The Homeless of Athens

Years of war with the Persians had destroyed the Athenian's temple to Athena Parthenos along with the rest of the Acropolis.  Pericles, who ruled Athens during the latter part of the fifth century BCE, wanted to restore his city’s pride, so in 447 BCE he began work on a new temple to Athena, one that would be even larger and grander than the original: a great home for their beloved goddess.  Today we call it the Parthenon.

Leo von Klenze, Reconstruction of the Acropolis and Areus Pagus in Athens, 1846, Oil on canvas

Though expensive, the volume of marble and gold used in the Parthenon’s construction was not the only (or even the primary) reason for its beauty.  Mathematics and design also played a role.  The equation y = 2x + 1 was used in many Greek temples, including the Parthenon, to create a consistent and harmonious sense of proportion.  The number of columns on the side and front of the temple (eight and seventeen) is derived from this equation, as are many other proportions within the structure.

Subtle refinements – curves in what appear to be straight lines – add to the Parthenon's soaring beauty.  Perfectly straight pillars might look static, but these pillars are a bit thicker in the middle than on the ends, so they look dynamic, as if they are physically pushing upward.  The horizontal lines of the temple are not perfectly straight either.  They arch upward slightly and, as a result, do not appear to sag in the middle.  These small adjustments in an otherwise geometric design serve to create a paradox; the Parthenon looks both solid and light, both strong and ethereal.

Thiersch, Reconstruction of the Parthenon in Athens at the time of Pericles, 19th century, Engraving

Inside the Parthenon stood a forty-foot tall sculpture of Athena herself.  Made of gold and ivory, the giant woman held a sculpture of Nike, the goddess of victory, in her hand.  The original sculpture, made by the sculptor Pheidias, is gone now, but we have recreations of it that offer some sense of what the original was like - imposing, yes, but also generous, with the gift of victory extended in her hand.  In this benevolent gesture, she must have seemed like a guarantor of good fortune to come.

Reproduction of Athena Parthenos in the Royal Ontario Museum.  The reproduction was made circa 1970 by G. P. Stevens and Sylvia Hahn.  The original was made in the fifth century BCE by Pheidias.

And yet, in 430 BCE, just two years after the completion of the Parthenon, the Athenians’ fortune had run out, and the city was under siege by the Spartans.  Pericles advised his people to vacate the countryside and move inside the long walls of Athens (walls he himself had fortified).  The historian Thucydides described it this way:  

“The Athenians listened to his (Pericles’) advice, and began to carry in their wives and children from the country, and all their household furniture, even to the woodwork of their houses which they took down. . . .

When they arrived at Athens, though a few had houses of their own to go to, or could find an asylum with friends or relatives, by far the greater number had to take up their dwelling in the parts of the city that were not built over and in the temples and chapels of the heroes, except the Acropolis and the temple of the Eleusinian Demeter and such other Places as were always kept closed.”

And so the homeless of Athens found living quarters where they could, but not, of course, in the Parthenon, which was on the Acropolis.  Athena may have been their goddess and guardian, but they were not welcome to stay in her home.

As so often happened in overcrowded ancient cities lacking modern sanitation, disease spread rapidly in Athens. When a plague arrived, it had a devastating effect.  Meanwhile, new arrivals continued entering the city.  Thucydides wrote:

“An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new arrivals. As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the mortality raged without restraint. . . .

Perseverance in what men called honor was popular with none, it was so uncertain whether they would be spared to attain the object; but it was settled that present enjoyment, and all that contributed to it, was both honorable and useful. Fear of gods or law of man there was none to restrain them. As for the first, they judged it to be just the same whether they worshipped them or not, as they saw all alike perishing; and for the last, no one expected to live to be brought to trial for his offences, but each felt that a far severer sentence had been already passed upon them all and hung ever over their heads, and before this fell it was only reasonable to enjoy life a little.”

To think that just seventeen years before this time, the citizens had worked so hard to build a temple for their patron Athena!  But now, with the high likelihood of death before them (about a quarter of the Athenians died from the plague), they stopped worrying about honor and religion and simply lived out their days doing as they pleased.  The plague affected all levels of society and in 429 BCE Pericles himself fell ill and died.

