Visual Arts

Donna Evers • July 26, 2011

It is ironic that the bastard son of the Duke of Northumberland left the family name on what was to become the largest museum complex in the world. There is still some mystery as to why James Smithson, a native Englishman who never visited the United States, left his fortune (approximately $510,000 in 1836) to create such an institution in America. It probably had to do with his own origins; he criticized the British aristocratic system and described the British monarchy as a “contemptible encumbrance.”

Smithson went through his early years using his mother’s name, Macie. He distinguished himself in school, and then as a scientist and leading mineralogist of his time. He even discovered a mineral, which later was named “Smithsonite.”

When Smithson inherited a large estate from his father, he began the process of changing his name to Smithson. Upon his death, his will stipulated that if his nephew died with no heirs (which his nephew did), Smithson’s fortune would go “to the United States of America, to found in Washington an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.”

While the gift was accepted by Congress in 1836, it took them 10 years to decide how to use it.
After much debate, Congress selected a site and an architect for the institution. The National Mall was a swampy mess at the time, dominated by a railroad station and crisscrossed by tracks; but it proved to be an excellent choice in the years to come.

The architect, James Renwick, was a gifted engineer who had never even studied architecture, but was already famous for his design of St. Peter’s Cathedral in New York City. He brought all his brilliance to bear on the creation of the Gothic revival building that quickly became known as “The Castle.” Since Smithson had been a scientist, Congress interpreted his gift as a place for scientific exploration and inquiry. The museum’s first curator was renowned scientist Joseph Henry, who was so devoted to building up the institution that he actually lived in its east wing from 1847 until his death in 1878.

In its early years, the museum amassed a huge collection of American memorabilia and was nicknamed “America’s attic.” But in 1886, a fire swept though the building, destroying the collection.

Fortunately, the building was restored and new collections began. In addition, auxiliary museums sprung up along the Mall to expand on a broader historic, artistic and educational theme. Today, the Smithsonian is made up of 19 museums, nine research centers and the National Zoo. Each year, it is visited by 28 million people.

James Smithson, a wise investor who was able to swell his inheritance into a fortune, would no doubt be proud of what he started with his vague but determined bequest to a country he had never once seen.

On the other hand, you could say he got here 75 years after he died. Alexander Graham Bell, a regent of the Smithsonian at the time, went to Genoa, Italy, where Smithson was buried, and had the body exhumed and brought to Washington. James Smithson is now enshrined in a tomb in “The Castle,” where he can forever overlook the incredible legacy that must have outpaced even his greatest dreams.

Gary Tischler •

These days, we take pictures for granted. They’re in our heads, in our phones, on our computer, in our digital cameras, makeable, and erasable. We live in an ocean of photographic imagery—the world of click and snip. In this environment, it’s hard to tell what’s art and what’s not. The question of art at the dawn of the age of photography, and the decades that marched ahead, was a question that was asked with great passion and answered in infinite ways by several generations of photographers, all of them searching for ways to elevate a technical innovation into the rarefied clouds of high art.

Two current exhibitions, at the National Gallery of Art and the Phillips Collection, take up the banner of that debate, how it was conducted, and the results it produced. Both exhibition titles sound like Masters of Fine Arts theses, but don’t be put off by that. If you have any interest in photography and art, photography IN art, and, for that matter, if you have a camera and use it often, you’ll find these exhibitions thought-provoking, imagination-stimulating, debate-instigating, and, with the presence of so many great works of photography, a great pleasure.

The National Gallery of Art exhibition, “The Pre-Raphaelite Lens, British Photography and Painting, 1848-1875,” is, as the title suggests, narrowly focused in time and art. It successfully connects the dots between early photographers, like the remarkable Julia Cameron and Henry Peach Robinson, to the groups of artists encouraged by the English uber-critic and cultural sage, John Ruskin, led by the likes of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The latter group was devoted to the art which preceded Raphael, hence the name they adopted. Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites were also keenly interested in the arrival of photography, which they tried to incorporate into their art.

