Alberti’s Window

Fragonard, “The Swing,” 1767. Oil on canvas. Wallace Collection

Tonight I am feeling very sheepish. About three or four months ago, a student mentioned to me that Fragonard’s The Swing served as a point of inspiration for “Portrait of a Lady.” I found a copy of Henry James’ novel The Portrait of a Lady a few days later. Now, after reading 660+ pages and finishing the book, I was left rather confused as to what my student meant, so I went online to read some commentary. Only then did I realize that my student was referring to William Carlos Williams’ poem “Portrait of a Lady” and not the Henry James novel! I don’t regret reading lengthy book at all, but I feel less confused and won’t try to dwell on which suitors are courting Isabel Archer (or perhaps Pansy?) in this Fragonard painting anymore!

Instead, the William Carlos Williams poem has very direct references to Rococo art and painters. This is the poem, which was first published in The Dial in 1920:

Your thighs are apple trees

whose blossoms touch the sky.

Which sky? The sky where Watteau hung a lady’s slipper.

Your knees are a southern breeze — or

a gust of snow. Agh! what

sort of a man was Fragonard?

— As if that answered

anything. –Ah, yes. Below

the knees, since the tune drops that way, it is one of those white summer days,

the tall grass of your ankles

flickers upon the shore —

Which shore?

Agh, petals maybe. How

should I know?

Which shore? Which shore?

–the petals from some hidden

apple tree — Which shore?

I said petals from an apple tree.

I’ve been reading commentary, scholarly interpretations, and watching a short lecture segment (though disregard some of the art historical commentary in the video, since it is a bit inaccurate) on this poem, and thinking about how this poem encapsulates the difficulties of poetic words and conventions in terms of expression. The poem seems to show the problems which poets can face, especially since there are two voices which interrupt the flow of the expressive content. There are even other exclamations which disrupt the flow, too: the first “agh!” may have been exclaimed when the speaker realized that he meant to say “Fragonard” instead of “Watteau” when first referencing to the artist of The Swing.¹

Given the historical context of his poem and how the disjointed style of the poem is interpreted as a precursor to postmodernism, interesting to me that these two Rococo artists were mentioned. Watteau is the earlier of the two artists, and he really served as a pioneer for the Rococo style. On one hand, Watteau’s art can be interpreted as expressing conflicting emotions and voices (the subject matter of his artistic output is associated with pleasure and sadness, perhaps typified in his comedia dell’art painting Italian Players from 1720), which parallels the disjointed and interrupted conversation of the speakers in the poem.² Watteau also was a bit of a radical artist for his time, since his “fete galante” paintings of the aristocracy did not fit the conventional requirements for academic history paintings, and this unconventional approach to art mirrors the unconventional form of disjointed expression in Williams’ poem.³

Fragonard, detail of “The Swing,” 1767. Oil on canvas. Wallace Collection

Obviously, Williams was considering the themes like love and eroticism when he made a reference to Fragonard’s The Swing, since a woman is accompanied by two suitors and she kicks off her shoe (and reveals what is underneath her dress) at the suitor who is hidden in the bushes. Fragonard is a later Rococo artist who followed in Watteau’s wake, and I think his socially-accepted painting style and traditional career don’t have the same parallels to the radical style of poetry that Williams used. However, from a compositional standpoint, I like how compositional lines meander through the painting (such as the branch which zig-zags in the upper left corner, see above); these visual lines complement the nonlinear, back-and-forth voices presented in the poem.

Yinka Shonibare, “The Swing (after Fragonard),” 2001. Tate Modern

Really, I think the best work of art today that encompasses Williams’ poem is Yinka Shinobare’s installation “The Swing (after Fragonard)” from the Tate Modern. Since the Fragonard painting has become iconic, Shinobare’s composition is familiar to the viewer but also strange: the tree lacks a trunk and the principal subject lacks a head. This familiar-and-strange reaction is similar to what is conveyed through Williams’ poem, since the poem attempts to reference the traditional language of poetry (like using a metaphor about an apple tree), but the metaphors are intentionally used in an ineffective way. Since Shinobare intentionally omits aspects of Fragonard’s composition, this disjointed appearance mirrors the disjointed flow of Williams’ poem.

