The museum consists of maquettes and instruments with which Nigel Konstam made a number of important discoveries in the field of art history and archaeology. There are also a number of DVDs and documents which explain the reasoning that made him determined to suggest reforms in those faculties. Artists should again take the lead in cultural decision making.
The subjects covered in the museum are in chronological order :- a
GREECE
1. The discovery that the Greeks used life-casting for their life-size figures from the time of Phidias onwards.
2. a chimney on the Acropolis in Athens, and another in Olympia.
3. a method of steaming moulds to recover 70% of the wax usually lost, used at Rhodes and almost certainly elsewhere.
ROME
Roman geometry had an enormous influence on subsequent art that is seldom acknowledged. The analysis of a portrait bust of Hadrian in the British Museum, demonstrates this geometry. Artists who have used it since, like Mantagna, Holbein, Rembrandt and Giacometti, are also represented in the museum.
SIENA
1an appreciation of the works of Rinaldo da Siena recently discovered under the cathedral.
2reasons why the so called Duccio Window cannot be by Duccio.
3 The discovery of the dimension of time in Simone Martini’s Madonna of the Annunciation.
4Lorenzo Maitani’s great work is on the facade of Orvieto Duomo 112sq m. of relief sculpture of very high quality. We have a film showing how he was able to accurately transmit his art to his assistants.
FLORENCE
1The probable use of a polished silver mirror in Brunelleschi’s essay in perspective.
2. The probable use of sculptural maquettes in conjunction with mirrors by Masaccio.
3.Michelangelo’s use of maquettes for preparatory drawings
4. Cellini’s casting method is demonstrated to be very close to the method of Phidias.
REMBRANDT’S use of live models and mirrors, indicating that his contemporaries knew a Rembrandt that modern scholarship has all but destroyed; an artist whose example is very important to artists who observe life today.
VELASQUEZ’ use of a large mirror from the Hall of Mirrors at the Royal Palace in Toledo for the composition and rapid completion of his most important masterpiece – Las Meninas
VERMEER’S use of two mirrors in conjunction with a camera-obscura as an aid for painting.
The party at the Benboom’s was a triumph. Lots of guests from the media in a lovely house and garden with delicious food. Prof.Van der Wetering of the RRP came, armed with slides and a new thick book of his. Henk had gone to the trouble of making a little booklet for his invitation to the event. I am sure those who came were not disappointed.
I spoke with the same slides I had used for PINC but without that sense of the hopelessness of trying to put it over in 20 minutes. In fact it really only took me half an hour taking it at a sane pace. I had asked for that time and then was prepared for a conversation or questions. Van der Wetering immediately got up and took over with slides that clearly showed he had not taken in the difference between a mirror image and a print image. I had imagined that I had become at least a flea in his ear after our encounter at the Wallace, (I knew he had taken in nothing of my earlier instruction at Casole where we had a day of exchanges on precisely the same material, some ten years ago) No such luck – he was hardly aware of what I had to say and his reply to my presentation was way off beam. He produced a string of cartoon reversals such as artists have used since paper got large enough to make cartoons.
(I will explain again the difference between the two reversals; just in case the professor bothers to check out this blog. A cartoon or print reversal is that made by printing off a plate as in etching or turning over the paper for a cartoon. Piero della Francesca’s two angels in the Madonna del Parto at Monterchi are probably the most famous example of cartoon reversals. Mirror reversals are much less easily recognized as they do not contain the simple symmetry of the cartoon reversal. The examples in www.saveRembrandt.org.uk are the best ones known. I was the first to discover those about 300 years after they were done.)
Madonna del Parto at Monterchi
We were talking about two different things. When I pointed this out he seemed genuinely baffled, he did not understand. He was really rattled and accused me of having just one bee in my bonnet for 40 years about mirrors, whereas he was a Rembrandt scholar!. “I beg your pardon” I said and enumerated a number of my discoveries and pointed to a supply of my brochures for The Museum of Artists’ Secrets on the table in front of him. He apologized and congratulated me, not altogether sincerely, I thought.
At another point he started to say that I would take his cartoon reversals for mirror images. I had to intervene to say please do not guess at what I would think, I have never said any such thing. At another point he told me I hated art historians. I hope I answered that I had good reason to. Though we have met twice before he was so confident that he could bulldoze me that he had not bothered to do any homework. Fortunately many of the audience had. He claimed to know my Burlington article (Feb 1977) but he clearly had not understood that it undermined the foundations of the scholars’ view of Rembrandt.
It was a clash of David and Goliath, afterwards I trembled with the excitement that the biblical hero must have felt. It was a great evening. I took an informal consensus after and found only one of the 25 or so people present seem to think Goliath had won. Most were really excited by my insights. There were publishers and journalists present so I can only hope that something of that excitement will get into the public domain. Above all I hope my book on Rembrandt will at last get published. It was written and accepted by Phaidon in 1978 but when the heinous reader’s report came through from an anonymous Rembrandt scholar, Phaidon dropped it and ran, not waiting for my response. Nor would any other publisher risk it at that time.
Surely now that the RRP has collapsed and the scholars of the drawings have made such fools of themselves at the Getty; now must be the time to publish. The public is anxiously awaiting a new view of the splendid, unique, Rembrandt: the most innovative artist of all time and the most human.
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If anyone took a video of the encounter described above it would be fun to put a little film together for my next DVD.
I forgot to mention I am running a course at Verrocchio, from the 1-14 July to initiate the long overdue reform of Art History. There are still places available (see this site for details).
This is from the booklet accompanying the enlarged DVD
(over an hours worth including Rembrandt’s Syntax)
INTRODUCTION
I published two articles proving that Rembrandt used live models and their reflections in mirrors as the subject matter for his drawings (Burlington Magazine Feb.1977
& Rembrandthuiskroniek 1978/1).
Art historians generally have a horror of mechanical aids, they cannot believe that a great master would use them; nor do they understand that many artists need reality to work from. They much prefer “imagination” as the source. My article on Rembrandt, a truly imaginative genius, (not just one who worked out of his head) deeply upset their long accepted but nonetheless mistaken ideas of the visual imagination. Rembrandt fed his imagination on reality, which he received with ever deepening empathy. His art came in two parts: first through experimenting with live tableaux of actors which he then drew with crystalline clarity. His empathy developed through the practice of these two arts together.
Art historians do not practise the arts but have diverted us, the practitioners from well tried paths to success by repeating their imagined taboos. My discovery of Rembrandt’s use of mirrors has met with stubborn resistance from the “experts”. In truth, unlike Vermeer and Velasquez, who also used mirrors, Rembrandt got no technical benefit from his use of mirrors. He seemed to use mirrors to double the number of models he had to draw from, or to vary his view of them. Often this resulted in a quality of drawing which was much inferior to his drawings drawn direct from life. (See p.2) In Rembrandt’s case the mirrors were an aid only insofar as they cut down on the number of models he needed.
You may well ask why Rembrandt used mirrors if the results were inferior? I think the answer to this question is that Rembrandt did not expect to sell his drawings, he kept them as reference – thinking they might one day inspire him. There are very few drawings that one might describe as studies for a painting or etching. It would be more accurate to call them “preliminary trials” based on groups of live models, very few of which were ever followed up. Often the exquisite drawings from life suffered the same fate of neglect as the less interesting drawings from reflection or construction. Folders of drawings were sold off at the time of Rembrandt’s bankruptcy in 1656. There are no sales of drawings recorded before then. His etchings were in great demand and were mainly signed and dated on the plate, and so are reliable testament to Rembrandt’s character and development. In fact I find no corroboration of the scholars’ ideas in the etchings; they are wildly varied with little discernible sequence in style.
When he painted the reflection of a whole group, “The Adoration of the Shepherds” (see p.1) it was to provide him with an entirely different view of the same tableau, without having to move his position, which would have upset the students also working from the same group. The large size of the mirror used in this instance, suggests it would have been made of polished metal. Glass of that size (8 foot wide) did not exist in Rembrandt’s day. Large glass mirrors were made of many smaller mirrors mounted together, which would also have resulted in an awkward image to work from. The fact that this large mirror was moved into a barn strongly favours polished metal as the material.
