Rembrandt is universally regarded as among the great seers of humanity:
a creative genius. It is worth inquiring how he achieved this
pre-eminence. Unlike his chosen artistic partner Lievens, he was not a
child prodigy. In fact, his early works give no inkling of the genius he
was to become. It is not easy to decide who was the major influence on
his development Lievens or Lastman. Lastman was the master in whose
atelier Rembrandt and Lievens met as students.
I tend to favour Lievens; as Rembrandt’s very short stay with Lastman (6
months) suggests antagonism of some kind. Rembrandt made numerous copies
of Lastman’s work. Perhaps these copies were a compulsory but resented
part of the Lastman teaching. Rembrandt’s copies of Lastman are also
criticisms. On the other hand he learnt rapidly and uncritically from
Lievens. His early Leyden works are very strongly influenced by Lievens.
Rembrandt and Lievens worked together from nature, perhaps this was the
crucial difference between the methods of teaching and speed of
assimilation. If this is so Rembrandt had learnt the prime lesson of the
great leap forward in science. Observing nature directly was the secret
of that success. Furthermore, the documents of Rembrandt’s life give
incontrovertible support to the idea that working from nature was
crucial “anything else was worthless in his eyes”. It is difficult to
see how scholarship came to the opposite conclusion: that Rembrandt
imagined his Biblical pieces. Even today scholars remain convinced of
that idea. Perhaps I should attempt to explain their strange behaviour.
[There are two aspects of recent scholarship that are entirely
undermined by my re-discoveries:
1. the dating of drawings by style is no longer tenable. The changes
in style are demonstrated to be the result of either different
media or different stimuli: reality, reflection or imagined.
2. the vast literature on the iconography of Rembrandt and his school
becomes a laughing-stock. All that speculation about the shifts in
emphasis found in the student works are explained by the differing
view point of the physical groups of models in Rembrandt's studio.
These are not mere peccadilloes that can be lightly laughed off. The
scholars are used to being taken seriously, they are entrusted with our
artistic patrimony. These two major gaffs undermine their status as
experts.]
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An unusual characteristic of Rembrandt’s behaviour is his acceptance of
failure as the possible outcome of an experiment. He did not tidy away
his failures as others did. If you accept the greater, more prolific
Rembrandt that I propose, it could be said, he advertised his failure to
draw from the imagination. I interpret this “carelessness” as a
wonderful openness and generosity. He seemed to want us to know how he
had arrived at the summit; perhaps, he did this so that we could emulate
his behaviour and push further with his insights into the working of the
psyche in the physical world.
Rembrandt earned a reputation for leaving his work unfinished but was
unconcerned. Furthermore, only about twenty drawings can be identified
by signature or handwriting, the rest we have to chose according to our
understanding of his aims and style of thought. Rembrandt’s confidence
in his own unique character as an artist was justified. The sensibility
of our “experts” is the issue. For instance ex. 7 & 8 are both typical
of Rembrandt’s concerns and his habits as an artist. The little dog in
Ex.9 is a veritable Rembrandt trademark! He loved dogs and could
obviously draw them from memory, unlike his angels.
Example 7
No.7 has been re-attributed to Drost, in spite of the fact that
Rembrandt did an etching of precisely this subject. The treatment of the
clasped hands of Tobias could hardly be closer to the hands of his
mother in the drawing still accepted as a Rembrandt; reproduced in the
catalog opposite for contrast. The angel has that clumsy feel of
Rembrandt constructing from imagination rather than observing. All the
other figures express shock as we would expect from Rembrandt.
Example 8
Ex.8 is re-attributed to an unidentified student of Rembrandt. We are
therefore unable to compare with known examples. We can be certain that
the central group would be much closer to the Rembrandt on the opposite
page. In fact, the “mocker” is so typical of Rembrandt and better
realized here, than in the accepted drawing. If I was going to talk of
the style of this figure I would be referring to it’s compactness, its
sculptural quality, it’s balance, it’s geometry and it’s expressive
quality. The handwriting is of no importance to it’s quality as art. If
we talk about the style of Dickens we are looking at his entire
philosophy, his use of words, not his handwriting! Why can we not get
Scotland Yard onto these drawings to compare inks, pens etc. they would
make a far better job. Our experts are to be pitied, not to be listened to.
