulted Walkway existed. The second major space to be utilized to provide square footage was much more familiar. This was the Van Pelt Auditorium, the site for so many memorable lectures and classic film presentations. But with a replacement planned for the Perlman Center, this much-used locale was demolished to make way for the visionary Williams Forum.



                                  Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021)                                           The Philadelphia Museum of Art's Williams Forum, constructed on the site of the demolished Van Pelt Auditorium

While the construction work proceeded, a second key facet in the success of the Core Project commenced. This was to keep as much of the Philly Museum's collection visible and accessible to patrons during the long years of "pardon our dust" labor.  

The strategic management skills of Timothy Rub, President and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, solved the problem. A succession of major exhibitions propelled the museum's public service mission as the structural changes of the Core Project gained momentum. Rather than attempt a breathless "recap" of all of the exhibits, a brief discussion of two will suffice. 



Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017) 
Timothy Rub at the opening of the Wild: Michael Nichols exhibition. In the background is a 60-foot composite photo by  Michael Nichols of a 3200-year old Giant Sequoia Redwood tree

The first of these was Wild: Michael Nichols. on view during the summer of 2017. Wild brilliantly juxtaposed images by the noted nature photographer, Michael Nichols, with art works from the Philly Museum's collection. What might have been a superficial "compare-contrast" display yielded many profound  insights into the interaction of human beings and Planet Earth.



                                      Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017)                                                View of the Philadelphia Museum exhibit, Old Masters Now.  Rodin's sculpture Thought (left) is shown with Manet's The Battle of the U.S.S.“Kearsarge” and the C.S.S.“Alabama"

The special exhibition which followed Wild: Michael Nichols in the autumn of 2017 was also worthy of note. Old Masters Now provided a brilliant overview of Philadelphia Museum of Art history by examining the role of one of its principal protagonists. John G. Johnson was a discerning Gilded Age collector. The exhibition reunited many of his greatest acquisitions, by such masters as van Eyck, Rembrandt and Manet, now displayed throughout the museum.

By the late autumn of 2019, The Philadelphia Museum of Art was ready to open the first of the completed "new spaces." The North Entrance provided stylish and easy access to the museum and the Vaulted Walkway reflected the lights of glittering Christmas trees to the delight of happy, impressed patrons.




Anne Lloyd, Photos (2019)
 Views of the renovated North Entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Vaulted Walkway, December 26, 2019

Less than three months later, history repeated itself. Just as the 1929 Wall Street collapse plagued the Philly Museum's early years, so the Covid-19 pandemic and March 2020 "lockdown" created serious problems for the Core Project renovations. 

As the museum construction entered the "home stretch," Timothy Rub kept the massive, $233 million project on target. Delays, of course, were unavoidable. A joint retrospective of Jasper Johns, organized with the Whitney Museum, had to be postponed. But Rub's dynamic leadership got the job done. Fiske Kimbell, the embattled director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1925-1955, would have approved.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) 
Nuria, 2017, by Jaume Plensa, 
on view in South Hall at the Philadelphia Museum of Art 

Now, walking along the Vaulted Walkway or studying works of art in the new settings of the McNeil and Dietrich galleries, I am filled with amazement and gratitude. Artists and voices from the past, once undervalued, have been accorded an honored place. Young artists from today are receiving what every true artist deserves - an opportunity to contribute to the World of Art.

Oddly enough, for me, the most profound feelings engendered by the Core Project were the result of a chance visit to the Resnick Rotunda. This was one of the areas of the Philadelphia Museum of Art least affected by the redesign. Many of the Philly Museum's world-class Impressionist collection are normally on view in this area of the museum.

During the rehab, the paintings by Monet, Cezanne and van Gogh were displayed in a special exhibition, The Impressionist's Eye, while the Resnick Rotunda and adjoining galleries were refurbished. When Anne and I peaked in, the Resnick Rotunda was empty. 



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019)
 View of the Resnick Rotunda of the Philadelphia Museum of Art 
during the Core Project renovations

I wondered to myself, "what will it be like when people return?"

As the Covid-19 pandemic and quarantine took its toll, this image of the deserted  Resnick Rotunda haunted my mind. Eventually, my "what will it be like, when people return to the museum" question was answered.

