Teachers` Resource - Courtauld Institute of Art

TEACHERS’ RESOURCE
MAKING MYTHS
CONTENTS
1: MAKING MYTHS: THE STORIES TOLD BY ARTISTS,
CURATORS, COLLECTORS AND CONSERVATORS
2: COLLECTING GAUGUIN: CURATOR’S QUESTIONS
3: RE-INVENTING MYTH: FORM AND FUNCTION IN
SOME EARLY MODERN ‘MYTHOLOGICAL’ WORKS
FROM THE COURTAULD GALLERY
4: MANET, DEGAS, RENOIR AND THE THEATRE OF
EVERYDAY LIFE
5: TAKEN AT FACE VALUE?
SELF-STAGING AND MYTH-MAKING IN THE WORK
OF GAUGUIN AND VAN GOGH
6: THE MATERIAL LANGUAGE OF PAINTINGS:
CONSERVATION AND TECHNICAL ART HISTORY
7: REGARDE! FRENCH LANGUAGE RESOURCE:
GAUGUIN ET LA POLYNÉSIE
8: GLOSSARY
9: SUGGESTIONS FOR RESEARCH AND PRACTICAL
ACTIVITIES IN THE CLASSROOM
10: TEACHING RESOURCE IMAGE CD
Compiled and produced by Carolin Levitt and Sarah Green
Design by JWDesigns
SUGGESTED CURRICULUM LINKS FOR EACH ESSAY ARE
MARKED IN RED
TERMS REFERRED TO IN THE GLOSSARY ARE MARKED
IN BLUE
To book a visit to the gallery or to discuss any of the education
projects at The Courtauld Gallery please contact:
e: [email protected]
t: 0207 848 1058
WELCOME
The Courtauld Institute of Art runs an
exceptional programme of activities
suitable for young people, school teachers
and members of the public, whatever their
age or background.
We offer resources which contribute
to the understanding, knowledge and
enjoyment of art history based upon the
world-renowned art collection and the
expertise of our students and scholars.
I hope the material will prove to be both
useful and inspiring.
Henrietta Hine
Head of Public Programmes
The Courtauld Institute of Art
This resource offers teachers and their
students an opportunity to explore
the wealth of The Courtauld Gallery’s
permanent collection by expanding on
a key idea drawn from our exhibition
programme. Taking inspiration from the
2013 summer display Collecting Gauguin:
Samuel Courtauld in the ‘20s, the focus of
this teachers’ resource is ‘Making Myths’.
Cover image:
Paul Gauguin
Maruru (Offerings of Gratitude/ Thank you),
from the Noa Noa series, 1893-4.
Woodcut print
20.5 x 35.6 cm
Image 2:
Paul Gauguin (detail)
Te Rerioa (The Dream), 1897
Oil on canvas
91.5 x 130.2 cm
Unless otherwise stated all images
© The Samuel Courtauld Trust,
The Courtauld Gallery, London
Resources are written by early career
academics and postgraduate students
from The Courtauld Institute of Art with
the aim of making the research culture of
this world renowned, Specialist University
accessible to schools and colleges.
Essays, articles and activities are marked
with suggested links to subject areas
and Key Stage levels. We hope teachers
and educators of all subjects will use this
pack to plan lessons, organise visits to
The Courtauld Gallery and for their own
professional development.
Sarah Green
Gallery Learning Programmer
The Courtauld Institute of Art
1: MAKING MYTHS:
THE STORIES TOLD BY ARTISTS, CURATORS,
COLLECTORS AND CONSERVATORS
Caroline Levitt
In 1910, an exhibition took place at the
Grafton Galleries in London that would
define not only the British understanding
of recent French painting, but also the
category by which a certain group of artists
has been known almost ever since: Manet
and the Post-Impressionists was curated
by Roger Fry - critic, painter and friend
of Samuel Courtauld. The poster [image
1] used a print of one of Paul Gauguin’s
paintings, Poèmes barbares (1896). As
a result of the exhibition, Gauguin, Paul
Cézanne and Vincent Van Gogh became
understood as both ‘Post-Impressionists’
and descendants of the flat, outlined,
‘modern’ painting style of Edouard
Manet. The term post-impressionist has
proven almost as poorly understood
as it has useful, but it is a key example
of the ways in which terminology and
public understanding can be shaped by
the activities of critics and curators. As
a collector, Samuel Courtauld had the
opportunity to shape the British public’s
understanding of the painters whose works
he collected, defining and responding to
the popularity and value of one artist over
another by his choice of acquisitions for
both his personal collection and the public
galleries for which he purchased works.
Collecting as a practice is a central tenet
of The Courtauld Gallery’s 2013 summer
display Collecting Gauguin, the occasion
on which this teachers’ pack is produced.
However the myth-making potential of
promotional or self-promotional activity from curating, collecting and critiquing, to
portraiture and self-portraiture, whether
visual or literary - is a theme that emerges
and that can be considered in a number of
ways.
The presence of myths and mythology in
painting has an extensive history, which
goes back to the depiction of figures and
events from epic tales, perhaps as
a showcase for the artist’s talent and
breadth of understanding, or with the
intention of morally educating the viewer:
this is the subject of Naomi Lebens’
essay, ‘Re-inventing Myth’. From the use
of specific stories such as that of Cupid
and Psyche by Sir Joshua Reynolds [see
essay 3] to the evocative inclusion of
Greek and Roman architectural references
by artists such as Rubens, myths, stories
and their settings are a vessel for artists
(as well as writers) to express ideas that
go beyond simple appearances and that
help to build an understanding of human
life and thought. Artists of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries have sometimes
drawn on the content of ancient myths
or on the conventional style of painting
used to depict them as a means of either
undercutting or exploring earlier ideas:
Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe
(c.1863-8) [for the Courtauld version see
essay 4] plays on the traditional depiction
of nude nymphs cavorting freely in an
idyllic landscape, but subverts this with the
inclusion of clothed art students alongside
modern women, undressed with their
clothes strewn around the scene, painted
in Manet’s characteristically flat style. The
painting caused much controversy when it
was first made, and has itself gained almost
mythical status as a starting point for the
need to be refused from official exhibiting
spaces in order to be considered truly
‘modern’. The very fact that Courtauld’s
version of the painting is one of at least
three copies that Manet himself made of
the original is proof of its importance at the
time as well as now.
So, aside from the literal depiction of
myths, we can think about the ways in
which the methods of depicting scenes,
including the process of staging a scene
before painting it, can be considered in
terms of making something essentially
fabricated seem real and at the same time
full of meaning. The essay ‘Manet, Degas,
Renoir and the Theatre of Everyday Life’,
examines the practice of using models in
the work of Renoir and Manet in order to
paint scenes that are often considered to
function as snapshots of everyday activities
in nineteenth century Paris. Far from being
straight documents, however, we must
consider very carefully the ways in which
the artists have set up these paintings to
create a specific image of the working and
leisure classes of the time. Manet, Degas
and Renoir were, in this sense, makers of
myth in their own right.
The idea of staging and promotional
portraiture collide very neatly in Renoir’s
Portrait of Ambroise Vollard (1908) [Image
2]. Renoir shows Vollard, one of the art
dealers and collectors of himself, Cézanne,
Gauguin and Picasso (amongst others)
gently caressing a sculpture, quite possibly
a small 1900 plaster study of a crouching
Image 1:
Poster for the First Post-Impressionist Exhibition
1910.
76.3 x 50.9 cm
Image 2:
Pierre Auguste Renoir
Portrait of Ambroise Vollard,
1908
Oil on canvas
81.6 x 65.2 cm
CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3+
Art and Design, History, Art History, and
other Humanities
THE PROCESS OF STAGING
A SCENE [...] CAN BE
CONSIDERED IN TERMS
OF MAKING SOMETHING
ESSENTIALLY FABRICATED
SEEM REAL AND AT THE
SAME TIME FULL OF
MEANING.
”
nude by Aristide Maillol. Vollard, who
was described by those who knew him
as having ‘bulldog features‘ is shown
here quite differently, to be a bourgeois
gentleman and a conoisseur, engrossed
in the art that he loves and oblivious to his
own slightly unkempt appearance - look,
for example, at the protruding handkerchief
or perhaps even tear in his right jacket
pocket. Renoir would have been fully
aware of the flattering light in which he was
portraying Vollard, who had commissioned
the portrait himself, and it would of course
have been within Renoir’s interests to
please his dealer. The essay, ‘Taken at
Face Value?’ will take this theme further,
looking at the self-staging of Gauguin
and Van Gogh, not only through their own
work and writings, but also through their
later promotion in popular film and fiction.
It is one of the roles of Art History to try
to navigate such firmly held biographical
and anecdotal myths, extracting what is
important in the analysis of artworks from
the complex web of promotion, selfpromotion and fiction that often exists.
Suggested activities in this pack will help
students and teachers to investigate this
theme further through practice or research.
The practice of painting conservation
allows for the investigation of artworks as
physical objects, and whilst it can reveal
many previously hidden truths, it also
has the ability to shape what we know of
pictures, as described by Alysia Sawicka
in her essay ‘The Material Language of
Paintings’. Conservation should perhaps be
considered alongside the work of collectors
and curators as a part of the way in which
artworks come to us: rarely directly from the
artist, but often through the lens of those
who have studied and interpreted them in
a variety of ways. Ultimately, the essays and
activities gathered here are intended to
challenge visitors to The Courtauld Gallery
to look beyond the surface of paintings,
both physically and metaphorically, and
to investigate in more depth the ways in
which art is made, promoted and received.
The notions of authenticity or biography
may prove far less important as a result
than understanding the rich variety of
interpretations that might be possible when
different viewers look at a single painting.
Finally, one key inspiration for the theme of
myth-making is caught up with the content
of Gauguin’s paintings themselves. It was,
interestingly enough, Ambroise Vollard
who first sold Gauguin’s painting Haystacks
(1889) [see essay 6] which is itself part of
Gauguin’s personal myth-making of place.
In an attempt to escape what he saw as the
stifling atmosphere of civilised urban Paris,
Gauguin famously withdrew first to Brittany
and then to the islands of Polynesia.
However the lifestyle he discovered in
these places was not always that depicted
in his canvases. Indeed, the poet Charles
Morice warned viewers of Gauguin’s first
exhibition of Tahitian works in 1893 that ‘to
find your way around the island his work
would make a bad guide, if your soul is not
akin to his’. Whilst the women of Brittany
would dress up in traditional dress to assist
the tourist industry, the practices of farming
in that area were in fact more advanced
than Gauguin would have us believe in
Haystacks. Likewise, the ‘barbarism’ he
insisted upon in the South Seas was a
rapidly fading fantasy as these islands,
French protectorates, were increasingly
affected by Catholic missionaries and other
marks of colonial rule. The ‘Regarde!’
activity in this pack is designed to help with
language learning through looking at the
work of Gauguin, but it also highlights the
myth-making potential of both imagery
and language, in particular that used by
Gauguin in his prints. If the 1910 poster
for Fry’s Grafton Galleries exhibition can
be held responsible for the widespread
understanding of Gauguin, Van Gogh
and Cézanne as ‘Post-Impressionists’, the
painting Poèmes barbares (Barbaric Poems)
depicted on it can perhaps also be seen
as emblematic of Gauguin’s activity as an
artist: his paintings, and those of so many
other artists, are like poetry - creating
atmosphere and weaving narratives out
of pieces of shifting reality. To unpick the
narrative of painting completely would be
to destroy its beauty and effectiveness; to
interpret and better understand its roots
and the process by which it has been
assembled is one of the aims of Art History.
FURTHER READING:
John House (ed.), Impressionism for
England: Samuel Courtauld as Patron and
Collector (London: Courtauld Gallery, 1994)
Karen Serres (ed.), Collecting Gauguin:
Samuel Courtauld in the 20s
(London: Courtauld Gallery, 2013)
2: COLLECTING GAUGUIN:
CURATOR’S QUESTIONS
Karen Serres
Q: Tell us a bit about your job as curator?
