Andrs Schein-Ills

BA (Hons) Fine Art Painting and Drawing 08245117 Year 3 Art 3011 Dissertation

Is There Painting Without Melancoly?

Chapter I: Introduction

Chapter II: Artists, melancholia and self-portraits

Chapter III: The beginning of Self-Portraiture

Chapter IV: Classical Self-Portraits

Chapter V: Expanded field of Self-Portraiture

Chapter VI: Conclusion

List of paintings used

Bibliography

Chapter I: Introduction This writing aims to investigate the connection between painting and melancholia by exploring how artists constructed their relationship between their I and the society around them in the form of self-portraits. The status of the artist in a society is changing, just like the society itself and as the status of the artist is changing, self-portraits are changing with them. However one thing is never changing. The visual representations of artists were often more than a portrait of physical appearance, they were in-depth exploration of the painters self. As creative thinkers, artists are often associated with melancholia, but what is that exactly? There are world weariness, world pain, melancholia, depression, dejection, distress, acedia, boredom, pessimism, tiredness of living they all mean similar things, and they are with us since man started to seek the meaning of life, since we realized the tragedy of our own existence. It have and it been had a muse for as humanitys the greatest of achievements been seen peculiarity

extraordenary people. There were times when being melancholic had a positive reputation and there were times when it was ridden by states or religious churches. This writing attempts to overview melancholia in painting through self-portraiture across the centuries, since the dawn of renaissance until nowadays. The first written documentation of world pain is on a 4000 years old papyrus. Death is before me today, Like the recovery of a sick man... Like the longing of a man to see his home again, After many years of captivity... --Man Disputing over Suicide with his Soul (Egypt, ca. 2100 bc). Among this and similar writings, egyptian hieroglyphs are testifing that there were dispaired people commiting suicide by jumping into the river Nile, while others had been eaten by crocodiles. Desperation was not new at all for ancient people in those days.

Melancholia is a long known phenomenon. People in history always fought wars, battled illnesses, ruled by dictator-like leaders, lost close friends and family members. Desperation, sadness is part of our life, thus melancholia too. Artists are no exception from this, their heightened sense to understand humanity or perhaps better to say their keen eager to understand humanity and themselves is almost unavoidably confronting them with world pain, melancholia.

Chapter II: Artists, Melancholia and Self-Portraits

Portraits and self-portraits are always have been a great tool in the hand of artists to show the world their true faces. These faces are always more than a simple visual representation of a person or a head. They talk about inner values, beliefes, thus they bear the notion of deep thinking, the notion of melancholy, in terms of thinking about ourselves, exploring our inner-outer world which we do not always understand. Self-portraits show their painters identity and their social status. It is another question to answer, if these identities are invented ones or unconsciously exposed ones. Portraits and especially self-portraits could be seen as diaries to a painters life. To underpin this statement, it is enough to take a look at Rembrants self-portraits. Over a hundred of them survived and available for closer inspection. They have an exceptional status in the history of self-portraits. They not only help us to see how Rembrant looked like when he was young, or middle aged or old, They represent his inner turbulence, social isolation and a remarkable life story. But lets not rush. Self-portraiture was not always an accepted or favoured way to construct relations between

an I and its world. Lets go back to the 15th century, when the status of self-portraiture was vastly different and its location in the renaissance rationale was yet to discover. Creating a solid, agreed and accepted foundation for self-portraits was not straight forward. It was a slow process, driven by the artists keen to map out their social, psychological status in their society.

Chapter III: The beginning of Self-Portraiture Visual representations of the Artist, or the I could be found in earlier works as well, the starting point for this writing is the renaissance era. Painters often had to hide or it might be better to say built in their self-portraits in the background and/or include it as one of the figures on the painted scene. It is very intresting to see the most of these self-portraits are -deliberetly or not- not just merely invented identities, unrevailed social statuses. They are more than that. They are artistic statements and hidden messages, often filled with melancholy. Taddeo Di Bartolo, Assumption of the Virgin, high altar, 1401, (figure 1) Bartolo portrays himself as a witness in a religious narrative. He is St. Thaddeus, watching the Virgins empty tomb. His figure is brighter than the other apostoles, and more carefully painted. He is resting his eyes on the viewer, whilst he is tugging his fourth finger on his left hand conspicuously. This particular gesture was used in scenes of scholastic debate, linked to the custom of counting ones arguements in debates, and then ticking them off as each was articulated.
1

