Casole has just become a major art centre. Our excellent museum has mounted an exhibition of true world class. The church has always housed the splendid standing monument to Il Porrina (1305). Always admired but only recently attributed to Marco Romano, a sculptor hardly known before now. This exhibition should certainly put him on the map. Apart from Il Porrina, there is a small head of a prophet, an Annunciation from the high altar of St. Marks (Venice) and a Crucifix, all of outstanding merit.
He is believed to have worked under Giovanni Pisano at Siena. Four plaster casts taken from figures in the Cathedral are displayed as Romano’s early work. By the time he got to Casole (via the Cathedral at Cremona) he was a very different artist. Like Lorenzo Maitani of Orvieto*, Romano turned away from the extreme stylization of of Pisano towards a more natural humanism. Indeed it may well be that Romano brought back the Roman influence to Sienese sculpture that was first introduced by Giovanni’s father Nicola, on the pulpit (c1265). Certainly his work in Siena has a classical flavour.
To make the case for Romano as a distinct, individual voice in sculpture Alessandro Bagnoli has assembled a mind boggling collection of works from as far afield as Berlin, Venice, Florence and Siena: such illustrious names as Giovanni Pisano, Tino da Camaino and Simone Martini are to be seen here in Casole. This show lays the foundations for a larger concurrent show in Santa Maria della Scala, (Siena) of later Sienese work “From Jacopo della Quercia to Donatello”. Both constitute a “must” for students of Sienese sculpture.
*Lorenzo Maitani was Sienese and would have been a contemporary of Romano’s if he ever worked on the Cathedral there. His work takes the same humanist road as Romano’s, I hope to extend my film about Maitani to include works of Marco Romano. We are righting art history here at Casole!
When that great prophet/seer of the modern age, Tom Wolfe, penned his last sentence to his long spoof on the art world “The Painted Word” (1975) he rather under estimated the power the word would continue to have on that pre-verbal activity – Art. Predicting the view from the year 2000 he wrote “With what sniggers, laughter and good humoured amazement will they look back on the era of the painted word.” But here we are in 2010 on the same road with the same cops directing the traffic!
Things move so fast today that a new “Story of Art” needs to be written every 10 years. I am one of the last generation to have been taught the history of art by the same artists who taught the practice when at Camberwell Art School (1956). A very different story to the one students hear today. In those days “Art History” was not generally accepted as a suitable subject for study. It was still being resisted by some of the older universities as being too subjective and open to the whim of fashion to be an area in which to educate young minds.
This essay is designed to show how right the old universities were and how tragic it is that resistance crumbled. Soon after I had left art school The Coldstream Report suggested that art history should be taught at art schools by professionals and that the students should devote 20% of their time to it. At the time we saw no objection to the idea. I very much enjoyed looking at pictures and the commentaries that went with them were often helpful. The majority of my contemporaries at Camberwell made a point of visiting the great museums of Europe to see the real thing and make up their own minds about what they saw. Art history did not play a part in the final exams which had only one written component that could be inspired by history or by purely practical craft considerations.
The reforms of The Coldstream Report brought in their wake a huge revolution in art teaching, partly because they coincided with the invasion of American Abstract Expressionism, (which was sweeping the board in Britain at that time) and partly because of the large and vociferous presence of art historians in art schools for the first time. I witnessed at first hand the resentment they caused when I was appointed to the new staff at Wimbledon that was destined to implement the reforms and raise the standard from diploma to degree level. Naively, I presumed that the art history I had received would continue to be a necessary element in the background of any potential artist. I soon found myself in conflict with the professionals, nor were the students in a mood to hear a different story of art from me.
The wisdom I had received from practitioners was roughly as follows:- Cave art was remarkably natural and lively because it was the product of ‘eidetic vision’ a presumed condition of thought prior to the coming of language and number that imposed abstraction on an important part of the brain. The cave men thought in terms of images which they seemed able to trace onto the walls of their caves, rather in the same way as Stephen Wiltshire demonstrated with his drawing of St Pancras Station at the age of 12. More recently he has taken a short trip in a helicopter over Rome and produced an intricate and remarkably accurate aerial drawing of that city! (see Youtube). This visual memory was a gift of nature that has been swamped by abstractions in the modern brain.