Fortunately, Rembrandt signed and dated his etching plates. Therefore
the etchings and paintings give us a fairly reliable foundation on which
to build. They give me the feeling of a man so absorbed in his journey
that he will sacrifice whatever is necessary in craftsmanship,
draughtsmanship or detail to keep up the momentum. “A picture is
finished when the painter feels he has expressed his intention in
it.”(Rembrandt as reported by Houbraken). What an excellent example for
us all: this is why his intentions are so obvious to some of us. His
drawings should be seen as steps towards finding his intention: that is
his interpretation of the Bible story. Ex.1.expresses a particular
relationship between Lot and the Angel, this is Rembrandt at work with
his practical brand of imagination: sodomy is a male concern, forget the
pillar of salt.
There are many important lessons we can learn from Rembrandt:-
One, is not to be frightened of failure, we need to learn to acknowledge
our failures and then learn from them.
A second lesson is to learn to feed one’s imagination. Rembrandt did
this by producing model groups in his studio; the closest he could get
to the actual occurrence (the Bible story). This was a part of his art.
His unique success in depicting human relationships lies in the physical
“production” of the re-enactment. “He would spend a day or even two
adjusting the folds of a turban until he was satisfied”. We can presume
that he spent equal time arranging his actors.
Third, was his drawing strategy: he put top priority on the disposition
of the masses in space. This is how the physical pose expresses the
spirit of his protagonists so brilliantly. Perhaps, this can be
appreciated more fully by those who practice drawing or acting
themselves. The scholars’ study of style amounts to no more than the
study of the idiosyncrasies of his handwriting, which they have then
misinterpreted and over played.
The scholars’ search for “ the leaner, fitter Rembrandt” has pruned away
most of these valuable lessons for artists. We must learn to see
Rembrandt’s drawings as he himself saw them: as journeys of discovery,
which only occasionally end with the hoped for, pot of gold.
Surprisingly, Rembrandt did not sign the jewels, he signed his gifts in
autograph albums etc. which were often from imagination
Example 9 Homer
and therefore mediocre. He unwisely left it to the taste of the connoisseurs
to recognise his true hand. He even left proof of authorship on his
least satisfactory products.
Ex.10, B.960 Jupiter with Philemon and Baucis, an illuminating inability. Rembrandt has had to write the story that the drawing fails to tell.
The museum“experts” tend to see the drawings as valuable items in a
collection, and their job as to weed out the duds. I hope I have shown
sufficient reason why we do not want that weeding to continue; we lose
much too much in the process. Tragically today’s scholars are not good
at weeding. Through their pruning over the last 100 years we have lost
sight of many of Rembrandt’s greatest drawings . Their confidence swells
as the great Rembrandt shrinks; they must be stopped!
My experiments with maquettes and mirrors have given me a fresh insight into Rembrandt's modus operandi; which give me a true grasp of his strengths and weaknesses. Even sensitive scholars relying on instinct cannot rival this knowledge. The fact that my findings are entirely in accord with the documents of his contemporaries and near contemporaries; must add considerably to their credibility. My findings are completely at odds with today's “experts”. In his introduction to the Dover edition of the “Drawings of Rembrandt” and his School, Prof. Slive sites the near unanimity as reason for giving extra credence to scholarly opinion. I would argue, on the contrary, that it demonstrates the hopelessly hierarchical system of promotion within the discipline of art history: a structure that systematically eliminates any heresy. [My own experience as a rising star that was subverted by the unanimous voice of the Rembrandt “experts” I need not repeat here. Suffice it to say that without the democratizing influence of internet my voice would have been effectively silenced. The other media have not given me space for over 25 years though my discovery was once hailed as “The Rembrandt Revelation” by The Observer. Apparently the “experts” can successfully defend the indefensible by drowning my solid evidence with the sheer volume of their babble. The present volume is a striking example of this phenomenon.] Criticism of The Biblical Subjects I limit myself to the Biblical Subjects because that is where my evidence is grounded. This catalogue breaks with normal precedent by not making