A: At The Courtauld, I am responsible
for the care and display of paintings from
1200 to 1900, so roughly up to the end
of the period called Post-Impressionism.
In addition to making sure that all of the
works are in good condition, I decide which
ones go on public display, where and how
they should hang. An important part of
my job is also undertaking research on
the paintings and making sure we know as
much as possible about the circumstances
of their creation, their meaning and their
subsequent history. One way to present our
findings is through exhibitions and displays,
such as Collecting Gauguin.
Q: What do you enjoy most about being a
curator?
A: I enjoy the fact that no two days are
alike and that it requires engagement
in equal parts with the works in my care,
with colleagues – particularly those in
conservation – and with the public.
Q: What was the inspiration for the
Gauguin display in particular?
A: The Courtauld Gallery has the largest
collection of works by Gauguin in the UK,
comprising three important oil paintings,
two drawings, ten prints and Gauguin’s
only signed marble sculpture. These were
purchased by Samuel Courtauld, one of
the founders of The Courtauld Institute of
Art, in the span of a few years in the 1920s,
a key decade for the collecting of PostImpressionism in Britain.
Q: How long has it taken to plan?
A: Visitors are always surprised by how
much time exhibitions take to organise;
there is a lot of work involved so their
preparation can take anywhere from three
to five years. The Summer Showcase
displays focus more on our permanent
collection so they take a little less time
to plan. However, this display includes
two outside loans, key paintings that
once belonged to Samuel Courtauld
but were not given to The Courtauld.
We approached their current owners,
the Barber Institute of Fine Arts and the
National Galleries of Scotland, a year
and a half ago; their support was crucial
and Collecting Gauguin could not have
happened without it.
Q: Can you tell us about the process of
putting on a display like this?
A: After determining the focus of the
display, we put together a list of objects
that we want to exhibit and sent out loan
requests for works coming from outside the
Gallery. We made sure that all the works
were in good enough condition to be
placed on view. We decided, for example,
to change the mats on the prints as they
were slightly discoloured. At the same time,
I carried out research and prepared the
publication, as well as the didactic material
that accompanies the works in the display
space (introductory panel, labels, etc.).
Final decisions concerned the colour of the
walls, the placement of the works in the
space and, last but not least, their lighting.
And voila!
Q: Have you faced any particular
challenges?
A: One challenge was the arrangement
of such an array of works (paintings,
works on paper, sculpture, in addition to
some archival material such as invoices
and letters). How do you make sure such
a disparate group doesn’t clash within
the same space? However, the range of
objects on view is also what makes the
display particularly interesting. The second
challenge was the accompanying booklet,
which is a new format for us. It is smaller
than our exhibition catalogues and we
hope that it will appeal to a wide audience
while maintaining the same level of
scholarship that characterised our previous
publications.
Q: Do you have any interesting stories
about the works that were uncovered
during research?
A: The focus of the display is not only
on Gauguin the artist but also on the
reception of his work in Europe in the
decades following his death. To examine
the twists and turns of the reputation
of a now canonical artist is fascinating.
What surprised me was that, in the early
twentieth century, Gauguin was deemed
less controversial than Van Gogh and even
Cézanne because he was a ‘decorative
painter’. Then he was considered too
frivolous and critics turned on him.
The booklet accompanying the display
also publishes two previously unknown
photographs from the 1910s and 1920s
showing how Gauguin’s works were
displayed by their first owners. One depicts
the Gallery’s wonderful Te Rerioa in a
very formal study filled with neo-Rococo
furniture. The other represents Martinique
Landscape in a simple white frame, which
is how Gauguin wanted his paintings to be
shown. It seems quite strange to us now,
although the ornate frames chosen by later
collectors still on the works today would
probably shock Gauguin.
Q: Which of the pieces in the exhibition is
your personal favourite and why?
A: I am always surprised by the power
of Nevermore. It is such a stunning and
disquieting work. The elongated format,
the sinuous lines, the beautiful modeling of
the nude figure and the pops of yellow and
red on either side make it a very appealing
work, and yet Gauguin has left its meaning
ambiguous. The foreshortening of the
woman’s left foot, coming into our space, is
both impressive and intrusive.
Q: To what extent do you think Courtauld’s
collection of Gauguin’s works has shaped
the public understanding of his art?
A: In the 1920s, Courtauld was amongst
a small group of wealthy art lovers who
overcame public institutions’ mistrust of
modern French art and began collecting
the best examples of Impressionism and
Post-Impressionism with the view of giving
them to the nation. He provided exposure
to these paintings to the British public and
legitimised them as works of art. His sense
of the importance of art as a force for social
good is admirable.
Image:
Paul Gauguin
Two Tahitian women, viewed from the rear (verso)
19th Century
Graphite, gouache (dilute) on paper
27.25 cm x17.8 cm
CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3+
Art and Design, History, Art History, and
other Humanities
THE FOCUS OF THE
DISPLAY IS NOT ONLY
ON GAUGUIN THE
ARTIST BUT ALSO ON
THE RECEPTION OF HIS
WORK IN EUROPE IN THE
DECADES FOLLOWING
HIS DEATH.
”
3: RE-INVENTING MYTH:
FORM AND FUNCTION IN SOME EARLY MODERN
‘MYTHOLOGICAL’ WORKS FROM THE COURTAULD GALLERY
Naomi Lebens
The term ‘myth’ is notoriously difficult
to define. Distinct from history, but not
always simple fiction, myths occupy an
ambiguous space between the two.
However, when used to describe a genre
in the visual arts, the term ‘mythological’ is
more distinct. It usually refers to a specific
category of subject-matter. The imagery
of ‘mythological’ works typically draws
upon stories or ‘myths’ from Greek and
Roman antiquity. Frequently concerning
the exploits of pagan gods, these myths
are best known through the surviving
work of ancient authors. Common
themes of mythological paintings include
the adventures from Ovid’s epic poem
Metamorphoses; the exploits of the demigod warrior Achilles from Homer’s Iliad;
and the legendary story of the hero Aeneas
from Virgil’s Aeneid.
Subjects like these are most commonly
found in the visual and decorative arts of
early modern Europe. One major reason
for this is the attention paid at the time to
the culture of classical antiquity. From the
closing decades of the fifteenth century
until the eighteenth century (and even
beyond), a great cultural emphasis was
placed upon the remnants of the classical
world. Particularly in noble, intellectual
and artistic circles, classical histories,
literature and art provided an important
focus for learning. Exact attitudes towards
these sources changed over the centuries.
However, there was a continual hope that
they would train early modern minds and
societies to emulate ancient splendour and
success. As well as familiarising themselves
with subjects from antique literature, early
modern artists would therefore study
surviving examples of ancient sculpture and
architecture. This was seen as particularly
important for the development of proper
proportion, balance and beauty in their
work.
Classical myths would have been
immediately relevant to artists and patrons
engaging within this intellectual world.
Seeing a painting representing an episode
from a classical myth, often done all’antica,
would conjure up memorable scenes from
Greek and Roman tales in the early modern
mind. But, crucially, this wasn’t all it could
achieve. Emulation and knowledge of the
ancient world provides a basic context
through which we can begin to understand
‘mythological’ subjects in early modern
visual arts. Yet we must also ask more
specific questions of individual works.
Why did the artists and/or patrons choose
to make particular myths the subject of
their representations? What stylistic and
compositional decisions did the artists
make? How far might these decisions have
been informed by the specific functions
the works were intended to perform?
These sorts of questions are vital when
exploring mythological works. Far from
simple imitations or visual ‘re-tellings’ of
known classical stories, the following case
studies demonstrate how myths in the early
modern visual arts operated as active sites
for invention.
The Death of Achilles by the seventeenthcentury Flemish artist, Peter Paul Rubens, is
interesting in this regard [image 1]. Never
intended as a stand-alone painting, it is a
modello made by Rubens and his studio
in the 1630s in preparation for a series of
eight tapestries representing the life of
Achilles. Enlarged from an earlier sketch of
the same subject, the Courtauld’s Death
of Achilles is the culminating scene. It
depicts the moment in the Achilles story
in which Paris kills him by shooting an
arrow through his heel. Shown here in the
temple of Apollo at Thymbra, this occurred
whilst Achilles was making a sacrifice in
honour of his forthcoming marriage to
Polyxena, Princess of Troy. Achilles was
a demi-god warrior who fought for the
Greeks in the Trojan War. This broke out
after Paris, Prince of Troy, abducted the
beautiful Helen, wife to the Greek King
Menelaus. Thetis, Achilles’s sea-nymph
mother, dipped her son in the river Styx to
make him invulnerable during battle. Only
the heel by which she held him remained a
weak point, famously dubbed his ‘Achilles’
heel’.
The way in which Rubens staged his
designs for the tapestry demonstrates that
he intended to use the subject of Achilles
as a ground upon which to emphasise
his own creative genius and learning.
Particularly noticeable is how the action
of the Death of Achilles is contained upon
a receded platform, set back from the
immediate foreground of the painting. This
platform is then framed in the foreground
by classical terms at either side, and by a
cartouche, two putti and two festoons at
Image 1:
Peter Paul Rubens
Death of Achilles
1630-5
Oil on panel
107.1 x 109.2 cm
Image 2:
Johann König
Latona Changing the Lycian Peasants into Frogs,
1610-13
Oil on copper
18.5 x 25.4 cm
THE PEASANTS OF OVID’S
STORY ARE THE NATURAL
INHABITANTS OF AN
IDYLLIC RUSTIC LANDSCAPE,
DESCRIBED IN GREAT DETAIL
IN OVID’S NARRATIVE.
”
the top. The use of these motifs, common
to classical architecture, immediately
advertises Rubens’ wider knowledge of
the antique world. But, by incorporating
these seemingly decorative elements,
he also managed to add another layer of
significance to the content of his design.
The classically-styled terms, for example,
clearly represent the Greek gods, Venus
and Apollo. These figures are significant
with regards to the story of the painting.
Venus, the goddess of love, and her
companion, Cupid allude to Achilles’ love
for his wife to be, Polyxena. Apollo, the
deity of the Trojans, guided Paris’ arrow in
killing Achilles. In the centre foreground of
the painting, in the gap created before the
receded platform, Rubens also included
a motif of a fox devouring an eagle. This
additional device neatly encapsulates what
Rubens wanted to express as the moral
of the tale: cunning overcomes strength.
In the myth, Paris, the inferior warrior,
overcomes Achilles by underhanded
means.
Through giving all of his designs for
the Achilles series theatrical frames,
and presenting their action on stagelike constructions, Rubens effectively
emphasised his own role as the director
of a new production of the Achilles
myth. Each represented episode acts
like a freeze-frame of a single scene in a
play. In the Death of Achilles, the exact
moment Rubens decided to ‘freeze’ further
demonstrates his creative skill. Achilles is
shown at a precise moment in between
life and death; the arrow is firmly lodged
through his ankle as he struggles to get
to his feet. His companions at the temple
are caught in the immediate throws of
reaction whilst Paris and Apollo, to the left
background of the composition, have not
yet turned to make their escape. Through
compositional decisions like these, Rubens
clearly strove to present a scene of the
utmost possible dramatic tension.
their subject. A prime example is Latona
changing the Lycian peasants into frogs
(1610-13) [image 2]. This small cabinet
painting is attributed to Johann König, a
little-known German painter active in the
early seventeenth century. It represents a
myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses where
the goddess Latona, mother of Jupiter’s
twins Apollo and Diana, flees from Juno,
Jupiter’s wronged and vengeful wife. Whilst
wandering the earth trying to find refuge,
she attempts to drink water from a pond in
Lycia. The peasants there refuse her access.
In revenge, Latona turns them into frogs
and forever condemns them to swim in the
murky waters of ponds and rivers.
