Dear Readers:
Thanks for reading this column about my favorite paintings in New York museums. Do you have an inner art-critic dying to get out and get published.? Maybe I can help. My wife and I are expanding this article into a book. Something like Two Art-Critics Pick their 100 Favorite Paintings in New York Museums. We will write 100-word entries on 100 different paintings. We may also ask 100 ‘guest’ artists to each pick one painting and write their one 100 words on it. We’ll probably ask a number of other ‘guest’ critics, curators, dealers, etc. If you’re up for it & understand that there’s no money in this for you whatsoever, no how-no way, take a crack at writing 100 words about a favorite painting of yours that is currently in a New York Museum.
Ward's resulting 100-word Jerryblurbs:
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http://tinyurl.com/pic1saltz100words
100 words for Jerry:
“You! Strip down! To the showers ---all of you!” Such strange, awful commands are normal life for wartime draftees. Kirchner's jarring 1915 oil Das Soldatenbad (Soldiers' Bath [AKA Artillerymen]) at the Guggenheim captures the twisted normality of de-individualized existence in a regimented system. Slashing paintstrokes show clammy naked men pressed together (like so many beefs dangling in a meatlocker) under showerheads while a leader, clothed and jackbooted, smirks from the edge. State-supported dehumanization makes nameless group bathing, digging, even killing routine. Kirchner illustrates this insanity ---and presages families and townspeople being herded to Zyklon “showers” 30 years later.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.
Das Soldatenbad.
Oil on canvas.
1915.
Guggenheim Museum.
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Jerry says "an art critic is born."
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http://tinyurl.com/pic2saltz100words
Number two ---100 words for Jerry:
Sweaty forelock dangling, a weary woman presses down (and perhaps rests, supports her tired torso for just a moment) upon a hot flatiron on a laundry table. The scene is nearly colorless ---in both senses of the word: a monochromatic painting picturing joyless drudgery. Will the workhouse boss value her labor? Likely not. Prospects seem bleak for La Repasseuse (The Ironer) painted by Picasso in 1904 (now at the Guggenheim). “Get back to work! What are we paying you for?” One can thank goodness for labor law progress ---or maybe not if wearing clothes made in China’s sweatshops.
Pablo Picasso.
La Repasseuse (The Ironer).
Oil on canvas.
1904.
Guggenheim Museum.
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http://tinyurl.com/pic3saltz100words
Number three ---100 words for Jerry:
"My son shot himself? Oh I saw this coming." And he slumps into a chair ---a Van Gogh bedroom chair. This white-haired elder in a dark room ---seemingly getting darker--- invites such speculation. Or maybe he is keeping vigil at his wife’s sickbed. Maybe he is blocking out spousal complaints ---or is just bored, dozing off. Egon Schiele’s Portrait of Johann Harms (at the Guggenhiem) pictures him in a gray frock coat and trousers ---so all is colorless except the skittering brushwork of his pale skin. The close-up view, angled pose, and floor tilt promote viewer unease.
Egon Schiele.
Portrait of Johann Harms.
Oil with wax on canvas.
1916.
Guggenheim Museum.
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http://tinyurl.com/pic4saltz100words
Number four ---100 words for Jerry:
Centered in a dirty white square an "equals" sign was dabbled with white and black oil medium ---then scumbled away, obscured. Nearby twitch itchy graphite scribbles and angular chalky jabs. Elsewhere on Cy Twombly’s Untitled (1960 at the Guggenhiem) are handwritten scrawls, three numbered straightedge-made rectangles, and some doodles (stormcloud, bowel-dragon squiggle, triangles). About 50 years before, Marcel Duchamp’s readymade sculptures (a urinal, a shovel, etc) asserted, “artists: it is art if YOU say it is art ---no matter WHAT it is.” With Twombly, painters finally heard. Today’s painters: cheer your liberator who freed you from all rules.
Cy Twombly.
Untitled.
Oil, pencil, and oil stick on canvas.
1960.
Guggenheim Museum.
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Approval.
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http://tinyurl.com/pic5Asaltz100words
Number five ---100 words for Jerry:
Out of night sky and dark ground, the naked man looms ---wild-eyed, shouting. His lurid stare almost violates the viewer's space. The Hitler moustache, gross tufts of chest hair, and dangling 'nads are not so much painted as clawed into being with gritty or juicy fingerpaint. Jean Dubuffet’s 1946 mixed-media piece Volonté de Puissance (Will to Power) could be any authoritarian ---without the nation-specific uniform, he is a universal dictator: the generic evil male. Yet, he is armless. This can be a reminder that brutal strongmen remain personally weak without aid of armed helpers: their (mostly willing) henchmen.
Jean Dubuffet.
Volonté de Puissance (Will to Power).
Mixed Media.
1946.
Guggenheim Museum.
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http://tinyurl.com/pic6saltz100words
Number six ---100 words for Jerry:
Trite as TV shows like "The Bachelorette" can be, a channel-surfing viewer sometimes accidentally happens upon a dramatic scene ---and is just glued. Must look. A century before "reality" dating shows, Thomas Anshutz' 1907 painting A Rose seems to capture such a moment. A smooth-skinned "prom queen" wears a fancy red gown ---and a look of social disgust. She seems to be saying "ugh, not THAT dork." A rose has been tossed aside. Against background darkness, Caravaggio-style bright lighting on her (plus angles in her pose and in her clothing’s stripes) heightens visual drama. She’s beautiful and “thorny.”
Thomas Anshutz.
A Rose.
1907.
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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http://tinyurl.com/pic7saltz100words
The seventh ---100 words for Jerry:
The painting’s left edge channels modern geometric minimalism ---quite a feat for an 1845 realistic landscape. In Bingham’s oil, Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, vast hazy sun-filled sky is divided into a Rothko-esque rectangle-within-rectangle composition by the smooth swath of glassy river water. There are no ripples, the flow is calm; but the water is high and current is swift. Riding low, a canoe shoots past with two calico-shirted trappers aboard. Their mascot tether-cat is leashed in the bow. Resting elbows on the pelt-bundle cargo, a wistful swarthy youth cradles his musket near a duck carcass. Paddle-steering, Dad scowls.
George Caleb Bingham.
Fur Traders Descending the Missouri
(AKA [originally] French-Trader, Half-Breed Son).
Oil on canvas.
1845.
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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http://tinyurl.com/pic8saltz100words
Eight ---100 words for Jerry:
Dollar bill knockoffs of this picture which we fold into purses, slide into wallets, smash into pockets, and hand out to vagrants are comparatively lifeless. Routine exposure to them leaves one unprepared for the striking humanity of the full-color original George Washington portrait. The superpower’s Founding Hero here has a hint of nose grease shine and faint five-o-clock shadow on the upper lip. Blue eyes gaze ---hopeful, tired, pensive. Dark, purposefully understated garments clothe the citizen-leader ---the UnKing. Repetition of triangles (his hair, cravat, and the sky wedge) and of white shapes (hair, ruffles, clouds) give compositional geometry.
Gilbert Stuart.
George Washington.
Oil on canvas.
1795-8.
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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And to steal a phrase from an awful 70's TV show: "eight is enough."
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