It is wonderful.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021)
 The Resnick Rotunda of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 
May 28, 2021



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021)
 Patrons visiting the newly-opened Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Galleries
 The portraits, of Hiram Charles Montier and Elizabeth Brown Montier, are the earliest surviving paintings of an African American couple.
 The portraits were painted by Franklin Street in 1841.

This brings me back to Charles Willson Peale's The Staircase Group. According to another of Peale's sons, Rembrandt, George Washington was totally taken in by the "trick of the eye" when he visited the 1795 exhibition where the painting was first displayed. Glimpsing the "sons" of his friend, Peale, Washington tipped his hat to Raphael and Titian Peale.

That is exactly what I do now, after several visits to the "new" Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

To Gail Harrity, Anne d’Harnoncourt, Frank Gehry, Timothy Rub, to the generous donors who provided the funding for the Core Project and to the curators, designers and construction workers who made it happen ... I tip my hat.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved. Original photos by Anne Lloyd, all rights reserved.

Introductory Image: Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2021) Charles Willson Peale's The Staircase Group (Portrait of Raphaele Peale and Titian Ramsey Peale), 1795. Oil on canvas: 89 1/2 x 39 3/8 inches (227.3 x 100 cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art. The George Elkins collection, E 1945-1-1

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) The Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Galleries, showing a sofa designed by Benjamin Latrobe (1808). The painting (center) is Washington Allston's Scenes from the Taming of the Shrew (1809)

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) Gallery view of the New Grit: Art & Philly Now exhibition in the Daniel W. Dietrich II Galleries of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2021) Alex Da Corte's S.O.S. (Sam on Sill), 2020. Forman Family Collections.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) A dramatic view of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Williams Forum, with cantilever steps leading down from the first floor.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) The Philadelphia Museum of Art's East Entrance & the "Rocky" steps.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Cutaway views of the architectural model of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Core Project. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2018) The North pediment of the Philadelphia Museum of Art,  showing Carl Paul Jennewein's ceramic-glazed terra cotta sculpture entitled Western Civilization, 1932.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017), Portrait of Frank Gehry at the Opening Ceremony of the Core Project Renovations at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) The Vaulted Passageway of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, before renovations in March 2017

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) The Van Pelt Auditorium being demolished during the Core Project renovations at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) The Philadelphia Museum of Art's Williams Forum, constructed on the site of the demolished Van Pelt Auditorium.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017) Timothy Rub at the opening of the Wild: Michael Nichols exhibition. In the background is a 60-foot composite photo by  Michael Nichols of a 3200-year old Giant Sequoia Redwood tree.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) View of the Philadelphia Museum exhibit, Old Masters Now.  Rodin's sculpture Thought (left) is shown with Manet's The Battle of the U.S.S.“Kearsarge” and the C.S.S.“Alabama"

Anne Lloyd, Photos (2019)  Views of the renovated North Entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Vaulted Walkway, December 26, 2019

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021) Nuria, 2017, by Jaume Plensa, on view in South Hall at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2019)  View of the Resnick Rotunda of the Philadelphia Museum of Art during the Core Project renovations.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021)  The Resnick Rotunda of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, May 28, 2021.

Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2021) Portrait of Hiram Charles Montier and Portrait of Elizabeth Brown Montier, 1841, by Franklin R. Street. Oil on canvas, 35 x 28 inches. On loan from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. William Pickens, III

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Art Eyewitness Review: The Medici: Portraits and Power at the Metropolitan Museum of Art


 The Medici: Portraits and Power, 1512-1570

Metropolitan Museum of Art

June 26, 2021-October 11, 2021

Reviewed by Ed Voves

The great statue we know as Michelangelo's David was once a fallen giant. 

The huge piece of marble which eventually became the David had been "badly blocked" in its preparatory stage. It languished for years before Michelangelo was commissioned by the directors of the Arte della Lana, the wool merchants guild of Florence, and the committee overseeing the city's cathedral, to create a monumental statue for the Duomo.

Michelangelo's David continues to cast a long shadow over Italian art, indeed over all of Western civilization. A spectacular exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Medici: Portraits and Power, is no exception. 

The only reference to Michelangelo in The Medici: Portraits and Power is a single portrait. Yet, the ninety-plus paintings, statues, rare books and other treasures on view can best be appreciated by reflecting that these were created in Florence. This was the city of the young Michelangelo, which he pointedly avoided during the last decades of his life. What factors could have induced Michelangelo to turn his back on his beloved Florence?



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) 
Daniele da Volterra's Michelangelo, ca. 1544

After four years of staggering work, Michelangelo finished his masterpiece. On September 8, 1504, to widespread acclaim, David, was presented to the citizens of Florence. The statue was placed in a civic, rather than a religious setting: the square before the Palazzo Vecchio, the city's municipal  headquarters. Standing 17 feet high (5.17 meters), David was a fitting symbol of the Republic of Florence. 

A mere eight years later, Florence suffered a devastating political coup on September 1, 1512. When the dust settled, Michelangelo's David still stood on its plinth. Instead, the Republic of Florence was the fallen giant.

The Medici, Florence's most influential - and notorious - family - were the masterminds who toppled the Republic of Florence in 1512. Then, after briefly being exiled in 1527, they mounted a definitive assault on the populist government of Florence, determined to crush the Republic. Backed by Spanish troops, the Medici Pope, Clement VII,  besieged the the city. Florence, already wracked by plague which had caused 36,000 deaths, fell on August 10, 1530.

After securing control, the Medici then proceeded to stage a cultural revolution to bolster their reputation by proclaiming the world-class status of Florentine art and literature.

The key figure in the transition from republican government to a heredity-based dukedom was Cosimo I de’ Medici, who became Duke of Florence in 1537. Cosimo was just seventeen years of age when he was vested wih the title of Duke, a prestigious, but also dangerous honor. Alessandro de’ Medici, placed in power as overlord of Florence in 1532, had been assassinated and the young Cosimo was a likely target, as well.

We shall return to Cosimo I de’ Medici, again and again, in this review. Like a modern dictator, Cosimo utilized the talents of Florence's artists to raise up images of himself all over his princely realm. 



Ed Voves, Photo (2021)
 Gallery view of The Medici: Portraits and Politics. In the foreground is Giovanni Bandini's sculpture of Cosimo de Medici, 1572

The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512–1570, follows in the footsteps of two worthy predecessors: The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini, displayed at the Met during the winter of 2011-2012, and Michelangelo - Divine Draftsman and Designer, 2017. Considered as a three-part continuum, these Metropolitan Museum exhibitions recreate the civilization of Renaissance Italy to a degree that would have been impossible at any other museum in the world, except perhaps the Ufizzi in Florence. 

Credit for The Medici: Portraits and Politics is chiefly due to Keith Christiansen, the Met's Chairman of  European Paintings. He was ably assisted by Carlo Falciani, Professor of Art History at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. Christiansen is retiring after forty years at the Met, so The Medici: Portraits and Politics can be considered as the capstone of a brilliant career devoted to art scholarship and the enduring values of civilization.

The Medici: Portraits and Politics, like The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini, is filled with insights on how developments in depicting the human likeness reflected the changing society of Italy during the Renaissance.This beautifully-mounted exhibition widens its focus to include more than portraiture, however. Special attention is paid to the role of literature in Florence during the 1500's, notably the treatment of Dante Alighieri, who was revered almost as a living presence, despite the fact that he had died in 1321.



Ed Voves, Photo (2021) 
Gallery view of The Medici: Portraits and Politics exhibition. From left: Titian's portrait of Benedetto Varchi, Bronzino’s Allegorical Portrait of Dante & his portrait of Laura Battiferri 

There is a sobering note, however, to The Medici: Portraits and Politics. The years covered in the exhibition, 1512 to 1570, witnessed the "high noon" of the art of Renaissance Florence. Yet, this era was chiefly a time of culmination, the "sunset" of the living, thriving tradition of art in Florence. 

Like a relay-race, the torch of artistic inspiration had been passed across generations of Florentine painters and sculptors beginning with Cimibue and Giotto in the late thirteenth century. This dynamic process was stifled by Cosimo's authoritarian rule, even as he commissioned works of art. The great creative spirit of Renaissance Florence began to fail, as artists paid closer attention to Medici moods than to their own muses. 

