Artist Eye Talk at the National Art Gallery – 4th Nov 2011

Creativity is based on inspiration, and artists are inspired in many ways: some by nature, some by relationships, some by pain… and some by the masters of the past.

At the Artist Eye Talk last week, Michael Landy was invited to talk on one masterpiece of his choice of the National Art gallery: Les Grandes Baigneuses (about 1894-1905) by Paul Cézanne. Landy is best known for his monumental installation/performance artwork Break Down (2001) whereby he systematically destroyed all of his possessions in a former department store on Oxford Street, London, as well as Semi-Detached (2004) which consisted of replicating his parents’ home inside Tate Britain. Then, what is it that drew him to a painting artwork as Les Grandes Baigneuses, which is obviously far from his medium of expression?

nationalgallery.org.uk

When asked that question, Landy humourously said, ‘Money’. In fact, it was the purchase order of a friend to make a replica of this painting. Landy explained how that he was that type of artist who makes innumerable sketches of the proposed drawing and he said that this is one of the best ways for understanding a painting. As a result he now has quite a few ink and pencil sketches based on Les Grandes Baigneuses, and this even ended upon being an inspiration for a large-scale drawing he exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer 2011 Show, Bathers after Cezanne no.3. Thence we notice how the simple interconnectivity of the eye and the skill of the hand, draws contemporary artist Michael Landy to the old master, Paul Cézanne.

Coming to the painting itself, we notice the architectural tone that dominates the background, the lack of perspective and lack of detail in terms of tints and shades; it is all to do with texture and the overall feel of the artwork. Landy described how this semblance of the foreground merging into the background caught his attention. Indeed there is nothing delineating the two, be it the gradual toning down of colour intensity that we find in painting during the Renaissance period, or perspective. 

Moreover, we do feel a certain presence of water beyond the nude figures though we do not see it. Again it all comes down to Cézanne’s painting technique. Cézanne treats the outer section of the bodies with a certain warm, earthy feel which gradually converges into a cooler, bluish tint in the treatment of the further, inner section of bodies. That bluish tint gives the hint of a cooling presence beyond, maybe the reflection of water. The painting follows a long tradition of nude paintings by Titian and Poussin but Cézanne’s interpretation of it is what makes it unique.

We saw how Landy became inspired by Cézanne and now understand how artists may be inspired by other artists in a multitude of ways. By the end of the talk, I realised that to understand a painting simply seeing it live might not be enough; drawing it might be the better way of doing so.

And I hope you realised it too.

At the Folies-Bergère

Along the Strand and pass the main archway entrance of Somerset House, into the furbished, elegant Courtauld Gallery on the right, up a couple of staircases, through the halls dedicated to Renaissance and the subsequent flow into Impressionist period, and lo, there’s the painting, reclining majestically against the wall as one of the most well-known masterpieces of Edouard Manet: A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.

Las Meninas
mystudio.com

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is primarily an Impressionist painting, and it is this technique which brings the viewer onto a level of real experience. First and foremost this painting has been described as a modern rendition of Velasquez’s Las Meninas. The latter’s masterpiece was executed in such a way as if it was actually capturing a filmic scene and as a result the viewer gets the feeling that he/she is indeed stepping into an intimate family setting. The same effect is achieved with A Bar at the Folies Bergère, though this time instead of making us feel that we are misplaced, Manet draws us to it and creates an invisible connection between portraiture and the audience.

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère 
impressionist-art-gallery.com

Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe
seelvage.com

As for the very technique of impressionism, the dry thick strokes of colour create texture and induce an intense sensory experience. As such the visual becomes enough to evoke a feel of ‘synaesthesia’; we want to touch it, we feel the atmosphere, we experience it. The blurred figures in the ‘mirror’ background are enough to impart the shimmer, the frolic and the intoxicated bliss of Paris nightlife at the Folies-Bergère. Yet, it is the foreground which is of main concern. The display at the bar is equally intensely sensual, and thus Manet seems to be showing how the visual in our consumerism society lures us to indulge. It’s all about what we see and, in the words of Marshall McLuhan, ‘it is never the content that counts’. Then, we may question, what about the bar maid? Her depiction is also very visually arresting, decorative and sensual. Is she on display too? Is she also an object of desire? Since portraiture is very much to do with emotion and identity, this is what we might think. She is melancholic, obviously not happy with her situation. In this way the idea of prostitution is subtly raised and maybe even condemned. This reminds us of Manet’s other work which was controversial during his own time, the Dejeuner sur l’herbe. In that painting Manet flouted the traditional idealized version of female nudes and showed a crude reality that could be said to be hinting at prostitution.

Manet intentionally avoids fixed point perspective to create a two-way traffic with the viewer. The bar maid is improperly reflected into the mirror as in the mirror she seems to be addressing a man. This could however hint at a past situation which led to that melancholic expression in the frontal portrait. From another perspective, given the blurry man is a reflection of what is in front of the bar maid, and what is in front of her is us, Manet seems to make that figure a portrait of us, the viewer. What is that man asking from the bar maid? Could it be some sensual favours? In other words, Manet makes us part of his artwork and exposes us as the ones who are lured by modern society’s visual culture.

At the end of the day, we cannot but awe at the ingenuity of the presention of ideas through this unconventional use of perspective.

And as we move onto the next painting in the hall, we do feel that, yes, we’ve just left the Folies Bergère.