Art Eyewitness Essay: Toys R Art

Toys R Art

Some Thoughts on the Role of Toys in the Art World

Text by Ed Voves  
Photo Essay by Anne Lloyd

Sometimes a visit to the art museum presents a difficult choice. Should I go see the exhibit or check out the gift shop first. The temptation to follow the latter course is often irresistible.

The recent Wild: Michael Nichols exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is a case in point. The inventory of the gift shop reflected Nichols' status as one of the world's greatest nature photographers.  A vast herd of animal-themed toys thronged the shelves and display racks. Floor to ceiling, lions, tigers, bears and a stray elephant or two were everywhere. 

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Philadelphia Museum shop for Wild: Michael Nichols 

These Wild toys reinforced a growing interest in toys since I reviewed the Embracing the Contemporary exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This exhibition of modern art, collected by Keith and Katherine Sachs, included a tiny wooden toy box filled with miniature toys. This small wonder was crafted by Charles LeDray in 2005-06. I had a much bigger version of such a toy box as a child, long gone - but not forgotten.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2016), Toy Chest, 2005–6, by Charles LeDray

In my 2016 review of Embracing the Contemporary, I wrote:

Looking at LeDray's wondrous work of art, I was stuck by the thought that we begin to collect memories as children and continue to do so throughout our lives. This in turn leads to a point when we are moved to share our emotional riches with others.

Lately, my wife Anne has been going on photo "safaris," chiefly of the many remarkable gardens of our Philadelphia neighborhood. Anne stopped in to the local Salvation Army store during one of her expeditions. A creative moment, relating to my toy box meditations, ensued.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Salvation Army Store, Philadelphia PA

When you go into the Salvation Army store, you are confronted by row upon row of cleaned, if slightly time-worn, clothing. On top of some of the metal shelves are trays of cast-off stuffed animals. Once these were treasured companions of a little Jane or Johnny. Kids grow-up and outgrow their playthings. Computer games take the place of plush animals. Time marches on.

Anne started snapping photos and then began rearranging the stuffed animals into little "photo-op" scenes. Evidently, someone else had a similar idea earlier. Anne found a lion and a lamb sharing a shelf. With a little propping-up, predator and prey were reconciled and ready to pose again for a new incarnation of the Peaceable Kingdom.  

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Peaceable Kingdom at the Salvation Army Store

These discarded toys are especially affecting and poignant because they were once loved by children. Some resonance of this love clings to them still. I sensed that when I saw the first batch of photos that Anne took. When I went with Anne for a return visit, I was amazed to see the transformation for myself. 

Anne's careful groupings of these toys seemed to bring them to life. Something struck a chord or touched a nerve in me. Those inanimate objects really appeared to be awakening to the kind of life they once enjoyed in the company of young children. 

Toys play a really important part in children's lives. I'm not referring here to toys that have a clearly "educational" role - which most kids instinctively reject. 

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Monkey Friend at the Salvation Army Store

A smiling monkey doll, like this one, is more life affirming. It helps a young child adjust to the world, to identify, appreciate and respond to kindness and love in the immediate family circle. 

Then comes the next import step, to appreciate and love beyond the family unit.

The big, beaming smile that spreads across this monkey's silly mug also appears on the face of Frans Hals' Fisher Boy with a Basket. Why did the cash-strapped Hals paint a picture of an impoverished working-class kid with a toothy smile?  He cannot have made much money selling this or the other versions of street urchins that he did.

Frans Hals, Fisher Boy with Basket, ca. 1630

I believe that Frans Hals and his compatriots in Golden Age Holland could appreciate a smile on a poor boy's face because their society invested so much in the well-being of children.  This regard for others which Dutch children learned early in their lives was a social "glue" which helped the United Provinces survive repeated invasions and internal stresses that would have wrecked less well-adjusted societies during the 1600's.


Artists and writers have been imparting human attributes to animals since Aesop.That's certainly a comforting thought. Perhaps my reflections on stuffed animals and art are not quite so “off-beat” after all!

On second thought, the ridiculous elements in life need to be cherished in art along with the sublime. Take a look at these Salvation Army recruits and try and keep a straight face. The kooky clown in his fright wig and the teddy bear and panda posing for a selfie. Just fun! Purely, simply fun!