Michiel Sweerts, Plague in an Ancient City, 1652-1654, Oil on canvas

The Parthenon was meant to embody the democratic ideals of the city of Athens.  As Pericles said in a speech to his countrymen, “Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy.”  These are good words, and the idea of a democracy, obviously, outlived the man who spoke them.  Still, it is troubling to see how easily his vision for a democracy slipped away, how quickly the decorum of society fell apart in the presence of a threat. 

Today the Parthenon is dramatically altered.  Its colorful painted exterior is gone, as are most of its marbles, which were taken by the British Lord Elgin in the nineteenth century.  When we look at the Parthenon now, it is difficult to imagine what it was like during the Golden Age when it was first built.  It’s also difficult, however, to imagine the tremendous suffering that went on during that age which we nevertheless call golden.  The design of the Parthenon was so brilliant and its execution so perfect that, even in its dilapidated state, it is hard for us to envision the homeless masses that passed by it on their way through a godless, plague-infested city where they couldn't find a place to sleep.   

Perhaps it shouldn’t be.  The current refugee crisis has once again brought homeless and desperate people to Athens.  And, just as in the past, they are making homes in cramped quarters.  Refugee camps have been set up in many places, including the baseball stadium used for the 2004 Olympics.  The contrast of the grandeur of the Olympics and the misery of these displaced people is reminiscent of the contrast between the plague and the Parthenon.  Our impulse to build large shiny things is, apparently, as enduring as our impulse to wage wars that drive people from their homes.

The fragility of democratic ideals, too, is a contemporary issue.  Most of us long for what Pericles spoke of when he described an “administration (that) favors the many instead of the few.”  And yet, we find ourselves fighting over what that should look like and who, if anyone, can carry the vision forward.  We’d like a simple equation (y = 2x + 1) to teach us how to create enduring harmony and balance.  We’d like a shiny god or goddess to promise us good fortune in the future.  And we’d like all the things that seem heavy and dead to become light and beautiful.  But these ideas are difficult to uphold, so we find ourselves with flimsy scaffolds and the tedious work of resurrecting, if not the glory of Athens, perhaps the glorious things it aspired to be.

Spiraling Upward: Martin Puryear's Iterative Process

Martin Puryear’s sculptures are often studies in paradox.   In the piece Sanctuary, an exquisitely constructed, solid, wooden cube perches on top of two wobbly, roughly hewn saplings.  Down below, the bases of the saplings are attached to the sides of a single wooden wheel like the long, spindly, still-developing legs of an adolescent riding a unicycle.  Since the top of the piece is heavier than the bottom, it must be attached to the wall so as not to fall over.  The sculpture evokes myriad contradictions: stability and instability, natural and man-made, stasis and movement, whimsy and work.

Martin Puryear, Sanctuary, 1982, Pine, maple, and cherry

With his abstract forms and spare aesthetic, Puryear is sometimes described as emerging from Minimalism.  One of the misconceptions regarding this work is that if it looks simple then the artist’s process must have been simple as well.  Here, too, there is a paradox, since Puryear’s apparent simplicity is the result of a complex process. This process was captured well in the exhibition Martin Puryear: Multiple Dimensions, which was on view at the Art Institute of Chicago this past February.  The exhibition contained drawings and prints that demonstrate his iterative process of idea development.  Before Puryear makes a sculpture, he draws the idea for it repeatedly, modifying the idea with each new rendition.  Once the sculpture is finished, he often draws it again.  These works on paper, some of which had never been displayed before, are not only beautiful in their own right but also demonstrate the significance of drawing in Puryear’s evolution, since they span a period of fifty years.  In addition, the exhibition also contained twelve of Puryear’s sculptures and maquettes, including Sanctuary.  The works on paper were placed in close proximity to the sculptures related to them, making it possible to draw comparisons and find connections between the pieces.

In the hallway leading into the exhibition space hung some of Puryear’s earliest drawings, dating back to his college years and his time in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone.  Sierra Leone played a critical role in his artistic development, since it was there he learned traditional wood craftsmanship from local carpenters.  He also drew many ink drawings in Sierra Leone, including one of a woman named Miatta.  A careful look shows that Puryear was already beginning to simplify and abstract the forms of her body, head, and headdress.  In that sense this drawing prefigures Puryear’s later fascination with clean, elegant, Brancusi-like head forms. 