The Pre-Raphaelites constitute a tight group of rebels—albeit very well dressed, crusty, upper class Victorian elite rebels. Ruskin, a Renaissance man of endless expertise, was a kind of titular leader and arbiter of art and culture in England, if not Europe, at mid-century when the effects of photography were beginning to be felt.

Pre-Raphaelites and photographers intersected at so many points that the connections seem almost incestuous. Artists like Rossetti believed that they should paint from and in nature, getting the very effects that photography could produce, and exacting details of landscape and dramatic details of personality, dress and features in portraits. They also loved to create illustrative paintings of scenes from poetry, literature, Shakespeare and legend—something photographers like Cameron also did, surprisingly, to much greater effect.

The Pre-Raphs, in a way, rejected the modern and tried to achieve an intense romanticism, especially in their efforts at portraits. Except for a few paintings—Rossetti’s effects in color and Ruskin’s watercolors—the photographers seem almost always to trump the painters. But then the painters had no one of the stature and brilliance of Cameron in their ranks.

“TruthBeauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845-1945,” at the Phillips Collection, is broader in its reach, wider in its geography, and more varied in the work on the walls. In the exhibition, the debate and comparison between photography and painting continues in the realm of photography as a vehicle for great and fine art.

The photographs in this exhibition have a haunting quality. They seem touched by some sort of mist, and it’s that artful, powerful quality that pervades much of the works of the photographers in “TruthBeauty” at the Phillips. There’s an insistence that a photograph is, can, and should be more than just a photograph—a mirror to reality.

Cameron, who may be a guiding, informing spirit, is represented here. But those photographer-artists who came later: Edward Steichen, Gertrude Kasebier, even the modernistic Edward Weston, and the edge-pushing F. Holland Day acknowledge the debt and direction of photography of art. In landscapes and in cityscapes, is there anything more haunting than Steichen’s “Flatiron—Evening”?

Cameron in her portraiture, which seems more like Tolstoyan novels, is more of a painter than the painters. Consider, for instance, Lord Tennyson, the great Victorian of British nationalism and empire, as painted first by George Frederic Watts in somber, beautifully lit fashion. Then look at Cameron’s photo portrait (dubbed “The Dirty Monk”), where you can see some wild, inner restlessness—something of the fanatic in the face. Tennyson, by the way, much preferred “The Dirty Monk.”

Still, nothing quite like Rossetti’s portrait of Jane Morris, the wife of his friend and his paramour, was achieved by the photographers. Here color and details create a miracle of hypnotic beauty.

“TruthBeauty” is rich (120 images) and diverse, a best of the best in many ways, and the Phillips is the last stop on a grand international tour, which was organized by the George Eastman House and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

“TruthBeauty” continues at the Phillips Gallery through January 9. “The Pre-Raphaelite Lens” continues at the National Gallery of Art through January 30. [gallery ids="99565,104793" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Pity the National Portrait Gallery and its director Martin Sullivan.

Weeks after mounting the astoundingly comprehensive, direct and illuminating exhibition “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” both the Gallery and Sullivan got cuffed and buffeted from every direction, proving again that no good deed goes unpunished.

“Hide/Seek” is a good deed, although you’d get some in-your-face debate on that from the Catholic League and House Republican leaders John Boehner and Eric Canto.

The exhibition is a good deed, not in any do-gooder, mealy-mouthed way, but because it is a very good exhibition. Secondly, it took a certain amount of courage to even go forward with the project, especially in the National Portrait Gallery, which isn’t exactly the headquarters for portraits of outsider cultures in America. There is a Hall of Presidents here, but not a Hall of prominent LGBT men and women.

“Hide/Seek” seeks to create a portrait, general and specific, through over 100 paintings, sculptures, photographs and videos, of gay and lesbian culture in America—its iconography, its artists, its style of life both hidden and open. In that sense, it’s a history piece, and it serves comprehensively to fulfill what’s mostly missing in the Gallery: portraits of culturally and artistically prominent gay men and women in America—even if the exhibition is not permanent.

Not only that, but as the title indicates, the exhibition is concerned with how gay men and women managed to articulate their tastes and desires to others in a society which shunned, closeted and punished, legally and otherwise, those differences and desires.