A relatively unusual subject in the visual
arts, other instances in which this subject
is represented often put a great emphasis
upon the landscape. The peasants of
Ovid’s story are the natural inhabitants of
an idyllic rustic landscape, described in
great detail in Ovid’s narrative. In König’s
version of the myth, the vast majority of
the composition is similarly dedicated to
an intricately detailed rendering of a forest
clearing at night. Bathed in moonlight, the
heavenly illumination of the eerie clearing
heightens the drama of the action, which
is isolated in the centre foreground of the
image. The potential offered by this setting
to experiment with a landscape theme may
well have been one of the reasons that the
myth of Latona was chosen as the subject
of König’s painting. It was painted with oil
on copper, which provided a glossy surface
particularly suitable for landscape painting
with meticulous detail and dramatic
lighting effects.
But König’s representation of the
Latona myth also deserves attention for
the presentation of its central action.
Essentially, König assimilates all of the
important points from the tale into a single
picture. Latona, who appears serene in this
scene, is shown being refused a drink at
the same time as the peasants are turning
into frogs. According to the narrative,
Unlike the modello, which belongs to a
series of works representing a single story, a these things should happen sequentially,
great number of early modern mythological one following another. Where Rubens was
able to present different episodes of his
paintings were stand-alone treatments of
artist using the preliminary space of the
paper to experiment with the best way
to represent Marsyas. In the study to the
left, he is sprawled on the floor, arms
outstretched, with one leg tied to a tree
trunk represented by a few faint lines. In
the central study he is in a similar position,
though this time with his leg held aloft by
another figure, presumably Apollo, who
bends over him to begin his unsavoury
task. In the final small study, in the upper
right hand corner of the sheet, a very
sketchy Marsyas is presented upside down
as he would appear fully suspended from
the tree. At this stage Cigoli was clearly
undecided about the exact moment of the
story to represent. These rapid studies on
paper made with pen, ink and wash, were
crucial in helping him to develop his ideas.
myth in independent works, König, in his
visual ‘invention’ has tried to put as much
information as possible into a single scene.
In other cases a single moment of a chosen
myth may suit an artist’s needs, with little
or no further need for explanation. This
is demonstrated by Sir Joshua Reynolds’s
Cupid and Psyche (c.1789) [image 3]. An
influential eighteenth-century English
painter and theorist, Reynolds had strong
views on the appropriate choice of subject
for any given painting. He claimed that
subjects should be ‘full of grace and
majesty’ and commented that the painter’s
theme ‘is generally supplied by the Poet
or Historian’. But he warned that ‘as
the Painter speaks to the eye, a story in
which fine feeling and curious sentiment
is predominant, rather than palpable
situation, gross interest and distinct
passion, is not suited to his purpose’.
A story from the Latin novel, A Golden Ass,
the myth of Cupid and Psyche tells how the
god Cupid is enraptured by the beautiful
mortal Psyche and arranges a lover’s tryst
with her in his palace at night to hide his
true identity. The following evening Psyche
secretly creeps into her lover’s bedchamber
where she finds him asleep. However,
Cupid is awoken by a drop of oil which
spills from her lamp. Enraged, he flies away
and it is only after a series of arduous trials
that the lovers are reunited. A story full of
human appeal, raw emotion and dramatic
suspense, Cupid and Psyche obviously
fulfilled Reynolds’s criteria as a subject fit
for a painting. Yet his Cupid and Psyche
further isolates the exact moment during
which Psyche discovers the true identity of
her lover. Surrounded by darkness we see
Psyche holding a candle and looking at
Cupid, at the point directly before the drop
of wax alerts him to her presence.
Why did Reynolds freeze this particular
moment? One likely reason is that at that
particular time, around 1789, Reynolds was
preoccupied with the representation of
light and colour. The moment of Psyche’s
discovery of Cupid by candlelight therefore
offered him the perfect opportunity to
experiment with contrasting colours and
sharp chiaroscuro. Inspired by Venetian
masters of the sixteenth century, such
as Correggio, we see Reynolds focusing
the light in his picture upon his subjects,
highlighting the pearlescent skin of the
sleeping cupid. One contemporary critic
commented that Cupid and Psyche was
‘full of every beauty that flesh, colours and
contrast can give’. He further suggested
that the narrative subject of the myth, of
lesser concern, was not strictly adhered
to by Reynolds: ‘Psyche is, perhaps not
Psyche, but the charm of Cupid, and the
play of tints on his body are divine’.
To add a final emphasis to this sense of
artists engaging in a creative process
with myths, one more work is worth
briefly including here. The Three Studies
for the Flaying of Marsyas, attributed
to the Florentine painter Cigoli, is a
drawing probably made in preparation
for a painting [image 4]. According to
the Ovidian myth, the satyr Marsyas
unwisely ventured into a musical contest
with the god Apollo. When he lost, he
suffered the gruesome consequence
of being tied to a tree and flayed alive.
Next to nothing is known about the exact
circumstances in which this drawing
was produced. But, crucially, it does
demonstrate some of the work that went
into developing a mythological subject
into an original composition. We see the
This discussion has attempted to illuminate
how Greek and Roman myths, frequently
encountered in the early modern visual
arts, were not just visual recitations of
oft-rehearsed tales. Even within a broader
context of knowledge about the culture of
classical antiquity, early modern artists and
patrons approached mythological subjects
inventively. By focusing upon the above
works from The Courtauld Gallery, we have
seen some of the different ways in which
artists could treat mythological subjects in
an original manner and use them to serve
their own, often diverse, purposes.
Image 3:
Joshua Reynolds
Cupid and Psyche
c.1789
Oil on canvas
139.8 x 168.3 cm
Image 4:
Cigoli
Three Studies for the Flaying of Marsyas
16th-17th century
Pen and ink, watercolour and chalk on paper
13.6 x 20.2 cm
CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3+
Art and Design, History, Art History, and
other Humanities
4: MANET, DEGAS, RENOIR
AND THE THEATRE OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Caroline Levitt
THE PRIVATE MAN’S
DRAWING ROOM WAS A
BOX IN THE THEATRE OF
THE WORLD
WALTER BENJAMIN, 1935
”
It is a widespread myth that Impressionist
paintings were all completed rapidly,
without preparatory studies, in the open
air and in front of the subject they depict.
It is another myth that Édouard Manet was
an Impressionist. In fact, Manet was of a
slightly older generation than the group
of young artists who exhibited together
for the first time in 1874 and who were
to become known as ‘Impressionists’;
whilst he influenced and encouraged their
practice, he never exhibited alongside
them. Impressionism was a movement that
encouraged the depiction of the moment,
whether that meant the effects of light at
certain times of day or the class-bound
daily life of late nineteenth-century Paris.
Several of the key Impressionist painters,
notably Pierre Auguste Renoir and Edgar
Degas, worked predominantly in their
studios, often from sketches produced
rapidly in front of the subject which were
then developed and combined to create
canvases that may look like momentary
snapshots but that have been carefully
composed to give that impression.
This does not take away from the fact
that Impressionist painting aimed in its
technique as well as its subject matter to
emulate the characteristics of modern life:
whilst the speed of the modern city may be
reflected in the sketchiness of Impressionist
brushwork, the theatricality of modern
life, with different costumes and activities
standing for different social groups, and
spectatorship or ‘people-watching’ the
recognised activity of the flIaneur, is
reflected in the practice of using models
as the actors and actresses on the sets of
Impressionist paintings. This is true also of
the work of Manet.
Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863)
[image 1], was mentioned in the
introductory essay to this pack as a painting
that was both controversial and reflective
of the way in which Manet sought to
challenge artistic convention. Aside from
the shock factor of including naked women
alongside clothed men, critics took offence
at the sketchily-painted background of the
composition and the inelegant body and
confrontational gaze of the woman in the
foreground. The fact that the nude was
an accepted and highly regarded subject
of painting and that nude figures could
only be rendered if naked models posed
for clothed (usually male) artists and art
students, was an irony that would not have
gone unnoticed by the jury of the annual
Paris Salon, who rejected the painting.
Manet often used close friends and
relatives as models in his work, reinforcing
the notion that the world in which we live
is a form of theatre. The nude woman in
the foreground is a composite of Manet’s
wife, Suzanne Leenhoff, and his favourite
model, Victorine Meurent, whilst Manet’s
brother, Gustave, and his future brother
in law, Ferdinand Leenhoff, posed for the
male figures.
Manet’s last large painting, undertaken
when he was practically an invalid, saw
him once again affiliated with the official
Parisian art world: A Bar at the FoliesBergère (1881-2) [image 2] was shown in
the 1882 Salon. Beautifully painted bottles
of Champagne, chandeliers, well-dressed
Parisians and round moon-like electric
lights tell us that this painting is set in an
opulent, bustling, modern interior. The
Folies-Bergère was the largest venue of its
kind in Paris, and we are probably given
a view into a café-concert, an evening of
entertainment provided alongside a meal,
with drinks available all evening from
various bars. Manet’s choice of viewpoint
may initially be confusing. Where is the
barmaid standing, what is the large band
of pink that cuts across the composition
behind her, and what exactly are the two
green marks in the top left corner of the
canvas? Manet has focused in on one of
several bars, which is situated at the back
of a section of a horseshoe-shaped theatre,
with tiered balconies but no fixed seating:
the pink band is a gallery. In fact all the
activity behind the barmaid is a reflection in
a vast mirror, at the bottom edge of which
is a gilt frame, parallel to the marble bar.
The evening’s entertainment appears to
be a circus act, and the two green marks
are the feet of a trapeze artist. However
Manet suggests that the real spectacle is
this interchange between the barmaid and
a client – he allows us to see both figures
as a result of the reflection, the accuracy of
which has been much disputed.
HER FACIAL EXPRESSION
SEEMS MELANCHOLY,
AND HER HANDS ARE
UN-GLOVED, A SIGN
CERTAINLY OF HER
POSITION AS A WORKING
GIRL AND PERHAPS ALSO
OF AVAILABILITY
”
The writer Guy de Maupassant visited the
Folies-Bergère and described seeing ‘a
painted tribe of prostitutes on the prowl’.
Whilst there would indeed have been
actual prostitutes seeking custom, many
sections of modern Parisian society are
represented here. The barmaid is of a lower
class than the people she serves, and is
dressed up in the costume provided for her
by her employers - in fact, the model was
a genuine employee of the establishment,
named Suzon, and she posed for Manet in
his studio behind a carefully reconstructed
bar. Her costume in one sense allows her
to fit in with her surroundings; however her
cheeks are reddened by her evening’s work,
her facial expression seems melancholy,
and her hands are un-gloved, a sign
certainly of her position as a working girl
and perhaps also of availability. She leans
towards the top-hatted man, who may
simply be purchasing a drink, but may very
well be seeking to purchase a little more
for later in the evening: barmaids, artists’
models and prostitutes were considered
similarly to one another as girls who sold
either goods or themselves. In light of this,
the bar that cuts across the foreground and
makes the woman unattainable seems to
be an ironic and fragile barrier.
Far from being quickly and spontaneously
painted, this is the result of careful
preparatory studies, and the reconstruction
of the bar that Manet set up in his studio
was an elaborate solution to painting ‘from
life’. However that is not to say that Manet
did not make changes as he went along.
In an earlier sketch, the barmaid’s arms are
crossed in front of her body, a gesture that
might have suggested patient waiting for
the customer to make up his mind. In an
x-radiograph of the final canvas, we can
see that Manet initially painted the barmaid
clasping her left hand with her right
hand well above the wrist, a gesture that
emphasised her glovelessness, but that
concealed her sexualised tightly corseted
torso. The final pose of her hands could
suggest a gesture of impatience, vulgarity,
forwardness and confrontation. The woman
with a lorgnette in the background, just
to the left of the barmaid’s left shoulder,
was also a late addition, and her active
looking is a challenge to passive femininity.
Thus we can see that Manet went through
a process of refinement to reach his final
composition, which is the most daring of all
the options he had conceived.