Since this abstracting shift of consciousness it has been a struggle for us to see nature as it is. We artists have to invent methods of tricking the mind to see clearly before recognising what we are looking at. Recognition means abstracting: abstracting distorts the perception! Observation is not that dull procedure that art historians suppose.
The progress of art has never been a smooth and continuous evolution but moves in fits and starts with long periods of stagnation or regression. In those days we received that message very clearly: all that is new is not necessarily good. Greek and Renaissance histories are outstanding examples, not typical. Other civilizations were swings and roundabouts illuminated by individual insights not mass enlightenment. Great periods of art are infrequent, and fugitive. That was a message that still rings true for me today but it seems to have been forgotten.
Greek civilization from 1000BC to 450 moved from the abstract symbols with which they decorated their pots (in 960 BC) through the stiff architectural, archaic figures inherited from Egypt and Babylon. Very gradually the figures became more naturalistic; till that magic moment around 500 BC when, with an unprecedented “leap of the imagination” the Greeks arrived at the balanced and natural pose of contraposto within 50 years! A short period at this apex of achievement was followed by decline into empty naturalism: that is the copying of surface detail without the necessary foundation of “form”: the abstract element found in all great art.
“Seeing form” was the desired outcome of a course of study in my day. Not everybody achieved it in three years. As a sculpture student at Camberwell I and my fellow students did nothing but study from life for two years, usually at life size. Models stood for 6 weeks in one pose as a norm. Composition was half of the final exam but we were not encouraged to practise that until a month before the exam. Observation was the be all and end all.
Such was the received wisdom. Though many years later I myself discovered that the great Greek “leap of the imagination” was nothing of the kind but simply the result of a technical improvement in life-casting. Nonetheless I continue to behave as if the Greek achievement was due to very refined observation. It is my belief that the artists’ main task is to keep the faculty of sight focused. The fact that the Greeks “cheated” and saved themselves no end of trouble has not upset that core belief. I rationalize my inconsistency with the thought that we need to be able to see what is going on out there in order to survive as a species. This is after all – fundamental; artists should not neglect their traditional responsibility in this. Look what happens when you leave it to art historians to decide where artists should go!
The organ of sight has not changed but the brain that receives messages from the eye and interprets them has changed beyond recognition. If that earlier brain is not to attrify completely, we better use it. Through the act of observing artists have come to realize the extent of that change. If the word-smiths did the same they would be better equipped for the task that society has foolishly wished upon them. Meanwhile artists should seize back the initiative in art they have lost through neglect.
During my student days it was de rigeur to accept Roger Fry’s dictum on Rome “that the loss of all her artistic creations would make scarcely any appreciable difference to our aesthetic inheritance”. I did not go along with that. My analysis of a portrait bust of Hadrian (1965 approx) has been the foundation of my syntax for “The Alternative Tradition”. I was intuitively aware of the great importance of Roman three dimensional geometry long before defining it.
This idea of ‘form’ was the very centre piece of art education in those days but by 1963-4 the existence of ‘form’ was being denied by the art historians. Their education was very different and they could not see it. My life’s work has been directed towards keeping the idea of ‘form’ alive. I use the word syntax to convey the yet more important idea that there is a grammar with which forms are held together in a structure.
Rembrandt’s drawings cannot be understood without the realization that his grammar is not the same as Renaissance grammar. His interest was concentrated on human expression in body language and he needed a more precise grammar of space in order to convey his findings. If we need evidence that the human ability to see is deteriorating intolerably, the steady sinking of Rembrandt’s reputation is the clearest possible indication of just that.
As I have written extensively on Rembrandt’s contribution to the development of the language of drawing www.saveRembrandt.org.uk I will skip that bit of history here.