it clear just how far it strays from earlier scholarly opinion. It strays very far indeed. Over 20 of the drawings here attributed to pupils were accepted by Otto Benesch in 1954. In not one single case can the student suggested by these authors be shown to have even a hint of Rembrandt's characteristic gifts, nor for that matter, his weaknesses. I will attempt to define these as we look at the examples.Example 1. A drawing of Lot and his family being led out of Sodom by an Angel, was accepted as a Rembrandt by Benesch, B.129 in his 1954 catalogue. It has been re-attributed to one Jan Victors, of whom few people will ever have heard, nor is there any proof that he was ever a student of Rembrandt's. His paintings are undoubtedly Rembrandt inspired in colour and tone but his idea of form is much more classical than Rembrandt's. The two Victors drawings reproduced in the catalogue to back the re-attribution have nothing in common with this, other than the use of brown ink as a medium. They are feeble by any standard. This (B.129) on the other hand is characteristic of Rembrandt in two important respects: Lot himself is typical of Rembrandt when drawing from life – the clasped hands are an oft recurring item – the head is typical, particularly in the modification of the line of the forehead, which turns Lot slightly in our direction so he does not present us with a pure profile.B.129 Lot being led out of Sodom by an angel
His stance is suitably expressive of discomfort, his cloak recognisable from Rembrandt's theatrical wardrobe. But most characteristic of Rembrandt are the accompanying figures behind Lot. They are not observed from life but invented and therefore “ worthless in his (Rembrandt's) eyes”. I know of no other artist but Rembrandt who would be prepared to demonstrate just how worthless he is “without life in front of him”. For me the pose of the leading angel is of a different and superior order, he probably has been sketched from life. The very different quality of these figures make it certain that Benesch was right and the present authors, dangerously misleading.B.129 Lot's face
Example 2. A mother suckling a baby B.359 is one of Rembrandt's most lovely drawings. If anyone can accept that Bol might possibly have drawn the “Hagar and the Angel” the subject matter of my film then of course there is no reason why Bol should not have drawn many of Rembrandt's greatest successes, however, the quality of his real drawingB.359 Mother Suckling a baby
and the pathetic quality of his painted Hagar make this quite impossible. Bol's box of drawings in the Rijksmuseum does, alas, contain many of Rembrandt's most precious pearls.Bol: Hagar and the Angel
Example 3. also now attributed to Bol once B.537, of Christ mistaken for a gardener, is another splendid example of the way Rembrandt can catch, with a few well selected directions of limbs and perfect sense of balance, a most relaxed pose. Vintage Rembrandt, an unerring sense of space.b.537 Jesus mistaken for a gardener
Example 4. of Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowel of potage, B.564 could hardly be more typical of Rembrandt, particularly as the second superfluous bowel suggest that the drawing is loosely based on a mirror image.B.564 Esau sells his birthright
B.121 An actor being crowned. Now attributed to Flinck
Examples 5 & 6 B.121 & B.122 are infinitely closer to Rembrandt's many drawings of actors than to anything known from Flinck or Eeckout to whom they are now re-attributed. This madness must be stopped! I could go on and on but this is probably enough for now.B.122 a Bishop: attributed to Eeckout
There was an exhibition at The Rembrandthuis at the turn of the year 84/85 that gave ample reason to fear the madness that has now been carried through with a vengeance at the Getty. Nonetheless the devastation of Rembrandt’s portfolio has left me dumbfounded. The level of corporate madness is beyond belief, The Director of the Getty welcomes this volume, “Drawings by Rembrandt and his Pupils, telling the difference” as ’stunning and momentous’ I agree but not in the sense that Michael Brand probably intends.
Anyone who approaches this enormous volume in the hope of understanding what distinguishes the greatest master from his pupils will be sorely disappointed. In the majority of cases there is no difference because the specimens held up as by pupils are the result of recent re-attribution and are clearly by Rembrandt himself. As a result we see the master as surrounded by little known nonentities who could, when they felt like it, turnout masterpieces which had fooled generations of experts but not apparently Mr. Schatborn and his colleagues. The arrogance takes one’s breath away.