It’s a hefty subject, a hefty title, complicated, subtle and broad at once. Walt Whitman, the literary sage of gay eroticism is here, recognized by the moderns as a kind of rambunctious, but also deflective prophet. Gertrude Stein, Langston Hughes, Anthony Tudor, Carl Van Vechten, Janet Flanner, Marsden Hartley, Djuna Barnes Frank O’Hara, James Baldwin, Jasper Johns and Robert Mapplethorpe, in one form or another, are all significant to gay cultural history. And let’s add Andy Warhol, his self-portrait(s), and his painting of Truman Capote’s shoe.

But the canvas is much broader: a series of photographs in which two men walk on opposite sides of a sidewalk, pass each other, turn around, or men’s clothing advertising, or blues lyrics from Bessie Smith. This is an exhibition not only about notables, but about gay desire in many of its aspects. I would suspect if you had an exhibition made up purely of portraits of famous, notable gay men and women, artists, actors, and so on, nobody would bat an eye. But add the process, the life, the loves, the courtships. Add the word desire, and, well, you’re in trouble. Gay sexuality is precisely the thing that straight people don’t want to deal with, the thing that engenders all the clichés, the horrible jokes, the fears in the military, the secrets held within. They say the heart knows its mind, but so does desire, and both are insistent.

How do you hide in plain sight?

Through fashion, design, self-portraits, by creating great works of art. The exhibition, so varied, so full of riches, is an eye-opener to many, I’m sure, myself included. But it is also rich in terrific paintings, photography and stories.

It warrants more than one visit. Robert Mapplethorpe’s self-portrait, for instance, shows him as his own best subject, never mind the bad sex photos that made for big audiences.

For the Portrait Gallery, this was the third exhibition, each different, each not quite the usual fare in recent months. This is not meant to compare, but the ‘One Life’ exhibition on Post Publisher Katharine Graham, Al Wertheimer’s dramatic portrait of Elvis Presley in 1956, and now “Hide/Seek,” should be a triumphant triptych.

So what happened? For weeks, nothing, until Catholic League president William Donahue discovered a single, four-minute video by the late David Wojnarowicz, which included 11 seconds showing ants crawling over the Crucifix. Donahue called it “hate speech.” Outrage ensued. Boehner, the presumptive Speaker of the House, and whip Eric Cantor lashed out dire warnings and expressions about taxpayers money and the American people. “American families have a right to expect better from recipients of taxpayers’ funds in a tough economy,” Boehner said. There was talking of pressure to close the show itself.

Sullivan in response issued a statement that included, in part: “I regret that some reports about the exhibit have created an impression that the video is intentionally sacrilegious. In fact, the artist’s intention was to depict the suffering of an AIDS victim. It was not the museum’s intention to offend. We have removed the video. I encourage people to visit the exhibition online or in the building.”

More outrage, this time from artists and art critics, some of whom sound like the high priests of DC art, smacking Sullivan for “caving in,” insisting that it was censorship. Small demonstrations erupted and the video was moved to a gallery near Logan Circle. Everybody talked and wrote in maximalist, scorched-earth terms.

We wouldn’t support censorship of any kind either. But I think it’s a little unfair to shower blame on the museum director when the real blame lies with the politicians and religious leaders who want to have the power to censor in the name of the American people. The GOP leaders especially can now say for sure they control the purse strings—not by the way for exhibitions, which are financed by private or corporate sponsors, but for the operations and salaries paid to museum employees.

Nobody is going to fire a critic for insisting on the holiness of artistic expression, even if it is less than holy or downright awful. Easy for us to say.

As it was, Sullivan returned the attention to where it really belongs: to a very fine, fascinating exhibition. Like the man said, go visit the website or the building.

“Hide/Seek” will be at the National Portrait Gallery through February 13, 2011. For more information, visit www.npg.si.edu [gallery ids="99576,104859" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Poor Norman Rockwell. The guy can’t get a break.