If some tribunal existed in which I could present my case for reversing most of the judgments made by established Rembrandt scholarship over the last 40 years, I have no doubt that I could win. But alas there is no such tribunal, so the mighty establishments can ignore my abundant evidence with impunity.
I see the work of Brancusi as redirecting the attention to the ‘form’ basis of all art after a period of Victorian decadence when human sentiment had overwhelmed all else. As a student, I welcomed that new broom, but with hindsight I feel the pendulum has swung much too far. We need to get back to where our human interests truly lie.
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Archaeologists have ignored my discovery that the Greek achievement was based on life-casts, as I have done myself. It is a pity that they have also ignored the two great chimneys I discovered at Athens and Olympia, which are necessary to explain the colossal Greek bronzes that we know once existed. These ancient chimneys are equal in effectiveness to the great chimneys that were built in the 19th century during the industrial revolution. Without them the Greek feats of casting would be impossible.
[It is now 10 years since I made these discoveries but no archaeologist has bothered to confirm or deny them using the array of scientific tests that they have at their disposal. The British School at Athens flatly refused to do so.]
If I may lay my customary modesty aside for a moment; I do find it strange that having rediscovered more important facts, more widely spread in the field of art history than any man alive, or dead*; that no student or department of Art History has shown the slightest interest in either the facts themselves, or in how those discoveries came about.
[*David Hockney, also trained as an artist, runs me closest in this respect. I much admire his pointing out the significance of the concave mirror but I have an earlier example of modern drawing (just after 1288) with a different explanation: an anonymous stained-glass artist tracing nature through glass (see The “Duccio” Window film). I am with Hockney on Caravaggio but feel some of his other examples are open to doubt. I find my own ideas more persuasive on Brunelleschi and Vermeer.]
A lovely book with an ugly title. I would not have taken it from the shelf had not the librarian handed it to me in lieu of Roger Fry’s study which was out. As it was, it was some time before I got round to opening it.
It is a layman’s response to Rembrandt, in the sense that Taylor is best known as a translator. He teaches at the Parsons School of design in Paris and I guess these chapters were first a most inspiring slide-lecture series to students there. I suspect he has never been subjected to a course in art history, or if he has, his sensibility has survived the blinkers, unimpared. If the book were made into a television series I guess it would do more to save Rembrandt than my rather more technical approach.
The chapter which looks at Rembrandt’s treatment of blindness is wonderful. For me, Taylor has rescued Rembrandt’s etching of “The Blind Tobit” from the doldrums and shown me a great and subtle work; (see caption below) so very different to Kenneth Clark’s treatment of the same subject.
Clark comparing Tobit to Raphael’s blind Elymas writes “Out of all the conceivable ways of representing blindness, are not the similarities of rhythm and pose almost too great for coincidence? And is not the unforgettable simplicity of Rembrandt’s Tobit – the quintessence of blindness – an indication of some deep secreted experience rather than mere observation?”
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| Taylor sees Tobit, in his excitement, has overturned the spinning wheel and, disoriented stumbles towards his own shadow rather than greet his son, Tobias, at the door. Tobias has just returned from a great adventure, his dog precedes him and is about to cause yet another mishap. | |
I am right with Clark when he talks of “deep secreted experience” but as for the rhythm and pose being similar, surely complete nonsense. Clark has an acute eye but it has been deformed by modern trends in art history: “mere observation” being a hallmark. Modern critics of art should try a bit of observation for themselves, they would soon find that it is a most demanding process requiring a life-time of vigilance.
Yes, of course Rembrandt knew Veniziano’s engraving after Raphael ( he owned a huge collection of such things) but Rembrandt’s reaction was more probably the same as mine: “child’s play; Blind-man’s-Buff, I’ll show them blindness” and then goes on to produce this little masterpiece.