Florence under Cosimo I was, thus, no place for independent spirits. Michelangelo, an ardent supporter of the Republic, stayed away.  

It is interesting to note that two of the most important works of art on view in the Met exhibition were painted by non-Florentine painters. Raphael's Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino and Titian's portrait of Benedetto Varchi are  problematical paintings which raise nagging questions about the Medici regime. 



Ed Voves, Photo (2021)
 Raphael's Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, 1518

Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino (1492-1519), bore the same name as his grandfather, the illustrious Lorenzo the Magnificent. But he was a short-lived, mediocrity installed to govern Florence by his uncle, Pope Leo X, who had staged managed the 1512 coup. Lorenzo's chief claim to fame is that Michelangelo designed his tomb in the Medici Chapel, with a pensive statue of him, and Raphael painted his portrait.

Raphael's portrait, however, is a classic case of clothes not making the man. Despite dressing in the sumptuous attire of a Renaissance prince, Lorenzo visibly shrinks into his fur-lined robe. He looks like someone posing in the costume of a nobleman or playacting as a duke. It was not an image which Cosimo, who had plenty of political savvy, would have found reassuring.

Benedetto Varchi, on the other hand, was superbly talented and determined to express his views without treating Duke Cosimo with fawning deference. As a result, Varchi was exiled to Venice, where Titian painted his portrait.

 

Ed Voves, Photo (2021) 
Title page of Benedetto Varchi's Storia Florentina, published in 1721 

After being permitted to return to Florence, Varchi was commissioned by Cosimo to write a detailed history of Florence. It was a sly attempt to enlist the scholar into the Medici camp. Varchi's forthright narrative touched a raw nerve with Cosimo due the candid treatment of the assassination of Alessandro de' Medici. The book remained unpublished until 1721.

 


Jacopo da Pontormo, Alessandro de' Medici, ca. 1534–35

It is interesting to speculate that Alessandro de' Medici was aware of  the grandiose pretensions so readily apparent in Raphael's Lorenzo de' Medici. When he became Duke of Florence, Alessandro commissioned Jacopo Pontormo to paint his portrait in a deliberately austere style. If he thought that modesty and restraint would protect him, however, it was a fatal mistake. He was murdered by another member of the Medici family.

Cosimo I was faced with the same problem. Clearly, he would not remain alive for long if he relied on the trappings of power to impress his subjects. Yet, as Cosimo knew, a ruler's image is important. One of the many delights of this wonderful exhibition at the Met, is to follow the attempts of Cosimo to create an effective public persona for himself. 

Shortly after assuming power in Florence, Cosimo commissioned Agnolo Bronzino (Italian, 1503–1572 ) to portray him as Orpheus, tragic hero of Greek mythology. Bronzino was one of Florence's major artists and a leading exponent of Mannerism, the controversial style of painting that emphasized stylized body postures, references to antiquity and lots of nudity.

What seems like tasteless exhibitionism in Bronzino's portrait of Cosimo was actually a subtle appeal to bring peace to a society riven by war and political factionalism. Here Cosimo/Orpheus poses, after calming the savage "hound of hell", Cerberus. That was precisely what Cosimo was endeavoring to do in Florence.


Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of Cosimo de' Medici as Orpheus, 1537-1539

In the story from Greek mythology, Orpheus charmed Cerberus so that he could rescue his wife, Eurydice, from Hades and bring her back to the land of the living. Hardly had the paint dried on Bronzino's painting, than a wife for Cosimo duly appeared in Florence. One of the celebrated chapters in the story of the Medici had begun.

Eleanora di Toledo (1522–1562) was the daughter of Pedro Álvarez de Toledo, the Spanish nobleman who governed Naples for Emperor Charles V. Cosimo had seen Eleanora while on a diplomatic mission years before he became Duke of Florence.  When the opportunity arose for marriage to one of the daughters of the Spanish viceroy, Cosimo insisted that it be Eleanora. It was a wise decision. As events were to prove, Cosimo had chosen the perfect wife.



