Art Eyewitness Looks at the Art Scene in 2017

Reflections on the Art Scene during 2017

By Ed Voves
Photos by Anne Lloyd

The art world commemorated the life of sculptor, Auguste Rodin, in 2017. Rodin died one hundred years ago, as did Edgar Degas. The "War to End All Wars" was raging in all its pointless fury, destroying much of the civilization that Rodin and Degas had enriched with their works of art. The death of these great artists represented the end of an era and it is only natural to look back on their achievements as counterpoints to the mindless waste of life that was World War I.

To "look back" comes naturally to human beings. One can look back with nostalgia or with hesitation or "look back in anger" as in the case of John Osborne's 1950's play. We live a lot of our lives, toeing the water of the future, glancing over our shoulders at the past.

One of Rodin's greatest works, small in scale but astonishing in its power, treats such a moment of looking back. Orpheus and Eurydice depicts the moment when the mythological hero, Orpheus, makes the fatal mistake of checking if his wife has escaped from Hades. 

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Detail of Auguste Rodin's Orpheus and Eurydice, 1893

Orpheus' bid to rescue Eurydice from Hades depended on not look upon her until she is safely beyond the gate of Hades. Yet, on the brink of escape and triumph, he looks back -thus dooming Eurydice to oblivion.

Like smoke dissolving into empty air,                                                                                Passed and was sundered from his sight ...                                                                                    
Virgil, Georgics, Book IV, lines 501-502, J.B. Greenough Translation, 1900

Orpheus and Eurydice is on display in an excellent exhibition honoring Rodin at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on view to January 15, 2018. Rodin's works appear in all their glorious variety - sketches, plaster models, finished sculptures -  in the Met's B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Gallery. Down the hall is an exhibit of the drawings (plus a few sculptures) of a man with whom Rodin is often compared: Michelangelo. 

Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer is one of 2017's stellar exhibitions. The lighted photo version of the Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes is a spectacular feature of the exhibit in the Metropolitan's Tisch gallery.  

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017) Gallery view of Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer 

As magnificent as this recreation of Michelangelo's magnum opus is, the really significant feature of the exhibit is the rare opportunity to study drawings by the great Florentine master of disegno.

The art of disegno or drawing was so omnipresent in the exhibits that featured in Art Eyewitness that this proved to be the dominant theme for 2017. 

There were outstanding exhibits of painting, sculpture, photography, fashion and ceramics during 2017, too. The National Gallery of Art in Washington reawakened memories of one of their greatest triumphs, the fabled 1995 Vermeer exhibit, with a superb presentation of Dutch Golden Age painting, Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry (October 22, 2017 - January 21, 2018)

Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer, 1668

The Vermeer show came close to rivaling the 1995 exhibit, but it is worth remembering that in 2016, the National Gallery presented Drawings for Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt which emphasized the role of sketching and draughtmanship in seventeenth century Holland. 

Time and again, 2017 exhibitions dealing with drawings delivered the greatest impact. Drawing, "the pencil of nature" as it was called during the eighteenth century, comes closest to the individual artist's perception of the world as he or she directly sees it.

To make a drawing is an act of looking back at nature or at a person we esteem without experiencing the tragic fate of Orpheus and Eurydice. Drawings are investments of time, talent, energy and belief in the future.

Two exhibitions at the Morgan Library and Museum during 2017 proved the power of drawing with special force. 

The highlight of Treasures from the Nationalmuseum of Sweden at the Morgan (February 3 - May 14, 2017) was supposed to be François Boucher's The Triumph of Venus, 1740. This painting was the pride and joy of the Swedish emissary to the court of Versailles, Count Carl Gustaf Tessin (1696-1770). Tessin also purchased superb drawings - and nearly bankrupted himself in the process - by Rembrandt, Dürer, Watteau and others. These drawings are so far above Boucher's erotic "eye candy" in quality that I spent most of my time studying them rather than the voluptuous Venus and her minions.                                                                         
Of course, Rembrandt, Dürer and Watteau are pretty stiff competition for any artist to encounter. However, I felt the same about the drawings of an obscure French artist, 
Nicolas de Plattemontagne (1631–1706) when compared to Boucher or other French eighteenth century painters like Fragonard. I had never even heard of Nicolas de Plattemontagne before seeing this magnificent study of hands and drapery at another Morgan exhibit, Poussin, Claude, and French Drawing in the Classical Age, June 16 - October 15, 2017. 

