All Things Bright and Beautiful

Words are ghosts that will come back to haunt you, or so I quickly learned after I had been interviewed by a reporter with the BBC. She had been referred to me from a friend, who had declined the interview, and prior to sitting down with the tape recorder, we chatted seemingly aimlessly, developing a good rapport with each other. To my surprise, when the actual interview was conducted on tape, the reporter introduced a topic we had spoken about earlier; this took me off-guard especially as I didn’t want to share my answer with the world at large. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, as both “rapport” and “report” share a Latin etymological root meaning “to bring or carry back.”

I recalled this exceptionally educational and embarrassing experience when I read an essay in the New York Time’s Sunday Book Review. The paragraph that triggered my memory follows:

“ Mark Haddon, who wrote numerous novels for children before The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, said in an e-mail message that he recalled 'a number of people looking down their noses at me when I explained what I did for a living, as if I painted watercolors of cats or performed as a clown at parties.' "

In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that I have never read a single book by Mark Haddon, yet I question his ability to choose words wisely when writing. Perhaps he felt an email gave him the luxury to sling words fast and furious, without any thought of the import or meaning behind them. I suspect his comments referencing artists who paint watercolors of animals, cats in particular, are words that may come back to haunt him. Why? The art history chronicles are filled with the names and works of esteemed artists who have painted cats, both in watercolor and in other mediums, so perhaps Mr. Haddon might want to re-think his analogy.

One of the treasures in the British Museum is by a no lesser-talented artist than Leonardo Da Vinci included a drawing of a cat sitting with the Christ Child on the lap of the Madonna in his Virgin and Child with Cat . (AD 1478-81) Unfortunately, no painting of this study has survived or been subsequently discovered, although Rembrandt later was inspired to create an etching also entitled Virgin and Child with a Cat. (1654).

Other artists, such as Matisse, Goya, and Manet painted cats using their own particular style to capture the essence of the animal. Henri Matisse’s Girl with A Black Cat, was completed in 1910, and is presently in private collection.

Even Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Pablo Picasso shared an affection for cats, as evidenced by the number of paintings and drawings both artists created that included felines. Similarly, Theophile Alexandre Steinlen, the esteemed Swiss illustrator and collaborator of Emile Zola and Toulouse-Lautrec, is noted for his highly collectible paintings, posters and sculptures of cats.

One of my favorite paintings by Pierre Bonnard , a member of Les Nabis, can be found in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Characteristic of his colorful narrative paintings of interiors, the cat’s presence acts as an animated distinction to the immobility and calmness of his wife, Marthe.

Recently I discovered the work of the Key West Artist, Bill Borough whose website is http://www.keywestwatercolors.com . His realistic watercolor paintings focus on the buildings found in Key West, including Audubon House, the home of John James Audubon, the world-renown ornithologist, and at the house located at 1431 Duncan Street, generally known as Tennessee Williams' House. More relevant, however, to this discussion, Bill Borough has skillfully captured one of the felines lurking at the lovely Spanish Colonial house previously owned by Ernest Hemingway.

True diplomacy, like great art, involves having the sense to know how to express ideas succinctly and to restrain from the tendency to speak without knowledge of one’s subject, always opting to remain silent, when appropriate. Therefore, like a cat, I’ll now opt to remain silent and hope that the next time a writer addresses a wider audience, words are chosen wisely instead of in dismissive haste.

Ariadne's Thread

"Back into the labyrinth, where we are found or lost forever."
W.B. Yeats

A single crumpled landscape painted strokes of a checkerboard pattern and a checked quilt on another’s canvases are the only known works of art that Sunday Reed, the late Australian arts patron and Muse of several artists has left for posterity. However, she continues to arouse, as the tabloid and quality press recently reported that Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s creative choice of their baby’s unusual name was inspired by the still-controversial Sunday Reed.

Sunday was a woman who provided inspiration and acted as Muse for many of the famous painters of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s in Australia, including Sir Sydney Nolan, one of the giants of 20th century Australian art and Albert Tucker. She shocked many by entering into an open menage a trios with John Reed and Sydney Nolan, during which Nolan produced most of his greatest work, including the famous Ned Kelly series.

Melbourne art historian Janine Burke, devoted much time researching Sunday Reed, culminating in a book, The Heart Garden: Sunday Reed and Heide, wherein she stated Sunday was not only Nolan's lover and financial supporter in the 1940’s but collaborated in his art. She further believes Sunday helped paint key sections of two paintings, The Trial and The Defence, both part of Nolan’s Ned Kelly series.

As stated in an Australian newspaper from 2004,
“Burke suggests that Reed, once an art student, painted the red-and-white tiled floor in The Trial with a stencil and the checked quilt in The Defence of Aaron Sherritt, both now in the National Gallery of Australia.