Visual self-

representation at this date indicated an unusual degree of selfconsciousness on the part of the artist concerned2. In this case, it
1

P45 Joanna Woods-Marsden, Renaissance Self-Portraiture: The Visual Construction of Identity and the Social Status of the Artist, Yale University Press, 1998 2 P48 Joanna Woods-Marsden, Renaissance Self-Portraiture: The Visual Construction of Identity and the Social Status of the Artist, Yale University Press, 1998

is Bartolos way to represent his believes in life after death. Benozzo Gozzoli also included his self-portrait in one of his works. Procession of the Magi, fresco, 1459, (figure 2) in the chapel of Medici Palace in Florence. He is standing in the crowd, he is just one of the figures in the religious scene, but he is the only one who is labelled. The words OPVS BENOTH are appearing on his headgear. Making him standing out from the crowd, making him to be one of the characters in the painting, thus position himself among the retainers of the Medici Family, who participate in the Magis pilgrimage around the walls of their chapel3. Benozzo marginalised himself, his figure is relatively hidden, and his gathered brows reflect anxiety. It can be compared with another example of the built-in self-portraits is Sandro Botticellis Adoration of the Magi, early 1470s (figure 3). Botticellis figure is wearing a warm mustard yellow clothing, his figure is in the foreground of the image, and the full lengh of the body can be seen. It is a much more opened way of portraying the self, Botticellis eyes are looking out from the pictorial space, towards the viewer or worshipper, thus making them became part of the image. Their existence have been noticed. Worshippers became active part of religious art. We can find the same in other frescos. Domenico Ghirlandaio, Explusion of Joachim from the Temple, 1485-90, (figure 4) and also Andrea del Sarto, Procession of the Magi, 1511, They both break the fictional dramatic unity of the painting by drawing attention to events outside the pictorial space 4 . All these renaissance masterpieces with self portraits in them could fall under the category of selfportrait as a signature. The painter includes himself in the composition, his portrait acts as a sort of signature. It is also helped them to show engagement with religious values or connection with
3

P48 Joanna Woods-Marsden, Renaissance Self-Portraiture: The Visual Construction of Identity and the Social Status of the Artist, Yale University Press, 1998 4 P53 Joanna Woods-Marsden, Renaissance Self-Portraiture: The Visual Construction of Identity and the Social Status of the Artist, Yale University Press, 1998

wealthy families. A very unique use of self-portrait as a signature can be found in Jan van Eycks Wedding Portrait or The Arnolfini Portrait (figure 5). Behind the couple shown in the painting there is a mirror on the wall reflecting van Eyck, and he wrote/painted the following above the mirror Johannes de eyck fuit hic 1434 which means Jan van Eyck was here 1434. It is a much debated painting, which is filled with Acedia on multiple levels. There are a variety of interesting theories out there available to interpret this masterpiece. One of them is the theory of the dead wife. According to art historians studies the lady on the right hand side died a year before the painting was made, thus she was unable to sit for the artist as a model. If we take a closer look at it, it is not hard to find clues referring to her death, the whole painting could turn into a widowed mans memories, instead being a scene of a marriage. We can look at the mans quite believable or convincing face and compare it to the idealized face of the woman. The stylistic difference between them also seems to underpin this theory. If we dig deeper we can find quite a number of further pictorial, symbolical melancholic references to a loved one who the man on the canvas (Mr Arnolfini) lost. We can analyse the painting even further. There are two candles on the chandelier. The one above the man is lit, whilst the other one above the female figure is burnt and gone out. One could also examine the mirror on the wall in the background. Its edge is nicely decorated with scenes from Christs life on the left hand side, while on the right side, we can find scenes from Christs life after his crucifiction, so after his death. Chapter IV: Classical Self-Portraits The first known self-portrait which has been painted for its own sake, and which is standing on its own and not as part of another image is Jean Fouquets 1470 self-portrait painting (figure 6),