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017),  Candid Photography at the Salvation Army Store! 

I've come to believe that a totally serious approach to art isn't always necessary - or even wise all the time. Not that I'm in favor of drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa, either.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), "Photo-Op" at the Salvation Army Store

Here is a demonstration of what I mean. Anne arranged a troop of the Salvation Army critters for a group portrait. The cartoon expressions of these beasties range from befuddlement and alarm to kindly acceptance. It is truly a very funny tableau.

Where have we seen such a range of emotion in the art world?

Rembrandt, The Syndics of the Clothmakers Guild, 1662

Rembrandt's Syndics of the Clothmakers Guild? Surely I jest! 

Yes, but Syndics of the Clothmakers Guild is based on an underlying strata of humor. According to the most accepted interpretation of Syndics, Rembrandt depicted these officials responding to a challenging question during a policy-making meeting. It records a rather uncomfortable moment.

Syndics is unquestionably a masterpiece. But it is also a warm, funny evocation of the human comedy. From the suspicion and startled dignity of several of the syndics to the bemused look of the secretary behind them, we glimpse faces of men who have let the mask of officialdom slip down. For once, we see them, not as a group of "stuffed shirts," but as decent, if fallible, mortals like ourselves.

I suspect that there is a cartoon character or two in all of us. We don't need to arrange stuffed animals and find parallels with masterpieces like Rembrandt's Syndics to put a smile on our faces. Sometimes, a great painting will produce that effect without the need for props.

Titian was not especially well known for his sense of humor. Yet, in his Supper at Emmaus, Titian included a confrontation between a snappy, combative little dog and a gray tabby cat, poking its head under the table cloth.

Titian, The Supper at Emmaus,  ca. 1530

The Supper at Emmaus is one of the key events of Christian history. Following Jesus' crucifixion, two disciples met a stranger on the road to the village of Emmaus, a day's journey from Jerusalem. This of course was Jesus, risen from the dead. The disciples only recognized him when he blessed the bread for dinner. The story appears in the Gospel of St. Luke.

Titian, The Supper at Emmaus (Detail)

Nowhere does St. Luke mention a dog and a cat at the table at Emmaus. Other artists, Caravaggio and Rembrandt, painted this scene without any animal intervention. Why did Titian do so?

The first owners of this painting were the Maffei family from Verona, rather than a Catholic religious order. Perhaps, Titian wanted to include a homey detail or to show that the trifling details of life do not stop even when the Divine Presence is being manifested. 

Whatever the case, Titian demonstrated that humor has a secure place in great art.

Anne and I spent a delightful half-hour arranging the Salvation Army animals for their "photo shoots."  One of the plush animals, a sweet, demure mouse, called to mind the subject of one of Renoir's greatest portraits. Renoir painted Adelphine Legrand in 1875, the year after the First Impressionist Salon and its dissappointing sales.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Mademoiselle Legrand, 1875

Adelphine Legrand was eight years old when Renoir painted her. This sweet, demure girl was just at the point in her life when she would no longer be a child but rather be Mademoiselle Legrand.

Adelphine's dolls and toys, counterparts of this little mouse, would have had to be set on the shelf or given away. This is part of the price of growing up and I could not help but reflect that this particular toy mouse surely had been loved and cherished by a modern-day Adelphine only a short time ago.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Mouse Friend at the Salvation Army Store

Life passes swiftly. Pleasant interludes such as Anne and I spent at the Salvation Army store come to an end almost as soon as they begin. 

Yet occasions for humor, joy and inspiration should be cherished, however brief and wherever these take place. A museum gallery or an aisle in a Salvation Army store. You never know when or where an "art moment" may occur.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved. Images courtesy of the National Gallery of Ireland, Rijksmuseum, the Louvre and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, via Creative Commons. Gallery and  Salvation Army Store images courtesy of Anne Lloyd.

Introductory Image:

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Second-hand Toys at the Salvation Army Store, Philadelphia PA, September 2017.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017),  Museum shop for the Wild: Michael Nichols exhibit, Philadelphia Museum of Art, June 2017.  

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Toy Chest, 2005–6, by Charles LeDray. Mixed-media object from the Keith and Katherine Sachs Collection. Promised gift to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Salvation Army Store, Philadelphia PA , September 2017.   