Peter Haynes, director of the Nolan Gallery at Lanyon, said: "It wouldn't surprise me if she did. He worked so quickly right up to his death (in 1992). We've got works in the collection with times on them as well as dates, so he might well have had a bit of assistance here and there on something like a pattern."

No one is suggesting Nolan's paintings are devalued if he allowed Reed to assist him. But those close to the artists - wives in particular - are protective of their creative and emotional lives.”

According to the psychologist Carl Jung, the Muse represents the male’s anima: “immortal,” she is “disguised under the many names we give to creative impulses and ideas.” In the life of Sunday Reed, we see the role of a woman artist being over-shadowed by the men around her. However, we also see how the role of the Muse elevates the artist, and supporting Jung’s understanding of the immortality of the Muse.

Some muses are erotic wives and lovers, while others are chaste and unattainable, some are solely devoted to the artistic expression of a single artist, whereas, others are serial Muses, facilitating the artistic labor of many. Regardless, the qualities and sacrifices of the living Muse has yet to be fully explored and documented. Here is a small sampling of some Muses throughout history and the artists they inspired:

Muse : Artist

Beatrice Portinari : Dante Alighieri
Lucrezia (del Fede) : Andrea del Sarto
Sandra Fisher : RB Kitaj
Maud Gonne : William Butler Yeats
Laura: Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca)
Emilie Flöge :Gustave Klimt
Monique Bourgeois :Henri Matisse
Victorine Louise Meurent: Edouard Manet
Camille Claudel : Auguste Rodin
Françoise Gilot : Pablo Picasso
Alma Mahler : Gustav Mahler, Oskar Kokoschka, Walter Gropius, & Franz Werfel
Elizabeth Siddal : Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Lou Andreas-Salomé :Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainer Maria Rilke and Sigmund Freud
Lee Miller : Man Ray
Elena Ivanovna Diakonova (Aka Galarina aka Gala): Paul Éluard, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Andre Breton, & others

Francine Prose is one of the few writers who has sought to start to record the lives of women as Muse. She recently published a book entitled The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and the Artists they Inspired, in which she wrote, ''Artists rarely create for the muse, to win or keep the Muse's love and admiration, but rather for themselves, for the world, and for the more inchoate and unquantifiable imperatives of art itself. Their muses are merely the instruments that raise the emotional and erotic temperature high enough, churn up the weather in a way that may speed and facilitate the artist's labors.''

I believe this is entirely true. Hesiod and Virgil believed that the Muses were symbols of ontological truth and certainty, allowing the artist to enter into greater awareness of consciousness and reception. It is also important to remember the presence of the muse is always numinous and dramatic, and the artist’s response to her determines our response to his artistic expression.

One will recall from classic Hellenic mythology, it is Ariadne, Muse and guide to truth, who gives Theseus the golden thread that leads into the labyrinth, where he slays the Minotaur and then follows the golden thread back into the light; in every time and season, Ariadne is born anew to yet another awakening Theseus divinely driven to create his art.

If one has the opportunity to view Henri Matisse’s final and greatest masterpiece, the Chapelle du Rosaire, one can see the direct impact of the Muse, and how the sapphire blue, emerald green and lemon yellow window with the prickly pear fig motif transmits the ever-revealing symbolism of contained yet ever-expectant vibrant sensuality .

Art, Ethics, and Honor Amongst Thieves

"William Blake is damned good to steal from! "--Henry Fuseli

Earlier today I was faced with an ethical quandry. One of the e-groups I lurk upon had a post by a professor of Art History at an American university. She posted this message:

Dear All,

Here's a photograph and artist's statement of a Sofiia icon that one
of my students made through a difficult print-making process on raw
silk in 16 plate layers. The photograph doesn't do this piece
justice, but I love her interpretation of what Wisdom is and how to
portray it. The dominant color after all the layers were laid down
is a soft of warm lavender-grey (maybe jasper is the best descriptor).

Just thought you'd like to see it.


When I followed the link she had provided, I was astonished to recognize the work was plaigerized from a painting of Mary Magdalene by Richard Stodart that had been created in 1995 and has been widely distributed via the internet on various websites. How does one respond to this, especially when you consider we are considering the issue of grades as well as professional ethics?

As far back as 2001, issues of intellectual property and artistic license were discussed on the internet. In an article published by Wired, entitled Is It Art, or Memorex?, Reena Jana offered these key pieces of information:

"The laws aren't black and white. The nuance lies in the real purpose of the artwork using the borrowed images," said Barry Werbin, a partner at Herrick, Feinstein, a Manhattan law firm in which he heads a department focused on intellectual property and the Internet.