Ed Voves, Photo (2021) 
Agnolo Bronzino's Eleonora di Toledo, ca. 1539–40

A great beauty by sixteenth century standards, Eleanora posed often for Bronzino who immortalized her with an "ice-goddess" allure - look but keep your distance. Yet, if you study Bronzino's early portrait of Eleanora, painted around the time of her marriage to Cosimo in 1539, I think you will detect more than a gleam of smoldering sensuality in her eyes, the look which entranced Cosimo on his youthful diplomatic mission to Naples,

Eleanora was much more than a beautiful consort for Cosimo. She was intelligent, ambitious, and possessed business management skills that enabled Cosimo to delegate important tasks to her, while he attended to military affairs. On several occasions, Eleanora served as regent of Florence. And perhaps most surprising of all, she and Cosimo enjoyed a loving, faithful marriage, blessed with several children.



Ed Voves, Photo (2021)
 Red velvet petticoat with sleeves, reputed to have been worn by Eleonora di Toledo, ca.1560

The happily, ever-after marriage of Cosimo and Eleanora ended in December 1562 when she and two of their sons were struck down by malaria, the bane of Italy. A red, velvet petticoat with sleeves, believed to have been worn by Eleanora (or more likely, by one of her ladies-in-waiting) is on display in the Met exhibition. It is a striking testimonial to a remarkable woman.

Cosimo was grief-stricken by his wife's death. It is difficult not to feel sorry for him. Cosimo was basically a decent human being and an effective ruler - a rare combination in any era. For Italy, the battleground of Europe during the 1500's, his political skill, energy and determination were absolutely invaluable. Without Cosimo, it is difficult to see how Florence could have survived as a semi-independent entity. 



Ed Voves, Photo (2021) 
Benvenuto Cellini's Cosimo de' Medici, 1546-47

Benvenuto Cellini's bronze portrait of Cosimo, created in 1546-47, shows exactly the commanding presence which Cosimo felt he needed to present to the embattled and threatening world around him. The imperious, yet visionary, visage of a tested leader - that is what he wanted his dutiful subjects to see. 

Unfortunately, Cellini's portrait of Cosimo also reveals the reason why Michelangelo chose not to return to Florence following the fall of the Republic. Cosimo certainly would have welcomed him. Indeed, Cosimo plotted with Michelangelo's nephew, Lionardo Buonarroti, to secretly bring Michelangelo's body, following his death in 1564, back to Florence. Lionardo had Michelangelo's body removed from the Roman church where it had been interred and wrapped in a bale of hay for clandestine shipment to Florence.

The plan worked to perfection. A lavish public funeral for Michelangelo was held in Florence and his body was laid to rest in the Church of Santa Croce. Cosimo had finally added Michelangelo to his retinue of court artists.

The theft of Michelangelo's body was an act of state-building strategy. It was designed to use the reflected glory of a great artist to secure the power of a despotic regime. If results justify deeds, then Cosimo certainly succeeded. Five years after he staged his grave-robbing coup, Cosimo was declared Grand Duke of Tuscany by Pope Pius V.

Yet, the "political theater" of Michelangelo's funeral was the act of a tyrant.

Look at the face of Cosimo on Cellini's bronze portrait and this is what you see. This is the brazen countenance of a tyrant. A petty-tyrant, perhaps by comparison with later dictators, but a real one all the same. 

This is the face of a ruler of men who can commission works of art or command the building of a grandiose monument - but can never inspire genius.

 ***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved

Introductory Image: Ed Voves, Photo (2021) Benvenuto Cellini's Cosimo de' Medici (detail), 1546-47.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Daniele da Volterra's Michelangelo, ca.1544. Oil on wood: 34 3/4 x 25 1/4 in. (88.3 x 64.1 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gift of Clarence Dillon, 1977. #1977.384.1

Ed Voves, Photo (2021) Gallery view of The Medici: Portraits and Politics at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Museum. In the foreground is Giovanni Bandini's sculpture of Cosimo de Medici, 1572. Marble: 39 7/8 X 15 3/4 X 15 3/4 in. Los Angeles County Museum of Art M 81.39

Ed Voves, Photo (2021) Gallery view of The Medici: Portraits and Politics exhibition. On display (from left): Titian's portrait of Benedetto Varchi, Bronzino’s Allegorical Portrait of Dante & his portrait of Laura Battiferri 

Ed Voves, Photo (2021) Raphael's Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, 1518. Oil on canvas: 38 1/4 × 31 1/4 in. (97.2 × 79.4 cm)  Private collection.