Every time there’s a big exhibition of his works — as there is now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum — you can bet your mortgage that someone, somewhere in the art world is going to scream bloody murder.

As in: he’s not a real artist, he’s kitschy, his paintings — most of them originally seen as magazine covers — are too corny, too rosy in their vision of America to be true.

You can debate all of these points to a fare-thee-well and inevitably, the debate starts to betray political views right alongside critical views.

Worst of all for his critics, perhaps, is that Rockwell, in his time, and right up to this moment, continues to remain popular.

Check it out: at almost any time during the week, the exhibition “Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg” is thick with people — young, old, parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, older, for the most part, and white, for the most part. Tourists, for the most part.

There’s a thin line between populist and popular art, of course, and the geography of that line has so many footprints on it as to make it unidentifiable. Rockwell’s work is and always was squarely aimed at the great American working and middle class. It was meant to reflect an American landscape and people-scape that was easily recognizable.

What galls a lot of critics — even as far back as the 1920s — is that Rockwell’s work, excellent though it may be in brush strokes, draftsmanship and technique, straddles the thin line between illustration and art, per se. In the age of abstraction, Rockwell’s work sins again in that it doesn’t push forward, it cuts no edge, there’s nothing revolutionary in his work in terms of boundaries. And in the age of a rapidly changing America so diverse as to be almost unrecognizable, Rockwell’s people and imagery seem almost like a dream instead of having connection to reality.

And yet, here are the people in those rooms, trying to find themselves and a story. Rockwell lingers, like a hanger-on at a party for which he’s improperly dressed, just beyond the buzz, an elderly uncle with a bow tie.

To some critics, Rockwell’s work suggests an absence, a kind of intolerance that characterizes small towns steeped in sentiment, which, to critics of almost any kind of artistic work, is like garlic for a vampire. That kind of criticism, of course, is rife with intolerance itself.

“Norman Rockwell is an artist and a storyteller who captured universal truths about America that tell us a lot about who we are as a people,” said Elizabeth Broun, the Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. That’s probably not entirely accurate — or, at least, it’s a little more complicated than that. Through his illustrations for Look Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post and, much later, his work that embraced the Civil Rights movement, Rockwell engages an ideal wish Americans have for themselves, the wish of the virtuous and bucolic nation where small things are big. Think for a moment about his great Thanksgiving painting — it’s almost THE holiday experience, which no doubt has inspired numerous movies about the holidays from hell as a counterweight. Yet it’s Rockwell’s painting we dream about if we dream.

This exhibition is about Rockwell’s story-telling gifts, and indeed, he had fantasized about wanting to become a director. His story-telling paintings are about what happened before and what happens after: here’s Gary Cooper being made up for a cowboy scene, here’s a sophisticated mom peering into a mirror, her daughter watching her; here’s truck drivers eyeing a blonde with manly admiration; here’s a bulky cop on a soda fountain with counter with a small boy; here’s a little girl on top of the stairs watching a Christmas party; here’s a woman being cajoled and yelled at by her fellow jury members; here’s a baseball rookie arriving at camp.

Here’s a boss, his red-haired secretary, a window-washer. At the exhibition, a mom explained the story to her daughter “He likes her, she likes him, she’s looking at him,” she said. “She’s not paying attention to her work. Maybe she’ll get fired. Maybe she’ll see the window washer outside. Maybe they’ll fall in love, go on a date. Maybe.”

This is what Rockwell does best: invite people into the stories in his paintings, backtrack, fast forward, wonder and speculate. It’s the stuff of the material that Lucas and Spielberg, both movie directors who themselves try not to visit too much the dark side where Darth Vader and post-modernism live.

His covers, illustrations, paintings and works of art may not be everybody’s cup of tea, and the America he portrayed may not include or be everybody’s America. It would indeed be a sad world if it were Rockwell’s world alone. But you can’t help but feel sometimes that we remember the works as real, even if they weren’t. If art is at least in part something that has the power to pull at you and not let go, then that’s art. It cuts through the edge where the heart and memory lies. [gallery ids="99175,103200,103174,103196,103192,103179,103188,103184" nav="thumbs"]