Charles at the Toulouse Cafe, New York City

Charles Writes: Cezanne

Chapter Four:  Cezanne the Father

The other gatekeeper to the modern for Picasso was the Provence recluse Paul Cezanne.  Cezanne painted in obscurity for over 40 years and then when his big break arrived, a large show in Paris arranged by Vollard, Cezanne chose to stay home and work on his painting rather than enjoy the glory of his new found fame.

Cezanne had been associated with the Impressionists over the years but he was different in his approach to painting nature in that he built up his images on the canvas rather than using a flowing line to define the subject.  Cezanne became the link from Impressionism to the Modern by his establishment of some other revolutionary techniques.

Cezanne gradually moved away from four hundred years of Renaissance perspective in painting to using a more two-dimensional painting representation of his subject matter.  Cezanne used color and a dabbing paint technique to build up his visual images and to go inside their meaning in order to build more depth on the surface of the canvas. 

Cezanne was the great distorter of images to get to draw you into a subject.  Take for example his over sixty paintings of Mount Saint-Victorie.  By the end of this sixty plus series the paintings were about the truth of the mountain and what he saw in the meaning of the mountain than the physicality of the mountain itself.

Picasso was so taken with his teacher that the last years of his life were spent living in a vast chateau at the foot of Sainte-Victorie where he could finally spread out his vast collection of Art and review his progress in the presence of his master’s shadow.

Cezanne’s reduction of his Art to two dimensions opened the way for modern Art and it’s use of color and space to provide the perspective.

It was not only what Cezanne had accomplished in his Art but it was equally important what he left undone.  The incompleteness in many of his later paintings spoke volumes about the future of Art.

Artists were now free to use the empty canvas surrounded by color in their paintings to express just the right gesture and emotion.

Cezanne was the other gatekeeper to the Modern for Picasso and Picasso dwelled by that gate his entire life.  In fact he is buried, in his private garden, facing Mount Sainte-Victorie and Cezanne’s ultimate image of truth.

Charles writes: The Theft of the Mona Lisa

Chapter Five:  The Theft of the Mona Lisa

Apolinaire prompted Picasso’s interest in primitive art and the two of them would often drift into the evening discussing how primitive art was refreshing western art with new styles and forms and refreshing modern spirituality with the day to day sense of a connection with the divine that European civilization had exhausted.  These influences are very strong in the few years leading up to the development of Cubism.  You can see this influence in the “Three Women” where primitive forms collide with the soon to be Cubist forms          and especially in the stark brutality of “Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon which was so primitively powerful a study of ladies of the night that Picasso had to turn it against the wall for many years because his poet friends could not stomach the results.  It was even too modern for the band de Picasso.

Iberian statues were Picasso’s great passion at this time.   He would spend hours studying these primitive Spanish forms in the museums in Paris and did many drawings of them for his paintings.

Gery Pieret was a writer friend of Apollinaire.  He was younger, ruggedly handsome, tanned and he had a great artistic flair for thievery and this is how he came to focus himself on removing priceless antiquities from the Lourve Museum.

Gery Pieret shared stories of his sexual exploits with Apolinaire and hoped he would use this material in his novels and or his sexual novellas.  But in truth, Apolinare was afraid of what this friend might do next.  Pieret knew of Picasso’s fascination with Iberian sculpture and he also openly boasted that the security at the Lourve Museum was so lax that he could walk out the door with anything he pleased.  So one day he did just that, he stole four statues from the Lourve to impress Picasso and the Art world with his criminal exploits.

Picasso gleefully bought two of the statues for his collection and easily overlooked the fact that they were stolen property.  He somehow saw past the moral implications of the theft of archaeological property and the cultural loss for everyone else.  For Picasso it was more important that he was inspired by the statues than it was to have to consider the morality of doing business with criminals for the pleasure of his artistic pursuit.  Or maybe he just didn’t consider these things, or maybe he didn’t care to think through the consequences of this highly charged situation. 

Shortly thereafter this exchange of stolen property, Pieret found it necessary to leave Paris, possibly because of some unexpected personal transgressions or possibly he needed to avoid interaction with the police which caused the need to get lost for awhile.  Peret went to America to discover the Wild West. He would dress in a cowboy hat and leather chaps and carouse around the plains with the Cowboys until the dust settled back in France. 

Upon his return to Paris, a year later, he went to work for Apolinaire as his secretary. Gery then visited the Lourvre again and realized that mere amateurs were now stealing from the Louvre and he decided to send a message to the Art world about how elevated his criminal talents were for stealing statues from the museum and to put a scare into all of the amateurs who were trying to steal his thunder.  Pieret was able to walk out of the museum in broad daylight, with the statues under his coat and he decided that the best place to bring this bounty was back to Apolinaire’s home.

Gery left the pieces at Apolinaire’s  apartment to stand amidst the magnificent clutter of other statues, pottery, and paintings added in with the heaps and mounds of books, sex magazines, literary journals and periodicals.