Rembrandt scholarship of the last 50 years has been an escalating disaster, Benesch’s catalogue of 1954, which I would wish to enlarge has been reduced by approximately 50% and the resulting bonanza of master drawings handed out indiscriminately to obviously unworthy students. Indeed, in some cases they cannot even be shown to have been students. The idea that anyone has the ability to suddenly turn out a drawing that has passed for a Rembrandt because of its penmanship and sharpness of observation and then chosen to revert back to their middling talent is just too absurd. This catastrophe can only have resulted from the inbreeding of Rembrandt scholarship. No new blood or ideas are allowed to enter. The Rembrandt Mafia have hermetically sealed themselves from the intrusion of advice from the practitioners.
No draughtsman could possibly go along with the recent misjudgments, where some of Rembrandt’s finest drawings have been handed out to mediocrities or, in the case of Carel Fabritius, to a fine painter who had not previously shown a talent for drawing. There is no evidence whatever that these scholars have the least idea of what makes a great drawing (see www.saveRembrandt.org.uk for details).
Some of the reproductions in this lavishly produced volume are so small as to preclude the necessary comparisons. Common sense forces me to believe that scholarship since my article in “The Burlington Magazine” February 1977 is not only misguided but verging on fraudulent. Anyone contemplating a libel action on the strength of this statement should study that article and the letter from Prof. E.Haverkamp Begerman which conveniently summarizes the false assumptions on which Rembrandt scholars have continued to destroy Rembrandt in the face of my own evidence and the unanimous voice of Rembrandt’s contemporaries.
The crucial points are
1.Rembrandt “would not attempt a single brush-stroke without a living model before his eyes”(Houbraken). Or, “Our great Rembrandt was of the same opinion that one should follow only nature, anything else was worthless in his eyes.” (Karel van Mander as reported by Houbraken) and there are many more quotes of the same character. The scholars would have us believe exactly the opposite: that Rembrandt actually taught his students to invent, not to observe.
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The evidence in My article “Rembrandt’s Use of Models and Mirrors” proves, beyond reasonable doubt, that these statements are remarkably accurate. The proof of groups of live models in Rembrandt’s studio for the Biblical and other group subjects is incontestable. My recent film on Youtube “Rembrandt’s Adoration of the Shepherds” makes the same point on a grand scale. There we see practically the entire subject matter of two paintings (one seen direct and the other observed from Rembrandt’s same position but reflected in an angled sheet of polished pewter, accurately recorded by Rembrandt even to the extent that the more impressionistic technique suggests the blurred quality of the image reflected in polished metal. Both paintings were once accepted as by Rembrandt). The chances of these very complex space relationships happening by chance, or being constructed by calculation must be millions to one against. There are just too many reversals seen from a different point of view. To suggest, as Prof. E.Van der Wetering does that these were typical exercises in Rembrandt’s atelier is unacceptable lunacy.
This evidence which cuts the ground from under the scholars view is not mentioned let alone discussed in the Getty catalogue. For instance in the penultimate and last paragraph p19-20 explain how Rembrandt’s etching of “The Dismissal of Hagar”1637 “made a great impression on his pupils and inspired many variants….we do not know precisely how drawing from the imagination was handled in Rembrandt’s atelier…..” Yet I, Konstam, have explained precisely how Rembrandt himself developed eleven variants of the same subject from the group of three live models posed in his studio; observing sometimes direct, and sometimes in a mirror to their left and at other times in a mirror behind them, but always from the same seat in his studio. The DVD is available on www.saveRembrandt.org.uk also in the Arts Review Yearbook 1989, not to mention my unpublished book; freely circulated among the Rembrandt establishment many years before.
Peter Schatborn who master-minded the catalogue of The Rembrandthuis exhibition from his position in charge of the prints and drawings at the Rijksmuseum, was also the major contributor of the exhibition at The Getty. He can hardly claim ignorance of my discoveries as he translated my second article into Dutch for inclusion in The Rembrandthuiskroniek in 1978.
The fact is that today’s art theorists seem to have no understanding of the importance of observation in human affairs. It is not enough that scientists are so good at it, their observations are specialized; artistic observation is also specialized but specialized in a different area, an area where neglect is already horrifyingly apparent. By destroying Rembrandt, the figurehead of observed art, the theorists have slued modern art with such success we have to doubt whether it can ever recover. First we must recover The Greater Rembrandt by putting an end to Rembrandt scholarship as it now exists.
Do not burn their books, preserve them as a warning to future generations of experts.