Yes, artists do secrete experiences. Long forgotten memories bubble to the surface in the act of observation and it is this that activates Rembrandt’s empathetic imagination. The sooner the “experts” recognise this method the sooner we will get back on track with Rembrandt’s genius.
Taylor has a lot to say about Rembrandt’s noses but in the end it is Taylor’s nose that leads us on this enlightening, humanist tour of Rembrandt’s gifts to us.
Vote on the Save Rembrandt Site
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Polls: CLICK HERE to go to Rembrandt Site to vote – NOT ON THIS PAGE
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This is the real Bol as draughtsman, not very inspired. If anyone has access to better photos of the Bol paintings we would be very pleased to replace the miserable versions we have had to use.
the true Bol
Take this link to see the new YouTube video
New YouTube Video: Rembrandt and Bol
A KIND OF SYNOPSIS
Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the commentaries of Rembrandt’s contemporaries.
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Recognise the fact that Rembrandt used live models and mirrors regularly in his studio, creating tableaux-vivants for himself and his students to work from.
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Recognise the variable quality of his works as seen in the etchings and paintings, which are usually dated and signed.
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Recognise that it is therefore dishonest to continue to impose a hypothetical development on his drawings very few of which are signed or dated.
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Recognise that the man himself (revealed in his behaviour) is not reliable (get a psychiatric report).
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Recognise that “he was taught by nature and by no other law. Anything else was worthless in his eyes”. “He would not attempt a single brush-stroke without a living model before his eyes” quotes from Rembrandt’s contemporaries.
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Insist on practical experience of the art of drawing before embarking on Rembrandt studies (minimum 3 years)
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Ask advice of recognised draughtsmen – always.
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Study the syntax as well as the handwriting.
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Abandon the absurd belief that we would understand Rembrandt better if there was less of him to study! He was hugely prolific.
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Study logic.
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Close down all the leading schools of Rembrandt studies and throw out the old guard, they have done immense harm to Art and are a disgrace to Learning, because of their refusal to accept no.1. above. Civilized debate is not tolerated by them.
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Open new schools with artists in charge.
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Publish my book written in 1978 and accepted by Phaidon (with all the editorial board behind it, until one nameless American scholar torpedoed it unjustly in his reader’s report. The book needs the minimum of revision and could be greatly enlarged. The book does of course call in question 90% of scholars’ dating and the iconography of Rembrandt and his school.
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Publish my Commentaries on the Published Drawings of Rembrandt.(in preparation).
Do you remember a Rembrandt we considered the artist who had taught humanity more about humanity than any other? A kind of Shakespeare of the visual world, that Rembrandt can be restored. It is just a matter of how we look at him.
For generations Rembrandt scholars have been “arranging” Rembrandt’s paintings and drawings into a smooth and reliable development but Rembrandt was not reliable. They are trying to knock a square peg into a round hole and have nearly destroyed him. We have lost sight of nearly half his works as a result, through de-attribution.
There is an alternative view. A view that is entirely in accord with the reports of Rembrandt’s contemporaries and with the established facts of his life and art. It fits the facts so well that the scholars will not argue with it – they ignore it.
Rembrandt was not reliable, he did not follow artistic precedents in the approved scholarly fashion “he was taught by nature and by no other law” his contemporaries tell us and this judgment is born out by the works themselves. His inspiration came direct from life as he experienced it. His right brain was feeling life more acutely and expressing it more potently than any other artist before or since. Add to that the very strong indication that Rembrandt was a bi-polar, manic/depressive type, who has been studied by scholars with an obsessive desire for order and you get the present disaster in scholarship. Would you try to date the letters of a manic/depressive by his handwriting? That is what has happened.
Nigel Konstam, the “New Humanist” sculptor, would be happy to show you the alternative Rembrandt, whose art he has been studying for 50 years. His Rembrandt is bigger, bolder and altogether more human than the Rembrandt the scholars have been chewing over in that time.