If the theatre is a slightly hidden theme
in Manet’s Bar, two earlier Impressionist
paintings, both painted and exhibited
in 1874, deal with the subject head-on.
Renoir’s La Loge (The Theatre Box) [image
3] was included in the first Impressionist
group exhibition at the studio of the
photographer Nadar, on the Boulevard
des Capucines, Paris, whilst Degas’ Two
Dancers on the Stage [image 4] was shown
at the dealer Durand-Ruel’s London gallery.
The Boulevard des Capucines was one
of the new Grands Boulevards elegantly
constructed as part of the modernisation
plans of Baron Haussmann between 1853
and 1870. It ran into the Place de l’Opéra,
the site of the new opera house known as
the Palais Garnier, completed in 1875 after
fifteen years of building. As such, it is a
street that resonates with the Impressionist
agenda: the spectacle of the opera blends
neatly with the spectacle of the pavement.
Whilst neither Renoir’s theatre box nor
Degas’ dancers could have been set in the
Palais Garnier, which was inaugurated the
year after the paintings were completed,
they too include this blending of spectator
and spectacle. Indeed, the theatre was an
intensely modern pastime, often attended
by a well-heeled audience and performed
by a lower class of actors and dancers.
A large number of famous operas and
ballets were written in this period: Verdi, for
example, composed La Traviata in 1853 and
Aida in 1871, whist Bizet wrote The Pearl
Fishers for the Theatre-Lyrique in 1863, and
Carmen was first performed at the Opéra
Comique on March 3, 1875.
Degas’ Two Dancers on the Stage gives
us an insight into the ‘real’ spectacle: the
stage area of the theatre. For his models,
he used actual dancers, whom he observed
backstage and during rehearsals thanks to
specially purchased permits. We see the
stage not straight on, but from above and
FURTHER READING:
Walter Benjamin, Paris: Capital of the
Nineteenth Century (1935),
available online at: http://nowherelab.
dreamhosters.com/paris%20capital.pdf
Bradford Collins (ed.), Twelve Views
of Manet’s Bar, (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1996).
Belinda Thomson, Impressionism: Origins,
Practice, Reception (London: Thames and
Hudson, 2000)
Ernst Vegelin van Claerbergen and Barnaby
Wright (eds.), Renoir at the Theatre:
Looking at ’La Loge’ (London: Courtauld
Gallery, 2008)
Image 1
Édouard Manet,
Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, c.1863-8
Oil on canvas
89.5 x 116.5 cm
Image 2
Édouard Manet
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1881-2
Oil on canvas
96 x 130 cm
Image 3
Pierre Auguste Renoir
La Loge, 1874.
Oil on canvas
80 x 63.5 cm
Image 4
Edgar Degas
Two Dancers on a Stage, c.1874.
Oil on canvas
61.5 x 46 cm
the performance, the gentleman looking
around the theatre through his opera
glasses, perhaps perusing other women
who sit, like the lady in Renoir’s box,
ready to be scrutinised and appreciated
but demurely refusing the opportunity to
actively look back. The woman rests her
opera glasses on the cushion of the box, a
sign of passivity rather than confrontation.
This couple, it seems, could not be further
removed from the figures in Manet’s
Déjeuner sur l’herbe. However, this too
is a construct, and the figures are once
again actors drawn from Renoir’s own
entourage: the woman is modelled by Nini
Lopez, one of Renoir’s favourite models
from Montmartre who was nick-named
‘fish-face’, and the man is Renoir’s brother,
Édouard. Renoir picks up on the fact that
theatre boxes were as much places to sit in
order to be seen as they were places from
which to watch a performance: a lot could
be understood about the social status,
availability and public face of those who
sat in boxes by observing the type of box
they had rented, who they were with and
the outfit they were wearing. For example,
the visibility of this well-dressed couple, the
woman carefully made up and presented,
is in stark contrast to the effect of looking
at one of the side-on boxes with a grille
across the front, which may have held a
couple who could not acceptably be seen
in public together.
to the side, as though we are sitting in a
box. This angle not only lends the painting
a snapshot quality, but also immediately
involves us in the image, suggesting Degas’
depiction to be real rather than carefully set
up. However a sense of posed theatricality
is at the heart of Degas’ subject matter, and
he could not have completed this canvas
in the theatre itself, but back in his studio
after the event. Whilst these dancers are
clearly costumed and mid-dance, a third
figure, who does not seem to be part of
the main action, is partially visible at the
far left of the canvas, implying that this is
an image of a dress rehearsal rather than a
final performance, and that Degas’ interest
lies not in the polished finished product,
but in the process of creating it and in
the incidental activity of those involved.
Degas’ composition teeters between being
casual and carefully constructed, as do
the dancers themselves: in spite of their
exquisite costumes, these are probably
young working-class dancers from the
corps de ballet as opposed to principals
as, according to contemporary ideas of
physiognomy in which Degas was greatly
interested, their features suggest poverty.
For many years it was assumed that Degas’
depiction of two dancers on the stage was
non-specific, and that the ballet in which
they perform was unidentifiable. However
recent work has shown that the costumes
of the dancers, especially the one on the
right, match the bell-shaped tutus with
dark flower sepals falling from the waist
and the rose hairpieces of dancers from
the Ballet des roses, a ballet section added
to Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni (1787) for
performances by the Paris Opera from 1866
onwards. The stage flats suggest foliage,
which would have been appropriate to the
garden setting of the Ballet des roses.
Renoir gives us a view of the other side of
theatrical activity: that of the spectators, in
this case apparently an aristocratic couple
in an expensive box from which the stage
could be seen straight-on. However, this
impression is undercut in a number of ways.
Firstly, the couple seems disinterested in
Renoir’s couple seems to stand for a type
of spectator, as opposed to being a specific
portrait, and this lack of specificity perhaps
in one sense separates his canvas from
Degas’ Two Dancers, with its identifiable
ballet. Theatre itself is a genre that draws
often on types, represented by fictional
characters, who may have much to reveal
about reality but who are a guise rather
than an explicit critique of anyone in
particular; it is for this reason that theatre
has often been used as a ‘safe’ form
of political satire. More than this, the
theatre provided a space not only for the
entertainment of a staged performance,
but also for the more spontaneous social
entertainment provided by the activities
and interactions of different classes
and genders. Renoir, with his carefully
constructed and intricately painted canvas,
plays on this sense of spontaneity, using
props, costumes and set to suggest
general ideas about the nineteenth-century
Parisian public. For Manet, Degas and
Renoir, then, painting was an opportunity
to stage a version of everyday life that
could appear so real that it has often been
taken as document, when in fact it is a
means of constructing an impression of
real life as seen by the artist. The ‘reality’ of
Impressionist painting is yet another story
for us to unravel.
CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3+
Art and Design, History, Art History, and
other Humanities
5: TAKEN AT FACE VALUE?
SELF-STAGING AND MYTH-MAKING IN
THE WORK OF GAUGUIN AND VAN GOGH
Caroline Levitt
In 2010, two major exhibitions took place in
London. The one, Tate Modern’s Gauguin:
Maker of Myth, sought to self-consciously
examine the ways in which Gauguin was a
storyteller, not only in the way he wove a
narrative through his paintings, but also in
the way he presented himself and lived his
life. The show was conceived as an antidote
of sorts to what the catalogue described
as the ‘embarrassment’ of former critics
at the way in which Gauguin perpetuated
a myth of Polynesia that was inaccurate
and fantastic. It included woodcarvings
and writings that demonstrated the extent
of his interest in ‘making a myth’ with
his paintings and activities. The second
exhibition, The Royal Academy’s The Real
Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters drew
on a vast collection of correspondence,
especially between Van Gogh and his
brother Theo (who was Vincent’s tenacious
dealer-cum-sponsor) to suggest a form of
documentation of the artist’s life that could
somehow transcend perpetuated myths
of a tortured genius in order to present
the viewing public with a more accurate
picture of the man and his work. The Tate
exhibition was driven by the works that
Gauguin produced and the themes that cut
across these; the Royal Academy show was
driven by an interest in biography, and an
attempt to uncover the man beneath what
are generally considered to be intensely
‘expressive’ canvases. The introduction
to the catalogue for the Royal Academy
exhibition conceded:
Van Gogh’s correspondence, however
captivating in many respects, should
not be read as a diary - just as a
self-portrait, no matter how good the
likeness, should not necessarily be
regarded as a faithful reflection of its
maker. Both letter-writer and artist
seek to achieve an effect, to show a
consciously chosen side of themselves.
As seen in the previous essay, ‘Manet,
Degas, Renoir and the Theatre of Everyday
Life’, nothing can be taken at face value,
and what we understand by the term ‘real’
is by no means straightforward. The ‘real’
Van Gogh was as much a myth-maker as
was Gauguin.
Both Gauguin and Van Gogh have long
been painters whose lives have held a
certain appeal for the viewers of their
paintings, and it is perhaps for this reason
that two intriguing sources, regarded as
coming from the context of popular culture
rather than ‘Art History’, are available to
us: Vincente Minnelli’s film Lust for Life
(1956) and Martin Gayford’s novelistic
account of the period that Van Gogh and
Gauguin spent working together in 1888,
The Yellow House (2006). The two artists
are often presented as outsiders in modern
society, despite their affiliation with other
artists of the time, and as driven by a
passion for creativity in spite of a constant
haunting sense of inadequacy. They are
the two out of the Post-Impressionist trio
who seem most sensational and romantic;
Cézanne, by comparison, is characterised
as a balanced classicist, and his paintings
tend to be examined more for their formal
qualities than for the biography behind
them. In fact both form and biography
are essential to the understanding of all
three painters, and this essay seeks to
break down the image of Gauguin and Van
Gogh as depicted by popular culture and
their own paintings and writings and to
comprehend the extent to which all these
things can be seen as ‘myths’ that often
conceal as much as they reveal about the
paintings themselves.
ON THE LEFT, A BLANK
CANVAS SUGGESTS THAT
THERE IS MORE WORK TO
COME FROM THIS ARTIST,
AS INDEED THERE WAS,
AND A JAPANESE PRINT
ON THE RIGHT RELATES
TO ONE OF HIS GREAT
ENTHUSIASMS, THIS IS A
MANIPULATED COPY OF
A REAL PRINT BY SATO
TORAKIYO
”
Image 1:
Vincent Van Gogh
Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889
Oil on canvas
60.5 x 50 cm
Image 2:
Sato Torakiyo
Geishas in a Landscape, c.1870-80
Woodcut
60 x 43 cm
CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3+
Art and Design, English, Film Studies,
History, Art History, and other Humanities
Minnelli, in Lust For Life, portrays Van
Gogh as a misunderstood, tortured artist,
a failed preacher, gentle and genuine at
heart and yet driven mad by the pressure of
self-expression. In October 1888, Gauguin
moved to Arles to join Van Gogh in what
was to be known as ‘The Yellow House’,
which Van Gogh had rented and was
using as a home and studio. Vincent had
written several times to Theo of his desire
to encourage Gauguin down to the south
and how he dreamt of setting up an artists’
community there; the nine weeks that
Gauguin and Van Gogh eventually spent
in each other’s company have become
infamous. Both Minnelli and Gayford
present Van Gogh as a nervous host,
intimidated by the forthright attitude of
his visitor. The one passionately engrossed
in nature and irretrievably irrational, the
other pedantically tidy and obsessed with
the imagination, it seems that in spite of
their similarities, the differences between
the two men were never to be overcome.
As panning close-ups of Van Gogh’s most
famous paintings fill the screen at relevant
moments in the film version, dramatic
music heralds impending doom, such that
even the periods of exuberant activity show
signs of ending in tears - or rather in the
famous slicing of Van Gogh’s left ear. Was it
the debate over the importance of nature
versus imagination that caused Van Gogh
to mutilate his ear on 23 December 1888?
