memorials, vanitas and death themes in my recent mixed-media paintings

Leonardo

Memorials, Vanitas and Death Themes in My Recent Mixed-Media PaintingsAuthor(s): Nicholas OrsiniSource: Leonardo, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Summer, 1981), pp. 177-181Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1574266 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 20:24

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The MIT Press and Leonardo are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toLeonardo.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.67 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:24:39 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1574266?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Leonardo, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 177-181, 1981. Printed in Great Britain.

0024-094X/81/030177-05$02.00/0 Pergamon Press Ltd.

MEMORIALS, VANITAS AND DEATH THEMES IN MY RECENT MIXED- MEDIA PAINTINGS

Nicholas Orsini*

Abstract - The author outlines the development of his paintings from 1972 to 1977. He discusses three manifestations of death themes in his work: memorials, Vanitas still lifes and Fossil Gardens, and the influence of painters of the past on his work. His use of decalcomania (a paint-removal technique) is explained. He emphasizes his concern with 'universal' themes as subject matter, but, quoting Ortega Y Gasset, he indicates that artists today are often bored by artworks of the past and are not interested in the themes chosen by those who made them.

I. In my first article in Leonardo I discussed a series of pictures I painted in the early 1970s entitled 'Pontormo Variations' [1]. These were followed by the series I shall discuss, which I painted in reaction to a death in my family. The first painting 'Manes' took the form of a memorial (Fig. 1); I intended to express symbolically death and resurrection in terms of hushed expectancy. The corpse is depicted

Fig. 1. 'Manes', oils on canvas, 155 x 113 cm, 1972.

*Painter, 50 Barbara Lane, Hamden, CT 06518, U.S.A. (Received 5 August 1980)

as floating in space toward a horizon containing the outlines of glacial mountains. On the right side, a watcher is intended who guards the corpse's journey. Fragments of the landscape on the left are interspersed between two glowing chalice-like forms. The larger one, in the foreground, rises from the remnants of objects covering the face of the figure.

In subsequent works the death theme is broadened into an interpretation of death as a focus of the human condition. Several paintings under the heading 'Man in Space' are meant to convey this idea. In Fig. 2, for example, a human partly metamorphosed into a vegetable is presented floating in space. This painting is intended to represent the most basic existential condition. It is not an allusion to astronauts or space exploration.

Fg e'is

Fig. 2. 'Man in Space', oils on canvas, 130 x 175 cm, 1972.

II. About 25 paintings and drawings that used the

Vanitas still life as its point of departure followed the death theme. The Vanitas, 16th-century type of still life in Europe, contained depictions of objects

177



intended to convey the transitoriness of life. A picture often contained a number of objects, such as perishable things (flowers and foodstuffs), a cadaver, a skull, a mirror, an hourglass, etc. [2]. A variant by the German painter Johann Liss (c. 1595-1629/30) shows both a young woman with symbols of evanescence and of Chronus, the allegorical figure representing time, in the background. Interest among painters in the Vanitas revives from time to time. Picasso painted several of this category during the Nazi occupation of France. Much of the work of the USAmerican painter Ivan Le Lorraine Albright is Vanitas, for example his painting 'That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do' (1931-41).

My Vanitas series began as a rather traditional evocation of that genre, with the inclusion of parts copied from well-known paintings by others. The title 'The Snake Bite' is derived from Caravaggio's 'Boy Bitten by a Snake', and my painting (Fig. 3) includes the head of the boy, on the right, found in Caravaggio's work. My painting refers to the Vanitas theme-directly by means of the skull and ripe fruit (including two cherries from the Caravaggio work) and obliquely by reference both to the perishability of a young man bitten by a snake and to the lost meanings of paintings of the past.

I continued making still lifes in the series for about four years, trying several compositional formats. In the first works of the series I organized objects within a box-like area to denote a niche, as in traditional still lifes; in a later group of the series I employed a step-wise arrangement. This latter idea came to me from a study of Spanish still-life painting where objects were deliberately separated from one another by lateral and vertical levels; the purpose, as I understand it, was to give each object a special presence through isolation. The separation between objects and their shadows seems to me to provide the objects with an almost magical, even mystical quality, as in the case of the objects

depicted in the works of Francisco de Zurbaran, Fray Juan Sanchez Cotan and Juan Van Der Hamen Y Leon. I extended the step-wise arrangement to stairs filling an entire picture, used shadows as compositional shapes equal in importance to objects, played freely with their size and scale and later depicted stair risers as a mirror reflection of stair treads. The painting 'Mirror Memory' (Fig. 4) displays an example of these approaches. Two heads, from a Pontormo painting, refer to the past, while the objects, drawn. from traditional still-life objects, appear also as mirror images in the reflecting stair risers.