Yinka Shonibare, detail of “The Swing (after Fragonard),” 2001. Tate Modern

The skin of Shinobare’s model is also dark and she wears a print that references African textiles which have a complex global history regarding colonial production and international consumption. These references to the complexities of globalization and visually acknowledging multiple voices seems to be a fitting parallel with how Williams’ poem is seen in relation to postmodernism – a movement which accepts the multiplicities of meanings and perspectives.

Do you see any other parallels between Williams’ poem and either the Fragonard painting or Shinobare’s installation?

1 See Thomas Dilworth, “On ‘Portrait of a Lady,'” The Explicator 56.2 (Winter 1998). Available online: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/williams/lady.htm

2 For more information on how Watteau’s art is associated with conflicting emotions and interpretations, see Linda Walsh, “Subjects, Society, Style: Changing Evaluations of Watteau and His Art” in The Changing Status of the Artist by Emma Barker, Nick Webb, and Kim Woods (Open University Press, 1999), 220-248.

3 Ibid., 235-238.

Alexander the Great Confronts Darius III at the Battle of Issos (or possibly Battle of Gaugamela), floor mosaic, House of the Faun at Pompeii, Italy. 1st century CE Roman copy of a Greek wall painting of c. 310 BCE, perhaps by Philoxenos or Eretria or Helen of Egypt. Entire panel 8’10” x 17′ (2.7 x 5.2 m). National Archaeological Museum, Naples. Image courtesy Wikipedia

Yesterday one of my students gave a presentation on the Alexander mosaic from Pompeii. The student mentioned having a chance to visit the House of the Faun when he was younger, and showed the class an image of his younger self at the site. The House of the Faun is most important surviving house from Pompeii, and originally it was so large that it comprised a whole city block!

Today, the Alexander mosaic in the House of the Faun is a copy and the original mosaic is located in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. The original mosaic was discovered at the House of the Faun in 1831; it was located on the floor of the exedra, which is a rectangular room off of the first peristyle court. This indicates that guests would have seen this mosaic when they came to visit with the owner of the house in the exedra space. In order to better preserve the Alexander mosaic, it was moved to the National Archaeological Museum of Naples in 1843.

Alexander Mosaic display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Image courtesy Steven Zucker via Flickr and Creative Commons license.

My student’s presentation reminded me of a lecture that Dr. Diana Kleiner gave on Pompeii, in which she discussed the Alexander mosaic (see 47:10 – 54:00 of this video clip). In her lecture, Diana Kleiner expressly points out how the museum displays the mosaic on the wall, which is inaccurate to the original placement of the floor mosaic. I can see her point, especially since the museum display tries to replicate the exedra of the House of the Faun (where the mosaic originally appeared). However, I also don’t mind that the mosaic currently is on the wall, because it can also serve as a reminder of how the original mosaic itself is a copy of a now-lost Greek wall painting from the beginning of the Hellenistic period in Ancient Greece (probably from c. 310 BCE, which is just a few years after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE).

Alexander mosaic replica, c. 2003-2005. House of the Faun, Pompeii. Image courtesy Steven Zucker via Flickr and Creative Commons license.

A copy of the Alexander mosaic was placed in the House of the Faun in 2005. The process of creating this replica was daunting, since the large mosaic is comprised of over two million pieces of tesserae.¹ The project took 16,000 hours of work and cost $216,000.² So, in essence, this replica is a modern copy of a Roman copy of an original Greek painting.

Detail of original Alexander the Great mosaic, 1st century CE Roman copy of a Greek wall painting of c. 310 BCE.