If Minnelli’s film is to be believed, it was this
that tipped the already unstable Van Gogh
over the edge and that caused Gauguin to
decide to spend the night in a hotel, only
returning the following morning to discover
his friend’s violent actions. Films often
condense events for reasons of length and
convenience, and Gayford in The Yellow
House elaborates further, describing the
way that Van Gogh presented the mutilated
part of his ear to a local prostitute,
Rachel, and surmising that one possible
significance of his actions in Van Gogh’s
mind might have been the biblical link to
Saint Peter’s mutilation of the centurion’s
ear in the garden of Gethsemane. Gayford,
however, also makes it clear that the events
of the night can only be pieced together
A SNOW-CAPPED
MOUNTAIN IN THE
BACKGROUND SEEMS
TO RECALL MOUNT
FUJI. EVEN THE MOST
APPARENTLY DESCRIPTIVE
OF LANDSCAPES
CANNOT BE VIEWED
STRAIGHTFORWARDLY
”
from two slightly conflicting accounts
provided, retrospectively, by Gauguin
himself.
Early on in his book, Gayford comments
that ‘One thing [Gauguin and Van Gogh]
had in common was an intense fantasy life
in which their own real lives merged with
their reading.’ Their reading included the
Bible and ancient myths, as well as more
contemporary French fiction such as Victor
Hugo’s Les Misérables and the novels of
Émile Zola; of course both Hugo and Zola
could themselves be read as drawing on
biblical or mythological themes to in turns
heroise and ridicule their characters. Thus
the books that seem to have informed
Gauguin and Van Gogh’s lives and work
are caught up in this multi-layered process
of myth-making that seems so impossible
to unpick. Another even more sinister
explanation for Van Gogh’s presentation
of his ear to Rachel could be related to the
Japanese custom of shinju, a culture of
refined prostitution based on the mutual
exchange of love tokens. This escalated
from love letters, often sealed with drops of
blood, to snippets of hair, finger nails and
even severed fingers. Van Gogh described
the part of his ear that he handed to the
prostitute Rachel as a ‘precious’ object to
be treasured. It is hard to know whether
Van Gogh can have been aware of this
link, but the importance of Japan to his art
is something that cannot be ignored and
that can best be seen by looking at the
paintings themselves.
Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with a Bandaged
Ear (1889) [image 1] depicts the artist in the
January following the events of December
1888, a point at which Van Gogh seems to
wish to reinstate himself as a painter, blank
canvas at the ready and caught between
the studio indoors and the natural world
that so inspired him outside. However
even here, we are presented not so much
with an accurate depiction of Van Gogh in
his studio, but with a series of clues and
symbols. The self-portrait was painted
shortly after Van Gogh returned home
from hospital and the prominent bandage
shows that the context is important. Van
Gogh seems almost proud of his actions,
and it is true that today he is almost as
well-known for cutting his ear as for the
motifs of his most famous paintings. Van
Gogh is wearing his overcoat and a hat: is
it cold in the studio, or is this a sign of a
lack of permanence? His facial expression
is still and melancholy, as though he is
contemplating his position as an artist, and
yet the composition is confidently, almost
defiantly, constructed. On the left, a blank
canvas suggests that there is more work to
come from this artist, as indeed there was,
and a Japanese print on the right relates
to one of his great enthusiasms. This is a
manipulated copy of a real print by Sato
Torakiyo [image 2], which Van Gogh owned
and had pinned up in his studio. In order to
fit his own face into the composition, Van
Gogh has shifted the figures and Mount
Fuji across to the right. Japan, much like
Arles, was an exotic place of escape in
Van Gogh’s imagination, and the two are
condensed here, much as they are in The
Crau at Arles: Peach Trees in Blossom
(1889) [image 3], also in the Courtauld’s
collection, in which a snow-capped
mountain in the background seems to
recall Mount Fuji. Even the most apparently
descriptive of landscapes cannot be viewed
straightforwardly.
Similarly, when Gauguin claims in a letter
to his friend and dealer Daniel de Monfried
that with Nevermore [image 4] he intended
to use a ‘simple nude’ to suggest ‘a certain
savage luxuriousness of a bygone age’, we
have to ask what exactly is ‘simple’ about
this composition. The figure is Pahura,
Gauguin’s Tahitian wife - he had left behind
his European family, including his wife
Mette, when he embarked for Polynesia,
and his stiff sculptural depiction of Mette
[image 5] could not be further removed
from his painting of Pahura. What does
the expression on Pahura’s face stand for?
Who are the two figures in the background,
and of what are they speaking? The whole
composition suggests a narrative that is
not explained, and takes on a sinister air,
especially given its title. ‘Nevermore’ is a
FURTHER READING:
Nienke Bakker, Leo Jansen and Hans
Luijten, ‘Van Gogh’s letters: Windows to a
Universe’ in The Real Van Gogh (London:
Royal Academy of Arts, 2010).
Roger Fry, ‘The Post-Impressionists’ (1910)
in: A Roger Fry Reader, Christopher Reed
(ed.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1996), pp. 81-5.
Paul Gauguin, Noa Noa (1893-4) available to download in the 1919 English
translation at http://manybooks.net/titles/
gauguinpother06noa_noa.html
Martin Gayford, The Yellow House (London:
Penguin, 2006)
Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven (1845),
viewable online as an e-book, with parallel
French and English and illustrations by
Manet at: http://www.gutenberg.org/
files/14082/14082-h/14082-h.htm
Belinda Thomson, ‘Navigating the myth’
in Gauguin: Maker of Myth (London: Tate,
2010).
FURTHER VIEWING:
Vincente Minnelli, Lust for Life (1956)
(available on DVD)
recurring line, spoken by a raven who visits
a poet on cold winter evening in Edgar
Allen Poe’s poem The Raven (1845). The
poem had been translated into French,
first by Charles Baudelaire and then by
Stéphane Mallarmé, and would have been
part of Gauguin’s repertoire of reading.
Whereas the bird in Poe’s poem represents
the poet’s melancholy remembrance of
his lost love, Gauguin literally translates it
into a colourful, toy-like creature that sits
in the window frame; he described it as
‘the Devil’s bird’. Perhaps the young girl
who lies in the foreground is being visited
by unpleasant memories and overheard
snippets of conversation.
Perhaps, in fact, she stands almost as an
allegory for the discomforting nature of
Tahiti, where Gauguin had arrived for the
first time in 1891. Gauguin wrote in his
poetic account of his exotic travels, Noa
Noa (1893-4) that:
Life at Papeete soon became a
burden.It was Europe - the Europe
which I had thought to shake off
- and that under the aggravating
circumstances of colonial snobbism,
and the imitation, grotesque even
to the point of caricature, of our
customs, fashions, vices, and
absurdities of civilization.
Was I to have made this far journey,
only to find the very thing which I
had fled?
Papeete was the capital of the island of
Tahiti, yet Gauguin describes it here with
disdain, as a French colony, and far from
an innocent and idyllic place of escape.
Despite his translation of Poe’s tale into
a colourful and decorative setting in
Nevermore, Gauguin seems to have been
unable to shake off the sinister melancholy
sense of the original poem. Later in Noa
Noa, however, Gauguin writes of the
fecund natural landscape of the island,
with its topless women and their appealing
closeness to nature. Reflecting on his own
place in this society, he comments:
Here was I, a civilized man, distinctly
inferior in these things to the savages.
I envied them. I looked at their happy,
peaceful life round about me, making
no further effort than was essential
for their daily needs, without the least
care about money. To whom were they
to sell, when the gifts of Nature were
within the reach of every one?
Was it, then, Gauguin or the island that
had been spoilt by the ‘absurdities of
civilisation’? To what extent can we
understand Gauguin’s attempted escape
to a new place as an attempt to flee
the very self which seemed to weigh so
heavily also on Van Gogh? Perhaps the
‘real’ link between these two artists is not
their designation as Post-Impressionists,
nor their troubled attitude to life, but the
fact that their mythical self-presentation is
almost impossible to extricate from what
we know of the facts of their paintings.
It seems that one of the few routes
left open to us for navigating this selfpresentation is that of form after all.
Stylistically, both Gauguin and Van
Gogh distanced themselves from the
Impressionists. As Roger Fry put it in his
catalogue essay for the 1910 Grafton
Galleries exhibition Manet and the PostImpressionists, ‘the Post-Impressionists
consider the Impressionists too naturalistic’.
By this, he meant to emphasise the ways
in which Impressionists such as Monet
had sought to depict exact moments of
the day or season, prioritising the effects
of lighting sometimes to the detriment of
clear shapes and outlines. Gauguin, Van
Gogh and indeed Cézanne, on the other
hand, were more interested in defined
outlines and in the expressive qualities of
colour and brushwork than they were in
painting a picture that seemed ‘accurate’
in terms of depicting an exact moment.
Gauguin’s flat areas of colour outlined in
black, Van Gogh’s swirling brushwork and
Cézanne’s multi-faceted surfaces created
using a square brush or palette knife are
the characteristics that most define them.
If the Impressionists sought to capture
what they saw around them with as
much exactitude as possible, the PostImpressionists sought to digest what they
saw around them and paint it in a way that
would analyse and internalise it, subjecting
it to the possibilities of either symbolism
(in the case of Van Gogh and Gauguin) or
near-abstraction (in the case of Cézanne).
In so doing, these three artists were being
incredibly modern - indeed they have been
seen as amongst the first in a long line
of painters, following Manet, who began
to emphasise the flatness of the canvas
and the qualities of paint over content,
thus being realistic about the limitations
of painting. Canvases were no longer
supposed to trick the viewer into thinking
that a real event was unfurling before
them, but were to provide the viewer with
space to contemplate the extraordinary
characteristics of the canvas as a physical
object; Alysia Sawicka’s essay will examine
further the ways in which Gauguin’s The
Dream, for example, is as interesting for
its surface texture and pigments as for the
picture painted on that surface. Neither
Gauguin nor Van Gogh ever sacrificed
subject matter completely, but this does
not mean that we should see the intense
if fantastic narratives of their paintings
as an ‘embarrassment’. On the contrary:
their willingness to paint in such an honest
manner, being transparent about the fact
that what we are looking at is in no sense
‘real’, perhaps lends some authenticity to
the multi-layered myth that we have been
trying to unravel.
GAUGUIN’S STIFF
SCULPTURAL DEPICTION
OF METTE, HIS EUROPEAN
WIFE, COULD NOT BE
FURTHER REMOVED FROM
HIS PAINTING OF PAHURA,
HIS TAHITIAN WIFE
”
Image 3:
Vincent Van Gogh
The Crau at Arles: Peach trees in Blossom, 1889.
Oil on canvas
65 x 81 cm
Image 4:
Paul Gauguin
Nevermore, 1897
Oil on canvas
60.5 x 116 cm
Image 5:
Paul Gauguin
Portrait of Mette Gauguin, 1877
Marble
34 x 26.5 x 18.5 cm
6: THE MATERIAL LANGUAGE OF PAINTINGS:
CONSERVATION AND TECHNICAL ART HISTORY
Alysia Sawicka
The reflection of reality has occupied many
artists for centuries. It could be argued that
this pursuit links the studious application
of Leonardo da Vinci (who sought to
understand the complexity of the human
anatomy through dissection in order to
accurately depict it) with, conversely, the
Impressionists’ experimentation with colour
and tone in their plein air sketching (an
attempt to capture a fleeting moment in
perpetually changing nature). However,
art historians have long argued for an
understanding and exploration of paintings
that goes beyond an oversimplified
perception of artworks as representations
of reality. They have reasoned that
paintings are complex documents that
can be read in multiple ways as opposed
to straightforward technical exercises in
reflecting reality.
Paintings provide an insight into the
intentions and preoccupations of the artist
who executed them and into those of the
patron who commissioned them. They also
serve as a commentary on contemporary
society, revealing through the choice
of subject matter and the manner of its
depiction, political, philosophical, religious
and socio-economic context. What’s more,
paintings are not simply two-dimensional
images. They are three-dimensional
physical objects whose materiality is
tantamount to our experience of paintings
‘in the flesh’. The materials from which
paintings are created can tell us much
about the accessibility of substances
and technological innovations, which
broadened the variety of materials on offer
to the artist. In short, every painting is
endowed with a wealth of information that
can be unlocked through careful, technical
study and interpretation.