Nicolas de Plattemontagne, Study of St. Agnes, ca. 1680

In popular estimation, French art of the seventeenth century usually ranks well-below Dutch art of the same period. The Morgan exhibit of French drawing was a revelation not because it proved the facility of Nicholas Poussin and Claude Lorrain in drawing. That hardly needs emphasizing. Rather, by showcasing an unknown (to me at least) artist like De Plattemontagne, the importance that was attached to drawing by the Academic establishments of Europe was highlighted and underscored.

To be a successful artist in the Western world between the Renaissance and the Second World War, you needed to be skillful in drawing. It says something about the crisis of confidence in the West today, that the importance of drawing well is no longer insisted upon as a hallmark of a successful artist.

This comment is not intended as an editorial rant. There are still many great artists, technically proficient and artistically inspired. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) David Hockney at the Metropolitan Museum, Nov. 20, 2017

It was a great experience to attend the press preview in November 2017 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the David Hockney exhibit. Hockney made an appearance at the preview, a moment I will long cherish. 

To everyone's delight, Hockney made the rounds, subjecting himself to a barrage of digital cameras and phones. There is certain appropriateness to this, as Hockney has been a bold innovator using everything from a Polaroid camera to the iPad and iPhone to further his explorations of landscapes and people.

Hockney remains a staunch believer in the discipline of drawing. "Teaching someone to draw," Hockney affirms, "is teaching them to look."

I came across this quote in a book I read while working on my review of the Hockney exhibition: Martin Gayford's, A Bigger Picture: Conversations with David Hockney (Thames & Hudson, 2016 edition). Gayford and Hockney are a brilliant team and their engaging dialogue on the nature of art is hugely enjoyable and thought provoking. 

The Yorkshire-born artist told Gayford that he believed one of his ancestors had been "a cave artist who liked making marks on the wall." In short, Hockney's distant relative had been an experimenter in art, innovating with a piece of chalk the way Hockney has adapted the iPhone to be his sketchbook. 

Yet, Hockney does not believe that new modes of technology will make traditional drawing or painting obsolete. Rather, drawing and painting are primal modes of human expression. Mass media like films and newspapers are being edged aside by the iPhone and the iPad.  

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), David Hockney's Contre-Jour in the French Style,1974

Hockney believes that drawing and painting will endure. The whole person is engaged in these modes of artistic expression, especially in drawing. Hockney confided to Gayford:

When you are drawing, you are always one or two marks ahead. You are always thinking. 'After what I'm doing here I'll go there and there.' It's like chess or something. In drawing I've always thought economy of means was a great quality - not always in painting, but always in drawing. It's breathtaking in Rembrandt, Picasso and van Gogh. To achieve that is hard work, but stimulating: finding how to reduce everything you've looked at to just lines -  lines that contain volume in them.

Along with seeing Hockney at the Metropolitan Museum, my wife Anne and I met one of the great nature photographers of the present age, Michael Nichols, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Nichols' photos are awesome (for once the word is used accurately). 

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Portrait of Michael Nichols

Nichols' stunning images of the remnant of Planet Earth's undomesticated animals were displayed in brilliant contrast to selected works of art from the Philadelphia Museum of Art collection. Wild: Michael Nichols, as the exhibit was called, was the big summer exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Then it traveled to the National Geographic Society Museum in Washington D.C. where it will be on view until January 12, 2018.

Wild or domesticated, every animal is a unique individual. Each animal exerts a dynamic presence in the world and in the lives of those humans lucky to create a bond or relationship with them. Anne and I were blessed to enjoy the friendship, support and example of Lily for nearly sixteen years. Lily, the Queen, could only be described as "indomitable."

