ARTISTS IN LOVE, part 23

 After last week's arguments over politics and war, we are overdue for another report on the curious doings at the intersection of art and love:

Norman Lindsay and Rose Soady

Artist Norman Lindsay said that he usually began his complex pictures by drawing a single female form, then built the rest of his composition around that central image.  Starting in 1902, the central figure in Lindsay's life was his favorite model (and later wife) Rose Soady.   

 

 

Sketch of Rose, 1905

 

In a dusty used bookstore I recently stumbled across Rose's memoir of her unconventional life with Norman.

Lindsay was married with children when Rose began modeling for him, but after two years Rose reports the two consummated their relationship "spontaneously and without premeditation," then stayed together for the rest of their lives.  She was apparently the rare woman who was scrappy and open minded enough to keep up with him.

Rose described the extraordinary measures the couple took to hide their scandalous relationship.  She lied to her mother about posing nude and Lindsay lied to his wife that he was sleeping in his studio. The couple lied to their landlady that they were brother and sister (but were sternly evicted when the landlady caught on). Later when the couple rented adjoining rooms, they cut a secret trap door in the wall so they could get together. 

The partition was only thin wood, which made entry from room to room easy-- just by cutting a trap door.  A saw and two hinges were all that was necessary for the job.  It was cut out just above floor level and the drawing table placed against the trapdoor; a chair, a mat, and a scatter of papers and books made it look just right to callers. 

But here's the interesting part:  despite their elaborate efforts to keep up pretenses, Norman's pictures of Rose seemed to be public advertisements for their affair.  Why even bother lying to their landlady if Norman was drawing pictures like this?

Lindsay became famous for his hundreds of pictures of wild nymphs and satyrs trysting.  

Artists who draw the most intimate or controversial subjects somehow feel shielded by their art.  It's like the child who thinks that if they put a napkin over their head, no one can see them.  

The artist's audience might suspect, but can't prove, where fact ends and fantasy begins.  This fig leaf often emboldens artists to put all kinds of revelatory and personal subject matter out there.  Once a picture has been launched, it becomes something separate from the artist, who-- if pressed-- can disavow any reality in the content.  

Where did the fact end and the fantasy begin?  Above, Norman's reference photo of Rose (reproduced in her memoir). Below, a fanciful drawing by Norman.

Of course, some friends and family were unwilling to abide by the polite fiction and stopped associating with Norman or Rose.  Some art galleries and museums refused to exhibit Norman's work.  Angry clergy clucked and scolded the couple.  By 1913, when Norman drew Rose in the role of "Venus Crucified" by society's moral guardians, the jig was pretty well up:

Looking back, Rose seemed to relish her youthful adventures.  In her memoir she proudly reprinted some of Norman's [NSFW]  early photos of her.  "Those were the days," she recalled. 

 

Norman developed their personal photos himself using chemicals in their small kitchen.  Rose recalled that the chemicals smelled terrible, but apparently the results were worth it.

Norman passed away in 1969, and Rose followed him in 1978.

EDENTULOUS

This editorial cartoon by the great Michael Ramirez was published by the Washington Post on November 7 and withdrawn the next day after complaints that the cartoon was "racist."

Ramirez combines strong opinions with strong drawing abilities-- the ideal
combination for an editorial cartoonist. 

Several forces now threaten the once-great institution of editorial cartoons.  Among them are the dwindling circulation of newspapers and the sensationalism of the 24/7 cable news cycle.   But there's an even larger issue: whether modern newspapers and their audiences still have the stomach for caricature.  

Cartoons have an important history of offending targets in ways that words cannot.  The corrupt politician "Boss" Tweed famously said he was unafraid of what newspapers wrote, but "those damned pictures" by cartoonist Thomas Nast had to stop.  Tweed was right to be concerned; cartoons toppled his regime, and as a fugitive from justice he was identified from Nast's drawings.  

When cartoonist David Low savagely depicted the Nazis on the eve of World war II, the German government formally protested to the British government.  Low explained his strategy: "To draw a hostile war lord as a horrible monster is to play his game. What he doesn't like is being shown as a silly ass."   