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Peaceable Kingdom at the Salvation Army Store, Philadelphia PA , September 2017.    

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Monkey Toy at the Salvation Army Store , Philadelphia PA, September 2017.                     

Frans Hals, (Dutch, 1581-1666) Fisher Boy with Basket, ca. 1630. Oil on canvas, 72 cm × 58 cm (28 in × 23 in). National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. Purchased in 1881. NGI.193.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Second-hand Toys at the Salvation Army Store, Philadelphia PA . Three photos taken during September 2017.

Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669) The Syndics of the Cloth Makers Guild, about 1662 Oil on canvas,191.5 x 279 cm. © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-C-6).

Titian (Italian, 1490–1576) The Supper at Emmaus,  ca. 1530. Oil on canvas. 169 cm (66.5 in). Width: 244 cm (96.1 in). Louvre, Paris. Inventory # 746.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841–1919) Portrait of Mademoiselle Legrand, 1872, Oil on canvas, 32 x 23 1/2 inches, 81.3 x 59.7 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Henry P. McIlhenny Collection in memory of Frances P. McIlhenny, 1986, (1986-26-28)  Image: © The Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Mouse Toy at the Salvation Army Store , Philadelphia PA, September 2017.                     

French and British Drawing Exhibits - Morgan Library and Princeton University Art Museum

      Poussin, Claude & French Drawing in the Classical Age       

     Morgan Library and Museum

June 16 - October 15, 2017

Great British Drawings

Princeton University Art Museum

July 1 – September 17, 2017 

Reviewed by Ed Voves

The English Channel is twenty miles wide at its narrowest point between Dover on the British shore and Cap Griz Nez in France. Two remarkable exhibitions of drawings, one at New York's Morgan Library and Museum and the other at the Princeton University Art Museum, show that the cultural gulf between the two nations has often been much wider.

Great British Drawings, a travelling exhibit drawn entirely from the outstanding collection of Oxford University's Ashmolean Museum, charts the course of British art from its post-Reformation awakening in the late 1600's to the mid-twentieth century. 

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017) Great British Drawings at Princeton University Art Museum

Poussin, Claude and French Drawing in the Classical Age at the Morgan is more tightly focused, devoted exclusively to the seventeenth century. The Morgan exhibit is overwhelming composed of drawings from its own, seemingly inexhaustible, holdings, with a few loans from the Metropolitan Museum and several private collections.

These exhibits enable us to see the differing approaches to art which artists from France and Britain followed for much of the modern period. 

The seventeenth century for France was the "splendid century." French art during the 1600's followed the centralizing political agenda of Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV. French painters, especially after the foundation of the Académie Royal in 1648, drew support and inspiration from the ideology of France as the "grand nation." 

The annual award of the Prix de Rome, inaugurated in 1663, enabled the lucky winner to study and work in Italy for several years at the expense of the King of France.The prestige of the award insured that the visual arts followed the prescribed religious and classical themes favored by the Royal authorities. Artists were expected to revolve like planets around the Sun King just as the fawning nobles did at the court of Versailles.

Despite occasional attempts to follow the French patronage model, British art was attuned to the fickle dictates of the market place. The "milords" of the eighteenth century, followed by factory owners in the 1800's, bought the kind of art they liked - pictures of themselves and their horses, especially - rather than what King George ordained.

The Morgan exhibit takes its title from from two of the  greatest French artists of all time and from the classical ideal that was the foundation of their work. Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) and Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) both lived most of their adult lives in Italy. Poussin was ordered home to France by Cardinal Richelieu in 1640, but escaped back to Italy in 1642. Lorrain went to Italy as a pastry chef in the 1620's but found he was better at painting. He was not technically a French subject, which enabled him to avoid the suffocating embrace of the French monarchy.

Both Poussin and Lorrain were masterful draftsmen. Their drawings were clearly intended as the foundation for major oil paintings. To modern eyes, the classical-themed paintings by  Poussin and Lorrain can seem dated and unconvincing. Their drawings are another matter.