"If someone borrows an image and uses it non-commercially for educational purposes, then it's fair use," Werbin said. "But if an artist does so without permission to promote their own work, there's no question it's an infringement."

So, does that excuse the student's theft of the image? I'd suggest not, firstly as she promoted it as her own work, even if the medium used differed from the original piece of work. Secondly, it would be my contention that the understanding "educational purposes" would apply to the use of the image by the instructor and not the clandestine theft by the student. Most universities and educational institutions have established, and sometimes enforced, policies with regard to plaigerism, including use of intellectual property /ideas. Students are made aware that if an instructor can demonstrate the student has purloined material, the culprit will be dealt with appropriately by the institution.

As a friend reminded me, character and talent are two distinct entities. While we seek to enjoy creative expression within the arts, it is increasingly rare to discover talent teamed with innovation, for that is the essence of artistic genius. Art shows and galleries showcase works of art that are often nothing more than derivative pieces of work. One might quickly suggest that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, but any art that is produced as a "copy" should be noted as such and proper credit attributed.

In the case of the student, the instructor hadn't taken the students to a museum to "copy" a masterpiece and learn from the experience. Instead, the student quite simply had plaigerized the work and apparently believed no one would be the wiser. [According to Black's Law Dictionary, the definition of plaigerism is "The act or instance of copying or stealing another's words or ideas or attributing them as one's own."(Black's Law Dictionary, West Group, 1999, 7th ed., p. 1170) ]

Jonathan Lethem published a noted article in Harpers, entitled "The ecstasy of influence: A Plagiarism" in response to Something Borrowed, an earlier article on the topic that was published in the New Yorker. Lethem's article deftly points out the thin line between influence and plagiarism. I have heard it argued at even Picasso and Matisse "copied" the works of others, and Andy Warhol would likely be the recipient of a litigious suit in our society if he were to offer his paintings in today's market.

In the 14th century, Petrarch answered these "justifications" and offered wisdom concerning plaigerism, although his focus was on the written word:

"He who imitates must have a care that what he writes be similar, not identical . . . and that the similarity should not be of the kind that obtains between a portrait and a sitter, where the artist earns the more praise the greater the likeness, but rather of the kind that obtains between a son and his father . . . we (too) should take care that when one thing is like, many should be unlike, and that what is like should be hidden so as to be grasped only by the mind's silent enquiry, intelligible rather than describable. We should therefore make use of another man's inner quality and tone, but avoid his words. For the one kind of similarity is hidden and the other protrudes; the one creates poets, the other apes."
-- Petrarch, Le familiari, XXIII (14thc), quoted in Gombrich, E.H. Norm and Form: Studies in the art of the Renaissance, Phaidon, 1971 (2nd edition), February 18, 2000

James Dean, an electrical engineer and artist, successful has presented renderings of "Old Masters" that humorously incorporate his cat, Pete. When one views the oeuvre of Dean, there is no mistaking these pieces as "original" in concept, even if homage is made to better-known works of art. Perhaps those artists and students who wish to purloin "good ideas" should reconsider such nonsense and but learn from Dean's approach.

Recently, there has been an increase of works "appropriated" via the internet, reproduced in some form by other hands and then sold through global channels. Legal steps have been taken by individuals as well as groups such as the Art Renewal Center to stop this activity.

It was with this body of knowledge that I debated what to do about the student who had copied Stodart's "Mary Magdalene" and submitted it for a grade to her instructor. Ultimately the question of artistic integrity versus technical process seemed to be the primary issue that plagued my mind. Consequently, I fired off an email to the instructor, citing Stodart's work, citing his website as well as one from another site that had been archived on the internet since 1999. This proved earlier "provenance" and I included a .jpg of his image for the immediate reference of the instructor.

Within hours of sending the email, I received the following response:

Dear Sharon (if I may):

Thanks for sending the image--it's beautiful. It seems my student lifted the idea. Very sad, especially as I watched her produce all 16 layers of her serigraph on raw silk and it's very beautiful. Anyway, I much appreciate the beautiful image.


Which "beautiful image" does the professor appreciate, the original one by Richard Stoddart or the serigraphed copy by her student? Ah, the nuances of words! As if to play a "trump", the instructor appended her name with a reference to her Ph.D, and a composite list of her credentials as a professor of art history at the university. I'm not sure what to make of it all, and I suspect the instructor will do nothing with the information I provided. If this is the case, the student will have learned much about art history, for its chronicles are filled with tales of art thefts and honor amongst thieves.

Please note: Within this blog I intentionally have not given appropriate attribution to the cited written words of the Art History instructor. This is because I wish to protect the identity of the individual, and I hope that a culture of shame isn't necessary for her to take appropriate action. One might also contend the concept of "fair use policy" herein applies.

NB: Legal Info for artists