Martin Puryear, Untitled, 1964/66, Pen and black ink, with brush and gray wash, on tan wove paper

Adjacent to these early drawings was the first of the sculptures, Untitled, a delicate ring made from twisted, whippet-thin maple saplings.  Slim as they are, these fledgling trees had great presence and functioned as a harbinger of the powerful work to come in the larger gallery spaces.

Martin Puryear, Untitled, 1982, Maple sapling, pearwood, and yellow cedar

Among the pieces in the two main gallery spaces were the wooden maquette and preparatory drawings for Bearing Witness, a 40-foot-tall bronze sculpture that stands in Washington D.C.  In an interview Puryear said this was among the more challenging pieces he had ever done.  Judging by the number of preparatory drawings he made, it is clear he considered the evocative form carefully. The wooden maquette is reminiscent of the back of a human head, as are many of Puryear’s other works, but it also calls to mind other associations, such as the underside of a boat or an elongated African mask.  This referential quality is common in Puryear’s work. “I value the referential quality of art, the fact that a work can allude to things or states of being without in any way representing them, ” Puryear says.  Bearing Witness could be interpreted in many ways, but given the title of the piece and its location in Washington D.C., it is hard not to see this faceless giant as representative of the anonymous citizens whose willingness to bear witness is essential to democracy.

Martin Puryear, maquette for Bearing Witness, 1994, Pine

This faceless head motif is repeated in the white bronze sculpture Face Down.  As its title suggests, Face Down is a head form planted face down as if it were half buried in the pedestal.  There is an overall sense of lightness to the piece, and the dome of the head seems capable of breathing or releasing steam since there are small, circular holes sprinkled across its surface, not unlike the holes at the top of a steel tea kettle.  Puryear repeated this exact same head shape in another sculpture, Vessel.  Vessel was not a part of this exhibition, but the preparatory drawings for it were.  The drawings show a basket-like wooden armature, far airier and more open than Face Down.  The finished Vessel is also much larger than Face Down, and an enormous ampersand covered in tar is placed inside it, almost like a human figure inhabiting the brain of the piece.

Martin Puryear, Face Down, 2008, White bronze

Entering into the mind of Puryear’s work is a difficult task, since the work defies neat categorization.  He works in multiple media, draws influence from many sources, and leaves only subtle (often contradictory) clues as to how he wants his work interpreted, but this defiance of simple interpretation is what makes his work worthy of sustained reflection.  The recent exhibition of Puryear’s work was particularly valuable, since these never-seen-before drawings allowed the viewer to trace Puryear’s formation over the course of his career.  They show that his mysterious and compelling oeuvre is the result of an ever-inquiring mind that kept returning to the same subjects and investigating them again.  Or, as he described it in a quote printed on the wall of the exhibition, his process is, "linear in the sense that a spiral is linear.  I come back to similar territory at different times.”

Why Perfect Algorithms Can’t Create Masterpieces (But Flawed Human Beings Can)

A mere 347 years after the artist’s death, a new Rembrandt painting is suddenly in the news.  The subject of this painting is a man in his thirties.  He has dark, heavy-lidded eyes, slightly scruffy facial hair, and the pale, white-pink skin characteristic of sun-deprived Amsterdammers.  His garb is quintessentially Baroque – a dark shirt topped by a lace ruff at the neck that seems just a bit too tight.  The lighting, brush strokes, and ambiance all exemplify the style of Rembrandt van Rijn, the greatest of the Dutch Masters. 

The Next Rembrandt, a computer-generated painting imitating the style of Rembrandt van Rijn

Except it isn’t a Rembrandt.  It isn’t even truly a painting.  Created by a team of data analysts, developers, and art historians using a 3-d printer, the “painting” is a high-tech forgery.  The man in the painting is not a historical person but the product of algorithms.  The space between his eyes is not the space between any one person’s eyes but the average space between all the eyes of all the Rembrandt paintings the creators analyzed.  As such, the man in the painting looks distantly related to many of the other men Rembrandt painted. 

Detail of The Next Rembrandt

The mindset of those who created the painting is similar to that of the scientists who genetically engineered salmon.  The sense in which they are successful is obvious; they have created a product with the exact combination of qualities they desired.  In the case of the Rembrandt forgery, it is a combination of lighting, color, texture, and facial features.  In the case of the salmon, a combination of fast growth and delicious flavor.  In both cases, the new products are artificially similar but essentially different from the original products.  Once it is wrapped up into a sushi roll for consumption, no one knows if the salmon ever had to swim upstream or if he lived a short life in an industrial fish farm.  Similarly, once the fake Rembrandt is made into a pixelated image and distributed online, it is hard to say whether the artist ever sat in front of a blank canvas and envisioned what he would create.  All that we notice, at least at first, is the fact that these products have the right set of characteristics.  They pass.