Las Meninas
Las Meninas (1656) is Velasquez’ masterpiece. It is also his most complicated composition but was apparently achieved very quickly without his usual after-thoughts. The paint is remarkably thin, with little over-painting and applied with his usual breadth of handling. Surprisingly out of character for a painter aged fifty six. It needs some explanation. I explained it very simply in an article in The Artist Magazine (Mar 1980) and in a lecture at the Slade at about that time. I also exhibited the model with which I reconstructed the method in the Consort Gallery, Imperial College in that year.
RECONSTRUCTION On the left we see Velasquez at his canvas. A painted self-portrait also often includes the back of the canvas we are looking at, the only difference between this and the usual canvas is that this canvas is very tall. Las Meninas is 10ft, 3.18m tall. A self-portrait requires a mirror. All the other figures appear to be observed in the same mirror. It is surely worth asking the question did Velasquez actually use a mirror. R.Willenski asked that question, and answered yes, but no other art historian seems to have paid the slightest attention. I was initially stimulated to make my own inquiry by reviewing a book “Velasquez. The Art of Painting” devoted to this work, by M.Millner Kahn. Her explanation is so long and tortuous I cannot summarize a whole book.
I agree with Willenski; there are eight good reasons for doing so
1. X-rays show that Velasquez first painted himself as a left-hander and later changed it to conform with reality.
2. He painted the Infanta in the same year but with her parting on the other side of her head. (another mirror reversal)
3. The light comes from the window on the right, it hits the people on the right directly as you would expect but for the Infanta and the people on the left there is also a “fill light” that has bounced off the mirror. See how it illuminates the back of the canvas although the canvas is slanted to receive direct light on the front. Note the cast shadow on the floor.) The mirror is the picture plane between us and the picture. It allows Velasquez to arrange his models within the framed picture space as a photographer might do.
4. All the players look as if they are admiring the Infanta’s reflection in the mirror. The mirror is now at ground level, this may be the first time the Infanta has seen herself in it.
5. The size of the images in the painting are compatible with the idea that Velasquez actually traced their outline on the mirror surface, which he then transferred to his canvas. This would go a long way towards explaining the speed and sureness of the painting’s execution.
6. Velasquez previous work does not suggest an interest in geometric construction or defined interiors, rather the opposite.
7. Until recent times this painting was always exhibited opposite a mirror!
8. Do you see the blob of paint beside the Infanta’s nostril? That confirms the existence of the horizontal support bar we see on the back of the canvas. As the loaded brush hits this ridge it deposits more paint.
Infanta Margarita
I have been looking at Martin Kemp’s explanation of this painting in “The Science of Art” (Yale, 1990) . Kemp draws a ground plan that does not remotely resemble the room we see. It is far too long and narrow (it cannot even contain the width of the canvas he draws). He does not explain the method but tells us that Velasquez’ painting is “a declaration of his supreme gifts as a magician of painterly illusion”. I identified the room as the Pieza Ocbavada, which was more or less square in ground plan (the near ceiling fixture is its real centre; the other fixture is faked.). This room was next door to the Hall of Mirrors. It is no coincidence, in my view, that Velasquez was occupied with the redecoration of the Hall of Mirrors at the time he painted Las Meninas. It seems highly likely that he moved the great mirror next door to save it from possible damage and there conceived the idea of making a picture of the same size to hang opposite it. It may even be that the Infanta and her entourage composed themselves to some extent in front of this marvel (probably the largest composite mirror the world had ever known: over 8ft wide but lost in the fire of 1734)
It is a long established rule in science that the simplest explanation is likely to be the correct one. Why is it that art historians prefer explanations that are so complicated that they have only the vaguest idea of how they could work. Certainly both the hypotheses mentioned above would tie most practicing painters in knots.
My explanation ( Willenski never pursued the idea) could be very useful to a painter who had a complex group portrait to do. There is every reason to believe that both Goya and Velasquez’ assistant knew and used the method as does Ken Howard in our own day.