We have to look for a better reason for the scholars’ refusal to consider the use of mirrors, which, in view of the evidence must be obvious to the rest of us. There are two good reasons for this refusal. Firstly, it makes their hypothetical dating of the drawings according to their idea of Rembrandt’s changes of style look nonsensical. Secondly, the scholarly explanation of the variation between the master’s work and that of his students is far removed from studio reality. The iconography of Rembrandt and his school has become a scholarly industry but the variations are so much more simply and truly explained by the different physical view each student had of the same tableau. Rembrandt’s scholars are obliged to deny the presence of the model groups to avoid looking ridiculous. In avoiding ridicule they become culpable for the on-going Rembrandt catastrophe.(I am gratified to note that the RRP is closing-down in disorder. Their years of labour were largely wasted by chasing a fantasy.)
Rembrandt himself never painted from his drawings; how can the “experts” hypothesize that all his inexperienced students could do so? There is not enough information in a drawing to paint from. All the shapes and tones needed to be observed again from life. These impracticable hypotheses undermine the credibility of the experts. In addition to which their recent “findings” contradict, even reverse, all we have heard from Rembrandt’s contemporaries. “He would not attempt a single brush-stroke without a living model before his eyes…he was taught by nature and by no other law…anything else was worthless in his eyes” These beliefs are not just hyperbola, they are clearly reflected in his work as painter and etcher.
Rembrandt was the prime culture hero of my generation of art students because of these values. He was for us the exemplar of the new paradigm for art that followed very closely the new paradigm for science of his time. Like science, Rembrandt, turned his back on received wisdom (he refused to study in Italy) and studied nature directly and with an improved syntax. (see DVD) He is therefore more relevant to us today than the older masters.
It is difficult to believe that the civilized world has continued to have faith in a group of experts whose every word and action contradicts all previous judgements, let alone my concrete evidence for a much more liberal view of Rembrandt output. My evidence has been deduced from careful observation of Rembrandt’s drawings; furthermore, my findings are in agreement with the characteristics recorded by Rembrandt’s contemporaries and the signed etchings.
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The Sack of Rome was perpetrated in three or four days by pillaging soldiery who we do not expect to have a great understanding of the arts. By contrast the recent destruction of Rembrandt, which posterity (and many of the living) may judge to be more far-reaching in effect, was carried out by museum experts over a period of 80-100 years. The destruction of Rembrandt has been given full media coverage but apparently never caused a murmur of complaint from their colleagues. On the contrary it has been endorsed by major exhibitions and expensive publications.
If any good is to be hoped for from the Rembrandt catastrophe it should precipitate a full scale overhaul of the way we arrive at cultural decisions. I would suggest putting artists back in charge. At least this would ensure a wide ranging and heated debate, something that the present regimes of art historians avoid. My experience shows art historians effectively squashing the opposition by their refusal to debate. This coupled with the subsidized power and prestige of their exhibitions and publications has made their flawed position apparently impregnable.
My Museum of Artists Secrets consists of important similar examples and criticisms of of the way the history of art is handled at present. Art history, which affects us all, has become the exclusive domain of experts without the necessary practical background or aesthetic sensibility.
The experts have made pathetic attempts to deny this mass of evidence, most notably in The British Museum catalogue of 1992 “Drawings by Rembrandt and his Circle”. They wish us to continue to believe that Rembrandt drew from imagination, not from tableaux vivants. Since my articles in 1977& 1978 they have got away with it. My single voice, though it has been backed by many eminent art historians including Prof. Sir Ernst Gombrich, is insufficient to stir them to reaction or discussion.
More of the same www.saveRembrandt.org.uk
Konstam’s blog www.verrocchio.co.uk
WE NEED YOUR HELP TO PERSUADE THE SCHOLARS TO CHANGE.