Nicholas Poussin, Holy Family on the Steps, 1646-48

Poussin's Holy Family on the Steps is a tour de force of integrating human figures in a believable setting. The scene is superbly accentuated with sharp contrasts of light and shadow. And the fact that facial features are not delineated lets the viewer "finish" the character details in his or her own mind. 

For this work, Poussin used pen and brown ink, with brown and gray wash, over black chalk, on paper. Lorrain often used the same technique with equal effectiveness.

J.M.W. Turner revered Claude Lorrain's oil paintings for their masterly handling of light. Yet, even a brief look at Claude's Landscape with a Procession Crossing a Bridge (1645) and The Sermon on the Mount (1655) opens our eyes to the incredible skill with which the limited range of color is used in these sketches.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Claude's Landscape with a Procession Crossing a Bridge

Less is more. What we see in these drawings is the flowering of organic forms over allegorical references. Nature transcends narrative.

We see that too in the psychological insights of the highest caliber in the portrait drawings on display at the Morgan. The artists of seventeenth century France followed in the footsteps of the Renaissance masters, Jean Clouet (c.1485/90–1540) and François Clouet (c.1515–1572). French portrait sketches from the 1600's clearly show a major advance in depicting both facial features and "interior lives" that rival the more famous Dutch achievements from that era.

Simon Vouet, Study of a Woman Seated on a Step..., ca.1630–35

A superb example of character "formation" is Simon Vouet's Study of a Woman Seated on a Step with Another Study of Her Right Hand, ca. 1630–35. Vouet has depicted a human body in motion, a being whose inner self is stirring to life as well.  

Another masterful achievement is Daniel Dumonstier's Portrait of a Gentleman of the French Court. Created in 1628, during the reign of Louis XIII, this brilliant work is the introductory image for this review.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Detail of Daniel Dumonstier's Portrait of a Gentleman, 1628

Dumonstier's Portrait of a Gentleman immediately calls to mind Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers. It is unlikely that the identity of this courtier will ever be revealed. But this stunning portrait probes the psyche of this individual with such amazing perception that we feel we know him for certain.

Great British Drawings begins with a portrait from roughly the same period as Dumonstier's Portrait of a Gentleman. Samuel Cooper, famous for his "warts and all" portrait of Oliver Cromwell, sketched this amazing likeness with black chalk and a bit of white accent. In this case, we know the name of the sitter and his identity raises questions of why Cooper lavished so much skill on it.

Samuel Cooper, Thomas Alcock, ca. 1650

At first glance, Thomas Alcock looks like a "plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows." Such men were the field officers in Cromwell's Puritan army. Looks are deceiving.

In fact, Alcock was a henchman of the libertine Earl of Rochester, notorious for his sexual escapades during the reign of King Charles II. An inscription on the back of the drawing records that Alcock, aged eighteen, commissioned the "famous Mr. Cooper of Covent Garden" to draw his portrait.

Vanity of vanities ... plus a little expendable cash keeps the art market primed!

British art followed a gloriously eccentric and commercial course. Many of the influences which appealed to the French also influenced the British. Italy provided a magnetic appeal during the 1700's - when Britons could get there. 

The frequent wars with France, especially the long Napoleonic Wars, often prevented painters like Turner from travelling to Italy. Unable to sketch and paint Roman ruins or Renaissance churches, British artists depicted ruins on their native shore, usually castles. John Sell Cotman, in a bizarre choice, selected a dilapidated house waiting to be demolished.  

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Christ Church College, Oxford, 1832–33

Turner, with an eye on sales chose the "dreaming spires" of Oxford. Watercolor "drawings" like Turner's 1832 view of Christ Church College, Oxford, served as templates for prints, hugely popular with the growing middle class.

British art during the 1700's and 1800's reacted against the marketplace as well as obeying the call of profit. The Ashmolean drawings on view at Princeton include a rural study by Thomas Gainsborough, created as an antidote to his disgust at painting society portraits. 

John Ruskin, Morning in Spring, with North-east Wind, at Vevey, 1849 or 1869

Another watercolor, sharply in contrast to works with a commercial motivation, is John Ruskin's Morning in Spring, with North-east Wind, at Vevey. Ruskin painted this for the sheer love or art and to satisfy his insatiable quest for a close study of nature.

