I Have To Choose Just One?

From hundreds of much-loved works by a score or more of artists I most admire, I have to choose just one? Okay then: 'Woman Reclining On A Sofa ' by Suzanne Valadon (Paris, 1917).  A favourite painting. 

Ask me again in a month's time and you'd possibly get a different answer, but it wasn't a random selection. It was almost certainly bound to be a picture by a post-impressionist of the French school, and I figured (as we've recently marked International Women's Day) why not give some much-deserved exposure to the work of a female artist who was creating masterpieces (or mistresspieces) in what was a very male-dominated Montmartre milieu from the 1880s to the 1930s? And Suzanne Valadon's story is a fascinating one.

Woman Reclining On A Sofa by Suzanne Valadon, 1917

She was born out of wedlock to a sewing maid in Limoges (central France) in 1865 and was christened Marie-Clémentine Valadon. She never knew who her father was and was raised a single child by a single parent. Her mother relocated them to the capital at the time of the Paris Commune, looking for work, and they found lodgings in Montmartre which was then still almost a country village on a hill within the city, with its green spaces, windmills and farmyards. More significantly it was becoming the low-rent haven for a growing coterie of artists. and Valadon was to live in bohemian Montmartre for most of her life.

She was a pretty and a precocious child, but that childhood was short-lived. She left school aged eleven to earn a wage, as times were hard, and was apprenticed to a milliner, where she excelled at embroidery and creating imaginative decorations for hats. She also worked part-time as a waitress and in her free time loved to hang out at the cafes and clubs in Montmartre where, with her vivacious manner and good looks, she was soon taken up by the community of artists.

Although she claimed she had been drawing since the age of nine, Valadon's first serious involvement with the artistic way of life was as a model. By the time she was fifteen, she was in regular demand, posing for Henner, Puvis de Chavanne, Renoir, Steinlen and Toulouse-Lautrec (who suggested she take the name 'Suzanne') among others. Several of the men who painted her also became her lovers and she was still only seventeen when she became pregnant, unsure of who the father was. Following in her own mother's footsteps, she became a single parent when her son Maurice (Utrillo, later a famous painter himself) was born. While grandmother looked after the new-born, Valadon continued to earn her living as a life model and began her first serious steps towards forging an artistic identity of her own.

Over the course of a decade from 1883 to 1893 Suzanne (as she'd taken to calling herself) drew copiously in charcoal and pastel, using her mother, her son, friends and the locale as her subjects and learning by watching the techniques of the men who painted her. As her talents blossomed she began to paint in oils and it wasn't long before her work came to the attention of Edgar Degas, who bought some of her paintings, and who paved the way for her to exhibit her canvases at the National Salon in 1894. She had arrived, and her career as an effectively self-taught artist was underway, albeit with precarious finances.

In 1896 she married "a man of means" and that finally gave her the stability to devote herself full-time to painting: nudes (mostly women), cats (if you like cats, do check them out online), portraits of friends, still life compositions, the pastoral beauty still in evidence around Montmartre village prior to World War I. Her work became increasingly vibrant and colourful, and totally original, even anticipating the coming trends of Fauvism and Expressionism.

Alongside all of this, she taught her son to paint and then fell in love with one of his artist friends, twenty years her junior. She divorced her husband in 1909 and moved in with Utter who encouraged and inspired her to take her painting to another level. Her first solo exhibition followed in 1911, she appointed a dealer to sell her works and over the next twenty years she became one of the most eminent painters of the early 20th century, working from her atelier up on the Butte of Montmartre.

Suzanne Valadon in her studio

Although she continued to draw in crayon and pastel, it was her colourful oil paintings, a variety of still-life compositions, self-portraits, portraits of friends, more cats and a series of stunning female nudes which deservedly stand as her legacy, to my eyes one of the very greatest of post-impressionist painters and possibly the greatest female artist of her generation.

I could have opted for any one of those painting from her most prolific period but I chose 'Woman Reclining On A Sofa ' because its subject-matter, classical composition and relaxed, assured execution seem to epitomise both Suzanne Valadon's aesthetic and her achievement. As she stated near the end of her career in the 1930s: "I have had some great teachers, and I have got the best out of them, in terms of both teaching and example. I have found myself, I made myself what I am, and I think I have said [through my art ] what I had to say."

Here's the latest poem. It might require a tweak or two but I hope it serves as a fitting tribute...  