It is the role of a paintings conservator
not only to structurally stabilise paintings
and preserve them for future generations,
but also to present paintings in a way that
enables viewers to decipher contextual
clues that are hidden to the naked eye.
In order to make informed treatment
decisions, technical analysis is often
undertaken to better understand the
material object. The methods of analysis
employed enable us not only to understand
the surface of the object, but also to
discover what lies beneath uncovering
information that can help us to understand
Paul Gauguin
Image 1:
Te Rerioa (The Dream), 1897
Oil on canvas, 91.5 x 130.2 cm
Image 2:
X-radiograph of Te Rerioa
Image 3:
The Haystacks, 1889
Oil on canvas, 92 x 73.3 cm
Paul Cézanne
Image 4:
Man with a pipe, 1892-6
Oil on canvas, 73 x 60 cm
Image 5:
Infra-red reflectogram of Man with a pipe
LIKE MANY ARTISTS OF THE PERIOD,
GAUGUIN’S GENERAL PREFERENCE WAS
FOR ABSORBENT GROUNDS COMPOSED
OF CHALK AND GELATIN
”
the artist’s process and how the painting
has altered through the years.
The appearance of any painting is not
simply governed by the finishing strokes of
paint. It is also dependent on the buildup
of materials beneath, each layer of which
contributes to the appearance of the
final surface. Even the first step that an
artist takes when starting a painting, the
choice of support, affects the final surface.
Typical options are canvas or a wood
panel, though artists have used a range
of supports according to cost, availability,
and desired effect. In most instances, the
simple task of examining the reverse of
the painting will clarify the support chosen
though there are often complicating
factors such as the alteration of the
original support or its adhesion to a newer
secondary support.
This is precisely the case in Paul Gauguin’s
Te Rerioa (The Dream, 1897) [image
1] which has been adhered to another
lining canvas in a past conservation
treatment. In this instance it is possible to
examine the support and its preparation
through x-radiography [image 2]. In the
x-radiograph one can clearly see the
pronounced weave of the coarse, open
weave canvas, dotted with large dark spots
indicative of the slumps of poor quality
canvas. Though Gauguin had made a
conscious choice when he and Van Gogh
had experimented with ‘very strong canvas’
during a painting trip at Arles, the choice
for Te Rerioa, painted in Tahiti during the
artist’s time in the South Seas, was likely
also dictated in part by availability and
cost; lack of supplies may well have caused
the artist to turn to locally available sacking
material.
Without the luxury of commercially
produced canvases, Gauguin had to
prepare his own makeshift canvases for
painting. In the x-radiograph, regular
arcing strokes that do not correspond to
the composition evidence Gauguin’s use
of a lead white ground, which has been
vigorously and unevenly applied with a
knife. These arcs, most visible in the lower
right corner, are caused by the scraping
of the knife and the variation in their
direction indicates that Gauguin turned
the canvas or changed position whilst
applying the ground. Whilst Gauguin could
have used the preparation of the canvas
as an opportunity to smooth out the rough
texture of its coarse surface, he instead
appears to exacerbate its texture with
this uneven application, suggesting his
engagement with the differing qualities of
the unusual support.
Like many artists of the period, Gauguin’s
general preference was for absorbent
grounds composed of chalk and gelatin,
as was used for Haystacks (1889) [image 3].
The use of a lead white oil ground in this
instance may suggest that the artist wanted
to use the opacity of lead white to show off
the colours of the subsequent paint layers
to their best advantage; alternatively it
may be that the material was more readily
available at the time. The latter provides a
convincing explanation in light of the fact
that Gauguin executed the work in only
ten days, when he took advantage of a
ship’s delay to paint and send back another
picture.
Once the support is chosen, an artist can
turn to constructing the composition of the
painting, which is often initially sketched
out on the support before colours and
forms are blocked in. This initial sketch is
typically executed in a carbon-containing
material, such as graphite, ink or paint,
in which case it can be visualised with
infrared reflectography. The way in which
the underdrawing corresponds to the final
appearance can be particularly helpful in
terms of understanding the artist’s working
process, as illustrated by the study of
Cézanne’s paintings.
In Man with a Pipe (1892-6) [image 4],
infrared reflectography reveals a series
of sketchy lines, roughly indicating the
positioning of the man’s features and
the contours of his clothing [Image 5].
These lines are most prominent in the
man’s left eye, which includes two distinct
straight pencil lines marking the top of
the sitter’s eyelids, whilst broader, blacker
lines correspond to the shadow between
the man’s nose and his left eye. This
demonstrates that Cézanne used both
graphite pencil and thicker charcoal stick
as drawing media, corroborated by the
presence of fine, unbound black pigment
particles directly on top of the ground layer.
Relating this initial sketch to the
subsequent layers of paint, it is evident that
whilst some drawing lines are obliterated
by opaque paint layers others, such as
the contour line indicating the join of
the waistcoat, were reiterated a number
of times in the painting stages. Edges
are repeatedly adjusted as the painting
proceeds so that what were originally
black contours later consist of greens,
blues and reds. Cézanne’s practice blurred
distinctions between drawing and painting,
colour and line [image 6]. In this way, his
working methods can be seen to challenge
the notions of drawing in nineteenthcentury France, as advocated by the École
des Beaux-Arts (from which Cézanne was
twice rejected): academic theory insisted
on invisible execution and the dominance
of line over colour.
Progression from the initial drawing stage
to completion of the painting can vary
widely, not only due to artists’ individual
working practice but also due to the nature
of each specific painting. In another of
Cézanne’s paintings, The Card Players
[image 7], relatively little dry underdrawing
can be positively identified from the
infrared imaging [image 8]. This painting
is one of five ‘Card Player’ paintings
produced sometime in the period between
1890 and 1900, for which numerous related
studies of particular sitters and objects in
the composition exist. Other versions of
the composition show free and sketchy
underdrawing and numerous alterations
and adjustments that the Courtauld Card
Players lack; therefore we might reasonably
conclude that Cézanne was surer of himself
by the time he painted the Courtauld piece
and that this is possibly the last of the
series.
much later stages of execution. Further
examination of Gauguin’s Haystacks reveals
a number of pentimenti. Notably, a number
of changes were made to the backs of the
two cows in the foreground: a profusion of
lines is visible with infrared reflectography,
and there was originally an additional
woman standing upright to the left of
the pair of women on the right [image 9].
With infrared it is possible to make out
her eyes and even the top of her nose,
seen in three-quarter profile, suggesting
that the figure was established with detail.
This appears to be corroborated with the
evidence provided by an x-radiograph
which demonstrates that Gauguin initially
painted in the figure and thus had to apply
an opaque layer of paint – probably a
mixture of lead white and chrome yellow –
in order to block out the figure.
Alterations to a painting’s conception
do not only occur in the initial stages
of drawing and modelling, but also at
Connecting the available evidence,
which suggests that such changes
were made at a fairly late stage of the
painting’s development, it is possible
to assess what effects such alterations
have had on the final appearance of the
painting and conjecture as to Gauguin’s
motives. Changes to the cows evidence
the formulation of ideas on the canvas,
as Gauguin searched for a harmonious
composition, abandoning some aspects
at the drawing stage (such as the leg
beneath the neck of the blue cow) and
some aspects during the painting process
(interestingly cross-sectional analysis
reveals that the blue cow was also originally
red). In response to the final arrangement
of the cows, much lower than originally
designed, it may be suggested that
Gauguin altered the standing figure to
make compositional sense of the picture.
The effect of these alterations, with the
oblique angles of the cows’ backs and the
lyrical arcs of the women’s arms, is to place
emphasis on the surface of the painting,
flattening the image and accentuating
pattern across the picture plane. This
reflects Gauguin’s development of a new
decorative style in art based on areas of
pure colour, strong lines and an almost
two-dimensional arrangement of parts.
He referred to the style as Synthetism,
by which he meant a style of art in which
the form (i.e. colour, planes and lines), is
synthesized with the major idea or feeling
of the subject.
In stark contrast, examination of
Nevermore [see chapter 5 for image]
demonstrates no visible changes from the
underdrawing to the finished work, perhaps
unsurprisingly given that Gauguin reported
that like Te Rerioa he painted Nevermore
Paul Cézanne
Image 6:
Man with a pipe, 1892-6 (close-up)
Oil on canvas, 73 x 60 cm
Image 7:
The Card Players, c.1892-6
Oil on canvas
60 x 73 cm
Image 8:
Infra-red detail image of The Card Players
Paul Gauguin
Image 9:
Infra-red image of The Haystacks
BENEATH NEVERMORE
LIES A COMPLETELY
DIFFERENT PAINTING...
”
quickly in order to send it back to France
with another set of paintings and feared
that, despite a good finish, it was painted
rather badly as a result. However, what the
x-radiograph does reveal is that beneath
Nevermore lies a completely different
painting [image 10]. Forms of what appear
to be trees are visible across the centre
of the canvas, whilst horizontal lines in
the upper right may indicate a receding
landscape, similar to that depicted in Te
Rerioa. Samples from the painting analysed
in cross-section illustrate that Gauguin
applied a lead white ground over this
landscape painting to provide a blank
support on which to execute Nevermore.
This reuse of the canvas is indicative of
Gauguin’s restricted access to materials as
previously discussed.
When attempting to unravel the intricate
network of information that paintings hold
scholars can look to the physical object
for some form of truth about how artists
worked and why. However even beyond
the artists’ interaction with a painting,
it will continue to be subject to physical
changes that give it a unique history that
impacts upon the way we see it today. Most
obvious might be human intervention,
ranging from repeated cycles of cleaning
to tears, losses and other damage, either
accidental or as the result of vandalism.
Consequently, paintings often have a
secondary physical history of restoration.
However even without such interventions,
paintings perpetually change. From the
moment the artist applies a paint stroke
complex chemical interactions occur
between the paint film, pigment particles,
medium and atmospheric components,
which in the short term allow the painting
to dry but in the long term can lead to
degradation. As oil paint ages, it becomes
more transparent, resulting in the greater
visibility of underlying layers as in the
pentimenti in the cows’ backs in Haystacks.
Pigments themselves can also discolour,
sometimes leading to radical changes in
appearance. For example examination of
Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with a Bandaged
Ear [see chapter 5 for image] reveals that
two kinds of yellow pigment have been
used in the painting - appearing grey or
black respectively when viewed under
ultraviolet light [image 11]; both have
deteriorated. The chrome yellow paint
of the background appears grey at the
surface whilst the deeper yellow used in the
Japanese print has browned, particularly
at the tips of impasto areas, due to a
conversion of the yellow cadmium sulphide
pigment to brown cadmium oxide and
other cadmium products.
The materiality of paintings contains a
wealth of information to be unlocked,
deciphered and interpreted, which can
tell us about the ways a painting has
evolved, from the artist’s initial preparation
to the present day. The materials and
techniques employed provide a window
into contemporary reality, supplementing
conclusions drawn from other types of
art historical study that might focus on
content or form. It is critical that we learn
to understand through a combination of
close visual study and the tools of technical
analysis what it is we are seeing in our
contemporary context. Only then can we
accurately translate material language and
engage fully in the dialogue which each
painting offers.