PLEASE VOTE ON THE WEBSITES ABOVE
Nigel Konstam, for The Save Rembrandt Society 2011
Who said “All art tends towards the abstract condition of music”? It became the battle-cry of the modern movement but this cliché does not stand up to two minutes scrutiny. Yes, music on the page could hardly be more abstract but music as most of us receive it through the ear speaks directly to the senses – it conjures emotion. Not only does it appeal to the vast majority of humanity; it entrances snakes and many of the lower animals who have no capacity for abstract thought.
Music vibrates to the natural rhythms of the body, the pounding of the heart and the taking of breath. It is not only the python who is moved to dance to its rhythms. How long are we going to go on kidding ourselves that abstract art can fulfil a similar function?
Rembrandt is the artist who has the most universal appeal. My guess is his popularity is based on his observation of human feeling. His insights into human behaviour reverberate to the ends of the Earth. Alas, we cannot include in this wide spectrum of humanity recent generations of Rembrandt scholars. By their continuous de-attributions from Rembrandt’s corpus they have shown themselves impervious to human feeling. Have their hearts been hardened or their sight dimmed by their education in Art History? I suspect so.
Fantastic news, The Rembrandt Research Project (RRP) is to close without completing the project. After 42 years of unheeding destruction the Rembrandt scholars are retiring in disarray. The greatest humanist artist of all time can now regain his true magnificent stature. The process of re-establishing his greatness must now begin in earnest.
I have been fiercely advocating a new approach to the appreciation of Rembrandt’s art based on my understanding of his drawings. But in the two paintings of “The Adoration of the Shepherds” I have also shown that Rembrandt used a large mirror for his version in The National Gallery (London) at present dismissed by the RRP. Though I have otherwise said little about the paintings, it must be obvious that Rembrandt’s artistic character does not change as his medium changes. So it is clear that the scholars of the paintings are as mistaken as those of the drawings, because both have the same fixed but mistaken idea of the artist they are seeking to define.
As the leading critic of Rembrandt scholarship I am in a strong position to lead the reconstruction. Certainly I am well prepared with a new DVD containing several new chapters including an all important comparison of “Rembrandt’s Syntax” with that of the Italian masters. Also my still unpublished book “Rembrandt the Master not the God” needs little updating and has to be a text book for the new generation of Rembrandt students. I propose to run a pilot course of 2 weeks at the Verrocchio Arts Centre this summer: “New Foundations for Art History”.
The presentation of Maitani’s façade in Orvieto, was very well received in Todi. I really do believe that I have persuaded the 25 or so people present, including the mayor of Todi, that Lorenzo Maitani was a truly major figure in sculpture. The Museo Lapidario is beautiful but so well hidden that I was amazed that so many people managed to find it; in fact the cinema space was at maximum capacity.
I made a special introduction to the DVD to try to persuade them that the four pilasters were all his design as I realized that the locals had been brought up to believe that Maitani was more of an architect than a sculptor. The scholars have focused on the handwork: which assistant carved what, rather than the quality and consistency of the whole. I was surprised just how much evidence there was available to prove Maitani’s authorship of the whole. I will add this new section to complete the argument in the DVD.
Maitani had an amazingly advanced knowledge of anatomy for his time but it was by no means perfect. In particular he made the same mistake in the muscles of the shoulders and upper arms consistently throughout the entire sequence of pilasters. He also had a strange way of depicting the lowest ribs with an arched ridge, which appears throughout. These consistent mistakes make his authorship of the whole certain and easy to appreciate. It may be a little more difficult to see the fluency of movement of the figures in the relief space but his exceptional command of drapery is outstandingly obvious. I demonstrate how this can be achieved.
This DVD will soon be available in Italian as well as English.
I have been invited to show all The Museum of Artists’ Secrets in Todi this summer.
GETTY 7 The need to learn to see before writing about Art
The best way I know of learning to see Art (with a capital A) is by studying Art. The whole gamut. What is it all about? For me Art is the vision history of thinking Man: homo sapiens. What has happened since 1905 is only a minute part of that development. Indeed I see it as a slightly hysterical response to the invention of photography. The impact of photography was steadily eroding the representational part of art, in portraiture for instance. The representation of nature was no longer a matter for the hand and eye of Man, it could all be done quickly and mechanically.