Not One To Be Painted Into A Corner

You were still Marie-Clémentine then, your vivacious

teenage blush seducing half the moth-eyed painters

in Montmartre to your flame. Everybody burned daily.

You have to be hard on yourself  you'd said, reclining

voluptuously after sinking a glass of rough red wine,

willing to be bedded by those for whom you'd posed.

Be honest, look yourself in the face you'd declared as

you'd bared body and soul, and get rid of any surplus

of hatred or excessive love. And wasn't it Lautrec then

who nick-named you Suzanne (as in 'and the Elders')?

You seized it as a sign to pick up charcoal and brushes

and armed with what you'd gleaned of their technique

proceeded to paint yourself out of the corner labelled 

a woman's place, escaped its shadows. Nowadays you

would be wearing a 'No Retreat, No Surrender' t-shirt!

Thanks for reading, have a good week. S ;-)

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In 1956 Mrs Reidy Wanted To Become A Hairdresser

To choose a favourite painting has been a bit of a challenge. I’ve always been creative and appreciated art but I’m afraid I’m more of a "I know what I like" sort of critic, rather than one with any expert knowledge. I’m ashamed to say that my A level art history lessons were spent messing about at the back, laughing with friends and flicking things at the teacher.

When I followed school with art college I really wasn’t much better. Lots of chatting, far too much giggling - all those marvellous paintings going right over my head….. I went into Graphic Design and didn’t take much notice of paintings for the next thirty years.

Since becoming involved in the local art scene, surrounded by arty friends and family, I've become more interested in contemporary art. I’m intrigued by the work produced, and find myself wondering what inspired it and where the ideas come from to produce the actual piece. I wouldn’t know where to start.

I’ve been moved to buy an original art work only once. It was by a local artist who was producing a series of paintings of chairs from photos sent to her. I emailed her a picture of a favourite chair, she painted it, I loved it and I bought it. So I suppose you could say that’s one of my favourite paintings.

Then there are the torn scraps of paper adorned with children’s and grandchildren’s paintings which I just can’t bear to throw away: smudges and splashes of paint, unidentifiable objects and people, but all done with purpose - I can still see those little faces, full of concentration - and often just as covered in paint as the paper.

A few weeks before I was fifty my husband told me he wanted to try out his school camera. I remember thinking it was slightly odd, as I was the photographer, he never bothered. He took a couple of close ups of my face and seemed satisfied with the results. I didn’t give it another thought until I was presented with a large framed canvas on my birthday, my own face staring back at me. 

It’s not a true likeness but it’s undoubtedly me, and made all the more special by the thought behind it and the effort that went into it. Another favourite.

However, after a lot of thought, I think my all time favourite painting, now 66 years old and hanging on the wall in my front room is one entitled, ‘In 1956 Mrs Reidy Wanted to Become a Hairdresser……’

Painted at the age of four, I remember it vividly: the sight and smell of those solid paint blocks, the way they felt heavy in my hand, how the brush scraped against the paper as it dried, the paper itself, thin and easily ripped. I worked with a concentration that was subsequently lacking as a reckless teen.

In 1956 Mrs Reidy Wanted to Become a Hairdresser

The subject was, ‘What I want to be when I grow up.’
We didn’t have canvases, palettes or multiple colours
Nor a large jug of brushes, every size
No model to gaze on
No smock or beret

Just…..

Dad's shirt cut off at the sleeves and
Mrs Gorvin, our teacher, on a low chair
Sides spilling over, flesh pink bloomers peeping out
from voluminous skirt hem
Talking slowly and clearly
Important instructions for painting
(Although I’m sure she’d never done any)
Don't make a mess, use ALL the colours
Wash out paintbrush in between!
I listened impatiently,
Eyes darting to the fresh white paper laid out on the desk
I knew what I wanted to paint

I worked at an easel twice my height
Peter Hipkin on his masterpiece the other side
Cheap Paper secured with one large bulldog clip
Paints in solid blocks,
Water in a jar, transforming as the
one thick, unwieldy brush swirled blue and red and yellow
till it merged into a muddy brown
And then, stroke by stroke, there I was, my future secured, 

a hairdresser complete with high heels and rollers in my hair

Tools and equipment very poor
But a four year old’s imagination? Oh so rich.
And that was surely more than enough?