Hitler was reported to have personally put a price on the head of cartoonist Arthur Szyk for his cartoons lampooning the "master race."

Victims of caricature have always pressured newspapers to stop, and newspapers have had to find the courage to stand up to the pressure.  

Today, villains who are indignant about being ridiculed have found more effective ways to get editorial cartoons removed.  Experience shows that nothing can cause the Washington Post to retreat faster than an allegation of "racism," whether the allegation had any basis or not. 

Racism? Caricature by Ramirez (left) of Hamas official (right)

The same tactic was used when cartoonist Ann Telnaes drew a cartoon criticizing Senator Ted Cruz for filming his small daughters reading an attack ad against his competitor.  Telnaes drew them as performing monkeys.  

Cruz's allies shrewdly recognized that the best way to get the cartoon removed was to allege that the cartoon was "racist"-- a ridiculous charge, but The Post immediately caved and withdrew the cartoon.  

The removal of Ramirez's cartoon last week shows that the trick still works.

So what kind of editorial cartoons can safely pass muster at the Washington Post today?  Three days after withdrawing the Ramirez cartoon, the Post editorial page ran the following edentulous cartoon:  

Bland lifestyle cartoons are no threat to anyone.  But compare the draftsmanship and the content of this cartoon to the brilliant and biting humor of Ramirez.

 Newspapers shouldn't withdraw editorial cartoons just because the target feels offended.  Those newspapers that do, no longer understand the nature of caricature and might want to consider getting out of the editorial cartoon business.   

THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE THREAT TO TRADITIONAL ART

Artists have historically performed many important functions, such as drawing pictures for young women to show what their future husband will look like naked.  

Note that the above drawing will be "hand made."  No computers involved.  The artists will "read your future by aura and tap into the source" in order to provide you with: 

The huge demand for such information has been a major source of revenue for traditional artists: 

 

You'd think such an important role for art would be safe from incursion by cold Artificial Intelligence.  After all, what kind of person would trust a machine to tell them whether their future husband will be overweight or have a tattoo on his butt?  Only a true artist could know such things.

Despite this fact, today there are numerous AI image generators offering a variety of "clothes removal functions" which you can use to learn intimate details about your potential life partner.

With the click of a button, Nudify.online will strip the clothing in a photograph in less than a minute.   And Soulgen reminds you that after you've used their software to create a NSFW image from a photo of your beloved, if you have some really detailed questions "you can reuse the image and write a text to create exactly what you want with that character."  

I can understand how people interested in a meaningful lifelong commitment would want to seize upon this information to help them make their choices.  But how can they be so easily duped into believing that AI will give them reliable information?  Better to stick with authentic art, made by a genuine artist.

ONE LOVELY DRAWING, part 70

 The great Mort Drucker drew this ad for Burger King in 1990:

There are 40 different faces in this riot of a drawing.  

Most cartoonists rely on a basic template of four or five facial expressions, but Drucker is able to conjure up an endless cavalcade of faces.  Note how he never seems to repeat the same mouth twice in this drawing.  Note all the different angles; very few people stand up straight.

Drucker packs his creative choices together densely, which gives the drawing a feeling of generosity.  His lively, bouncy line helps us feel his joy at the infinite variety of humanity.

And that's before we even begin to talk about his trademark hands.

To appreciate the sensitivity of Drucker's line, drill down on the smallest details.  

Note how he varies the thickness of his line to convey 3-dimensionality, or shadows, or conceptual emphasis.  When a feature is less significant (like the shadow on the tip of that nose) Drucker's touch can be as light as a feather.

One lovely drawing indeed!

A NEWSPAPER AD FROM 1976

In 1976 Northwestern Hospital placed an ad in a Chicago newspaper announcing the opening of two new medical facilities.  Every copy of that advertisement-- except mine-- has now been used to line bird cages, wrap dead fish or fill garbage dumps.  That leaves me as the only person left to praise its evanescent poetry.