which could be seen as the first self-portrait as a projection of self. However it was Albrecht Drer (born a year later in 1471) is the first artist who makes self-portraits a major part of his work. He was a German painter and printmaker. He was probably the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance. His prints made him widely known across europe, while he was still very young. As the status of the artists changed, self-portraiture changed with it. Altough Drer served a conventional apprenticeship he was atypical of the German artists of his day, not only in his Italian connections and theoritical knowledge, but in his consciousness of his artistic status.5 Before the Renaissance only god could create and human creativity was reduced to only rearrangeing what is already had been created. Drer seemed to change this doctrine. A new image of the Artist began to outline. A somewhat eccentric figure, characterised mainly by its nature and temperament6 had been formed. Today we call it genius. Nonetheless, when it first emerged, the concept of genius was principally charaterized by a heightened form of self-consciousness, which could be intensely uncomfortable rather than merely self-indulgent. The relevance of this to the present discussion is that at the extremity of selfconsciousness is the recognition of ones own mortality. A connection therefore opens up between genius and the condition of melancholy. 7 Drers Self-portraits are extremely important part of art history. By all means they were ahead of their time. His silverpoint drawing called Albertina silverpoint from 1484 (figure 7) is not only the first german self-portrait where the artist appears separated from any other painted subject or narrative, but it is also a self-portrait which was executed when Drer was thirteen years
5

P105 Emma Barker, Nick Webb, Kim Woods, The changing status of the artist, Yale University Press, 1999 6 P155 Emma Barker, Nick Webb, Kim Woods, The changing status of the artist, (Barasch, Theories of Art, p.181) Yale University Press, 1999 7 P155 Emma Barker, Nick Webb, Kim Woods, The changing status of the artist, Yale University Press, 1999

old. Not many artist can trace a career back to that young age. However, his serious facial expression bears the symptoms of being an experienced adult, and his forward pointing index finger could reflect self-consciousness. One of his other work, the Erlangen sketch, 1491-2 (figure 8) is even more special. It is often referred to as the first modern Self-portrait. It is not only talking about Drers physical appearance, but it is also deals with his inner self. It is an incomplete drawing, and it is a study for a detail on a later painting. (Christ as Man of Sorrows, 1494) It is one of the hand studies he made during that period. This fact almost makes the hand more emphasized than the artists face, however we must take into account that this is the only hand study where he placed the hand in a context. Next to a face. the gesture that Dre r performs, observes, and draws in the Erlangen sheet connotes a state of heightened subjectivity. Resting his head against his hand, the artist strikes the pose, present in art from antiquity to the present day, of someone absorbed in himself. 8 Thus the way Drer portrayed himself could represent deep thinking, selfconsciousness, therefore the image is soaked with the notion of acedia. Albrecht Drers Self-portrait painting from 1500 (figure 9) is an exceptional piece of work from the artist. The similarity between Christ and his self-portrait is obvious. This similarity opens up debates about how Drer seen himself and about the relationship between his I and his outer world. In this carefully executed painting, nearly everything points outwards from the pictureplane. His eyesight rest in the distance behind the viewer or on the viewer. The artists hair, beard and mustache, but even the fur on his collar are perfectly fitted in the pictorial space, thus representing three dimensional values on the two dimensional surface. But Drers hand is resting on his collar, he is holding fur
8

P17 J L Koener, The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art, the ~university of Chicago press, 1993