Thanks for reading...... Jill Reidy

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A Favourite Painting

A few weeks ago, I was walking around Manchester Art Gallery and I began thinking do I have a favourite painting or artwork? There are a number of paintings I would classify as a favourite, such as anything by Van Gogh including Starry Night or Irises, a number by Picasso including Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Guernica, and some of the Pre-Raphaelites like Work by Ford Madox Brown and Glen Birnam by Sir John Everett Millais. Ownership of these paintings is beyond my limited resources.

However, one of the most interesting and striking paintings I have ever seen was the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre in Paris. The painting is smaller than you would imagine and is protected by bullet proof glass case due to it being vandalised several times since 1956. The room where the Mona Lisa is located was packed with tourists from all over the world filming the painting on their smartphones. Multiple languages were spoken as people pushed and shoved for the best photo opportunity.

The Mona Lisa has “presence” and no matter where you are in the room her eyes seem to follow you. She is always looking at you, mockingly perhaps, she seems to know something the viewer does not. One of the reasons for this is that da Vinci is believed to have created the painting using the golden ratio especially in the face of Mona Lisa.

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, 1503

The golden ratio, also known as the divine proportion, is a special number (approximately 1.168) that appears in art, geometry and architecture. In essence, this a method of dividing a rectangle into a series of squares. The golden ratio allows artists, architects and mathematicians to work out geometry, spaces, shapes, proportion, perspective and distances on canvas as can be seen in the golden ratio grid below.

The Golden Ratio Grid by Dianne Mise, 2023

The golden ratio has a history that stretches all the way back to India in 2nd or 3rd century BC in the works of the Indian mathematician Acharya Pingala. From here the golden ratio formula travelled by way of the Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Greeks such as Plato and Euclid as well as the Arabs and eventually into Europe through Fibonacci and his book Liber Abaci in 1202.

According to Gary Meisner in the magazine Golden Number (2015), the golden ratio was highlighted in a book on mathematical proportions, perspective and architecture called Divina Proportione written by Luca Pacioli in 1498 and published in 1509. 

Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci, 1490

Leonardo da Vinci provided the illustrations in the book including the Vitruvian Man which appears to have created using the golden ratio. The book became a best seller if manuscripts could be classed as best sellers. And in one of da Vinci’s most famous paintings The Last Supper, key aspects of the room, tables and ornaments utilised the golden ratio to provide perspective, balance and harmony.

The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, 1495-1498

Michelangelo used the golden ratio in his painting The Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The finger of God touches the finger of Adam at the precise point of the width and height of the boxes that contain them both. This brings a form of symmetry to paintings and provides perspective for both the painter, when working, and the viewer.

According to Mario Livio in The Golden Ratio: the story of Phi, 2002, Salvador Dali used the golden ratio in two ways in his 1955 painting The Sacrament of the Last Supper. The proportions in this painting are related to the golden ratio and a huge dodecahedron is incorporated as well. A dodecahedron is a twelve faced solid in which each side is a pentagon and whose measurements are a function of the golden ratio. Plato believed the Dodecahedron was the shape which God used to decorate the constellations on the whole heaven. The Sacrament of the Last Supper is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and is the gallery’s most popular work.

The Sacrament of the Last Supper by Salvador Dali, 1955

However, the golden ratio is not the only guarantee that a painting or artwork will become popular, iconic or a national or international favourite. Could Tracey Emin’s Unmade Bed be classed as a favourite artwork or Damien Hirst’s Calf in Formaldehyde be similarly regarded? Bridget Riley’s mind-bending artworks are amazing and immensely popular but are they favourite artworks? 

Red, Green and Blue Twisted Curves by Bridget Riley, 1979

The same can be said for Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama whose paintings feature the polka dot as she views the polka dot as symbolic of the form and energy of the sun and the moon which represents calm. Kusama is reputed to be the world’s top selling female artist and the world’s most successful living artist and the humble polka dot has been transformed into some of the world’s most iconic paintings.

Mushrooms by Yayoi Kusama, 2005

In future will Artificial Intelligence (AI) create material that commands the title of a favourite artwork? There seems to be a demand for digital artworks such as those created by the digital artist Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple.

According to Artsey magazine on the 21st March 2021 Christies in New York sold the collage Everydays: The First 5000 Days (2021) by Mike Winkelmann/Beeple for $69.3 million dollars, making Beeple’s work the third most expensive for a living artist at the time. The collage is a record of 5000 original digital artworks that were uploaded each day for 5000 days by Beeple.