Both the mosaic replica and the original mosaic are impressive in their own right. Diana Kleiner makes a good point in her lecture, too, about how the original Alexander mosaic is perhaps even more impressive than the original painting, since illusionism and foreshortening appear with small pieces of stone instead of pigment (see 50:11-51:19). It is unsure whether this floor mosaic was created by a Roman or Greek artist, but the translation of the imagery into mosaic form shows a high level of technique and precision!³

1 Ada Cohen, The Alexander Mosaic: Stories of Victory and Defeat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 1. 

2 Marco Merola, “Alexander, Piece by Piece,” from Archaeology Magazine 59, no 1 (2006). Available online at: http://archive.archaeology.org/0601/abstracts/mosaic.html

3 It is possible that this mosaic was created by a Greek artist who worked in the Roman empire in the 1st century. We know of other Greek artists who created mosaics for the Romans. For example, in the 2nd century a Greek mosaicist named Herakleitos worked in Rome and created “The Unswept Floor” mosaic that is currently in the Museo Gregoriano Profano (Musei Vaticani). This mosaic is signed by Herakleitos: ΗΡΑΚΛΙΤΟΣ ΗΡΓΑΣΑΤΟ

Rear view of “Apollo” from the Temple of Veii, c. 510-500 BCE. Terra-cotta, 5’10”

I’ve been thinking about the statues from the Temple of Menerva (also spelled Menrva) at the ancient Etruscan city of Veii this week. Tonight I found a cool image that shows the back of the “Apollo” statue. This image shows two intentional holes that created so that the terracotta would be properly ventilated during the firing process.¹  One hole appears just about where the shoulder blades should be, and another is seen at the base of the decorative support between Apollo’s legs.

Drawing of the Temple at Veii with four specific figures (from L-R): Turms (Mercury), Hercle (Hercules), Aplu (Apollo) and Letun (Diana) on the ridgepole of the roof

The Apollo sculpture comes from a group of four figures that would have decorated the ridgepole of the Temple of Minerva at Veii (although many other figures would have also been included along the roof of the temple, as shown in a reconstruction model). This group of figures would have referenced the third labor of Hercules, in which he is sent to capture the sacred deer with the golden horns: the Golden Hind. This deer is sacred to Diana (Apollo’s sister), and Apollo is struggling with Hercules over the deer. For more of the story, see the Smarthistory video and article on the topic.

The figure of Diana has been ruined and lost over time, and today only the head of Mercury and a little bit of the body remain. However, a good portion of the Hercules figure exists today, although it is not in as good of condition as the Apollo.² A back view of the Hercules sculpture reveals that it has similar vent holes (between the shoulders and at the bottom of the sculpture). I assume that the holes in the deer’s body are were created for ventilation purposes.

Figures of Hercules (left) and Apollo (right) from Veii, c. 510-500 BCE. Terracotta

Despite that terracotta doesn’t preserve extremely well, I’m glad that we have enough authentic Etruscan terracotta pieces to enjoy today (complete with authentic ventilation holes) to help us know more about the Etruscan people. Although a venting hole may seem like an insignificant technical detail, it actually can help us identify authentic works of art. For example, the Etruscans’ use of ventilation holes helped to identify later forgeries that were created in the Etruscan style. In the early part of the 20th century, three such forgeries were created by Alfredo Fioravanti and Riccardo Riccardi (with the exception of the Colossal Warrior, which was made with the help of some of Riccardo’s family members after Riccardo’s death). These forgeries were of terracotta warriors; they were acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and displayed together for the first time in 1933.

The Colossal or Heroic warrior (left), Colossal Head (center) and “Old” Warrior (right), c. 1915. The Colossal warrior is approximately 8 feet tall (about 243 cm), The Colossal Head is 4.5 feet (137 cm), the “Old warrior is 6.6 feet (202 cm).

But in 1961, the Met had to admit that they had purchased works of art that were fakes. One of the tell-tale signs that these warriors were not Etruscan has to do with the vents: each warrior only had one vent, unlike the Etruscan works of art that are fired as a single unit with multiple vents (as shown in the Apollo and Hercules sculptures).³ This indicates that the large forgeries were fired separately and then reassembled. The modern day forgers did not have a kiln large enough to fire these large-scale objects! If they had taken the time to build such a kiln (and in turn create the proper number of ventilation holes), I wonder if it would have taken experts longer to determine that these sculptures were forgeries!

UPDATE: In a lecture I attended by Dr. Richard Daniel De Puma, he explained that the subject matter of male warriors was intentionally picked by the forgers Fioravianti and Riccardi. The forgers knew that John Marshall, the foreign agent for the Metropolitan Museum of Art located in Rome, was gay and thought the subject matter of male warriors would appeal to him. The forgers singled out Marshall, who often dined at the same restaurant, and attracted his attention by speaking loudly about Etruscan art while they dined. Marshall and the forgers became acquainted and the forgers eventually led Marshall to the forgeries, even taking him past an archaeological site first to make the art seem more authentic.