CREDITING GENIUS WITH THE IMPOSSIBLE obviously appeals to the earthlings longing for the miraculous. Like Velasquez’ “magician’s” achievement here, Kemp’s preferred methods for Brunelleschi’s invention of modern perspective are all beyond explanation, only his least favourite – (f) in his appendix, can produce the goods. This easy acceptance of the miraculous is a consistent failing of Art Historians. Kemp’s preferred solutions show he does not even grasp the problem and therefore cannot recognize the solution. They all put the cart before the horse: the geometry before the image. His scorned solution(f) does work, so would Hockney’s solution but Hockney has not read Manetti.(see “Brunelleschi’s Perspective” in this blog)
After the publication of my entirely practical explanation of Rembrandt’s quirky production as a draughtsman (Burlington Feb. 1977) which corroborated the reports of Rembrandt’s contemporaries (that he was an inspired observer not an inventor) I visited both Harvard and Yale in search of a publisher for my book on Rembrandt. At Harvard I lectured to the Rembrandt specialists (professors and post-graduate students) The result was a storm of questions. I heard afterwards (at Smith) that the Harvard gang admired my footwork in answering.
AN EXAMPLE
HG “In the 17th c they did not even need still-life in front of them to paint from.”
NK “ What makes you think that”
HG “ Flower painters often painted blooms together that were not in season together”
NK “well flowers wilt, flower painters tend to pick and paint their specimens one at a time”
HG stunned silence.
Although the majority of the audience, I presume, went on to teach and publish on Rembrandt I never received any further communication from any. At the reception afterwards the only people present were myself and the student in charge of the wine. He valiantly tried to convert me to the Harvard view, which has deteriorated still further since then.(see review of the Getty catalogue.)
At Yale I was able to discuss my findings with Prof. Haverkamp Begermann for well over an hour during which time he was unable to advance a single objection to my view. Optimistically I left the typescript of my book with him. After a year, I inquired of it’s progress and it was returned with the accompanying letter which contains the hilarious idea that I had discovered the three dimensional nature of the 17thC imagination! He advised me to write a book about that!
This kind of "thinking" has all but destroyed Rembrandt, the patron saint of the art of observation. Is it not time to wake up to the reality of Art History?
Later, my agents packaged the book on the understanding that it had been accepted by Phaidon with the whole editorial behind it, though they fully understood the revolutionary nature of the contents. All they needed was a reader’s report. When that came they dropped the project and ran. I was given an edited version of the report which made my hair stand on end on the first reading but on closer examination it turned out to be a cunningly crafted swindle. I answered the swindle but to no avail. Word got round and none of the nearly 30 publishers approached after Phaidon found the courage to take on the book but doubtless many experts got a chance for a good look at it. Lawrence Gowing in his review of Svetlana Alpers’ “Rembrandt’s Enterprise” (TLS Dec 16 ‘88) chided “more discussion of the sculptor Nigel Konstam’s observations on Rembrandt’s use of enactments and reflections would not have been out of place”!
Since those days I have done my best to propagate the true Rembrandt with three news-sheets “The Save Rembrandt Campaigner”(to counter the three exhibitions of Rembrandt and his Workshop, in Berlin, Amsterdam and London) with films, shows and DVDs, a website www.saveRembrandt.org.uk and this blog. Most of what I have to say is well within the competence of an educated person. It needs no specialist training in art. All you need is the confidence in your own common sense to see through the bullshit from on high. Our visual culture will be stuck in the mire until some group can muster the momentum to push over the deceitful house-of-cards that is art history. My single voice has all too easily been left to cry in the wilderness.
All these examples can be seen and discussed at
THE MUSEUM OF ARTISTS’ SECRETS.A catalogue of the museum could be of great interest, as also the book on 
Rembrandt.
Centro d’Arte Verrocchio,
via San Michele 16,
Casole d’Elsa
53031 SI, Italy.
appointments tel.no.0039-0577-948312 or email nkonstam@verrocchio.co.uk
PLEASE PRINT OUT THIS NOTICE FOR THE ART HISTORY NOTICE-BOARD OR OTHER SUITABLE PLACES
For the latest news on Brunelleschi's Perspective and Las Meninas see www.verrocchio.co.uk/nkonstam/blog
Ephebo
This is a secret that has been kept for 2500 years so it is bound to shock.
The great classical tradition of ancient Greece is based on life-casting. I was shocked myself when I discovered this but the proof is beyond dispute as far as I am concerned. It is an unpalatable truth that we must learn to swallow or our culture is founded on a lie.