Ed Voves, Photo (2021) Title page of Benedetto Varchi's Storia Florentina, published in 1721 

Jacopo da Pontormo (Italian, 1494–1556) Alessandro de' Medici,  ca. 1534–35. Oil on panel:  39 7/8 × 32 1/4 × 1 1/8 in. (101.3 × 81.9 × 2.8 cm)  Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G. Johnson Collection

Agnolo Bronzino (Italian,1503–1572) Portrait of Cosimo de' Medici as Orpheus, c. 1537-1539. Oil on panel: 36 7/8 × 30 1/16 inches (93.7 × 76.4 cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Mrs. John Wintersteen, 1950 #1950-86-1

Ed Voves, Photo (2021) Agnolo Bronzino's Eleonora di Toledo, ca. 1539–40. Oil on panel: 23 1/4 × 18 1/8 in. (59 × 46 cm)  Credit Line: Národní Galerie, Prague (O 11971)

Ed Voves, Photo (2021) Gallery view of The Medici: Portraits and Politics, showing Petticoat with sleeves,  ca. 1560. Velvet: 59 1/16 × 51 3/16 × 66 15/16 in. (150 × 130 × 170 cm)  Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Reale, Pisa. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2021) Benvenuto Cellini's Cosimo de' Medici, 1546-47. Bronze: 43 5/6 X 38 9/16 X 27 3/16 in. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence (358 B)

Saturday, July 3, 2021

Art Eyewitness Book Review: David Hockney's Spring Cannot be Cancelled

 

Spring Cannot be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy

By David Hockney and Martin Gayford

Thames & Hudson/280 pages/$34.95

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Spring was a little late this year at the Royal Academy in London. The RA's big spring exhibition, scheduled to open on March 6, 2021, had to be delayed until May 23. As you might have guessed, the "on-again, off-again" Covid-19 restrictions were the reason for postponing the much-anticipated exhibit.

The frustration at having to wait was compounded by the irony of the title of the RA show - David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy 2020. Worse still, the number of tickets to the exhibition has been limited to ensure the health and safety of the lucky few who manage to get in.

However, before decrying "cruel fate", I am relieved to say that Hockney and Martin Gayford have written a book about this "rite of spring" which will comfort art lovers unable to make it to the Royal Academy. Yes, there is nothing like seeing art in person. But from time-to-time an art book appears which is so profound in spirit and so superbly written, that reading it is a moving experience like visiting an art gallery.


Spring Cannot be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy is such a book.

The genesis of this remarkable book began a year and some months before the  Covid-19 threat appeared. 

On October 22, 2018, Martin Gayford received an email from Hockney. The two men, writer and artist, have been friends for many years. They co-authored two recent books, A Bigger Message and A History of Pictures.  

Gayford read Hockney's email with great interest. Hockney, born in 1937, was about to begin another adventure in his amazing career. He had found a new place to paint, Normandy in rural northwest France. But he wasn't going to do it as a tourist. He was going there to live and to paint. 

Hockney's new domicile is a steeply-roofed Norman farmhouse called La Grande Cour. He decided to buy it while on vacation to France, after spending much of the preceding decade engaged in landscape painting in his native Yorkshire. Normandy would provide a change of scenery while exploring the quiet drama of the arrival of Spring 2020.



David & Ruby in the Normandy studio, May 25th 2020. © David Hockney  Photo Credit: Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima

Describing La Grande Cour to Gayford, Hockney wrote:

I think I've found a real paradise. The place is perfect for me right now. I'm less interested in what other people are doing. I'm just interested in my own work. I'm on the edge of something, a different way of drawing is coming through, and I can do it here.

This "different way of drawing" comes from an intensely focused way of looking. Much of the text of the book is drawn from emails between Hockney and Gayford about the experience of living and working in Normandy. Along with the day-to-day details of Hockney's life in the French countryside, another major theme quickly emerges. This relates to Hockney's reflections on one of the key elements of painting - perspective.

One of the first email conversations with Gayford discussed Hockney's discovery of the writings of Pavel Florensky, a Russian scholar who was executed by Stalin during the Great Purge of the 1930's. Florensky had argued against accepting one-point "vanishing" perspective as determining whether a picture is "correct" or not. 

