Alberti’s Window

A friend recently sent me a link to this Telegraph article, which discusses the palettes of several French painters from the 19th century. It’s a really interesting article, and it’s fun to see the how the methodology, artistic style, personality of an artist is revealed in his/her palette. Here are two examples from the article that I thought were especially interesting:

Over the past few weeks or so, there has been some fascinating discussion about Botticelli’s Mars and Venus (c. 1485).  I’ve tweeted about this a bit, but I wanted to write out some of the details about this discussion.

About two weeks ago, a Times article publicized a new argument that the plant located in the lower right-hand corner of Botticelli’s painting (underneath the hand of the satyr) could be datura stramonium, a plant which is known for its hallucinogenic properties.  In essence, this article suggested that Mars is swooning due to effects from this drug plant.

This news was picked up in several places in the art history community of blogs, including the Art History Newsletter (see here) and Three Pipe Problem (see original post here).  I’d encourage you to read the comments for both of these posts, so you can follow the different arguments and ideas that were presented to critique this argument for the hallucinogenic plant.  Hasan Niyazi from Three Pipe Problem researched the history of datura stramonium even further, and came to the conclusion that the plant depicted is actually quite different (see his fascinating findings here).  Instead of datura stramonium, Niyazi finds it more likely (and I agree) that the plant depicted is ecballium elaterium, commonly known as the “exploding cucumber” plant. For one thing, the plant depicted simply looks a lot more like an “exploding cucumber” than datura stramonium.  I also think the phallic shape and properties of this plant are unmistakable, which makes this plant a more appropriate fit for the Mars and Venus theme of love.

Congratulations to Niyazi on some great research!  This is a very convincing argument, especially since Niyazi can assert that the “exploding cucumber” would have been commonly found in Europe during Botticelli’s day (which cannot be confirmed for the datura stramonium).

Although it can be disappointing to realize that the painting may not contain a reference to drugs or hallucinogenics, I think it’s quite fun to know that an “exploding cucumber” could be located on the canvas instead.

I’ve heard people joke that the Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam scene (Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1508-1512) looks like it displays a cut-away section of the human brain (with the oval-shaped cloth depicting the shape of the brain, and all of the heads and bodies suggesting brain matter). You can imagine how surprised I was to learn that scientists are currently arguing that there is a connection with Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and depictions of the brain, although not with the Creation of Adam scene.

Instead, Ian Suk and Rafael Tamargo argue that the scene Separation of Light from Darkness contains a depiction of a human spinal cord and brain stem. You can read the Scientific American article about these findings here. And take a look at this image:

I think this is an interesting connection, but I do have some doubts.  Michelangelo often made his figures extremely muscular and bulky (almost overly-idealized, in my opinion), and this detail of God the Father’s neck could just indicate the artist’s penchant for muscles and chiaroscuro/modeling.  But, like I said, this brain theory is still interesting. I’m not familiar with enough scientific or anatomical imagery to make a definite conclusion on this new argument, but it’s fun to consider.

I’ve been thinking about Alexander Brener lately. You may have heard of him: he’s the Russian performance artist who in 1997 painted a green dollar sign over Malevich’s Suprematism (White Cross) (see left). Brener claimed that his gesture was protesting the role of money in the art world. The media coverage focused on the monetary damage done to the painting (which was valued at €6 million), which Brener said exactly proved his point.¹

Other artists have also decided to destroy or manipulate another work of art in order to make an artistic statement or protest. If you’re interested in seeing some examples, I would recommend that you read this fascinating post. The author mentions several examples of art destruction (including the story of Mark Bridger, who spilled black ink into one of Damien Hirst’s formaldehyde tanks). I learned from this post that a couple of artists have urinated on/in Duchamp’s Fountain at different times in the past two decades. Ha! I think that idea might have been clever the first time, but the repeated attempts seems a little silly.

Obviously, such destructive artistic statements go against the ethics and standards for societal conduct. But this has got me thinking: should art be ethical? I can’t bring myself to completely say yes or no. But I don’t think it’s right to encourage unethical or criminal behavior among artists. (Or do such artists think that they are exempt from the societal rules and constraints? If so, then someone should break the news that postmodernism doesn’t embrace the “artist as genius” mentality.)

But, all that being said, I do have to admit one thing: such destruction can make me think about a work of art from a new perspective. And that’s one of the things that I like most about art.

What do you think? Should art be ethical?

1 Don Thompson, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 184.

The world of early 20th century painting may have just sustained a serious, permanent blow. If you follow the happenings in the art world, you may have already read that the Museum of Modern Art in Paris was robbed last night. Five paintings were stolen, totaling around $123 million. The especially sad thing about this news? Only 12-15% of stolen paintings ever resurface. Here are images of the five stolen works: