You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘artist’ tag.
Self-Portrait of Theodor de Bry (1597) engraving
Uh, happy Columbus Day…maybe? Some holidays don’t age well, and the Italian-American festival of the European rediscovery (and colonial conquest) of the New World certainly seems to be under exceedingly stern re-evaluation. While other people are working on that project, let’s run away and check out some amazing and also quite problematic exploration-era art of the New World. The Flemish illustrator and engraver Theodor de Bry was born is Spanish controlled Netherlands in 1528. Both his father and his grandfather were engraver/illustrator/jewelers and they taught him the family trade (which he in turn passed down to his own son). Although born a Catholic, the religious controversies and reforms of his time moved de Bry to convert to Protestantism, which caused enormous trouble with the Spanish Inquisition (which was all-powerful in the Netherlands, since the low countries were then a part of Spain). Thus, in 1570, at the tender age of 42, De Bry and his family were permanently exiled from Spanish-controlled Liege, and all of his possessions were confiscated by the state/church.
A refugee, De Bry moved first to moved to Strasbourg. Then in 1577, he moved to Antwerp (which was then part of the Duchy of Brabant). Between 1585 and 1588 he lived in London, and then in 1588, De Bry and his family moved permanently to Frankfurt. To make ends meet, he illustrated books concerning the exploration and geography of the New World. If you reread the history of De Bry’s desperate scramble around Northern Europe, you may note that American destinations are notably lacking. His famous engravings of the New World, which influenced a generation of rulers, thinkers, explorers, and artists were made by someone who never set eyes upon the New World.
The Coast of Virginia (Theodor de Bry, ca. 1585-1586) engraving
All of this sounds pretty unpromising from a photojournalism perspective, and, indeed, De Bry’s works were criticized even in his time for inaccuracies. The indigenous people all look a bit like naked Walloon peasants (except perhaps for the most exotic tribes–who look perhaps slightly Mediterranean with some Native American bangles and props). The new world forts and seedling colonies are portrayed as though they were erected in a Baroque nobleman’s parterre garden. Also there are more frolicksome naiads, random Greek gods, and mysterious mythological beasts like sea serpents, dragons, and capricorns than was perhaps literally accurate.
Engraving of Columbus, the discoverer of the New World (Theodor de Bry, 1594)
Yet, despite, this (or maybe because of this) De Bry’s illustrations strike me as exquisite works of art. They pack enormous amounts of complicated yet comprehensible visual information into tiny narrative/didactic frames. De Bry did carefully read the primary source accounts of adventurers, natural historians, and other New World-involved folk. He collected artworks and studied curios and ethnological objects. Additionally, if you look closely at De Bry’s personal history, you may find reasons for him to dislike the Spanish masters of the Americas. I suspect if you look at the seething anti-European anti-Western diatribes of the internet today, you would be hard-pressed to find descriptions more lurid and anti-Spanish then some of De Bry’s works. The Spanish may frequently be the protagonists, but the cruel lords clad in velvet and armor are not exactly heroes, even as they travel through exoticized realms of peculiar cruelty and mayhem designed…to sell books.
For, as much as he was a pioneer of imagery of the Americas, De Bry was a pioneer of new media. Just as the internet has unleashed a torrent of exciting new ideas, robust philosophies, incomprehensible imagery, lies, half-truths, and heartfelt personal convictions upon an unexpecting world, the first great blossoming of the printing press in the 16th century saw a similar boom (upon societies even less equipped to handle this information than we are equipped to make sense of the info overload of today). I can’t tell you what to make of De Bry. Much of his work is more disturbing and more problematic than what I have included here. But I feel like it is all visual treasure which you should seek out (if you have a strong stomach). Of all the artworks about the mad crash of civilizations when America and Europe came together, his work burns brightest in my mind’s eye.
Their danses vvhich they vse att their hyghe feastes (De Bry, 1590) Engraving
Disturbing news from the world of workplace safety. Gillian Genser, a 59-year-old Canadian sculptor, has been suffering from worsening pain, splitting headaches, and nausea for nearly a decade and a half. She visited a range of specialized neurologists and endocrinologists, but none of them could pinpoint the nature of her malady which grew worse to the point that she was immobilized and suffered complete loss of hearing in one ear. She was unable to distinguish up from down, forgot the names and faces of people, she knew her whole life, and discovered herself wandering the streets for no reason shouting profanities. The doctors suspected heavy-metal poisoning, but Genser vehemently insisted that her materials were all natural.
If you are an artist yourself, you are probably shouting—but this is clearly heavy metal poisoning! And you are right: Genser finally was diagnosed with acute arsenic and lead poisoning after one of her physicians insisted on a blood test. Yet Genser was not a painter (like me, sigh) nor did she cast in metals or use exotic glazes and stains. Her only materials were silver and mussel shells which she polished agonizingly by hand.
She obtained the blue mussels from a market in Toronto’s Chinatown and ate the mollusks with friends. She then used the shells for her larger than life anatomical sculpture of Adam, the mythical first human from the Abrahamic faiths. Sadly, whoever was providing the shellfish was obtaining them from water which was heavily polluted. Mussels store metals in their shells, and Genser’s polishing, sanding, and shaping freed the trapped pollutants into dust which she inhaled (although eating 3 meals a week of mussel flesh probably didn’t help either). The story is even more troubling when one reflects that blue mussels are an Atlantic shellfish and Toronto is at least 800 kilometers (500 miles) from the waves.
Hey! Has anyone noticed that Toronto is apparently right next to New York State? Where were these mussels from anyway?
The moral here in not “don’t be an artist” or “don’t eat mussels” (although, come to think of it, those are extremely plausible lessons). Instead everyone needs to be careful in the modern world to watch out for hazardous materials which proliferate in unexpected ways from novel sources. Of course, this is hardly a soothing message since most of us are not chemists (much less endocrinologists) and it looks like even those experts can’t always see where problems are coming from. Maybe the real lesson is that humankind’s vast numbers and sophisticated industrial society are fundamentally inimical to the web of life which sustains us. Actually, that is an even less comfortable message…but, well, I am not a politician here to sooth you with lies. We have learned how to protect ourselves from the natural world. Now we are going to have to learn (quickly) how to protect the natural world from ourselves.
Anyway, let’s take a look at the sculpture that caused such suffering for Genser (see the photos above from the artist). It looks like the metal-poisoning started to fundamentally work its way into the sculpture itself—in terms of conception, execution, AND material (obviously). Yet there is something oddly appropriate about the subject matter (Adam’s choices, after all, are a metaphor for humankind’s great metamorphosis from hunter-gathering beings to civilization-building farmers and crafters). The dark armless statue with the alien face and the black glistening muscles and nacreous organs, seems to be a sort of manifestation of heavy metal poisoning. The whole 15 year project has inadvertently become a performance piece about the pain of the world (just think of those poor mussels which can’t even move to escape their poisoned home waters). I hope that the short-lived media burst helps Genser’s career, but I also hope she switches media as soon as possible. While we are making wishes, let’s express some really heartfelt aspirations to be better stewards of the oceans. They are the cradle of life…yet they are being sadly abused.
For many years I studied at the Art Students League of New York, a storied yet inexpensive atelier-style art school/collective which accounts about half to ¾ of all eminent American artists as members, pupils, or instructors at one point or another. I would work all day as a stupid flunky at a bank and then go to the League and paint for three and a half hours every night. At the Art Students League, one could find every sort of artist from around the world, from international art superstars to first time hobbyists. I mostly studied with the great portrait painter Ron Scherr who drew young luminaries of contemporary realism to him like a man casting loafs of bread in Union Square park draws pigeons. There were many gifted Scherr students whose works and careers I need to highlight, but arguably the most gifted draftsperson was my friend Mark Kevin Gonzales, a chess player who grew up in Brooklyn (the rest of us just moved here to make it in the arts) and went to the famous Brooklyn Technical high School.
Since Mark is a native New Yorker, his artwork highlights life in the city, and these particular artworks highlight the animal life of the city, our famous rock pigeons (Columba livia) which throng the city’s parks and statues. Indeed they are famous urbanites around the world. The watercolor painting at the top highlights Mark’s mastery of form shading and color. The pigeon has been rendered in swift staccato strokes of watercolor (a famously unforgiving media) yet because of his masterful brushwork, the piece has an illusion of three dimensional form and conveys the impression of details which aren’t actually there. A master’s secret is that if you can get the first few lines exactly right, you don’t have to agonize over a bunch of fussy little lines (but…oh let’s not talk about the years and years of practice necessary to get those big flat shapes to come out exactly right with the flick of a wrist). The pigeons feathers seem to glisten with shimmering iridescence which is upon close inspection revealed to be a simple wash of viridian. Its lively eye and cocked head makes the viewer think that the bird is observing the observer from beyond this little square of paper. I suspect the bird really was observing Mark closely in whatever park he painted this (the poor pigeon probably though he was being sized up by a big weird cat as Mark crouched at his traveling easel).
The second painting is even more of a quick sketch…but it is also more of a celebration (and a political piece). This pigeon is strutting his stuff as joyous 4th of July fireworks go off in the background. Notice how the pyrotechnics have colored the urban bird red white and blue. Rock Pigeons are not originally from the new world (neither are Mark’s black and Philippine ancestors, come to think of it) but they have moved here to New York and lived here successfully for generations and they have a greater claim to being native New Yorkers than just about anybody. It is good to see the patriotic national colors fitted out for an existence which is completely urbanized and it is so good to see some of Mark’s playful small works (he usually works in exquisitely rendered large format portrait painting). You should check out his amazing work in Drawing Magazine or at his website, or just take a gander at his astonishingly lovely drawings and paintings on Instagram…Oh and tell him what a gifted artist he is: he certainly already knows, but it is always still good to hear.
I am still thinking about Lady Xia’s pet gibbon, the first and last known representative of its kind, and the subject of yesterday’s post. After I wrote about the interwoven fates of rice and trees and men and apes, I spent a long time looking through Ferrebeekeeper archives for the beautiful gibbon poem which I alluded to in the essay, but I came to realize that I never did write about it, so today’s post is another post about pet gibbons in ancient China. Bear with me, for the poem is an exquisite piece of history, and a remarkably soulful examination of pets…and of the winsome sadness of life itself.
The poem was written by Wen Tong (1019–1079AD), a scholar-artist of the Northern Song Dynasty who was famous for his bamboo paintings. Allegedly he could simultaneously paint different stalks of bamboo with both hands, and lovely examples of his work are still extant a thousand years after he painted them…as is poetry about his favorite pet (As an aside, medieval China featured a class of learned polymaths who were masters of writing, erudition, gardening, and “painting without financial reward”: there is no clear career analogy in the modern western world although the painting without financial reward part sounds rather familiar).
Wen Tong wrote about his love and admiration for his pet, and the poem quietly reveals a great deal about the household mores and emotional norms of well-to-do life in the Northern Song dynasty (note how the painter has so many retainers that he just passingly assigns one to look after the gibbon). It is a lovely and heartfelt window into a vanished world which is well worth examining line by line. As a poetic device, the back-and-forth switches from first person to second person keeps readers attentively off balance and yet draws them closer to both Wen Tong and his gibbon. Although, the writer’s privilege and possessiveness shine through, so does his kindness, playfulness and curiosity (perhaps there is a reason he got on so well with his remarkable pet that we are still thinking about it all of these centuries later). However, the final stanzas transcend the writer’s time and place. The poem speaks to the uneasy and fraught relationship we have with our fellow life-forms. For animals have their own lives and hearts and spirits, no matter how much we want to love and possess them. Wen Tong also delves into the realm of the existential, questioning the apparently painful randomness of fate, which mocks notions of ownership and control.
Don’t let my clumsy words put you off reading the actual poem (coincidentally I have taken the whole translated work from “Altruistic Armadillos, Zenlike Zebras: Understanding the World’s Most Intriguing Animals” By Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson). It really moved me greatly and I hope you will also find it to be equally enchanting and sad.
it really is extraordinary and I think it will move you
Last year a Buddhist Monk of Hua-p’ing, in the Min mountains,
Obtained a gibbon for me and had it delivered from afar.
On arrival he was already tame and accustomed to captivity,
And his swift and nimble movements were a delight to watch.
He would come and go as told, as if he understood my speech
And seemed to have lost all desire to return to his mountains.
Put on a leash he was not interesting to watch,
So I set him free and let him romp about as much as he liked.
On a moonlit night, he would sing, swinging from a branch,
On hot days he would sit by the flowers and doze facing the sun.
When my children were around or my guests showed their interest,
He would hang upside down or jump about showing his tricks.
I had told a man to look after all his needs,
So that he never even once lacked his seasonal food and drink.
Yet the other day his keeper suddenly told me the gibbon was ill.
He stood on my steps, the gibbon in his arms, and I went to look,
Offered him persimmons and chestnuts, but he didn’t glance at them.
Legs drawn up, head between his knees, hunched up with folded arms,
His fur ruffled and dull, all at once his body seemed to have shrunk,
And I realized that this time he was really in great distress.
Formerly you were also subject to occasional slight indispositions,
But then after I had fed you a few spiders as a remedy,
After having swallowed them you would recover at once.
Why did the medicine fail now, though given several times?
This morning when a frosty wind was chilling me to the bone,
Very early I sent someone to inquire, and he reported you had died.
Although in this world it is hard to avoid grief and sadness,
I was tormented by repentance and bitter self-reproach.
You could be happy only when near your towering mountains.
You had been yearning for far plains and dense forests.
You must have suffered deeply being on a leash or chain,
And that was why your allotted span of life was short.
I had his body wrapped up well and buried deep in a secluded corner,
So that at least the insects would leave his remains in peace.
Mr. Tzu-p’ing, my western neighbor, a man of very wide interests,
When he heard about this, slapped his thigh sighing without end.
He came to inquire several times, in deep sorrow over my loss,
Then, back home, he wrote a long poem of over a hundred words.
Reading those lines my lonely heart was filled with sadness.
Well had he expressed the grief caused by my gibbon’s death!
He also tried to console me by referring to life’s natural course, “That
Meetings result in partings, subject to the whims of fate.”
I took his poem out into the garden, read and reread it
—
Then, looking up at the bare branches, I burst out in tears.
Hey everyone, my amazing new roommate works at an art gallery in the city’s hottest art district, the Lower East Side. The famous gallerist who runs the place has embarked on an artistic quest…to Tanzania, but she has generously allowed me to use the space for an evening. I hope you will accept my invitation (above) to a show of my flounder artworks which explore the big-fish-eats-little-fish dialectic of history against a backdrop of larger biological themes.
Because of time constraints, the opening IS the show–we are like a beautiful exotic mushroom which pops-up for a single glorious night–but during that one night there will be glowing multi-media delights to satisfy all aesthetic longings! Since you read this blog, I know you have the most refined and intelligent tastes: I hope you can join me then and there.
Self Portrait with Sculpture, Marisol, 1965
Sad news from the art world: Marisol Escobar (who went by the single name “Marisol”) died on April 30, 2016 at the age of 86. Marisol was one of my favorite living sculptors. She turned away from minimalism and conceptualism (the emotionally and intellectually empty aesthetic forms which monopolize contemporary art) and built her own powerful visual idiom. By mixing ancient and modern forms (and joyously combining 3 dimensional sculpture with 2 dimensional painting), Marisol created astonishing portrait sculptures which capture the humor, heroism, and conflicted self-identity of America in the sixties and seventies.
Women and Dog (Marisol, 1964, wood, paint, mixed media)
Although she is loosely affiliated with the Pop movement, Marisol based her sculptures on Pre-Columbian sculptural forms. Her sculptures of people are like a combination of giant ancient sarcophagi, wooden toys, and folk painting. The rude forms are sometimes grotesque—but they capture true emotional intensity…and real humor (so much a part of life, but so infrequently seen in fine art).
Dinner Date (Marisol, 1963. wood, paint, mixed media)
Just as three-dimensional objects have many sides: Marisol’s wooden people present different aspects of their identity from different angles—to such a degree that they have multiple faces or too many arms. This multitudinous bricolage of overlapping identities was second nature to Marisol, a French Venezuelan who moved to Los Angeles as a teen ager. She was deeply involved in the private asceticism of Catholicism, yet she was also overexposed sixties celebrity in New York’s libertine art world.
“Mi Mama y Yo” (Marisol, 1968, mixed media).
Her works often portray celebrities du jour—and the multitudinous juxtaposed iconography of the portraits gives insight into the strange stagecraft of fame. In the portrait of John Wayne below, the famous actor has been grafted, centaur-like, to his horse. Multiple blockish hands reach for multiple fake guns. Only the solemn politician’s face and the quotidian cowboy boots seem real. The cartoonish formulaic aspects of Hollywood oat operas is combined with larger-than-life western iconography, which is combined with a real man. The synthesis provides a surprisingly realistic and sympathetic portrait of the actor.
John Wayne (Marisol, 1963, wood, paint, mixed media)
A famous anecdote about Marisol concerns her taking part in a panel discussion with four famous male artists. She arrived wearing a white mask which she kept on during the discussion. Marisol was a famous beauty and the crowd began to chant for her to remove the mask. When the hullabaloo drowned out the conversation, she untied the mask…only to reveal that her face was made up exactly the same way.
Her shyness and unease at the performative spectacle that is identity gave her unique ability to discern and portray the multiple faces–greedy, solemn, sly, sad, and laughing aloud–which we all wear.
Chartreuse Cloud Monster (Wayne Ferrebee, 2016, cardboard and paint)
Hypothetically, sometimes, at one’s day job one has a pushy colleague who loudly demands things and stridently lobbies for oh say…all new office furniture. It is a conundrum whether to simply bow to the wishes of the assertive colleague who demands a credenza from the internet, or whether one should go to one’s superiors and assess whether this is the right use for the office credit card. One could potentially be caught between bickering superiors fighting over a cheap credenza. Hypothetically.
In unrelated news, office credenzas come packed in extremely heavy cardboard boxes. This cardboard seemed perfect for building something, so instead of throwing it into a landfill, I cut it out and brought it home to build into strange new life (thereby erasing any unpleasant office politics which may or may not have been involved in its acquisition).
Tawny Elder Monster (Wayne Ferrebee, 2016, cardboard and paint)
Last year I crafted a three-dimensional anglerfish/horse type monster in bright fluorescent colors to go with the blooming cherry tree. This year I decided to build three ambiguously shaped blossom monsters out of the heavy cardboard from some, uh, office furniture. The first monster (chartreuse, at the top), was meant to represent the life giving power of spring clouds. He is a cloud creature squirming with tadpoles–or maybe Yin/Yang spirit energy…however the guests at my party thought he was a three eyed camel with sperm on him (which I guess is also true, from a certain point of view). I wonder if Henry Moore had to deal with this sort of rough-and-ready interpretation of his abstract sculptures.
The second statue, which may be the best, is an orange figurine somewhere between a wise bird and a tribal warrior. It has the cleanest lines and the best paint job and it is only marred by a slight tendency to curl up (there is always something! Especially if one is dealing with cardboard sculpture).
Pink Sphinx Figure(s?) (Wayne Ferrebee, 2016, cardboard and paint)
Finally I made a sort of pink octopus/sphinx with a glowing pink interior. Again one friend looked at it and said “It’s a Pierson’s puppeteer!” (this being a meddlesome three-footed, two-headed extraterrestrial super-being from Larry Niven science fiction novels).
Another friend looked at it and said “Why is it so explicit? I can’t believe you would show such violent erotic ravishment at your cherry festival!”
So, I guess my blossom monsters are more evocative and more ambiguous than I meant for them to be (I was sort of thinking of them as a cross between Dr. Seuss and African carvings). Please let me know what you think! Oh and here is a colored pencil drawing of the orange one cavorting beneath the cherry tree!
Blooming Cherry Tree (Wayne Ferrebee, 2016, colored pencil and ink)
The competition between Marsyas and Apollo on a Roman sarcophagus (290–300) marble
The aulos was a woodwind instrument of classical antiquity. The word is sometimes mis-translated as “double flute” but the instrument was not a flute, instead it had reeds–like an oboe or a clarinet. In classical mythology, the aulos was invented by Athena, the glorious goddess of wisdom and favorite child of Zeus. The first aulos made beautiful music, but it caused the goddess’ cheeks to puff out–which was at odds with her dignified self-image and caused the other gods to laugh. In disgust she hurled the instrument down into the mortal world where it was found by the satyr Marsyas who picked it up and began to play melodies never heard before. Marsyas became the first great aulos master. He wandered through forests and fields on his two hooves playing the pipes in celebration of the pastoral and sylvan beauty he observed.
Apollo and Marsyas (John Melhuish Strudwick, 1879, oil on canvas)
One day, Marsyas saw the radiant god Apollo playing his lyre (which, in Greco-Roman society, was the instrument of the aristocracy). Lord Apollo was clad in the costliest raiment and equipped with the finest gold trappings. He was inhumanly beautiful…dangerously beautiful. Marsyas was overwhelmed: he was a crude goat-man, and Apollo was the god of music (and sunshine, and medicine, and prophecy). At this juncture, Marsyas made a fateful choice–he decided to challenge glorious Apollo to a musical contest. The winner would be able to “do whatever he wanted” with the loser. Marsyas, a satyr (synonymous, in the classical world, with lust) thus imagined that he would “win” or “be won” no matter which way the the competition worked out.
Apollo and Marsyas (Pietro Perugino, late 15th century)
Apollo grew oddly enflamed by the challenge and agreed readily–with one stipulation of his own. The muses, the goddesesses of art, would judge the event. Now the muses were daughters of Apollo, both figuratively and literally. To a disinterested observer the arrangement might smack dangerously of favoritism, but Marsyas was blinded by longing and besotted by hist art.
Apollo and Marsyas (Hans Thoma, 1888, oil on canvas)
The two musicians set up beside a river and began to play. Apollo played a complicated piece about laws and lords and kings. It sparkled like sunshine. It grew oppressively magnificent like the great gods of high Olympus. It ended like glittering starlight in the cold heavens. Next Marsyas played and his music was completely different–it spoke to the longing of the weary herdsman coming home at sundown. It was about the mist rising from furrowed farmlands, about fruit trees budding in the orchard, and about the soft places where the meadows run out into the rivers.
Contest of Apollo and Marsyas, 350-320 BC from Mantineia. Part of the Base of a Sculpture,
The muses listened closely to the music and made their choice. “These pieces are played by opposite beings on dissimilar instruments. The works have completely different subjects, but both pieces are perfect. Neither is clearly “better” than the other.” Sublime music had won the contest!
The Contest between Apollo and Marsyas (Tintoretto, About 1545
Oil on canvas)
But Apollo was not satisfied. There are two versions of the story: in one he turned his lyre upside down and played it as well as ever (Marsyas, of course, could not do the same with the aulos). In the other version, Apollo played the lyre and sang (also impossible with the aulos). “I have two arts, whereas Marsyas has only one!” he proclaimed. The muses halfheartedly assented: Apollo had officially won the contest.
Apollo flaying Marsyas (Luca Giordano, 17th century, oil on canvas))
This was the moment Marsyas had planned for. He was shaking with excitement as Apollo took hold of his unresisting form and shackled him to a tree. Then Apollo picked up a skinning knife and started flaying the saty’s skin off. Marsyas screamed and bleated in horror and pain, but Apollo kept cutting and peeling until he had removed the satyr’s entire hide. Then the lord of music sat and watched while Marsyas bled to death, before hanging up the horrible dripping pelt in the tree and departing. Vergil avers that the blood of Marsyas stained the river everlastingly red–indeed the waterway was thereafter named the Marsyas.
Apollo and Marsyas (Bartolomeo Manfredi, ca. 1615-1620, oil on canvas)
The artistic thing to do, would be to leave the story as it stands–to let readers mull the troubling tale on their own. However I have been thinking about it a great deal…Every artist thinks about it a great deal. Museums are filled with interpretations of the story by history’s greatest painters and sculptors. There was a version of Apollo and Marsyas painted on the ceiling of the Queen of France (in that version, the skinning is done by underlings as Apollo languidly points out how he wants things done). Since I have seen plenty of museum-goers blanch when looking at pictures of Marsyas and hastily turn away, I will provide some ready made meta-interpretations to start the conversation.
Apollo and Marsyas from the ceiling of Anne of Austria’s summer apartments (Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, ca. mid 17th century, fresco)
First, this story is a tale of masters and servants. The lyre is the instrument of the rich. It was expensive to own and required tutors to learn. The aulos was the instrument of shepherds, smallfolk, and slaves. The tale of exploitation is a very familiar one throughout all of history. It always goes one way: somebody gets fleeced.
The Flaying of Marsyas (Titian, ca.1570-76, oil on canvas)
Also this is self-evidently a tale of forbidden sexuality. It was immensely popular with Renaissance, Baroque, and Victorian artists from the west because of the opressive mores of society. By presenting this story as a classically varsnished picture, people could represent forbidden ideas about same-gender relationships which society would literally kill them for saying or acting upon. Indeed the story’s ghastly climax represents exactly that!
Apollo and Marsyas (Giuseppe Cammarano, 19th century, ink wash)
In a related vein, philosophers and writers interpret the story as “reason chastening lust.” The former is more powerful than the latter: ultimately the mind subjugates the passions. Perhaps this is why the picture was above the queen’s bed–maybe the king commanded that it be painted there. Yet the reason of Apollo does not strike me as at all reasonable. If this is what rationality accomplishes, then reason is monstrous (and it often seems so in the affairs of men). I wish I could sit with Jeremy Bentham and talk about this. Utility and pragmatism oft seem as ruthless as cruel Apollo.
Apollo and Marsyas (Anselmi, 1540, oil on canvas)
It is also a tale of artists and their audiences (and their art). Marsyas does not clearly lose the contest. His music is as beautiful as that of Apollo–maybe better. However the game was rigged from the start. Art is a mountain with infinite facets but the sun of fashion only shines on a few at a time. The greatest artists are not necessarily appreciated or loved. I can’t imagine a single artist who painted this story imagined themselves as Apollo. Unless you have personally rigged the game with money and power, it will not benefit you. You must prepare for operatic destruction at the hands of the world. It is a terrible part of art. The world’s inability to discern true worth is one of life’s most disappointing aspects.
Marsyas Flayed by the Order of Apollo (Charles André van Loo, 1735, oil on canvas)
Above all, it is a story of gods and mortals. For daring to step on the field with the divine, mortality is punished with the ultimate penalty–mortality. I don’t believe in gods or divinity (people who literally believe in such things strike me as dangerous lunatics). Divinity is a myth–but an important one which informs us concerning humankind’s ultimate purpose and methods. We have strayed into vasty realms. I’ll come back to this theme later but for now let’s say that the defeat of Marsyas reveals something. Would you prefer if he just gave up and groveled before Apollo? No, there would be no story, no striving, no art. There is a divine seed within his failure–a spark of the celestial fire which animates (or should animate) our lives.
Marsyas Flayed by the Order of Apollo (Charles André van Loo, ca. 1734-1735, oil on canvas)
Anyway, for putting up with this rather horrible week I have a Halloween treat for you tomorrow. Remember, I am not just a moral and aesthetic philosopher but a troubled toymaker (and a lost artist) as well. Happy Halloween!
I had two artistic New Year’s resolutions. The first was to create a lot more art…and that I have done! The second was to get better at showing and marketing—to master the shiny outward trappings of being an artist…and there I have not done quite so well. So today’s post is a…well, it’s a lifestyle post (sigh). Let me explain: sometimes it seems like contemporary art is more about puffy biography than about the actual art itself. It causes me to grind my teeth in frustration when I see whole articles about where artists live and the cool things they do with their spare time—which then wholly gloss over the content of their work.
Then it sort of occurred to me that…title insurance and medieval history aside, I actually live in the bustling heart of Brooklyn and I have a wide group of amazing and particular creative friends. Maybe I AM one of these Brooklyn bohemians who everyone is always celebrating and deploring. So I decided to show you the sketches from my little book from over the long weekend!
Twilight Bed-Stuy Before the Parade (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, color pencil and ink)
On Sunday night, my friends who are amazing lingerie designers from Puerto Rico (in addition to being gifted expressionists) invited me to their party in Bed Stuy. It was a delightful fete with Slovenian computer geniuses, all sorts of sundry models, tart-tongued Irish folk, and Japanese film producers! Additionally, it was on a high terrace overlooking the street, so I got to watch Afro-Caribbean bikers doing wheelies down the street and see people getting ready for the West Indies Day parade. Above is the color pencil sketch of Marcus Garvey Avenue—you can see a Caribbean flag vendor there in the corner (the actual vendor was sort of balled up like a spider—but his colorful flags were very noticeable).
Sachiko (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, color pencil)
Unfortunately I am not as breathlessly cool and bonelessly insouciant as the artists in the “New York Times” and “Art in America”…so when I finished sketching and went to have a well-deserved black olive, I knocked the entire bowl of olives off the table and down a fellow guest’s back. Vasari never talks about these awkward moments…Fortunately the victim of my fumbling was a convivial person who asked if I could sketch her grinning rapidly moving friend. Such a circumstance is never ideal, but I think I did fairly well (although I failed to notice the teddy bear with a horrifying skull-face on her blouse until after I had drawn her.
Sketch of Coney Island (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, color pencil)
On Labor Day I rode my bike over to Coney Island and sketched some fellow beach goers before taking a dip in the green brine. I didn’t want to make people feel (more) self-conscious at the beach (nor did I want to get beaten up by Russian girls for staring at them) so my beach-goers are sketchy composites. I did get the color of the water and the annoying banality of the sky banner down (not to mention a pretty accurate drawing of, um, the Staten Island coast).
The frustrating thing is that Ferrebeekeeper’s readership is much more sophisticated than the characters who pretend to read the New York Times, so my readers will undoubtedly recognize this article as a bunch of fluff to introduce my weekend drawings. However this awkward little essay does begin to hint at how much I love New York. The popular image of Brooklyn as a trust-fund paradise, fails to do justice to the real Brooklyn I know–of striving entrepreneurs, crazy visionaries, immigrants, writers, and, yes, artists.
Oh! As always I would love to have your feedback!
A crane-type construction vehicle
In addition to writing your favorite blog (:)) I am also a toymaker with a leather apron, a droopy mustache, and the desire to build impossible wonders to delight and amaze the world. Way back in 2011, I put up pictures from my upcoming book “Things that Go: Green & Groovy” which was a guide for building amazing toy vehicles out of common household rubbish, wooden wheels, and craft paint. Some of the vehicles were really cool! I turned common garbage into nifty-looking vehicles…albeit ones which did not run on their own (I was sort of like Fiat or Kia).
A missile cruiser!
Alas! As usual, my creativity was no match for the sinister vagaries of the world economy. There were sourcing/pricing problems in China, regulatory fights, and goodness only knows what other sorts of business headaches for my poor publisher. The publisher had hoped to alloy the positive aspects of the toy business together with the uplifting aspects of book publishing (toys are sold directly to retailers, whereas books, nightmarishly, are sold by consignment). Her good intentions were thwarted at every turn and she learned directly about the anti-competitive forces the large toy companies utilize to prevent products from small companies from ever reaching market (something I learned about when I made “Zoomorphs”). All of this happened during the great crisis in the world of publishing. Gosh!
A planetary space base!
Anyway, what this means is my cool book has still not made it to the shelves. This strikes me as particularly ironic, since I was continually goaded to build faster—and I turned out all of the many, many toy vehicles at a staggering pace. I thought I would share a few more of these vehicles with you here on my blog so that at least somebody gets to enjoy them! Also to build buzz I guess?
forklift
Maybe the vehicle book will happen someday, but in the mean time I have other toy projects…and other writing projects…and other art projects. Keep watching this space to see those projects–they are going to be amazing! Also let me know if you need any directions on how to build a miniature cardboard wheelbarrow before the book launches in sometime in the unknowable world of the far future.
wheelbarrow
ferrebeekeeper 