Everydays: The First 5000 Days by Beeple, 2021

Rather than receive a painting the winning bidder received a non-fungible token (NFT) which is a unique digital identifier using blockchain technology to certify and verify ownership of this digital artwork. An NFT is a type of crypto currency similar to Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

Digital art can be displayed by projecting the art from large screen videos to digitally generated sculptures and as such these artworks are portrayed differently to actual physical paintings. Given the growing number of people who use AI technology to create and display their creations, what could be considered a favourite painting or artwork may well change dramatically in the future as Beeple and his success suggest. However, digital artwork is not a physical reality in the way a painting is and this lack of physicality may prevent digital art from becoming truly mainstream.

The interesting thing about the artists Emin, Hirst, Riley, Kusama and Beeple is that none of them have used the golden ratio and their art works are very different. Additionally, all these artists are phenomenally successful in output and financial terms. Therefore, this begs the question if good artwork does not need the golden ratio for success how is a favourite painting identified?

Perhaps we should refer to the Scottish philosopher David Hume who said in 1757 in Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays that “Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.” In other words, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and a favourite painting or artwork must also be in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, the perception of a favourite painting or artwork is not objective but subjective and maybe that’s the way it should be.

A Favourite Painting

You’ll know it when you see it,
You’ll stand there and maybe not
Believe it; You may be transported
Back to another place, another era;
Maybe the South of France where
The weather, the women, the wine
Led you a merry dance; or a
Walk with a Monarch of the
Glen or a mountain track so
High that it almost touches the sky;
Perhaps you will just remain still,
Marvel at the inspiration
That could fire such imagination; Or
Sit and smile, taking a while to absorb
The finely textured, structured scene
That can revive a long-forgotten dream, or
A moment lost in time or a landscape sublime;
But whatever it is, wherever you are
You’ll know it when you see it.

Dermot Moroney 2023

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A Favourite Painting - Matilda's Trees

 

Trying to choose a favourite painting, like a favourite book or piece of music is so hard it is almost impossible. I like the work of lots of artists. Yesterday, travelling home from an adventure, the journey, thanks to the sat nav, took us over the Pennines and through Mottram in Longendale where the artist,  L.S.Lowry used to live. I love all of his work. I remember feeling quite emotional when I saw his paintings for the first time. This was in Salford, long before the gallery bearing his name was built.  His painting ‘Going to the Match’ was in the news last year when it was purchased and saved for the Lowry collection. Going to the match is what I plan to be doing later, so the painting might have been a good choice, but instead,  I’ve picked ‘The Cripples’.

Lowry painted ‘The Cripples’ in 1949. It’s one of my favourites of his work. I have a print and a fridge magnet and it always makes me smile. I’m slightly worried that my admission to being amused by it makes me a bad person. I am amused by Lowry’s humour in the painting. I’m not mocking the subjects.  Apparently, there’s controversy about the content and the title and I’m a bit shocked about that. I’ve got disability issues, so does my husband. The painting isn’t about us or anyone else. Cripple is not a term in use these days when we refer to people with disabilities but I’m not sure if it should be considered offensive.  I feel sure that Lowry didn’t paint anything with the purpose of upsetting anyone. As a Christian should I be upset by paintings of Christ’s crucifixion reminding me of His suffering? I will admire the work of the artist.

Steven Robert Bruce is a local artist who has produced excellent paintings. He has a website showing a collection of his work. One of my favourites is his painting of Ian Holloway celebrating Blackpool FC’s victory at Wembley, going into the Premier League. I don’t know where the actual painting is. I wish it was at the stadium.

My favourite painting of this week – it might be replaced before weekend if we’re looking after her – is the latest work of art by our youngest grandchild, four year old Matilda.  She was painting, freestyle, and created a fabulous tree scene from her own imagination. I’m amazed and enchanted as I often am by my grandchildren.

My poem, from the archives,

Salford

Industrial landscapes
Where nobody escapes
From human desolation.
Salford, grey and worn-out
Drab people hang about
Seeking some consolation,
Painted as matchstick men
Back in the decades when
Lowry found inspiration.

Shelagh’s taste of honey,
Tony Wilson’s money
Invested in the city.
High-rise in Broughton Park
Poems of Cooper-Clarke
So sharp and smart and witty.
A gentle, summer breeze
Wafts around Salford Quays
Modern style simplicity.

Pamela Winning 2015

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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