Andre Marchand, Pablo Picasso, et La Tarasque

An odyssey peculiar to art and intellect – there is much to be uncovered out there.

First stop, The Riattu, in Arles, France – to see the Picasso exhibit. Impressive, masterful, effortless, and revealing of an aspect of Picasso’s work I hadn’t been aware of. Naively, I questioned whether the images were as misogynistic as I perceived them to be. I felt timid about suggesting such a thing about the great artist. It could be that I had not seen works as confrontational as these; they were pencil and ink sketches and seemed candid, unscripted. Since then, a simple web search on “Picasso, misogynist” returns an abundance of dialogue to confirm that I am not the first to have this impression. A picture is worth a thousand words: Arlequin a la batte et jeune femme – Picasso.

Eleventh stop: It was late afternoon when we trudged back to our hotel after visiting at least ten other sites in Arles. Thankfully, we mustered the energy for one more exhibit, La Provence d'André Marchand, a decision that put me on the trail of La Tarasque. The paintings are on loan from the permanent collection of the Musee Estrine in Saint-Remy-de-Provence while it undergoes renovation. They are hung in the Chapel du Mejan, once the home of the Marino Wool Workers Union. Wooden floors, tall windows, colossal wooden beams above. I could almost smell the lanolin from the piles of wooly bales of long ago.

 In contrast to Picasso, Marchand’s images of women are so gentle, so forgiving, so appreciative. I found myself thinking “What a contrast…look how the woman gently caresses the savage (male) beast.” Again, admittedly, a romanticized and naïve interpretation. Most of the paintings are very large. La Tarasque is six feet wide by four feet high. The color, the depth and texture, the composition, the line, the charisma of the characters, the tranquility and brightness in mood is so stimulating and enchanting. I had an immediate sense of intimacy and familiarity like when meeting someone I know I’ll be friends with.

Returned home to the USA and gazing at the book I had purchased on the exhibit and the photograph of La Tarasque, I wondered about how La Tarasque translated and assumed it meant dragon or beast. An internet search resulted in another nudge to my preconceptions by way of  the simple fact that La Tarasque is a beast indeed, but a female one! The story goes that La Tarasque terrorized the villagers in Tarascon, situated on the Rhone between Arles and Avignon, back in the days of dragons and during Jesus Christ’s lifetime. La Tarasque was subdued by the gentle ministrations of one of Jesus’ friends, St Martha. Sadly for La Tarasque, she was promptly put to death by the villagers, but her legend is celebrated even today in an annual event in Tarascon- Les Fetes de La Tarascon – an event I plan to attend one day.

In a final twist to the dialogue between Picasso, Marchand, and I, regarding the role of La Femme in art, I was confounded by a detail I had previously missed, in Marchand’s Silence de la Tarasque, which is a certain decidedly male aspect of her form.

 

I decided to try my hand at interpreting the magical femme, and here she is, in batik:

 

 
More entertaining and informational information on La Tarasque can be found at:

 http://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2012/03/terror-of-tarasque.html

 

 

 

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Night Fishing

This paper cut or silhouette  was designed using the heron pictured below as the central element. This silhouette is cut from a single piece of paper using an exacto knife. The background is watercolor on paper.There is further depth resulting from the two separate pieces lying one on top of the other.

The challenge for me was working out the design and composition so that it is cut  in a single, continuous piece without making the  connections too important in the design.

Working with papercuts, woodblocks, stencils, even batik, seems to have helped me understand composition better. The one dimensional nature of those mediums forces close attention to line and shape which I think is good practice for watercolor - which has no such restrictions, and seems to lose form and dimension so easily.

The image looks so different to me when reversed; it took me some time to get used to it. In order to cut it I had to draw it first in white colored pencil. So, once it was cut, it had to be reversed because of the left over colored pencil marks - some of which I decided not to cut out.








I've used this heron as the central figure in a few different design projects over the years. It is from a book of Victorian clip art. I would like to acknowledge and give credit to that unknown artist of yore that created this lovely design, which I have the pleasure of adapting for a design of my own. 