No it cannot all be done mechanically. There is a vitally important part of art that is to do with our apparatus for comprehension: our brain and sensing mechanisms. How do they work? How do they limit our understanding? All that is described in the history of objects but not much in the History of Art as practised today.
The interpretation of art objects should be put back firmly in the hands of practitioners, people who can see: people who honour their own perceptions above the written word. Sadly this is an idea that is foreign to recent Art History. The older the written word the more it is regarded as holy writ. Vasari was a mediocre painter but nonetheless perceptive. He knew which side his bread was buttered and therefore wrote propaganda for Florence that has persisted to this day.
Due to him most people see the Renaissance as a purely Florentine affair. While it is true the Florentines made a huge contribution towards humanism from 1400 onwards, the first stirring of this movement were in Paris or Assissi; gathering momentum in Pisa and Siena. Cimabue and Giotto are rather over promoted by Vasari. The Pisani and Renaldo, Duccio, Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers were breaking new ground in Siena, not to mention Cavalani in Rome, who on firm evidence is now believed by many to have been responsible in Assissi, not Giotto. Vasari favoured the Florentines rather too often to give him the benefit of the doubt by suggesting that he was misinformed rather than purposely bending the truth.
Alas, people tend to see what they are told to see, instead of looking for themselves. Vasari is not holy writ. He may remain the best informer available about the Florentine Renaissance but trained eyes are more reliable.
How does all this relate to Rembrandt at the Getty? It is a necessary background to understanding the mind set of Art Historians they are much closer to a self-perpetuating medieval priesthood than to the scientifically oriented historians they would have us believe in. My discoveries are facts proven as far as any set of facts can be proven. No one has come up with any credible alternative explanation to the continuous use of reflections by Rembrandt that I have demonstrated.
It follows that this new evidence, which is entirely in accord with Rembrandt’s contemporaries, should become the guiding principle in Rembrandt studies but it is neglected. The effect of paying attention to the new evidence would be to reverse the present diminishing trend of Rembrandt scholarship and bring back the Great Rembrandt.
My question “has anyone studying Rembrandt heard a discussion of my discoveries in a department of art history?” has been on my www.saveRembrandt.org.uk site since . The site has received over half a million visits but no one has responded. The Getty catalogue does not mention my rational alternative to their groundless theories of the changes in Rembrandt’s style. What more evidence of intellectual/professional misconduct is necessary? They must be stopped now. Rembrandt is much too important an artist to be subjected to their whims.
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
As disciples of Andrea Verrocchio we believe that the act of observing is the most important practice of art. The future of humanity depends upon our reactions to the world about us, for which we are largely dependent on sight. Up till 1900 art was exclusively concerned with the world about us. Artists have long been aware that our brains have become frozen in abstract terms which makes it hard for us to see truly what is out there.
Over the centuries artists have devised a series of practices that help us to bypass the human brain’s strong impulse to categorize and therefore not to see truly. The Museum of Artists’ Secrets is part of the Centre. It shows us how artists have tricked the brain and got round the problems of seeing truly. Art Historians, blissfully unaware, don’t see the problems, nor can they even recognise the solutions when they are presented with them.
In the past artistic achievements have steadily opened our eyes to the glorious richness of nature and humanity’s place in it. Now is not the time to abandon the exercise of seeing nature when that very richness is under threat from the our own activities and the computer seems to be dulling our responses to human expression through body language. A photographic record is not enough because the camera bypasses the assimilation process found in drawing, which requires practice and patience.
We uphold the need for practice and patience in a world of art that increasingly seems to be sliding into the abyss; squandering millennia of slow visual evolution as it goes. Visual evolution is slow because mankind all too easily loses the sense of where we are going. There have been many periods of decadence such as ours before, though none so extreme. Not only have the most visible artists lost all sense of the great tradition of seeing but the museums busy themselves with obliterating the pictures in their charge with ill-educated, incompetent “restoration”.
Come to Verrocchio and learn to see nature and the history of art more truly. Now, more than ever before, it is necessary to train the brain to see what is going on!
(see why www.saveRembrandt.org.uk)