The human eye and imagination, Florensky argued, do not work exclusively by the mathematical standards of Renaissance artists. Instead of focusing on one exclusive point, receding to infinity, our vision can relate to multiple perspectives more or less at the same time.



Andrei Rublev, Nativity, ca. 1405

This "polycentered" view  can be experienced by studying medieval icons by Andrei Rublev. Here several incidents from Christian scripture, viewed from different points of view, are depicted on the same pictorial space. Once we adjust our "spiritual" eyes, the vitality of Rublev's icon is readily apparent.

Hockney was intrigued and, as Gayford notes, his enthusiasms are "imperious." Excited by Florensky's theories on medieval art, Hockney was "primed" to look at his new surroundings from unconventional points of view. Normandy also supplied him with additional images with which to consider "polycentrism."  These images, arranged in a sequence of 75 scenes, embroidered on a 230 foot long cloth, were very close at hand to his new home at La Grand Cour - the Bayeux Tapestry.

From a political standpoint, the Bayeux Tapestry is a classic case of one-point perspective. It was designed and executed to justify the invasion of England in 1066 from the standpoint of William the Conqueror and his half-brother, Bishop Odo, who commissioned it. Women from defeated England, famous throughout Europe for their skill in embroidery, are believed to be the actual creators.

The historical details hardly concerns us - and probably were only of marginal interest to Hockney when he visited Bayeux in 2018. Instead, the Bayeux Tapestry's importance lies in its "total immersion" effect. The drama of life and war in 1066 unfolds above, below and all around, literally overwhelming our senses.



Scene from the Bayeux Tapestry, King Harold hears about Halley's Comet

What Hockney set out to do, once he settled in at La Grand Cour, was to apply some of the insights gained from pondering Florensky's ideas on perspective and the sequential, immersive format of the Bayeux Tapestry to the natural environment of his new home.

Hockney and his assistant, Jean-Pierre Goncalves de Lima, moved in to La Grand Cour during the course of 2019. Gayford, working on a book about the history of sculpture with Antony Gormley (similar to the one he co-authored with Hockney on painting) came over for a visit. Everything seemed to be working-out as planned. 

Then came Covid-19. Hockney was cut-off from England, Los Angeles and the global art scene . Yet, the travel-bans did not affect his art in the least. 



David Hockney "No. 599", 1st November 2020 
iPad painting © David Hockney 

In a brilliant insight, Gayford compared Hockney's situation, "locked-down" in rural Normandy, to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's sojourn on a small island set in a Swiss lake, the Île Saint-Pierre, during 1765. For two months, much as Henry Thoreau did at Walden Pond, Rousseau communed with nature. Rousseau's observations, shared through his writings, have influenced human awareness of nature ever since. 

Hockney now had the opportunity to do the same with his iPad and he is not a man to miss such an opportunity. But, as Gayford astutely notes, he could not  lapse into a "dream-time" state and then hearken back to his memories later. Art requires a different approach, even though the objective is the same.

Gayford writes:

While he was observing the splashes on his pond, of course, Hockney could not have been in a dream trance. He was concentrating hard on what he was seeing and on retaining a clear visual memory of it. But it is likely that the process cleared his mind of the flotsam of worries and stray thoughts that normally fills our consciousness. Several times in conversation with me he has mentioned an example of the "deep pleasure" that he gets from "just looking..."

For Hockney "just looking" translates into "just working." Hockney has one of the great work ethics of artists of modern times. He has also demonstrated an  astonishing versatility throughout his long career. This was abundantly clear at the great 2017 Metropolitan Museum retrospective and it needs to be kept in mind when comparing great set-piece paintings like Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy with his iPad drawings.



Anne Lloyd, Photo (2016) 
Gallery view of David Hockney's Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy, 1971

When studying one of Hockney's great early works like Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy or Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), painted in 1967, you quickly become aware that he is portraying the Eternal Now rather than a transient moment in time. Hockney was also painting in dialog with the great masters of the past, so that these stupendous works of his are breathing new life into the great traditions of art, each time we look at them.

Can we say the same for the iPad works from La Grand Cour? The individual iPad drawings were done at great speed, sometimes three a day so that Hockney could react quickly to changes in light and shadow. Therefore, comparing one of these iPad drawings to a work like Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy is an exercise in futility.