The colors of these paintings were arbitrarily selected for both objects and their surrounds with the intent of giving them a mystical aura. Also at this point, I introduced a decalcomania (paint- removal) technique to produce a texture in the depiction of mirror images that contrasted with the smoothly modeled depictions of the objects. The painting 'Anatomical Still Life' (Fig. 5), which is of this type, includes bone forms and an object that might be taken either as a cabbage or as a brain. The bones are meant to signify mystical objects; they and their surrounds are in complementary hues to increase contrast between them, which was also heightened by their separation.

The step arrangement offers a number of interesting possibilities for the depiction of isolated objects. Strong shadows can be shown to be cast by objects, and in some works the shadows were used as compositional devices to connect the steps. Opaque

Fig. 4. 'Mirror Memory', oils on canvas, 125 x 90 cm, 1975.

Nicholas Orsini 178

Fig. 3. 'The Snake Bite, oils on canvas, 61 x 65 cm, 1973.



Memorials, Vanitas and Death Themes in my Recent Mixed-Media Paintings

f

"

J ? ;:' ' ~ ^^ ^ <BB^ Sl(^.<'

Fig. 5. 'Anatomical Still Life', oils on canvas, 100 x 125 cm, 1976.

stair risers and treads were used to produce an accordian-like base to provide an emphatic feeling of depth; transparent ones were to give the impression that the steps flow one into another. Objects were placed so that they could be viewed in isolation. Yet the objects are related horizontally by their placement on stairs and vertically by their shadows.

III. The decalcomania technique that I employed

with oil paint warrants comment here. I press a clean pane of glass against a freshly painted canvas. When the glass is lifted away from the surface, some of the paint is pulled away, leaving peaks and pits, swirls and other configurations, depending on any movement of the glass when it was in contact with the paint layer on the canvas (heavy paper may also be used if it is not very absorbent). This technique was developed by Oscar Dominguez in 1935; and surrealist Max Ernst used it and variations of it [3], for example in his 'Europe after the Rain' (1940-42) and 'Totem and Taboo' (1941) [4].

Accident clearly plays a role in this technique much as it does in producing the interesting patterns found on decayed walls once significantly remarked upon by Leonardo da Vinci. The paint surface produced on the canvas by the technique can be left untouched or it can be further manipulated. Ernst did the latter. In some of my paintings, I employed the technique with manipulation, in others without manipulation. This technique influenced my drawing as well. I rubbed charcoal across the surface of heavy textured paper (Arches). The uneven distri- bution of the charcoal on the surface resulted in dark marks, variations in tones and white untouched grooves that suggested to me varied shapes, much as patterns on decayed walls.

IV.

Figure 6 shows an untitled Vanitas still life that is another variant of the step arrangement. It represents

Fig. 6. Untitled, Vanitas still life, oils on canvas, 120 x 90 cm, 1977.

a kind of opposite of 'Mirror Memory' (Fig. 4) with its many objects and reflections. Here the steps can be regarded as a landscape, with a monkey's skull alone at rest at the center. The steps, beginning at the bottom, are to be taken to represent an undersea stratum, a sea, a pink-orange sunlit land, a clouded sky and, finally a dark interstellar space at the top.

I regard this painting as my most allegorical version of the Vanitas theme - the transitoriness of life. The idea is supported by the sharp patterns on the steps, which are intended to suggest the shifting and flowing characteristics of wind and of water. The solitary monkey skull is the culmination of my efforts to present an object with maximum isolation in a Vanitas still-life.

V. While I was painting the Vanitas still-life series, I

became intensely interested in the art of Pre- Columbian Mexico, and it broadened to include the art of other cultures in Central America. I began to study, in particular, the role of ritual in pictorial art. There is a Panamanian tribe that places its dead in a barge surrounded by earthly necessities for the journey to the afterworld (fruit, prepared dishes, drinks, etc.), and the barge is finally set adrift on the ocean.

The idea of the barge provided a subject for several of my next Vanitas pictures. Figure 7 shows one, 'The Voyage', with a view from above of such an imagined barge. This painting is the one that is closest of any I have made to a trompe l'oeil still life. Although it represents a view from above, it is

179



Nicholas Orsini

Fig. 7. 'The Voyage I, oils, oil pastels on canvas, 138 x 110 cm, 1976.

suggestive of a niche with objects stored in it. In addition, the painting contains depictions of insects as symbols of decay of a dead human body. It was executed first by the decalcomania technique described above, and, then after the paint was dry, I accented the body with oil paint and oil pastels and some of the fruit and the drapery with smooth paint to give a strong illusion of depth.