Eventually, scholar Harold Woodbury Parsons set out to show the Marshall had been duped. Ironically, even Parsons’s agenda relates back to homosexuality, since Parsons viewed Marshall as competition and rival (at one point, Parsons had a romantic interest in Marshall’s partner, Edward Perry Warren).

Dr. De Puma explained that he was involved in the recent redisplay of the Etruscan art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He strongly advocated that at least one of the forged terracotta warriors be put back on display, but due to financial and space considerations, the museum decided to put only authentic objects on display instead. Today, these terracotta warriors are in need of restoration, and, understandably, the museum would rather spend money to restore authentic works of art.⁴

1 Edward Storer, “The Apollo of Veii” in Broom: An International Magazine of the Arts 2, no. 13 (June 1922): 238-239. Storer explains that the figure was fired as a single unit and that the terra-cotta is about an inch and a quarter thick. Article is available online at: http://bluemountain.princeton.edu/bluemtn/cgi-bin/bluemtn?a=d&d=bmtnaap192206-01.2.19&e=——-en-20–1–txt-txIN——-#

2 Another well-preserved figure that decorated the roof of the Temple of Veii exists today, although it is separate from this group of four figures that relate to the Golden Hind myth. This additional figure is of Latona (Leto), a goddess with the child Apollo.

3 The fragments of the figures also did not align properly, which also indicated that they had been fired separately. Experts also became concerned when they discovered that the glazes contained chemicals that were not in use during the Etruscan era. For more information see the book “Etruscan Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art” (p. 295-297) as well as the online articles “Tracking the Etruscan Warriors” and “The Case of the Etruscan Warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

4 Dr. Richard Daniel De Puma, “Etruscan Forgeries.” Lecture, The Ridgway Lecture 2019-2020 from University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, September 28, 2019.

Harvester Vase rhyton, c. 1500 BCE (Minoan) from Hagia Triada. Steatite. Diameter 4.5″ (11.3 cm). Archaeological Museum, Iraklion, Crete.

Last week I introduced my ancient art students to the Harvester Vase, and some aspects of our discussion have caused me to do some further research on this vessel. This is a Minoan work of art which comes from Hagia Triada; it is thought to perhaps represent harvesters or sowers in some type of religious procession.¹  Even though only fragments of the original vase remain, it is likely that the Harvester Vase had a hole at the bottom (in addition to the wider “filler” opening at the top), so that liquid could “flow through [it] like a funnel.”² This small hole at the bottom could be covered by the hand of whoever was carrying the vessel during a ritual or procession, and then the hand easily could be moved away to dispense the liquid libation or offering.

Only the upper portion of the vase (and part of the lid) are original pieces; they have been mounted together to give a semblance of the original body of the vase. This appearance has been determined by comparing the steatite fragments to other similarly-shaped Minoan vases (see one such example HERE). Sir Arthur Evans suggested that the relief on this vase may have been covered with gold leaf.³ No gold traces of gold have been found on the Harvester Vase, but other Minoan vases have been discovered since with traces of gold leaf.⁴

“Unrolled” image of the Harvester Vase relief, to show detail of procession. c. 1500 BCE (Minoan) from Hagia Triada. Steatite.

Harvester Vase detail, c. 1500 BCE.

This vase is quite small, being only 4.5″ (11.3 cm) in diameter. However, there are so many details to notice in this small space, which make the artistry and craftsmanship all the move impressive to me. Recently I’ve found a few things that I haven’t noticed before. One thing that I realized is that many of the participants have one fist raised to their chests, which is a gesture that has been connected with ritual (see above).⁵ Barry P. C. Molloy also points out that this gesture is found in figurines of boxers that are located on Minoan peak sanctuaries, and could be associated with physical combat and warriors.⁶ Given the context that the Harvester Vase is also a rhyton (used for libations and religious ceremonies), the association of the clenched fist with ritual makes more sense to me.