One of the cheeky criticisms made of modern art is, “My kid could have made that.”  At the very least, people often look at modern works and say, “I could have made that.”  With the advent of these technologies, perhaps people will soon say the same thing about all works of art.  The day may come when a team of data-loving entrepreneurs enters the Sistine Chapel, looks up at the frescoed ceiling, and says to each other, “We can make that.”

Michelangelo, The Sistine Chapel Ceiling, 1508-1512, Fresco

If that day does come, will it be a great day for the visual arts?  Would a fake Michelangelo have the same power as the Sistine Chapel?  Would a computer-generated Van Gogh dazzle us in the same way that The Starry Night does?

In answering this question, it is worth analyzing how The Starry Night fits in with the rest of Van Gogh’s work.  The Starry Night is not a typical Van Gogh; it is an experimental Van Gogh.  He made the piece while he was in the asylum at Saint-Remy and suffering from mental illness.  Some of his other pieces had been painted from direct observation, but this piece was clearly a combination of observation and imagination.  The turbulence of his emotions was as significant a part of the subject matter as the actual scene depicted. 

With its coils of brushstrokes speeding through the sky, fireball stars, writhing Cyprus tree, and dots of warm light sprinkled throughout the cold, blue city below, The Starry Night is not an average Van Gogh predicted by an algorithm but a soaring Van Gogh in which he surpassed even himself.  The same could be said of many other masterworks.  They succeed not because they are just like everything else that artist made but because they transcend the limits the artist frequently bumped up against. 

Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889, Oil on canvas

There is a sense in which aberrations, exceptions, and changes, are actually the most interesting parts of an artist’s oeuvre.  Over the course of Rembrandt’s life, he went from being a young, brash, technically gifted portraitist to being an old man, broken down by the difficulties of life but capable of using loose brushstrokes to manifest his piercing insights into human nature.  The forces that sculpted him into a different person were painful ones.  His first three children died before reaching adulthood, and his wife Saskia also died young.  In addition, Rembrandt became bankrupt because of his excessive spending habits.  He was still well regarded, but his life was not what it once had been. The gravitas and heavy paint application of his later work were something he grew into over the course of his life, not something that any data analyst could have predicted.  These later works are some of his best and, far from lacking the technical finesse of his earlier works, benefit from the thicker, more sculptural application of paint.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, 1629, Oil on canvas

Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, 1669, Oil on canvas

This new fake Rembrandt is a fun example of what can be done with technology.  If I have the chance to see it, I will.  But it isn’t a masterpiece in the way that so many of Rembrandt’s actual paintings are.  The fake painting has all the right pieces, but they don't come together into something that is more than the sum of their parts.  For that, we need not a perfect algorithm but a flawed human being.

Domestic Dalliances: The Hidden Women in Edouard Vuillard’s Paintings

A demure woman in a pink kimono stands to the side, her hands and arms wrapped in swaths of silken cloth. Behind her sits a three-story house dappled with warm patches of sunlight.  All around hundred and hundreds of flowers grow.  Back in the distance a tiny man (the gardener?) carries a basket over his head.  It’s the paradise of spring that we all long for in February. 

Edouard Vuillard, Garden at Vaucresson, 1920, Distemper on canvas

At first glance, this is all there is to see in Edouard Vuillard’s painting Garden at Vaucresson.  A second look, however, reveals another woman directly across from the first, disguised by the flowers in the foreground as if by a scrim of floral cloth.  She looks up at the woman in pink, seemingly engaged in conversation, and she reaches toward the flowers to pick one.

Edouard Vuillard, detail from Garden at Vaucresson, 1920, Distemper on canvas

Why paint a figure in such a way that she blends into the scenery?  Why hide one of the main actors in this everyday drama?