between his fingers. One could see a gentle touch, as he is groping with his fingers, The sense of the soft fur tickeling his fingertips is coming through clearly, therefore the outward looking eyes of the artist are turning into inward looking ones, His clear, open and conscious facial expression turns into the face of a daydreamer. Though Drer is credited for being the first artist to consistently create self-portraits, Rembrandt is given credit for being the first intensely study the self thruogh art. The 17th century Dutch painter is a highly respected member of the Dutch golden age painting. In his works he records his deepest emotions and his most important experiences. His paintings and etchings are mirrors of his life and his thoughts. He painted what he liked and valued, he choose his motifs from his own mood. When he paints Sacrifice of Manoah, he is waiting the birth of his son, Titus. He painted Sacrifice of Isaac, when his child died.9 He created a vast number of drawings and paintings studying his own facial expressions, he invented a new type of self-portraiture. Rembrandts remarkable series of self-portraits have been interpreted by academics as a sort of visual diary, with forty years of self-examination. Manuel Gasser wrote the following in his 1961 book: "Over the years, Rembrandt's self-portraits increasingly became a means for gaining selfknowledge, and in the end took the form of an interior dialogue: a lonely old man communicating with himself while he painted. 10 Jacob Rosenbergs 1948 monograph talks about a gradual change in Rembrandts self-portraits. He discusses a shift from outward description and physical charaterisation to a in-depth self-analysis and self-examination. The early self-portraits he made are showing different facial expressions like being surprised (figure 11) or smiling or being angry. He might have used himself as a model, because it was cheap, but they turned out well and they became
9

P22 Willhelm von Bode, Rembrandt, s a 17.szzadi holland mesterek (Rembrandt and the 17th century dutch masters), TKK KFT, 2008 10 http://www.rembrandtpainting.net/rembrandt_self_portraits.htm#about

popular. There was a demand on the market for these type of works. They made Rembrandt a sort of celebrity. In his 1640 selfportrait (figure 10) he portrays himself in 16th century fashion clothes and in a self-assured pose. The same composition can be found in Raffaels, Titians and Albrecht Drers self-portraits as well, so we might can conclude that Rembrandt placed himself among the great masters. He is almost historicising himself. His use of light was unique comparing to other artist`s works in his time. E.g.: He often painted a shadow across his face, which was not a common practice in those days. Clients preferred their faces to swim in light, however Rembrandts paintings become very popular and sought after, he became wealthy and succesfull as a painter. His exceptional skills allowed him to reach a good enough social position, where he could earn decent money, employ apprentices and settle down. He ran his studio in a popular area of Amsterdam, where he worked, taught and lived. His success in his artistic career did not last forever. His social isolation and strange behaviour resulted in a downfall in commissions and on the end he had to sell his house and rent another one in a much poorer area of the town. Rembrandt went through a lot of bad during his lifetime. He lost his child, His wife died also. He went bankrupt, but he achieved fame and recognition. Vincent Willem Van Gogh, the 19th centuryDutch post-impressionist painter never felt his fame, success only came for him after his death. He suffered from anxiety and increasingly frequent battles with mental illness. Van Gogh is another artist, who is well known for his self-portraits, but unlike Rembrandt, he created them during a two year period. Each painted portrait captures detailed emotions of shock, disturbance, tranquility or confusion.11 His rushed brushstrokes revealing an artist full of inner battles, his self-portraits are as melancholic as his life was. He was a painter of working classes. He worked more or less continiously
11

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~ivy/selfportrait/intro.html

with frenetic energy. One of his well known self-portrait is

from

1889, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, (figure 12). This particular painting echoes Van Goghs madness and inner turbulence on multiple levels. His harsh, rapid brushstrokes are building up a very textured picture plane, where every mark is clearly visible. This raugh execution, what he applied all over the painting makes the coat what he is wearing heavy and coarse, whilst on his face they resulting creases of suffering. They also effect the yellow wall behind him. They make it look dilapidated, rugged. His eyes are almost pierce you when you look at the painting. His head is half turned, making his bandage more visible. He is not even trying to hide his act. Sadness, madness, panic, paranoia are all adjectives among many others, which are available for us to describe the piece. Van Goghs loneliness and unacceptance, his limitless drinking habit, and his passionate attitude towards painting pushed him deep into mental instability. The fiollowing artist is a 20th century woman artist. It wouold be very naive to think that melancholia only applies to male artists. The mexican painter Frida Kahlo is also created a remarkable body of self-portraits. Her work is remembered for its pain and passion. She is celebrated by feminists for her contribution towards understanding the female experience and form. Kahlo married the mexican artist Diego Riviera. Their marriage was passionate and stormy. She had a traffic accident in her teenage years, which left its mark on most of her works. Kahlo said, "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best."12 This quote reflects her loneliness and melancholia, while the following one shows her inspiration:"Since my subjects have always been my sensations, my states of mind and the profound reactions that life has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all this in figures of myself, which were the most sincere and real thing that I could do
12

Andrea Kettenmann, Frida Kahlo. Frida Kahlo,

in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself.