Image 10:
X-radiograph image of GauguinThe Haystacks
Image 11:
Ultraviolet image of Van Gogh Self-Portrait with
Bandaged Ear
CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3+
Art and Design, Science, History, Art
History, and other Humanities
7: REGARDE! GAUGUIN ET LA POLYNÉSIE
FRENCH LANGUAGE RESOURCE:
Alice Odin
En quête de liberté artistique et de
calme exotique, Gauguin s’embarque
pour Tahiti en 1891. Laissant derrière lui
une Europe qu’il qualifie d’artificielle et
conventionnelle (ainsi qu’une situation
financière et maritale désastreuse), il
s’installe a Tahiti où il s’acharne à trouver
un style de peinture plus pur. S’inspirant de
l’exotisme de la Polynésie, des couleurs,
de la lumière, du paysage mais aussi de la
population, des mythes et des légendes
locales, Gauguin approfondit sa recherche
artistique. Jusqu’à sa mort en 1903 dans
les Iles Marquises (dans l’Océan Pacifique,
à environ 1600 km de Tahiti), il esquisse,
peint et sculpte ce ‘paradis primitif’, malgré
une santé de plus en plus fragile.
Gauguin entretient une relation ambiguë
avec la Polynésie et ses habitants. La
correspondance qu’il maintient avec ses
amis en métropole, ainsi que les essais qu’il
rédige pendant cette période dessine un
portrait ambigu de Gauguin qui continue
de nos jours à intriguer. D’une part, il
critique sévèrement la politique française
de colonisation, ainsi que la présence de
missionnaires catholiques, et se présente
comme défenseur du peuple Tahitien,
embrassant les coutumes et le mode de vie
locaux. D’autre part, il cultive des liens avec
ces mêmes pouvoirs français et se montre
parfois peu respectueux des traditions et
coutumes locales. Sa vie personnelle fait
encore débat de nos jours.
et The Dream (1897) [image 2] mettent
en scène des personnages aux caractères
physiques visiblement polynésiens par
exemple, dans des espaces aux couleurs
vives. Mais c’est dans le détail des décors
(le lit sur lequel la jeune femme est
allongée, le berceau dans lequel le bébé
dort, motifs décoratifs gravés dans le bois
ou encore les couleurs du ciel) que le ton
polynésien est donné.
Il est bien difficile de résumer en quelques
paragraphes les dynamiques de l’oeuvre
de Gauguin à la fin de sa vie, en Polynésie.
Cependant, les oeuvres présentées dans
l’exposition Collecting Gauguin mettent en
lumière son voeu d’ancrer son art dans un
langage esthétique et formel typiquement
Polynésien. Nevermore (1897) [image 1]
Dans la série de gravures sur bois
présentées dans l’exposition, Gauguin
ancre ses images dans l’espace alentour,
en utilisant des mots tahitiens pour
intituler ses oeuvres. Il est d’ailleurs
aujourd’hui difficile de connaître le sens
précis de certains de ces mots, car le
Tahitien n’était pas encore une langue
uniforme à la fin du 19e siècle et il n’est
pas certain que Gauguin maîtrisait la
langue parfaitement. Quoiqu’il en soit,
l’utilisation que Gauguin fait du Tahitien
illustre sa volonté de donner à ses oeuvres
une dimension encore plus locale, peut
être plus exotique, loin du français qu’il
utilise dans sa correspondance ou dans le
titre d’autres oeuvres. Ces mots gravés, ont
néanmoins une place à part entière dans la
composition; ils sont utilisés dans le cadre
même de la gravure (et non pas seulement
en bas, dans le titre), comme s’ils
résonnaient dans le paysage Tahitien. Noa
Noa (qui signifie simplicité et harmonie
mais aussi odorant) ou encore Maruru
(merci) sont des mots chargés d’un sens
important et visuellement très poétiques
(étant courts et formés de nombreuses
voyelles), rehaussant l’exotisme et la
composition visuelle des ces gravures
[image 3]. Ces mots permettent à Gauguin
de communiquer son amour pour
cette terre d’adoption non seulement
visuellement mais aussi par le langage.
ACTIVITÉ:
En utilisant les gravures sur bois présentées
dans l’exposition Collecting Gauguin,
recréez une histoire mettant en scène les
personnages, les paysages mais aussi les
mots tahitiens représentés par Gauguin.
Mettez chaque gravure dans l’ordre que
vous voulez.
Soyez encore plus créatifs, et recréez en
groupe une histoire unique où chaque
membre du groupe, choisit une image et
écrit quelques lignes de l’histoire. Mettez
ensuite vos quelques lignes en commun
pour créer une histoire certainement
originale !
Les gravures sont disponibles sur le CD
ci-joint, ou en ligne.
7: REGARDE! FRENCH LANGUAGE RESOURCE
TRANSLATION: GAUGUIN IN POLYNESIA
Gauguin sailed for Tahiti in 1891, in search
of artistic freedom and exotic peace.
Leaving what he called an ‘artificial and
conventional Europe’ (as well as disastrous
financial and family situations), he settled
in Tahiti where he strove to find a purer
style of painting. Polynesia’s exoticism, its
colours, lights, landscapes, people, myths
and local folklore inspired him and helped
him broaden his artistic quest. Until his
death in 1903, in the Marquesas Islands
(in the South Pacific Ocean, about 1600
km away from Tahiti), Gauguin painted,
drew, sketched and sculpted this ‘primitive
paradise’, despite his failing health.
Gauguin had a complex relationship with
Polynesia and its inhabitants. The many
letters he wrote to his friends back in
France, and the essays he wrote during
his time there, depict a controversial
man, whose opinions and personality are
still debated today. On the one hand, he
criticises the French colonial policies and
the Catholic missionaries’ influence, and
sees himself as the defender of the Tahitian
people, taking up local traditions and ways
of life. On the other hand, he cultivates
strong ties with the local French powers
and does not follow local customs when it
does not suit him. His personal life remains
a sore and much debated topic.
It is therefore very difficult to summarise
in a few sentences Gauguin’s works at the
end of his life in Polynesia. However, the
works in the Collecting Gauguin display
highlight his wish to embed his artworks
in an aesthetic and formal language
strongly redolent of his Polynesian vision.
Nevermore (1897) [image 1] and The
Dream (1897) [image 2] for example show
characters with typical Tahitian features,
in colourful locations. The details in those
paintings are even more evocative of a
Polynesian setting: the bed on which the
young woman is lying, the wooden crib
in which the baby is sleeping, the carved
motifs on the furniture or painted on the
walls and the colours in the sky reveal the
sense of a Tahitian backdrop.
Gauguin also roots his woodcut prints, on
show in the exhibition, in a local Tahitian
setting by using words from the Tahitian
language in his works. It is still nowadays
difficult to know precisely what these words
actually mean, as the Tahitian language
was not unified at the end of the 19th
century, with many dialects still in use. It
is also not very clear how well Gauguin
mastered the language. Yet, Gauguin’s
use of the language is another way for
him to give a deeper, more exotic feel of
the Polynesian (or in this case the Tahitian)
to his work, very remote from the formal
French he uses in his correspondence or
in some of his other works’ titles. These
carved words are rather unusually featured
in the prints themselves: they are used
within the actual prints (and not merely as
titles) almost as if they echoed within the
Tahitian setting displayed. Noa Noa (which
means ‘simplicity’ and ‘harmony’, but also
‘fragrant’) or Maruru (which means ‘thank
you’) for example, are powerful words with
a strong visual impact [image 3]. These
short words made of multiple vowels, and
written in sharp but rounded fonts, sound
and look very poetic. In this respect, they
heighten the exoticism and the visual
composition of the prints and enable
Gauguin to communicate his love for this
adopted land in a strong visual and poetic
language.
ACTIVITY:
Using the prints on display in the Collecting
Gauguin exhibition, recreate a story using
the landscapes, the characters and the
Tahitian words depicted. Put each print in
whichever order you want.
Make it slightly more unusual by recreating
this story in a group, with each person
choosing a print and writing a few lines
about his/her chosen print. Try and link
everyone’s stories together!
The prints are available on the attached
image CD, or online at:
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.
uk/search/results.html?ixsid=125iVm_
UAIP&qs=G.1948.SC.182
Image 1:
Paul Gauguin (detail)
Nevermore, 1897
Oil on canvas
60.5 x 116 cm
Image 2:
Paul Gauguin (detail)
Te Rerioa (The Dream), 1897
Oil on canvas
91.5 x 130.2 cm
Image 3:
Paul Gauguin
Maruru (Offerings of Gratitude/ Thank you),
from the Noa Noa series, 1893-4.
Woodcut print
20.5 x 35.6 cm
CURRICULUM LINKS: KS4+
MFL French, Art, Art History and other
humanities.
8: GLOSSARY
ABSTRACTION: A development in art
during the twentieth century that saw
painters rejecting subject matter and
freeing themselves from the need to
represent objects. Abstract paintings are
typically made up of shapes and colours,
without recognisable forms, and it could
be said that painting itself is the subject in
abstract art.
CONNOISSEUR: A person with a great
deal of knowledge in a particular subject
area, often considered to be an expert
judge of taste in that area. The term can
sound pretentious and be used with irony.
ALL’ANTICA: Emulating the manner or
style of the ‘ancients’ - that is of ancient
sculptors, artists or writers.
CRITIC: A person who judges, interprets
and comments on something, such as art,
often presenting their viewpoint through
writing or lecturing.
ALLEGORY: A story, poem, or picture which
can be interpreted to reveal a hidden
meaning, typically a moral or political one.
CORPS DE BALLET: The ‘chorus’ in a ballet
company - dancers of the lowest rank who
dance as a group rather than as soloists.
ANECDOTE: A short amusing or
interesting story about a real incident or
person, which may be unreliable.
CURATOR: A person who is responsible
for the permanent collections and/or
temporary exhibitions of a museum or
gallery, taking responsibility for caring for
the collection and choosing which artworks
to hang and how.
ANTIQUITY: The ancient past, especially
the period of classical and other human
civilizations before the Middle Ages.
DEMI-GOD: A term commonly used to
describe mythological figures with one
divine and one mortal parent.
BOURGEOIS: An adjective applied to
a person or group of people (especially
in France) who exhibit characteristically
‘middle-class’ attitudes. As a class
of people, the Bourgeoisie are often
positioned against radical, progressive
groups and are generally thought to
operate according to materialistic values
and from a conventional or conservative
political position.
EARLY MODERN: In history, the Early
Modern period follows the late Middle
Ages. Although the chronological limits
of these periods are open to debate, the
timeframe is usually taken to span from the
late 15th to the late 18th century.
CARTOUCHE: In architecture a cartouche is
an oval or oblong form, often with a slightly
convex surface. It is typically edged with
ornamental scrollwork and is used to frame
another painted or sculptural design.
FLÂNEUR: Coined by Charles Baudelaire in
The Painter of Modern Life (Le Peintre de la
vie moderne, 1863), the term flâneur comes
from the French verb “flâner” (to stroll) and
describes a man who strolls through the
city at his leisure, looking at whatever and
whomever he pleases.
CHIAROSCURO: The contrast of light and
shadow in a drawing or painting.
CLASSICAL: Relating to or inspired by
ancient Greek or Roman literature, art,
or culture. The classical period is hard to
define, but is often taken to begin with
the earliest poetry of Homer, around the
7th-8th century BC, and to end with the rise
of Christianity and decline of the Roman
Empire in the 5th century AD.
COLONIAL RULE: The power of one
country over another, whereby full or partial
political control is held over the ‘colonised’
nation, which is usually occupied with
settlers and exploited economically.
FESTOON: A chain or garland of flowers,
leaves, or ribbons, hung in a curve as a
decoration.
FLAY: Peel the skin off (usually a corpse or
a carcass, but sometimes a live being as a
form of torture).
FORM: The shape, appearance or structure
of something, be it an object, artwork or
piece of writing or music.
FORMAL: Concerned with the form, shape,
composition and appearance of a painting,
as opposed to its content. ‘Formalism’ is
a particular way of thinking about art that
stresses these physical characteristics.
GRANDS BOULEVARDS: Literally ‘large
streets’. A term used to refer to the
straight, widened streets instated by Baron
Haussmann (under Napoleon III) as part of
his plans to renovate and modernise the
city of Paris between 1853 and 1870. Such
boulevards often gave an excellent view of
an important building at the end of them.