About the year 500 BC Greek sculpture took a great leap forward, up till that point it had been a provincial imitation of of a culture that had thrived in Egypt for more than 2000 years, reaching its zenith in about 1250 BC in the reigns of Akenaton and Tutunkarmon. The Greeks took the Egyptian tradition a huge step forward towards a more natural pose. The stiffly “at attention” pose gradually softened into the famous Greek contraposto. The Egyptians probably also stood around like this but they never used it in their art. The contraposto so favoured by us was not right for the Egyptians. So it was left to the Greeks to make this break-through. This boy by the sculptor Kritios is the most likely to have been the first. Clearly he is not an athlete, a warrior or a god but an Ephebo, the love object of a homosexual patron, who wanted his boy, to the very life. My guess is that he was first cast in bronze but like 99% of Greek bronzes it was melted down by conquering barbarians to make armaments. This stone version remains more by luck than judgment. It was more valuable as a sculpture than as lime which was all it could have become if destroyed.
This Ephebo may well have been the first body to be cast from life. The drive towards nature was therefore motivated by love.
How can I be so sure? The evidence is very simple. When one models a standing figure in clay one does nothing about the soles of the feet; one cannot see them, no one else will see them. A bronze derived from a clay figure is a hollow shell with no soles (3) but the few surviving life-size bronzes of the classical era all have perfectly formed and naturalistic toes (2) furthermore they are under the pressure of the figures weight. This could only be achieved by the model standing in a pool of fresh plaster (1) When the plaster has set, the rest of the mould is built upon this base. When you think of it the development of Greek sculpture between 500 BC and 450 was far too rapid. It simply is not possible that so many could have reached this perfection so quickly.
These sculptures have become the ideal towards which most figurative sculpture strives. No one has equaled the Greeks. To us casting from life would be considered cheating. For the Greeks it may have been the obvious means of achieving a bronze figure. It would save no end of trouble. They did work over the wax to disguise their method and smarten the result.
Here is the bottom of the foot of one of the Bronzes of Riace. Here is a cast from life that I made myself. I have marked off the hole that would have been cut in the wax to allow the core to be supported. My book will fill in the details and also show the remains of two massive chimneys, one in Athens and the other in Olympia, that I discovered at the same time. The book tells the story of the discoveries.
 1.) Modern Life Cast - the model was standing on a ridged tile in a pool of plaster.Note the pressure of the model's weight on the soles of the feet |
 2.) Riace - Perfectly formed and naturalistic toes |
 3.) Modern - a hollow shell with no soles |
 4.) Carved Greek Feet: Pre-life-casting, archaic feet with unnaturally straight small toes and tendons visible when they would normally be sunk in flesh of the foot in this position |
Sculpture the Art and the Practice (2nd edition) ISBN 0-9523568-1-3
I apologize for not answering my critics sooner, I have only just become aware of them. Allow me to explain my point of view more fully on Serota.
Our way of life is changing more rapidly than ever before. Art has to change as life changes. But the white-hot revolution which Harold Wilson (once Prime Minister) foresaw as a great leap forward in opportunities for leisure has in fact put a great deal more stress into human existence; life has speeded up rather than slowed down. Advances in medicine have certainly prolonged life expectancy with the result that the care of the aged now requires far more expense than the pension funds can stand, so pensionable age has to go up. The world population explosion is upon us much sooner than Malthus foresaw. The human population is overwhelming all other species and the planet’s ecology. Climate change etc. etc.
I mention these very real challenges to point out that it is not that easy to predict the future. Yet in art we have allowed Serota with no particular qualifications to dictate the course of art. His “challenging art” does not remotely correspond to life’s challenges as I see them. On the contrary his “cutting edge” is an absurd diversion from what we should be focusing upon.
I see art as an education in seeing what is out there. The more one observes the more one becomes aware of the mental obstacles to seeing. Our survival as a species depends more on the sense of sight than on any other. Serota and his team live in a world of fantasy that does not amuse, it frightens me.