The exhibition at the Getty would afford him the optimum opportunity for an “Alternative Symposium”. Now is the moment – add your voice to that of The Save Rembrandt Society
Please vote either
a massive vote of no confidence in recent Rembrandt scholarship
or
let us at least hear the alternative view of Rembrandt
As predicted there are plenty of absurdities at the Getty exhibition of “Drawings by Rembrandt and his Pupils”, some you can now see on line. When I receive the catalog there will be more on this blog.
Here are some notes on the Getty website comparisons to help you sort out the mess:-
1. Lievens, was a fellow student with Rembrandt at Lastman’s atelier. When they set up studio together Lievens was the better draftsman. Rembrandt learned more from Livens than from Lastman. (That is probably why Rembrandt only stayed with Lastman 6 months.) Eventually Rembrandt surpassed Livens as a draftsman. It is therefore misleading to include Lievens in this exhibition as he was not a student of Rembrandt’s. I accept the Lievens Rembrandt judgement. NK
2. Flink, was a student of Rembrandt’s. He was a fairly good draftsman and painter. However, his drawings are not similar to Rembrandt. Judgment accepted NK
3. Bol a pathetic student of mythological subjects was unable to learn from the master in spite of brilliant lessons in drawing (see Hagar and the Angel – “One does not Know whether to Laugh or Cry”). see also “The Finding of Moses” & “Pomona”. Bol wisely specialized in portraiture later.Both these drawings are clearly by Rembrandt; look at the hands, feet and fur hat. Bol’s “brilliance” is always due to the recent robbery of Rembrandt’s portfolio by the “experts”. Judgment absurd, refuted NK
4. Landscapes – I do not comment on the landscapes.
5. Renesse was one of Rembrandt’s better students. Certainly a student NK
6. House on the Bullwark – I do not comment on the landscapes.
7. Eeckhout, was a diligent student of Rembrandt’s. accepted NK
8. Hoogstraten was a student of Rembrandts. (I hope you will recognise mundane version of the same set in a barn as in my movie of “The Adoration of the Shepherds)”. Judgement accepted NK
9. Raven may have been a student of Rembrnadt’s. However, he had no drawings to his credit until experts discovered his name on the back of a Rembrandt drawing (presumably because he owned it). It is a complete disgrace that Raven was ever considered the author of this drawing. Note that the model is again Hendrikje Stoffels. Is it likely that Raven and co get invited in to draw Rembrandt’s mistress? absurd, refuted NK
10. Unkown student -this drawing is clearly by Rembrnat absurd judgment NK
Just the other day 65 million pounds ($104.3 million) was paid for one copy of an edition of 6 bronzes of Giacometti’s “Walking Man”. I feel personally indebted to Giacometti as the one among the mega-buck heroes whose drawings should be venerated by posterity.
But surely in a world that is suffering economically and teetering on the brink of climate catastrophe this “investment” by a bank is a disgrace. It can benefit no living person by reward for work or ideas. It brings nothing new into the world. It simply locks up money that could be spent positively. Investors in art might turn their attention to struggling living artists whose ideas they cherish as of probable benefit to mankind in the future.
I first saw Giacometti’s work at an Arts Council exhibition around 1955. As I wandered round the exhibition I was a bit perplexed by the works but within a week my understanding of Rembrandt’s works took a great leap forward.
Giacometti’s drawings are exclusively about space. His attention is always on what I call the space clues: the section round the forms created by the neck-line, waist-line and drapery passing over the thighs or arms. He defines the air/space by the pattern of chair legs and sculpture-stands across the floor or the pictures on the walls. He did not seem to care about anything else.
Through his concentration on space I came to realize that Rembrandt used the intimate space between his characters. It is this intimate space that is the key, I believe, to the expressive quality in Rembrandt’s work. Previously I had been so enamoured of the solid, sculptural quality I had not noticed that space also speaks.
Because of this important insight I received from Giacometti I will always revere his drawings; I do not really understand what people see in the sculptures. They seem to me far less grand than the Etruscan work on which they are based. “The Walking Man” seems to me particularly feeble.