One of my favorite pictorial themes is the story of St. Jerome and the Lion. Lily was our Lion. Like St. Jerome's companion, who had a thorn in his paw that Jerome removed, Lily faced many physical challenges. She survived a stroke two years ago which left her limping but unbowed.

Anne Lloyd Photo (2015), Lily.

Lily was the guardian of my wife's painting studio just as St Jerome's Lion guarded his study. Lily certainly ran a "good ship"  and Anne was never without companionship as she created her beautiful art.

On December 19th, we had to save Lily from further physical suffering. Sadly, there was no thorn for us to remove that would enable Lily to resume her watch in the studio. We had to free Lily's spirit to spare her pain and now Lily's spirit is free. 

Art is an act of freeing the spirit. Art enables us to engage the creative energies within ourselves, letting these spirits express themselves. And these spirits, once engaged will emerge, ready, willing and able to assert beauty in an often ugly, uncaring world.

2017 was a difficult year in many ways. Yet, the creative spirits were always in evidence in our lives. One such magic moment occurred when a monarch butterfly paid a late autumn visit to the zinnias in our neighbor's garden. 

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Butterfly Garden

Anne snapped this marvelous photo. It is proof, if any is necessary, that life's "wild"  moments  - and beautiful ones - are not as rare as we sometimes mistakenly think. 

May the coming year, 2018, provide us all with many such moments.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved  Photos courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., the Morgan Library and Museum, New York City and Anne Lloyd

Introductory Image:
Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Gallery view of at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, showing Auguste Rodin's Orpheus and Eurydice, modeled ca. 1887, carved 1893. Marble: 48 3/4 × 31 1/8 × 25 3/8 in., 856 lb. (123.8 × 79.1 × 64.5 cm, 388.3 kg) Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Thomas F. Ryan, 1910. Accession Number:10.63.2

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Detail of Auguste Rodin's Orpheus and Eurydice at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017) Gallery view of Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer 

Johannes Vermeer (Dutch, 1632-1675) The Astronomer, 1668. Oil on canvas: 51.5 × 45.5 cm (20 1/4 × 17 15/16 in.) Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/Franck Raux. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Nicolas de Plattemontagne (French, 1631-1706) , Study of St. Agnes, with a Secondary Study of Her Hand Holding a Palm, ca. 1680. Red and white chalk The Morgan Library & Museum. Purchased on the E. J. Rousuck Fund, the Seligman Fund,and the Fellows Acquisition Fund; 2015.28


Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) David Hockney at the Metropolitan Museum, Nov. 20, 2017. Digital Photo.  Copyright of Anne Lloyd, all rights reserved.

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), David Hockney's Contre-Jour in the French Style (Against the Day dans le Style-Francais),1974. Oil on canvas: 83 x 83 cm. Ludwig Museum-Museum of Contemporary Art, Budepest

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Portrait of Michael Nichols. Copyright of Anne Lloyd, all rights reserved

Anne Lloyd, Lily, 2015. Copyright of Anne Lloyd, all rights reserved

Anne Lloyd, Butterfly Garden, 2017. Copyright of Anne Lloyd, all rights reserved

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.                     

Wild: Michael Nichols at the Philadelphia Museum of Art & the National Geographic Museum

 

Wild: Michael Nichols 

Philadelphia Museum of Art, through September 17, 2017

National Geographic Museum, Washington D.C.

October 12, 2017 - January 12, 2018

Reviewed by Ed Voves

There is a temptation to apply the words "last of" to the great photographer, Michael "Nick" Nichols. "The Last Nature Photographer." "The Last Explorer." Or something like that.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is currently hosting an exhibition of Nichols' photos. Entitled Wild: Michael Nichols, the exhibit thoughtfully presents Nichols' incredible images in careful juxtaposition with works of art from the museum's collections.When Wild completes its run in Philadelphia in mid-September, it will head down to the National Geographic Museum in Washington D.C.