We can’t know the answers to these questions without learning a little bit more about Vuillard’s life and painting aesthetic.  Working just outside Paris in 1920, Vuillard painted Garden at Vaucresson when he was staying at the home of the married couple Jos and Lucy Hessel.  Jos was an art dealer who sold Vuillard’s work.  Lucy was Vuillard’s muse and lover.   In this painting she is the figure on the left, the one partially obscured by the flowers.  The other woman, the one in pink, is Lucy’s cousin.  The relationship between the Hessels and Vuillard must have been a complicated one, since Vuillard loved Lucy deeply and lived with the couple off and on in their home.  Meanwhile, he and Jos ostensibly remained friends.

Lucy Hessel in Vuillard's Studio

It might be tempting to say that Lucy is hidden in the painting because Vuillard’s affair with her was also partially obscured.  This explanation falls short, however, when we look at other paintings by Vuillard, since Lucy is not the only female figure who disappears into the patterns of his paintings.  In fact, he frequently camouflaged his female subjects so that they visually melted into their surroundings.

A prime example of this is Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist.  In this piece Vuillard’s mother, by all accounts a domineering presence in his life, sits squarely in her chair wearing a solid black gown.  Vuillard's mother was a corset-maker who raised him alone after his father died when he was in his teens, so her powerful presence in the painting is logical given her significant role in his life.  Meanwhile his sister leans awkwardly against the wall wearing a print dress that is frighteningly similar to the print of the wallpaper.  While she doesn’t completely blend in with the background, she certainly doesn’t stand out against it the way his mother does.  There’s a ghostliness about her presence in the room, as if she might be made out of the same material as the tablecloth or the walls.

Edouard Vuillard, Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist, 1893, Oil on canvas

Bizarre as it might sound to our modern ears, women during this time actually did try to match their clothing to their home décor at times.  In Rose-Marie and Ranier Hagen’s analysis of Vuillard in the book Masterpieces in Detail the authors point out that there was a women’s journal in 1909 that recommended housewives use matching fabric for their curtains and their dresses.  It is possible Vuillard painted women blending in with their domestic environments simply because it was something he had seen before.

Another possible reason for the relationship between patterns and figures in Vuillard’s work can be found in Vuillard’s interest in Japanese artwork.  Nineteenth century Parisians loved collecting Japanese woodblock prints, and artists working in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century were familiar with the traditions of Japanese artwork.  These woodblock prints emphasize pattern and flatness over three-dimensional illusion of space, so it is unsurprising that Parisian painters like Vuillard were also playing with pattern and flatness. 

Still, we are left with some questions.  Why obscure some figures but not others?  Why hide only some of the women?

Here we are left to speculate, since there is no definitive answer to this question.  It seems likely, however, that some combination of factors – Vuillard’s relationship to the women he painted, contemporary customs of home décor, and the influence of Japanese art – all play a role in explaining why some of the figures are hidden. 

One of Vuillard’s largest paintings, titled simply Large Interior with Six Figures, illuminates all these factors well.  Vuillard’s sister Marie is on the far right edge of this painting.  She is bent over in such a way that her form loses some of its humanness, and she blends into the corner. Unfortunately, Marie’s life was also one in which she didn’t attract much attention.  She was shy and unattractive, so much so that it seemed unlikely she would find a husband.  Vuillard, in an attempt to help her out, arranged for her to be married to one of his artist friends, Ker-Xavier Roussel.  Sadly, the marriage was an ill-fated one, and after just a few years Roussel left Marie for another woman.  Marie was ready to forgive him and keep their marriage together, but it was over.  Large Interior with Six Figures depicts the evening when the formidable Mme. Vuillard confronted Roussel's mistress.  Wearing black once again, Vuillard's mother is on the far left holding court in the family living room.

Edouard Vuillard, Large Interior with Six Figures, 1897, Oil on canvas

Vuillard may have had aesthetic reasons for playing with pattern, flatness, and hiddenness in his paintings, but he must have also had more personal reasons.  The women who disappear in his paintings are often among those who were somehow disempowered or compromised in real life.  Their lack of authority in reality is mirrored by the way they fail to have a strong presence in the paintings.  The stuffy, well-furnished, and carefully upholstered homes they lived in may have been soft and comfortable, but they were also limiting.  The corseted women living in them likely wanted to choose more than just the pattern of their cloth curtains or a flower to pick from the garden, but not all of them had the power to do that. 

From Left: Ker-Xavier Roussel, Edouard Vuillard, Romain Coolus, Felix Vallotton