Poseidon

Poseidon - interpreted in batik - a fascinating medium that like watercolor, requires planning to control the lights and darks, because although you can  usually paint  or dye over a light color, you can’t do the same with a dark one.
I enlarged the photograph of the Poseidon sculpture below and traced it onto fabric. The process involves waxing out the white areas first and then building up the color by painting on dye with a brush, allowing it to dry, and then painting over it with warm, melted wax. The wax dries immediately and isolates that color from further dye incursion, except for any color that creeps into the cracks in the wax or missed spots - (which can actually add to the spontaneity of the finished work).
I'm not going to sit here and try to act like I know what I'm talking about...I have Wendy Tatter to thank for the inspiration to attempt a batik in the first place, and for the guidance, instruction, and encouragement to go step by step to a completed work. You can see some of Wendy's work and more detail about the batik process and classes at http://www.wbtatter.com/


This is the sculpture that I copied – it’s at the Port of Copenhagen. I couldn't find the name of the sculptor. It’s a different experience to create an almost literal interpretation of another artist’s work. There's an element of creativity missing, but there's a huge advantage for success. The power and grace of this sculpture are formidable - it was joy to follow the lines of it in my own interpretation.

Fort Mose - St Augustine

Fort Mose in St Augustine is such a beautiful place to walk, birdwatch, and paint.  I painted there yesterday, and I'm still shaking my head in wonder that I have such a beautiful place so nearby, where I can sit on a dock and paint - mostly undisturbed because so few people seem to know about the place. This photo is of the island rookery in the marsh, nesting ground for great blue herons, woodstorks, and migratory birds - no two legged access permitted. You see them swooping in and out, calling and carrying in nest building material.

The marsh is flat and vast, panoramic. Shapes don't emerge individually, they merge and interconnect. This challenges my artist brain to find an intersection that translates to a small rectangle of paper. The water is brackish and tidal - of a color that is hard to name, harder to paint. "What color is that?" I ask myself. Is it grey? Brown? Blue, like the sky above which it reflects? No. None of those..If I can't even name it, can I hope to mix it?
This won't be my first attempt at painting the marshes, but it will be my first successful attempt, if it happens. Which, as usual for me, means a lucky visitation by the muse..
Whatever the end result, painting cleans off my soul - says she, dramatically! But after much struggle and a sense of impending failure, I came up with this - and I feel good about it:

Brancusi and Serra at the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao - October 2011 - February 2012

Sitting in my little pea pod in the sea of ART and ABSTRACTION, I ponder once more the great question...what IS art? At the Guggenheim Bilbao, art is cargo in the huge belly of the Frank Gehry designed museum/ship.

The ship-like Guggenheim is the first thing you see when you enter Bilbao from the east, rounding a mountainside and crossing a bridge. Seemingly docked, back lit, and momentous, it creates an unforgettable first impression of Bilbao.
Louise Bourgeois' spider sculpture Maman (mother) stands poised in awesome magnitude on the pier-like walkway. Is this a reference to fertility and the carrying belly, or industry, or something more sinister? http://www.centrepompidou.fr/education/ressources//ENS-bourgeois-EN//ENS-bourgeois-EN.html

The exhibit guide describes the permanent installation of Richard Serra's The Matter of Time sculptures as follows: "Shifting in unexpected ways as the viewers walk in and around them, these sculptures create a dizzying, unforgettable sensation of space in motion." Agreed! There is an intense physicality to the sculptures - heaving, towering, narrowing spaces, echoing, they close toward a center like a nautilus shell or slosh like a wave pouring into a cave. It is not clear to me how they are stand up, or exactly what is meant by the description of the material "weathered rolled steel." The metal has a rough organic patina that is so much more than sheets of rusted steel...you want very much to touch them, but is it allowed? Photographs are not allowed but there are a lot of clicks and flashes going on. Children are running through the tunnels, far from the hushed  circumspection of the exhibits on the upper floors, but no one seems to object. Is this steerage?


Most of the Brancusi sculptures in this exhibit are  carved in wood, having a bold sensuality that draws you close, where the Serra sculptures press toward you. My daughter pointed out that Brancusi and many of his contemporary artists were influenced by African art - visible here in the carvings in the background of his self portrait. 
Bird in Space (L'Oiseau dans l'espace) was in the exhibit - now I understand its iconic status. It is a joy to see art at this level, a privilege to travel to places where museums like this exist, and hopefully a continuing option to visit the library and read about artists like Constantin Brancusi.