Another thing that I noticed recently was the clothing and the hair styles of the figures. Most of them are bald, wearing a cap or headband, and are bare-chested (sometimes exhibiting a keen attention to musculature and anatomy on part of the sculptor). However, the three figures who are singing (behind the man who is playing the sistrum) are wearing long robes, unlike the rest of the bare-chested marchers. Of course, these men still seem less significant than the large priest-like figure who seemingly marches in front of the procession, who has long hair and wears an elaborate tasseled garment.

Harvester Vase detail, c. 1500 BCE.

Detail of the Harvester Vase relief, to show detail of procession. c. 1500 BCE (Minoan) from Hagia Triada. Steatite.

John Forsdykh argues that the one exception to the solemn procession is a man who has turned backwards to shout at a man who is stooping or stumbling. Forsdyke explains, “That man is usually said to be one of the harvesters who is fallen down in his drunkenness; but he has no forked implement and there is no reason to suppose that he is drunk.”⁷ Forsdyke, however provides no explanation for why the man is stooping. I’m not entirely convinced of the shouting exchange between the turned man and the stooping man either, since they are directly placed over the same vertical axis and there isn’t even a suggestion of eye contact between the two figures. Could the turned man be shouting orders or directions to the solemn, closed-mouth harvesters who stand directly next to him instead?

Perhaps we would get a better suggestion of what was happening in this vignette if we were able to see the whole vase. Maybe we would also get a better indication of why one of the men is either stooping or stumbling – did something on the ground trip him? Other people have also considered how our understanding of this vase is limited due to its incomplete state, too. For example, tn the early 20th century, a father and son artistic team (Emile Gilliéron Sr. and Emile Gilliéron Jr.) set out to to create an object which imagined the original appearance of the Harvester Vase. The Gilliérons specialized in creating reconstructions of antiquities for sale and were able to profit over the cultural interest in Minoan art following Sir Arthur Evans’ excavations. Unfortunately, though, I can only find one image of this Gilliéron vase (see below,) and it doesn’t include the scene with the stooping man, so I don’t know how they interpreted this vignette in the overall scene.

The Gillierons’ restored version of the “Harvesters’ Vase,” early 20th century.

I like this image of the Gilliéron restoration, though, because I like being prompted to think about the legs of the figures who would have been energetically marching in the procession. I’m even reminded how some of the curves and angles are made for practical purposes (such as how the tilt of the priest’s kilt is likely due to a raised leg in motion). It is common today to discuss how the Harvester Vase depicts a sense of dynamic energy and movement, but it’s easy to forget that the sense of movement that is only a portion of what would have been seen on the intact vase in antiquity!

1 For a synopsis on interpretations of the vase in relation to harvesting or sowing, see Wendy Logue, “Set in Stone: The Role of Relief-Carved Stone Vessels in Neopalation Minoan Elite Propaganda,” in The Annual of the British School at Athens 99, (2004): 165-166. Logue mentions that the long poles carried by the marchers were interpreted by Müller as harvesting tools for fruit in trees (such as olives), whereas Forsdyke proposed that this was a ritual that took place before sowing.

2 Barbara M. Soper, Ancient Rhytons, The Old World Archaeologist (Journal of the Old World Archaeological Study Unit) 24, no 3 (July 2004): 1. Available online: http://www.owasu.org/articles/rhytons.pdf

3  Peter Warren, Minoan Stone Vases (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. Available online HERE.

4 Ibid.

5 Logue, p. 166.

6 Barry P. C. Molloy, “Martial Minoans? War As Social Process, Practice and Event in Bronze Age Crete,” from The Annual of the British School at Athens 107 (2012): 110.

7 John Forsdyke, “The ‘Harvester’ Vase of Hagia Triada,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 17, no. 1/2 (1954): 2.