VI. The last group of my Vanitas still lifes was

inspired by an altogether different source-Persian prayer rugs-however they retained the magical aspect of objects depicted in Spanish Vanitas. I became especially intrigued with the emblematic effect of symmetry in the rugs. One of the paintings, 'Fossil Garden', based on a prayer rug design, is shown in Fig. 8 (see color plate). Bones, plants and microorganisms are depicted in the rug pattern. Common and exotic things are grouped together, such as sycamore leaves in the center surrounding a cow's vertebra. In this painting the decalcomania technique was employed, but the areas so treated were rather heavily overlaid by oil paint and chalk pastels. Another one in the series, 'Fossil Garden, II' (Fig. 9), contains similar depicted things but surrounding and interspersed within a human skeleton. The Vanitas symbolism is clearly evident.

In these 'prayer-rug' paintings my special interest was in the fossil records humans leave behind on their death. In 'Fossil Garden, II', oil pastel is the principal medium employed to give color and texture. Oil pastel has a raw quality when rubbed

Fig. 9. 'Fossil Garden, II', oils, oil pastels on canvas, 155 x 120 cm, 1977.

over a surface covered by wet oil paint, liquifying the pastel; the same occurs when pastel is glazed with damar varnish over dried oil paint. In the latter process, an impasto, thickened paint surface is obtained; this quality I found increasingly suitable for my purpose. In both paintings oil pastel served to produce a velvet-like texture (Fig. 8, see color plate).

VII.

My interest in death themes began with a highly emotional personal experience, which I attempted to expiate in my paintings. This led me to question my motives as a painter, and I reached the philosophical view that art should be concerned with the fundamental issues of human life and death, as was much of the art of the past-Egyptian art, ancient Greek and Roman sculpture, much of the sculpture by Michelangelo. There is a note- worthy Aztec terra cotta of a seated figure contemplating a human skull. Religions pose these issues as of central importance, and artists have often also responded to them. Some of my friends assert that photographs have now displaced the role of painters in dealing with these issues, but I do not agree with them, for I am convinced that painting and drawing methods offer much more interpreta- tive freedom.

I am not proposing that pictures should be centered only on human beings. There are many other aspects of the universe that are also fascinating, and painters have interpreted them in terms of

180



Memorials, Vanitas and Death Themes in my Recent Mixed-Media Paintings

order, balance and symbolism in nonfigurative art. Nevertheless, themes based on mystical and tran- scendental ideas, pathos and ecstasy are of major interest to me. Such themes Kenneth Clark ascribes to classical and Renaissance art in his book, The Nude [5]. I find that expressions of mystery and ferocity have been treated better by Central American Indians (Aztecs), related as they are to magic and religion. Death was depicted, it seems to me, more fully and in a way that is better blended into the pattern of life. ('The Aztec perceived the eternal tragedy of the world in which life is rooted to death' [6]). I have drawn on both classical and Indian sources for my pictures; the earlier 'Manes', 'Man in Space' and the Vanitas series were influenced by the former and 'The Voyage' series by the latter.

The 'Fossil Garden' paintings are intended to bring together the decorative and obsessive horror depicted on some Persian carpets and the compulsive ferocity of some Aztec sculpture. Coatlicue, the Aztec Earth-Goddess, is the inspiration for these works. I am overpowered by the intensity that I feel when standing before a two-meter-high stone monolith of her. It manifests to me mystery and energy of a kind I do not experience when contemplating artworks of other cultures; its ferocity conveys to me unbridled aspects of nature. In my 'Fossil Garden' paintings I have tried to present these aspects, which I believe to be a valid response to dominant features of life in my country.

VIII. But I find that there are other subjects that

warrent attention urgently. For example, I am impressed how Raphael managed to avoid con- sistently the maudlin in his 'mother and child' paintings. The subject seems to be inexhaustible; he painted so many, and I do not find that he repeated himself. That he managed to produce innovative pictorial compositions for two human bodies in a special relationship should be regarded as a tribute to his imagination; that he was able to express this subject in different moods indicates to me his possession of a refined sensitivity to human feelings.