The effect of Nichols' photos and the brilliant work of the Philadelphia Museum of Art curators soon dispels impressions about the "last of the wild." Instead, what we see evoked on the exhibit walls is the resilience of nature, the enduring spirit of an organic world.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Gallery view of Wild: Michael Nichols, 

showing Richard Long's Limestone Circle (1985)

We see it on the gallery floor too. Richard Long's Limestone Circle (1985) is a deceptively simple sculpture. It represents the most perfect geometric shape, rendered with chipped, craggy bits of rock. A visually pleasing conceit on its own terms, Limestone Circle takes on a vastly more important meaning when you see it next to photos by Michael Nichols.

One of Nichols' pictures, an aerial view of cloud-dappled Lake Télé in the Republic of the Congo is a perfect match for comparison with Long's Limestone Circle. Lake Télé is ringed with forbidding jungle, still not fully explored to this day. The clear demarcation between land and water in the photo invites us to extend this distinction to our emotional response to this incredible image. The clear lake water evokes a sense of freedom and relative safety compared with the dangerous, trackless forests around it.

Michael Nichols, Lake Télé, Republic of the Congo, 1998

Lake Télé, however, is the reputed home of a Loch Ness-like monster, the Mokèlé-mbèmbé. Like Nessie, it hasn't been seen of late. Of course, the Mokèlé-mbèmbé is just a myth but crocodiles grow plenty big in Central Africa too.

We are on a lot safer ground with Limestone Circle. Yet, where is the "wild" in nature? Outside the circle of stones or within? Has the civilized, post-industrial world reduced nature to National Parks and extremely remote sites such as Lake Télé? Or will nature reassert itself, with the "wild" springing to life like weeds pushing  through cracks in the sidewalk?

I suspect that the really wild aspects of nature lie within - ourselves.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Gallery view of Wild: Michael Nichols

While walking through the exhibit galleries, I saw a fellow art-lover looking at Nichols' photo of the Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone National Park. The primary colors in the spring come from microbes called thermophiles, which thrive in the scalding hot water. Nichols photographed the Grand Prismatic Spring  and its thermophiles, turning the spring into a huge eye, exploding with luminous color into its surroundings.

By contrast, Richard Long's Limestone Circle is a blank canvas, waiting for us to fill the empty space with the "wild" hues of our imaginations.

Michael Nichols certainly has a vivid imagination, balanced by a pragmatic outlook on life and art. My wife, Anne, and I were able to spend some time with him at the press preview of Wild. A native of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Nichols exudes a true "natural" character, able to adapt and flourish in any environment. He posed for Anne in front of one of his photos, fittingly, of Hildur, a Serengeti lion who has seen a lot of life.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Portrait of Michael Nichols

Nichols, a veteran photojournalist for National Geographic, is a master of realist photography. He personifies the proud job title that I used to hear back in the days when I worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. Nichols is a real "lensman." 

That honorific means a lot of hard work and methodical planning. To get a shot of a Northern Spotted Owl swooping down through a Redwood Forest in Northern California involved staging an elaborate lure and split-second timing. The reward was an unforgettable image of a critically threatened species whose fate, due to habitat loss, has been the subject of controversy for nearly three decades.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Gallery view of Wild showing Michael Nichols' Northern Spotted Owl in a Young Redwood Forest

The Northern Spotted Owl is endangered because of the economic value of its forest home. Redwood trees, a prime candidate for the logger's saw, posed an even bigger challenge for Nichols' camera than the Northern Spotted Owl. To photograph two Redwoods for a five-page fold out for National Geographic, Nichols and a team of tree-climbing assistants spent weeks lowering cameras down the huge trees to create panoramic views of these towering giants. 