GROUND: The ground is a layer used
to prepare a support for a painting or
drawing; its colour and tone can affect the
chromatic and tonal values of the paint or
wash layers applied over it. Traditionally a
ground would have been gesso (a gluebased plaster compound) for a panel piece
or an undercoat of paint on a canvas.
IMPASTO: A painting technique that
involves a thick application of paint (usually
oil) and makes no attempt to look smooth.
IMPRESSIONISM: A nineteenth-century art
movement that originated with a group of
Paris-based artists that chose to break away
from the traditional style of painting taught
at the Fine Art school (École des BeauxArts). The name came from the title of
Monet’s 1873 painting Impression, Sunrise,
shown at the first group show in 1874,
and the artists involved were interested
in depicting their impression of the world
around them, from landscapes to modern
social activity, often in a style that was
considered sketchy.
INFRARED REFLECTOGRAPHY: Whilst
seemingly similar to x-radiography, the use
of infrared beams to photograph a painting
can reveal slightly different information.
Infra-red beams have a longer wavelength
than x-rays and penetrate deeper, meaning
that the upper, thinner or lighter layers of
paint appear transparent whilst deeper or
darker layers can be clearly seen.
LORGNETTE: A pair of glasses or opera
glasses held in front of a person’s eyes by a
long handle at one side.
MASQUERADE: From the word ‘mask’ - a
false show or pretence. To masquerade as
something is to pretend to be something
other than what is true.
MATERIALITY: The state of being a physical
thing, composed of matter.
MEDIUM: The liquid element of paint in
which pigment is embedded: common
media include oil, egg white (the basis of
egg tempera), gum arabic and water.
MODELLO: From the Italian, the term
modello is often used to describe a study
or model made in preparation for another
work of art or architecture.
MODERN: Up to date; relating to the
present rather than the past. In art,
‘modernists’ are artists who reject the past
in subject matter and/or technique. For
example, Manet rejected classical subjects,
choosing to paint what was around him,
and at the same time painted in a style that
was flat and strongly outlined, very different
from the carefully finished, smooth, threedimensional appearance advocated by the
Fine Art school.
MOTIF: A dominant or recurring idea or
image.
MYTHOLOGICAL: Relating to, based on
or appearing in myths, usually of ancient
Greek or Roman origin. The term can be
used to mean something that is made up
or based on a story or the imagination as
opposed to documented or based on fact.
PLASTER STUDY: Before a sculpture can
be made in a permanent material such as
bronze or marble, sculptors often produce
a plaster version, which can then either be
cast into bronze or copied into stone if the
sculptor so wishes. Whilst plaster is a fragile
material, it is also easier to work with and
cheaper than other materials.
PLEIN AIR: Literally, open air. The term
is used to refer to the practice of certain
artists, notably some of the Impressionists,
of painting out of doors in front of the
subject they were depicting.
POST-IMPRESSIONISM: A term coined
by Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the work
of Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin.
Literally meaning ‘after Impressionism’,
Post-Impressionist painting uses some of
the ideas invented by the impressionists
but moves on significantly in terms of style,
being more interested in the qualities
of form and colour that in the accurate
representation of subjects.
PROTECTORATE: A state that is controlled
and protected by another (as in a system of
colonial rule).
NYMPH: A mythological spirit of nature
imagined as a beautiful maiden inhabiting
rivers, woods, or other locations.
PUTTI: Figures in a work of art depicted
as chubby male children, usually nude and
sometimes winged.
PAGAN: A broad term typically pertaining
to indigenous and historical religious
traditions, and primarily those of cultures
known to the classical world.
SATIRE: The use of humour, irony,
exaggeration, or ridicule to expose
and criticize people’s stupidity or vices,
particularly in the context of contemporary
politics and other topical issues: literature is
a key medium for satire.
PARIS SALON: The annual (or later
biannual) official exhibition connected to
the Académie des Beaux Arts (Fine Art
school) in Paris. It began in 1725 and its
glory years were 1748-1890. In order to
exhibit, artists had to have their works
accepted by a jury with strong ideals,
and participation was a mark of honour.
In 1881, the government withdrew official
sponsorship from the annual Salon, and
a group of artists organised the Société
des Artistes Français to take responsibility
for the show, at which point it became
somewhat more forward-thinking.
PATRON: A person who gives financial or
other support to a person, organization,
cause, or activity. In art historical writing the
term ‘patron’ is frequently used to describe
the person who commissioned a specific
work, or employed an artist on a regular
basis.
MENTI: A visible trace of earlier painting
beneath a layer or layers of paint on a
canvas.
PHYSIOGNOMY: A person’s facial features
or expression, especially when regarded as
indicative of character or ethnic origin.
PIGMENT: The coloured element that
forms the basis of paint, usually ground
into a powder. This must be mixed with
a medium to make paint. In the past,
pigments were usually derived from natural
sources, such as the pinky-red cochineal
that comes from beetles, although
nowadays many artificial pigments are
available.
SUPPORT: The support of a drawing or
painting is the object or material on which
the work has been executed, for example
canvas, wood panel or paper.
SYMBOL: Something that represents or
stands for something else, either in pictorial
or textual form.
TERM: In classical architecture, a term is a
human head and bust that then turns into a
pillar-like form.
TERMINOLOGY: A body of words (terms)
used to talk about a particular subject.
TYPE: A person or thing exemplifying
the ideal or defining characteristics of
something - a generalised understanding
based on group characteristics rather than
a specific person.
X-RADIOGRAPHY: The process of
photographing an object using x-rays,
which pass through objects opaque to
light and are absorbed to different degrees
by different materials. The resultant picture,
an x-radiograph, is able to show what is
underneath the surface of a painting
(or indeed under the skin when
photographing a body).
Image:
Paul Gauguin
Noa Noa (detail), 1893-4.
Wood engraving
20.6 x 36.5 cm
9: MAKING MYTHS:
SUGGESTIONS FOR RESEARCH
AND PRACTICAL ACTIVITIES IN
THE CLASSROOM
Paintings are often carefully constructed,
however true to life they may seem.
Sometimes an artist will paint a space
that appears very ‘realistic’, but within
that space there may well be objects that
provide clues as to the era and type of
setting, or perhaps that draw attention to
certain characteristics of the sitter if the
picture is a portrait. We could say that such
clues are ‘symbols’, as in Rubens’ Death
of Achilles (see the essay ‘Re-inventing
Myth’), where the statue of Venus stands
for the concept of love. Symbols may be
intentionally included by the painter, in a
made-up image that is imagined rather
than drawn from life. Or they may already
be part of the scene, included by the artist
because they are part of the ‘real’ setting,
but having a symbolic purpose in that
scene. Art Historian Erwin Panofsky wrote
about this in a 1934 article on the famous
painting by Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait
(1434, National Gallery). He called symbols
that initially appear to be simply part of
the scene ‘disguised’, being deceptively
ordinary but having a ‘hidden significance’.
In other words, things that seem to fit
perfectly well into a scene without needing
explanation might in fact be there for a
very important reason. Art Historians are
always looking out for this kind of ‘hidden
significance’ in paintings, and if you look
carefully enough, you will find that many
of the pictures on show at The Courtauld
contain ‘disguised’ symbols.
FURTHER READING:
Panofsky’s article is available to download
at http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/wells/201/
set3/panofsky1.pdf
Image:
Paul Gauguin
Nevermore
1897
Oil on canvas
60.5 x 116 cm
CURRICULUM LINKS: KS3+
Art and Design, History, Art History, and
other humanities.
RESEARCH ACTIVITY
Choose one of the following paintings, on
display at The Courtauld, or pick another of
your choice:
• Peter Paul Rubens,
Family of Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1613-15
• Edouard Manet,
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1881-2
• Vincent Van Gogh,
Self-Portrait with a Bandaged Ear, 1889
• Paul Gauguin,
Nevermore, 1897
What clues, or ‘disguised symbols’ can
you find in these paintings that can help
to tell you more about either the setting,
the people in that setting or the intentions
of the artist? You could print a copy of
the picture and then draw arrows to the
objects, costumes or other details you find
to be important. Some of these paintings
are included in the essays in this pack, so
could use those to help you.
Images can be found on the attached
Image CD, or online at www.
artandarchitecture.org.uk
PRACTICAL ACTIVITY
When artists paint self-portraits, they often
‘stage’ themselves using a setting, costume
or props that will make a statement about
who they are. Renoir staged the couple
in La Loge (1874) to show them to be rich
theatre-goers, using the setting of an
opulent theatre box, props such as opera
glasses and costumes that included lace
and pearls.
Create your own self-portrait, surrounding
yourself with objects and clothing that will
create a specific image of yourself. These
might be things you naturally have in your
room that help to define your personality;
or you might want to suggest that you
have a different personality from the one
you usually display! You could choose to
paint or draw the portrait, to have someone
photograph you or even to create a short
film of yourself or your surroundings. Be
creative in thinking about the various ways
you can tell a story about yourself using
images but no words.
10: TEACHING RESOURCE IMAGE CD
This CD is a compilation of key images
from The Courtauld Gallery’s collection
related to the theme ‘Making Myths’.
The Power Point presentation included in
the CD aims to contextualise the images
and relate them to one another.
All the images (and an accompanying
image list) are also included individually in
the ‘images’ folder.
FURTHER DETAILS:
• All images can then be copied or
downloaded:
• PC users: right-click on the image and
select ‘Save Target As…’ Then choose the
location to which you want to save the
image.
• Mac users: control-click on the image
and select ‘Save Image As…’ Then choose
the location at which you want to save the
image.
All images © The Samuel Courtauld Trust,
The Courtauld Gallery, London unless
otherwise stated.
THE CONTENTS OF THIS CD ARE FOR
EDUCATION PURPOSES ONLY:
Please refer to the copyright statement
for reproduction rights.
IMAGE CD COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
1. The images contained on the Teaching
Resource CD are for educational purposes
only. They should never be used for
commercial or publishing purposes, be
sold or otherwise disposed of, reproduced
or exhibited in any form or manner
(including any exhibition by means of
a television broadcast or on the World
Wide Web [Internet]) without the express
permission of the copyright holder, The
Courtauld Gallery, London or other
organisation (as stated in the teachers’
resource pack or accompanying image list).
2. Images should not be manipulated,
cropped or altered.
3. The copyright in all works of art used
in this resource remains vested with
The Courtauld Gallery, London or other
organisation (as stated in the teachers’
resource pack or accompanying image list).
4. All rights and permissions granted by
The Courtauld Gallery and The Courtauld
Institute of Art are non-transferable to
third parties unless contractually agreed
beforehand. Please caption all our images
with ‘© The Courtauld Gallery, London’.
5. Staff and students are welcome to
download and print out images where
the copyright belongs to The Courtauld
Gallery, London, in order to illustrate
research and coursework (such as essays
and presentations). Digital images may be
stored on academic intranet databases
(private/internal computer system).
6. Please always contact relevant lenders/
artists for images to be reproduced in the
public domain. For a broader use of our
images (internal short run publications
or brochures for example), you will need
to contact The Courtauld Gallery for
permission.
To download a pdf of this teachers
resource please visit www.courtauld.ac.uk/
publicprogrammes/onlinelearning
CURRICULUM LINKS: KS2+
Art and Design, History, Art History, and
other humanities.
PLEASE CONTACT US AT:
Courtauld Images,
The Courtauld Institute of Art,
Somerset House,
Strand,
London WC2R 0RN.
[email protected],
Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 2879.
TEACHERS’ RESOURCE
MAKING MYTHS
THE COURTAULD GALLERY
First Edition
Teachers resources are free to full time
teachers, lecturers and other education
and learning professionals. To be used for
education purposes only.
Any redistribution or reproduction of any
materials herein is strictly prohibited.
Sarah Green
Gallery Learning Programmer
Courtauld Institute of Art
Somerset House, Strand
LONDON, WC2R 0RN
0207 848 2705
[email protected]
All details correct at time of going to
press.