13

Her

self-portraits (figure 13) were executed in a naive style, her personal symbolism came through images of masks, blood, colours and vegetation. Kahlos reinvention of the self through art has influenced artists like Cindy Sherman or Tracey Emin. Chapter V: Expanded field of Self-Portraiture Gustav Courbet was a 19th century realist painter from France. The self-portraits of his could be seen as the reversed version of the renaissance built-in self-portraiture. He makes himself part of a narrative, just like Botticelli or Bartolo, but instead of being a sidecharacter of the painting, his figure is in the center of attention. His famous painting: The Artist's Studio (L'Atelier du peintre): A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in my Artistic and Moral Life, 1855, (figure 14) is a painting among others which took the concept of self-portrait further than entirely focusing on facial features and expressions. He created a new model of an artistic and social universe of which he is the center and soul creator.14 The picture shows him working on a large canvas. He is surrounded with a nude female model, a little boy and a gruop of intellectuals, critics on the right, and hunters, peasants, a priest, mother and a child presumably hometown people- on the left side. The figures may refer to his interpretations. dual lifestyle, and Courbet created it is very open for different further fantasy self-portraits,

where he placed his figure into a narrative, thus he located his self in a broader context. They could be seen as an allegory of his life. He battled with justice, a court order pushed him into deep dept, which he was unable to pay. He died a day before his first repayment instalment was due. His famous self-portrait called The Desperate Man from 1845 (figure 15) reflects his temper and
13 14

http://www.artquotes.net/masters/frida-kahlo/the-two-fridas.htm http://userpages.umbc.edu/~ivy/selfportrait/intro.html

passion. The unusual pose in which he portrays himself shows desperation and his widely opened eyes could remind one to the eye of a troubled man. It is not only an image of how he looked like, but an image of his inner self. Pablo Picasso, who was a Spanish painter and draughtsman, also a sculptor. He lived and worked during most of his life in France. He is considered to be one of the founders of the cubist movement. He was also able to achieve more than a simple portrait of himself. He opened up his imagination and he replaced his physical appearance with geometric shapes, colours and patterns, yet still painted about his inner self. He took self-portraiture to a new level. Picasso painted numerous self-portraits using vastly different approaches. His paintings are often (if not always) filled with melancholia. Especially in his blue period. I started to paint with blue, when I rememberd that Casagemas is dead.15 Blue is the colour associated with sadness, unluck, inner pain. Picasso wrote the following in one of his poems from 1900: You are the best in this world, the colour of coloursthe bluest blue. His self-portrait from 1901 (figure 16) portrays him in a dark coat and an almost dead like bright skin. But if we take a look at one of his last works, Self-Portrait from 1972 (figure 17), the sense of world weariness is still recognisable. His eyes are assymetric, the distended pupil of his right eye and the small pupil of the left eye may suggests destabilised inner values, aggressively changing mood, maybe even paranoia, but certainly melancholia. Other 20th century artists like Jackson Pollock took abstraction to a new level, and it is very hard to call his works selfportraits, but they are still tell us a lot about their creator, just like self-portraits. He lived and worked in the United States, he created some of his best known works in his Long Island studio. Pollocks Abstract Expressionist works are not representing human figures, but they are still very emotional and revealing about their author.
15

P31 Picasso (unable to find author, year, press info)