In an interview with Sid Rodriquez, Interactive Content Writer for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Nichols recorded the electric moment when the perfect moment for the perfect shots occurred:

On the thirteenth day, there was a moment where the sky got thin—we were doing these at dawn—and that’s what you’re looking for in the forest, where you still have some clouds to make the light soft. If it’s really cloudy, it’s just dead. It’s when—we call it cloudy bright—and the tree started glowing. I can’t see it, I’m looking through a computer on the ground, but the guys up in the tree are saying, “Nick, the tree, it’s glowing, it’s alive, we can feel it.” That’s when we made the set of pictures that became the composite we’re putting in the Great Stair Hall.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Michael Nichols posing before 3200 Year-Old Giant Sequoia 

The composite that Nichols refers to is one of a pair of 60-foot copies of the Redwood photographs he took for the National Geographic. One is a winter-time study (2012) of a 3,200 year-old Giant Sequoia, the other a much younger Coastal Redwood, "only" 1,500 years of age, photographed in 2009. 

The 60-foot tapestry-like photos are suspended from the rafters of the Great Hall of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Awesome" is perhaps the most over-used adjective in the English language (in polite society, that is) but for once it is an entirely accurate descriptor of Nichols' achievement.

Anne Lloyd (Photo 2017), Detail of Michael Nichols' 1500 Year-Old Coastal Redwood

If Nichols' Redwood photos testify to his patience and skill, there are others that testify to his courage and his strength of will. Nature really is "red in tooth and claw." The image of a tiger named Charger which Nichols took  in 1996 recalls Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom" TV series back in the 1950's. Nichols used a camera trap to get this incredible shot. Lot's of adventure but, like "Wild Kingdom," the gazelle gets away - this time.

Michael Nichols, Charger, Camera Trap Photograph, India, 1997

In other photos in Wild, we do see blood and gore. There's a wild-eyed lion named C-Boy chomping on a zebra, a chimp in the process of devouring a smaller monkey. We have to expect - and accept - that the working of the food cycle in nature is a messy process. All the same, Nichols must have nerves of steel and a cast-iron digestive system to be able to record such scenes.

Harder to stomach are Nichols' photos of animals abused by human beings. The frenzied chimpanzee chained in a squalid cage is a vastly more horrifying photo than C-Boy's lack of table manners. It took a great deal of moral courage, of professional focus tempered with fortitude, on Nichols' part, to take this picture.

Michael Nichols, Whiskey, A Pet Chimpanzee, Burundi, 1989

Ultimately, Wild is an exhibition about empathy. When one looks at the face of the Mandrill in the introductory image of this essay, the eyes that look back are very like a human's eyes. We sense a kinship with the Mandrill and the other wonderful animals depicted in Wild. Yet a gulf still separates us from them.

Will the empathy that we see displayed in Nichols' photos enable us to cross that divide? Will we every unchain the chimp in the cage and remove our shackles as well? If so, we will owe not a small debt of gratitude to Michael "Nick" Nichols.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved.  Images courtesy of Michael Nichols and the National Geographic Society and  Anne Lloyd. Interview text courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Introductory Image:

Michael Nichols, Mandrill in a hunting Camp, Gabon, 2000, (Courtesy of the artist) © Michael Nichols/National Geographic.  

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Gallery view of Wild: Michael Nichols, showing Richard Long's Limestone Circle (1985) Original in the Collection of Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Michael Nichols, Lake Télé, Republic of the Congo, 1998. (Courtesy of the artist) © Michael Nichols/National Geographic.

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Gallery view of Wild: Michael Nichols.

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Portrait of Michael Nichols.

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Gallery view of Wild: Michael Nichols, showing Northern Spotted Owl in a Young Redwood Forest, 2009. Original photo © Michael Nichols/National Geographic.

Anne Lloyd Photo (2017), Michael Nichols posing before 3200 Year-Old Giant Sequoia, 2009. Original photo © Michael Nichols/National Geographic.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Detail of Michael Nichols' 1500 Year-Old Coastal Redwood, California, 2009. Original photo © Michael Nichols/National Geographic.

Michael Nichols, Charger, Camera Trap Photograph, India, 1997. Original photo © Michael Nichols/National Geographic.

Michael Nichols, Whiskey, A Pet Chimpanzee, Burundi, 1889. (Courtesy of the artist) © Michael Nichols/National Geographic