Jackson Pollock, “Sea Change,” 1947. Artist and commercial oil paint, with gravel, on canvas, 57 7/8 x 44 1/8 in. (147 x 112.1 cm), Gift of Signora Peggy Guggenheim to the Seattle Art Museum

Lately I’ve had some opportunities to study and think about Jackson Pollock’s painting Sea Change (1947, above) at the Seattle Art Museum. This painting is fascinating to me for several reasons, including its interesting history regarding how it was gifted to the Seattle Art Museum by Peggy Guggenheim. I also like the painting from a visual perspective: I like to try and trace which layers of paint were placed first, although it is difficult to tell (which isn’t surprising in some ways, since Pollock would work for uninterrupted sessions of 20-30 minutes or more, but later would revisit paintings that he didn’t feel like were finished).¹ 

Detail of Jackson Pollock’s “Sea Change,” 1947. Artist and commercial oil paint, with gravel, on canvas, 57 7/8 x 44 1/8 in. (147 x 112.1 cm), Gift of Signora Peggy Guggenheim to the Seattle Art Museum

Some of the layers in Sea Change painting are also especially unusual, because Sea Change was completed (as a drip painting) on top of an earlier Pollock painting. Pollock’s earlier style involved more gestural strokes of paint that were directly applied with the paintbrush touching the canvas (as seen, for example, in his Mural from 1943). The Seattle Art Museum recently conserved Sea Change, and a video points out some of the areas which reveal Pollock’s original painting underneath the dripped paint. In the detail image above, you can see some bits of blue and reddish-orange paint (now serving as an underlayer to the dripped paint) that were smoothly applied with a brush.

The multiple layers of the painting are compelling to me visually, because they play with perceptions of illusionism and space. On one hand, the multiple layers appear complex, but the thickness and viscous nature of the paint simultaneously also reminds me that the layers rest (almost hover) on the flat surface of the canvas. As a result, the painting “suggests a visual space that appears infinitely deep yet shallow at the same time.”²

The thing that I also like about Sea Change is that is isn’t comprised merely of paint, but also of gravel that Jackson Pollock found at a gravel pit near his home in Long  Beach (see detail image above). Pollock often would add other materials to his paintings, “such as sand, small pieces of hardware, pebbles and string, to emphasize the ‘thingness’ of the work and to point out that the work was no mystical icon removed from the world; rather, the painting was of the world.” In other words, the gravel helps to assert that this painting, despite its lack of representational subject matter, is grounded in reality.

Hans Namuth, photograph of Jackson Pollock working in his studio, 1950

Pollock’s gestural movements also help to ground the painting in reality too, because the viewer can get a sense of Pollock’s physical exertion and real experience in creating the work of art. When creating his drip paintings, Pollock would place his canvases on the floor while he worked. This placement was intentional for Pollock, not only so that gravity could aid the paint to drip downward, but also so Pollock could sense his own physical relationship with the painting. He said, “My painting is direct. I usually paint on the floor. . . Having the canvas on the floor, I feel nearer, a part of the painting . . . similar to the Indian {Navaho] sand painters of the West.”³

Jackson Pollock, Untitled, c. 1950 Museum of Modern Art

Lee Krasner, an Abstract Expressionist painter who was married to Pollock, explained that Pollock painted with different tools, “using sticks and hardened or work-out brushes (which were in effect like sticks) and basting syringes . . . His control was amazing. Using a stick was difficult enough, but the basting syringe was like a giant fountain pen. With it he had to control the flow of paint as well as his gesture.” Sea Change is a very early example of a drip painting by Pollock, so it seems most likely that he was using a sticks or hardened brushes. In contrast, the basting syringes were used later by Pollock, as seen in his Untitled painting c. 1950 at the Museum of Modern Art (shown above).

What are your favorite paintings by Jackson Pollock? Do you prefer his earlier style with the smooth gestural strokes, the classic drip paintings like Sea Change, or the later “fountain pen” drip paintings that were made with the basting syringe? I like how different types of energy are conveyed through Pollock’s diverse experimentations with painting. It is unsurprising to me that he once said, “My concern is with the rhythms of nature.” After all, various forms of energy and rhythm are manifest in the world; some of them are subtle and lyrical, and others are quite explosive.

1 Michael Corris, “From Abstract Expressionism to Conceptual Art: A Survey of New York Art c. 1940-1970” in Art and Visual Culture 1850-2010: Modernity to Globalization by Steve Edwards and Paul Woods, eds. (London: Tate Publishing, 2011), 233.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.