Northwestern hired illustrator Franklin McMahon to humanize the mission of the hospital for a general newspaper audience:

Detail

Look at the lovely, graceful way McMahon portrayed the grief of families in the waiting room:

  

Look at how beautifully he portrayed the architecture:

Detail

McMahon made complex medical equipment less foreboding and more interesting.

Today an advertiser would use photographs or (horrors!) photo-illustration to handle this mission.  

Northwestern Memorial Hospital in photograph (above) and illustration (below)

What a difference illustration makes in charm and in understanding.  But in fairness, there are very few illustrators left today who are capable of McMahon's thoughtful treatment of such a subject. 

BURT SILVERMAN EXHIBITION

A major new exhibit of the work of Burt Silverman has just opened at the Salmagundi Club in Manhattan.  The exhibit-- a feast for the mind and the eye-- contains 35 significant paintings.

For many years, Silverman has been one of the premier painters in America.  He's from that generation of thoughtful painters who used realism as a vehicle for reflection and discovery.  The result, on display in the exhibition, is rich with nuance and heavy with nutritional content.  

All paintings in this review copyright Burton Silverman

A good example is this 1994 watercolor, The Machine:

Most of this painting is as loose and abstract as any Mark Rothko or Jackson Pollock painting:

Here, design reigns supreme.  These areas aren't governed by objective external references.

But in key places Silverman sharpens his focus and paints solid objects realistically.  He uses folds on clothing, treads on tires and similar hard edged details to create a composition which rescues the abstract elements from a fugue state.   

 These touches keep the picture in an objective, three dimensional reality.

The theme of this picture-- humans wrestling with machines-- is as current as this morning's headlines about coping with the complexities of artificial intelligence.  Other paintings in the exhibition invite the same kind of reflection on other themes.

Silverman's brand of realism is very different from much of the realist revival of the past 20 years, which often exalts technical skill and soulless photo-realism.  The abstract designs inherent in Silverman's painting remind us of the importance of aesthetic values neglected by so many technicians in the "realist revival."  More importantly, Silverman finds in the material world themes worthy of contemplation and extrapolation.  Their messages aren't obvious; Silverman doesn't offer us diagrams or roadmaps.  He's far too oblique for that.  This brand of realism takes time to unfold.  

For those who claim that realism is "dated" in the fast moving art world of AI, conceptual art, NFTs and indigenous futurity, the only anachronism in Silverman's art is its emphasis on humanity and depth-- important attributes that are rarely to be found in much of the contemporary art scene. 

LEYENDECKER: ANOTHER LOOK

A few weeks ago I criticized a museum exhibition and an art critic for their shabby efforts to reduce the great achievement of J.C. Leyendecker to a "gay fifth column." They claimed to see "hidden messages"(such as an erect penis) in Leyendecker's paintings, which they claimed were designed to undermine "the majority's straight erotics." I responded that Leyendecker's work is still under-appreciated, and that a rare exhibition of his originals should acknowledge his broader legacy, rather than serve as a political tool for tiresome people with a narrow agenda.  

Some readers suggested that if Leyendecker deserves broader attention, I should help give him more attention rather than whining about the people who don't.  Fair enough:

It's important to remember that most people became familiar with Leyendecker in an era when printing technology was relatively primitive and full color reproduction was rare.

So when the public is given a chance to view his original paintings, they are surprised by his acute powers of observation and his astonishing technical skills.

Images courtesy of the Kelly Collection of American Illustration

Every artist today would know enough to paint those white highlights, but how many would also notice that the reflected light on the underside of the black beads is a warm color due to her skin, or notice the proper color for the shadow of the beads on her flesh?  More importantly, how many would even care, if their picture was to be reproduced in two colors? 

In books about Leyendecker, we repeatedly see the same pictures of his stylish Arrow collar man, or Kuppenheimer ads, or sports figures.  But Leyendecker did hundreds of quality covers on a variety of topics for The Saturday Evening Post and Collier's that you rarely-- if ever-- see reproduced. 

There's still a rich lode of Leyendecker's oeuvre which has yet to be mined and appreciated.  It deserves to be taken seriously.