Pollocks

energetic,

almost

chaotic

marks

are

speaking

for

themselves. He fought an ongoing battle with alcoholism and depression. He spent four months in a psychiatric hospital in 1937, undergoing Jungian analysis.16 His dripping technique (figure 18) led him to the complete abandonment of figurative elements. He used the surrealist-like methods of automatism and unconscious imagery. He used dissonant, garish colors, and applied paint with energetic circular motions to large canvases so that his work exuded physical energy. It also reflected his own turbulent, manic depressive personality.17 He died at the age of 44 in a car accident, related to his alcohol problems. Another Abstract Expressionist painter who made a large contribution to the art world is Mark Rothko. He was a russian born painter, but he worked in America. Mark Rothkos coloured rectangles (figure 19) could be seen as melancholic paiintings too. As certain colours bearing certain emotional charge, and as Rothko was one of the greatest colourist, one might can say that his works are evoking the notion of world pain, melancholia. Rothko commited suicide in 1970. He left us a painted testimony of profound humane tragic sadness. 18 Rothkos early works are broadly executed, carefully knitted colour compositions in the shape of scenes (he worked as a screen painter in a theater for a while) and self-portraits. We can find the same values thirty years later in his last splashy grey paintings. Both periods works are sharing directed energy, unity.19 His paintings could be seen as metaphors for the action of light and colour in the real world.
20

Rothkos pictorial mood can be classified as

melancholic. His coloured rectangles are quiet, sophisticated and they are proofs of Rothkos extreme sensitivity towards painting.

16 17

P435 Steven Farthing, 501 Great Artist, Apple Press, 2009 http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/biographies/mainbiographies/p/pollock/pollock.htm 18 http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/view_essay.php/98/ 19 http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/view_essay.php/98/ 20 http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/view_essay.php/98/

Chapter VI: Conclusion Is there painting without melancholia? As world pain is essential part of every artistic process, the answer should be no, there is no painting without melancholia. But it is not that easy to come to a simple conclusion. As humans (and artists) live in a world greater and more complex than what they can fully understand, there will always be a sense of smallness, uselessness, therefore melancholia. Creative thinkers are continuosly asking questions, just like self-portrait painters asking themselves: Who am I? And there are no straightforward answers for these questions. Once one seems to solve a problem, it leads to further problems, questions. Dealing with a given problem requires a deep understanding of the question and to achieve that one has to face further problems, questions. It is like a neverending loop, which could evoke the notion of uselessness, world weariness. On another account we might have a decent understanding of self-portraiture as a genre, the question still remains open as we should bear the same level of knowledge about painting itself. The question what painting is? seems a lot harder to answer and it opens room for further debates, therefore it makes it uneasy to draw a simple conclusion for this piece of writing. Melancholia could almost be seen as a sort of requirement for deep thoughts, which is essential to practise for every artist. Since any given painting has to be filtered through the mind of an artist, therefore the artist`s self has to leave a mark on the finished product or art work.. This mark could be the choosen medium, could be the inspiration for the particular artwork, it also can be the shapes, forms, colours what the artist decides to use. No artwork exist without an artist, thus the artist`s self is unavoidably effecting the result. Therefore it might not irrational to claim, that all artworks could be seen as self-portraits.

Bibliography: Georges Minois, Az letfjdalom trtnete, Corvina kiad, 2005 Joseph Leo Koerner, The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art, The University of Chicago Press, 1993 Stephen Farthing, 501 Great Artists, Apple Press, 2009 Wilhelm von Bode, Rembrandt s a 17. szzadi holland mesterek, TKK KFT, 2008 Mark Rothko, The Artists Reality, philosophies of art, Yale university press, 2004 Marcel Brion, Rembrandt lete, Corvina Kiad, 1946 Emma Barker, Nick Webb, Kim Woods, The Changing Status Of the Artist,Yale University Press, 1999 Ingo F.Walther, Rainer Metzger, Vincent van Gogh, Tachen, 2005 Nathaniel Harris, The Life and Works of Picasso, Parragon, 1994 Leonard Emmerling, Pollock, Taschen, 2003 Andrea Kettenmann, Frida Kahlo Joanna Woods-Marsden, Renaissance Self-Portraiture: The Visual Construction of Identity and the Social Status of the Artist, Yale University Press, 1998

http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/biographies/mainbiographies/ p/pollock/pollock.htm 29/11/2010 http://userpages.umbc.edu/~ivy/selfportrait/intro.html 28/11/2010

http://www.artquotes.net/masters/frida-kahlo/the-two-fridas.htm 28/11/2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2000/sep/09/art 29/11/2010 http://www.rembrandtpainting.net/rembrandt_self_portraits.htm#a bout 29/11/2010 http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/view_essay.php/98/ 30/11/2010