Judging the iPad drawings as a group - the RA exhibition is showing over one hundred of Hockney's Normandy oeuvre - is the correct approach. Hockney's great achievement at La Grand Cour is his successful integration of multiple vantage or perspective points to create a unified vision of nature as a whole.

La Grand Cour (which translates as "the big yard") is a gracious, rather than a grandiose, spot. Hockney's achievement in addressing nature from a four-acre homestead in Normandy is more remarkable than if he had tried to create a similar body of work at a dramatic location like Canyon de Chelly in the Southwest U.S.A. Once again, the ever perceptive Gayford is there to ensure that we don't miss this significant point.

The moral is this: it is not the place that is intrinsically interesting; it is the person looking at it. Wherever it is, it will be part of the world; the laws of time and space will still apply. The sun will rise and set, and so will the moon.

The moon, in fact, plays a leading role in the final chapter of the book. Hockney in Normandy and Gayford, at his home in Cambridge, England, each watched the "blue moon" of October 31, 2020, Hockney had alerted Gayford that he was going to try capture the nocturnal event.



David Hockney "No. 592", 31st October 2020 
iPad painting © David Hockney 

Clouds soon obscured Gayford's view but Hockney, working outdoors in the damp evening, began sending iPad depictions of the moon to Gayford. Later, he called Gayford, to say that he was taking a bit of a nap, in the hopes that the clouds would break and he could create even more iPad drawings of the "blue moon."

Such is the indomitable spirit of David Hockney. Just as he had refused to let the  Covid-19 lock-down "cancel" his plans to record the beauty of Spring 2020, so he wasn't about to allow a few clouds to obscure the "blue moon" over La Grand Cour.

The same can be said about Gayforth. A superb writer, Gayford is also a rare spirit, able to win the trust and cooperation of artists like Hockney. And the 2020 Covid-19 quarantine posed many challenges for him. During the course of that star-crossed year, Gayforth had a heart attack but rallied. Spring Cannot be Cancelled is a testament to him, as well as to Hockney.



David Dawson (Photo, 2018) 
David Hockney & Martin Gayford in conversation.

Spring Cannot be Cancelled, quite simply, is a marvelous book, thoughtful and inspired, brimming with what the French call elan vital.

Well into his eighties, David Hockney continues to paint with skill, insight and enthusiasm. He is, as Martin Gayford says so well, an artist who keeps "going and growing... he is teaching us a lesson not only in how to see, but also in how to live."

 ***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved. Original photo by Anne Lloyd, all rights reserved. All other images are © David Hockney, except for the cover of Spring Cannot Be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy which is used, Courtesy of Thames & Hudson

Introductory Image: David Hockney "No. 180", 11th April 2020. Appears on Page 112 of Spring Cannot Be Cancelled  iPad painting © David Hockney

Cover of Spring Cannot Be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy by Martin Gayford and David Hockney Courtesy of Thames & Hudson

David & Ruby in the Normandy studio, May 25th 2020. Appears on Page 34 of Spring Cannot Be Cancelled© David Hockney  Photo Credit: Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima 

Andrei Rublev (Russian, 1360-1480) Nativity, ca. 1405. Collection of Cathedral of the Annunciation (Kremlin), Moscow, Russia. https://uploads8.wikiart.org/images/andrei-rublev/birth-of-christ.jpg

Scene from the Bayeux Tapestry, King Harold hears about Halley's Comet. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bayeux_Tapestry_32-33_comet_Halley_Harold.jpg

David Hockney "No. 599", 1st November 2020. Appears on Page 267 of Spring Cannot Be Cancelled   iPad painting © David Hockney 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2016) Gallery view of David Hockney's Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy, 1971. Acrylic on canvas: 84 inches x 120.1 inches. Painting was then on view at the Tate Britain Museum.

David Hockney "No. 592", 31st October 2020. Appears on Page 264 of Spring Cannot Be Cancelled  iPad painting © David Hockney  

David Dawson (Photo, 2018) David Hockney & Martin Gayford in conversation. Appears on Page 18 of Spring Cannot Be Cancelled. Credit David Dawson