Ruskin, of course, inherited a large fortune from his indulgent father. But it would be wrong to belabor the issue of economics at the expense of Ruskin's empathy for his fellow human beings and for "truth to nature."

One of the great delights in wide-ranging exhibits like the Morgan and Princeton shows is the opportunity of discovering new artists. Great British Drawings includes a stunning work by an artist I had not heard of previously. Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956) was both an accomplished artist and an unusual personality. He was obsessed with spiritualism and "automatic" drawing. Spare's pastel depiction, A Dressing Station, 1919, is one of the most striking depictions of the tragic human coast of World War I ever created. 

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Austin Osman Spare's A Dressing Station,1919

This stunning work recalls John Singer Sargent's Gassed. Every detail is accurate, from the "thousand yard" stares of the wounded soldiers to their muddy boots. Yet, Spare, who did serve in the Royal Army Medical Corps, never reached France until after the war, in 1919. A tremendous emotional leap was necessary for Spare to grasp the horrors of the Western Front and there is no doubt but that he did exactly that.

Great British Drawings ends on a somber note with David Bomberg's Evening in the City of London,1944, and John Piper's The Abbey from the Churchyard, Arbroath,1982. In this work, Piper conflated the actual architecture of the ruined Scottish Church to achieve a ghostly presence of the entire structure and of its long history.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), The Abbey from the Churchyard, Arbroath, 1982

This postwar work is particularly unsettling. Piper had earlier traveled throughout Britain, recording bombed-out buildings. But this ruin is a long-standing one from Scotland's distant past. Or is it a vision of the future? Is this the fate of all human creation, the point where decay reaches a terminal state? 

If so, it needs to be remembered that new life and new social forms will arise to take the place of what has been lost. And with this will come the "moment" for the creation of great art, a renewed opportunity for artists of vision and merit to make their mark. 

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved. Images courtesy of Morgan Library and Museum and the Princeton University Art Museum and Anne Lloyd.

Introductory Image:                                                                                                         Daniel Dumonstier (French,1574–1646) Portrait of a Gentleman of the French Court, 1628 Black, red, yellow, and white chalk. The Morgan Library & Museum Purchased as the gift of John M. Crawford, Jr.; 1956.9

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017) Exhibition banner for Great British Drawings, Summer 2017, at the Princeton University Art Museum.

Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) The Holy Family on the Steps, 1646–48. Pen and brown ink and wash, with gray wash, over black chalk. The Morgan Library & Museum Purchased by Pierpont Morgan in 1909; III, 71


Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Detail of Claude Lorrain’s Landscape with a Procession Crossing a Bridge, ca. 1645. Black chalk and graphite, with brush and brown wash, on paper tinted a pinkish brown. The Morgan Library & Museum Purchased by Pierpont Morgan in 1909; III, 76

Simon Vouet (French, 1590–1649) Study of a Woman Seated on a Step with Another Study of Her Right Hand, ca. 1630–35. Black and white chalk on light brown paper. The Morgan Library & Museum Bequest of Therese Kuhn Straus in memory of her husband, Herbert N. Straus; 1977.59

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Detail of Daniel Dumonstier's Portrait of a Gentleman of the French Court, 1628.

Samuel Cooper, English, (1608–1672), Thomas Alcock, ca. 1650. Black chalk heightened with white on paper. The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Image © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, (English, 1775–1851), Christ Church College, Oxford, 1832–33. Watercolour and bodycolour over graphite with scratching out, on paper. The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Image © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

John Ruskin, (English, 1819–1900), Morning in Spring, with North-east Wind, at Vevey, May–June 1849, or 1 May 1869. Watercolour and bodycolour over graphite on pale grey wove paper. The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Image © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Austin Osman Spare (English, 1886-1956) A Dressing Station, 1919. Pastel on Ingres paper. 52.1 x 39.5 cm Presented by Mrs. Elizabeth Mitchell,  2004. WA 2004.110 © The Estate of Austin Osman Spare

John Piper (English, 1903-1992) The Abbey from the Churchyard, Arbroath, 1982. Brush in Indian ink with watercolor, bodycolor and colored chalks on paper. 57.7 x 67.5 cm Signed: John Piper  Bequeathed by Robert and Rena Lewin, 2004. WA2006.21 © The Piper Estate / DA CS 2015