He is a great propagandist but then so were the Nazis, who proclaimed that if you are going to lie, make it a big one. Serota has learnt that lesson well. (see The Jackdaw). He has initiated the most disgraceful episode in the history of art, anywhere. I want to stop him in his tracks. Unfortunately there are a lot of people making a lot of money temporarily out of this financial bubble, so instead of seeing the disgrace, the art establishment is considered a success!
“New Humanism” is my answer to what has gone wrong with art. I respect the Stickists for what they have done to bring about change but I long for a different direction of change, one in which observation figures big again.
Currently there are two theories as to how Brunelleschi arrived at his rules of perspective, which deserve consideration but with which I cannot agree. David Hockney has demonstrated that Brunelleschi could have used a lens to throw the image of the Baptistery onto a surface on which it could then be traced. I could accept this theory if it were not for the evidence of Manetti, a friend of Brunelleschi’s, who had “held the painting (of the Baptistery) in his hands and seen it many times”. I have a second objection to Prof. Martin Kemps preferred theory (he actually lists six possibilities, Hockney’s was published after his book and was therefore not included). The second is that Kemp does not seem to take into account that there were many versions of perspective available at the time; and Brunellschi had to make a second demonstration to persuade people that his was the best.
Giotto and the ancients had a pragmatic means of conveying the space in a building or furniture based on it’s appearance. Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Simone Martini refined this perspective around 1330 so that their complete picture space was logical, and Kemp suggests that this perspective was used by Brunelleschi’s friend, Donatello as late as 1417 in his St. George relief, that is after Brunelleschi had made his first demonstration with the Baptistery. The new perspective did not reach Siena till the 1450s! Clearly the first demonstration was too complicated to follow, or perhaps it smacked too much of wizardry, with its use of two mirrors.
The solution that Kemp least favours I proposed in a lecture at the Slade c1978. (I do not suppose that I was the first to propose it) that is that Brunelleschi’s first demonstration was painted on a “a burnished silver” mirror. Manetti’s description says that “Filippo put burnished silver in the sky” but the reason he gives for this strange behaviour “so that the clouds would be seen to be moved by the winds that blow” seems scarcely credible for a man of Brunelleschi’s scientific bent. It diverts attention from the point he is making. I suggest that the Baptistery and surrounds were painted over the silver but Brunelleschi left the sky unpainted to explain his method.
Brunelleschi had to start from an image of reality that no one could question. The mirror image was such an image. The use of silver as the mirror is easily explained: Brunelleschi was a goldsmith, polished silver was the best reflector available and it had the further advantage over glass that one could scribe on its surface very precisely. The reflective surface could be touched without the thickness of glass intervening. Kemps main objection to this “simple” solution is that ones own image would blot out most of the Baptistery but this is not so. Once one has fixed the eye-point and the mirror one is free to move, to use either eye, and to look through the eye-piece with one’s head at what ever angle is convenient. By this method the size of the blot is no bigger than 2 cm in diameter, that is the distance between the pupil of the eye and the outer skull as reflected. This would not have been the slightest impediment as it need not blot out the outer corners of the Baptistery which are necessary points to fix the image. We can be certain that Brunelleschi would not have gone further with the work before analysing the geometry. The paint would have only been applied to clarify the image for others to appreciate how very like it was to the original. Naturally it needed to be turned round the right way this is why the peep-hole and second mirror were introduced. This method is not only the simplest as Kemp admits, it fits Manetti’s description in all but the one particular. Neither Kemp nor Manetti seem to have understood the need for the second mirror in righting the reversed image traced on the silver mirror.
Kemp’s further objections were:-
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that Manetti could not have been mistaken in thinking that the silver was applied to the sky area only. But clearly if the rest had been painted over why should he not have made this mistake. On the one occasion on which he held it in his hand we may presume he was preoccupied with seeing the image in the second mirror.
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Kemp goes on – it does not justify Manetti’s claim for Brunelleschi’s geometry. But it does of course require analytical geometry to arrive at the rules of perspective from the scribed image.
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The second of Brunelleschi’s demonstrations did not require mirrors; adds Kemp. No, that was why it’s straightforwardness finally convinced the doubters. It was presumably arrived at through the perspective geometry derived from the first demonstration.
(see “A Documentary History of Art vol.I.p171-2 . Anchor books 1957 for Manetti’s whole text in English)
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.]