Why is this subject so little regarded as of importance to painters in my part of the world today? In a long essay Jose Ortega Y Gasset discusses this question: 'When an art looks back on many centuries of continuous evolution without major hiatuses or historical catastrophes its products keep on accumulating, and the weight of tradition increasingly encumbers the inspiration of the hour. Or to put it differently, an ever growing mass of traditional styles hampers the direct and original communication between the nascent artist and the world around him' [7]. The effect of this 'boredom' with the past, is to 'break free of the old which threatened to smother it. [... ] If we now briefly consider the question: What type of art reveals itself in this attack on past art?, we come upon a strange and stirring fact. To assail all previous art, what else can it mean than to turn against art itself? [ ... ] The

first consequence of the retreat of art upon itself is a ban on all pathos. Art laden with "humanity" had become as weighty as life itself. It was an extremely serious affair, almost sacred. [... ] It aspired to nothing less than to save mankind. [... ] A present- day artist would be thunderstruck, I suspect, if he were trusted with so enormous a mission and, in consequence, compelled to deal in his work with matters of such scope. [... ] To the young genera- tion art is a thing of no consequence. [... ] I do not mean to say that the artist makes light of his work and his profession; but they interest him precisely because they are of no transcedent importance.'

Is it this attitude that has prevented so many artists in the U.S.A. and in other industrial societies from pursuing themes of common, basic human experience? Are these themes of the past now considered of little importance? Gasset had doubts about his analysis, as he also said 'chances are that this attempt to analyze modern art is full of errors'. Is the past indeed irrelevant? Must one accept history as the fatalistic determinant of individual action? Or is one to be counted an eccentric because one's aversions to the kinds of artworks highly valued by the dominant 'art world' in the U.S.A. force one to retreat into the realms of one's own imagination?

The subject is too involved for me to attempt an analysis of it here in depth. If visual art can 'progress' or improve with time, then art of the past is only of historical interest. If, on the other hand, it is an oscillating manifestation of recurring themes and styles, then the past is indivisible from the present. This is my view. For discussions relevant to it see, for example, Refs. 8-10.

My paintings on the themes of vanity and death were made over a period of several years; it was not possible for me to sustain the strong, traumatic emotion I felt when I began the series. Nevertheless, I persisted, because I was convinced that a purpose of visual art is to interpret these themes. In my society death is a mystery that is not treated much by artists.

REFERENCES 1. N. Orsini, Painting: My 'Pontormo Variations' Series,

Leonardo 7, 303 (1974). 2. P. Murray and L. Murray, A Dictionary ofArt & Artists, 3rd

Ed. (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1972). 3. E. Quinn, Max Ernst (Boston: New York Graphic Society,

1977) p. 192. 4. U. M. Schneede, Max Ernst (New York: Praeger, 1973). 5. K. Clark, The Nude (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor

Books, 1959). 6. A. Caso, Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art, exh. catalogue

(New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1940). 7. J. Ortega Y Gasset, The Dehumanization of Art, and Other

Essays on Art, Culture and Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1968).

8. J. F. Moffitt, An Historical Basis for Interpreting Styles of Late 18th- and Late 20th-Century Pictorial Artworks, Leonardo 12, 295 (1979).

9. S. Howard, Definitions and Values of Archaism and the Archaic Style, Leonardo 14, 41 (1981).

10. A. Mezei, Toward Improving the Objective Status of Aesthetics: On Style and Content of Figurative Pictorial Art, Leonardo 14, 118 (1981).

181



I. ~

'"' ^ .a .2 1

I. ~

'"' ^ .a .2 1

I. ~

'"' ^ .a .2 1

I. ~

'"' ^ .a .2 1

I. ~

'"' ^ .a .2 1

Top left: Dmitry Mitrokhin. 'Glass', pencil and watercolour on paper, 18 x 12.5cm, 1972. (Fig. 3, cf. page 225)

Top right: Nicholas Orsini. 'Fossil Garden', oils, oilpastels on canvas, 150x 108cm, 1977. (Fig. 8, cf. page 180) Center: S. J. Edwards and A. J. Langley, Colours produced by one to seven layers of cellophane (left) between

crossed polarisers and (right) between parallel polarisers. (Fig. 7, cf. page 190) Bottom left: K. Wejchert. 'Water Portraits' with colour-patch characteristics without distinct shapes, colour slides. Location (clockwise from top left): Copenhagen, Denmark; New York City, U.S.A.; Lulea, Sweden;

Sidi-Farush, Algeria. (Fig. 4, cf. page 217) Bottom right: Jean-Louis Viora. 'Kinetic Sculpture, No. 61', mobile, iron wire with plastic sheath (diam.

2.7cm), cotton thread (0.25g/m), 50 x 45 x 45cm, 1980. (Fig. 1, cf. page 213)























memorials, vanitas and death themes in my recent mixed-media paintings

Documents