There on the shelves of the bookcases stood the statues, with Apolinaire’s full knowledge, and all the other poets couldn’t believe Pieret that the sculptures had actually been stolen from the Lourve.  However, Apolinaire was quite aware of Pierets criminal proclivity.  Pieret was beginning to frighten Apolinaire and even though Pierets schemes for criminal exploits would excite him but when Peret actually pursued him to become an accomplice Apolinaire backed off in great fear.  The two men were at such great odds that within a few days Apolinaire left on a 10 day vacation and he hoped out loud that Pieret would be gone by the time he returned.

He wasn’t.  No such luck.  And to make matters even worse Pieret had written to the papers in Paris about his criminal talents and the lax of security at the Louvre.  This shook up both Picasso and Apolinaire, as foreigners, because they knew that it wouldn’t be long before they would be implicated in the theft of the statues and the probability for them being arrested and deported was rising madly.

Picasso was summoned back to Paris, from his vacation, by Apolinaire at the end of August and he and Apolinaire gathered up the stolen merchandise and swore they would throw the lot of them into the Seine.  After a night wandering around the two men could not bring themselves to throw the statues into the river and they took the treasures to the Paris Journal newspaper themselves and pleaded with the paper to return the statues to the museum for them.  The two artists put Pieret on a boat bound for Egypt and against all reason they hoped that their problems were behind them

And then, just a few days later, complete disaster struck.  The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Lourve and suddenly the infamous thief Pieret was now the prime suspect as he was suddenly the most well-known art thief in Paris.  Very shortly the police connected the dots to Apolinaire and they arrived at his apartment to arrest him just a few days after the theft of the Mona Lisa.  Apolinaire was taken across town to the police headquarters and was stripped searched, interrogated for hours and it was nearly ten days before he was brought to a hearing.  Apolinaire became a complete nervous wreck and was wrenched with fear that he would soon be expelled from France or imprisoned.  He was the only suspect the police had in connection to the theft of the great Mona Lisa.

Apolinaire and Picasso wanted to be internationally known as great artists but not like this.

When Apolinaire was finally brought to his hearing the Judge brought Picasso into the courtroom to question him on what he knew about Apolinaire and the theft of priceless Art.  Picasso stood in front of the judge and bold facedly claimed he had never met Apolinaire before in his life.

As Picasso told this convient lie in place of the truth Apolinaire was completely crestfallen and his face became nearly gray from the ashes of his emotions burning.  Apolinaire had been betrayed but he knew he had had a hand in the betrayal.  Apolinaire had opened the door for Picasso to become the uber anarchistic artist.  Picasso was given the right of complete artistic privilege over being a moral and upstanding citizen.

For Picasso continuing to work at his Art, in Paris, was more important to him than being truthful to the court and being truthful to his most complete like-minded friend that he would ever have.

We will see later that Picassos need to work at his Art was so great that during the German Occupation he chose to live with the Nazis, his cultural enemies, and keep on painting fully aware of the consequences of and the possible penalties of this situation.

Apolinaire recovered from the horrors of his arrest and betrayal by Picasso.  But he and Picasso would never be that close again.  Apolinaire began to recruit other artists into his artistic circle such as Robert Delaney, Picabia, Jaun Gris and others to the point where Apolinaire officially became the leading critic of Modern Art and he had a steady hand on its course.

However, he no longer had a steady hand on his friendship with Picasso.  Apolinaire found out what all of Picasso’s family and friends would find out, sooner or later, that the only thing important to the new Modern Picasso was to continue to work at his Art and the world and his friends would need to accommodate him or be left out of his life. 

Jarry’s education of Picasso was now complete.

 

Johns first ride on his horse

Happy 32nd Birthday, Spencer

Kirsten Lints Garden Triumph

At this year's Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle, Kirsten walked away with top honors for her installation:  Best of Show, Gold Medal Winners, 425 Magazine Editor's Choice, X Factor Award, Pacific Horticulture Society Award, and the People's Choice award!!

http://www.gardensalivedesign.com/we-did-it-the-winners-have-been-awarded-at-the-nw-flower-garden-show/

Charles Tells Us About: The great washed Un-truth

Prelude to Chapter 2

I have often heard it spoken and sometimes whispered that Art is a lie.   While possibly true this statement leads to a corresponding one that says ultimately that there is truth in art.  I would instead put forth the idea that Art is, rather, the Untruth.  I really don’t think that Art wants to be known for or thought of in the same breath as being a collection of real facts.

 

It really does not matter if a fact in Art is true or not.  Who cares as it’s not as if we are discussing science, math or what you just said to your lover or your wife or your mother because we are talking about the mystery of Art and not the truth according to a collective association of the facts.  Art is the great Untruth that helps us find our own truth.  All that matters in Art, according to my logic, is what influence Art has upon us either in the making of or the enjoyment of or possibly even how it influences our sense of the erotic.

 

When speaking about facts concerning Jarry and Picasso you are already at a theoretical loss because of the anarchistic nature of their Beings. Throw into this mix the great circus master of artists G. Apollinaire and you, the reader, are thrust down a black rabbit hole concerning the truth or any grasp of the collection of facts or any coincidence with reality.  It could happen, but for each of these men the truth, they will all tell you without hesitation, the truth is whatever suits the situation or the moment or the need in any given moment.  

 

 

Remember that these unique personalities are artists and Anarchists and supreme believers in their own personal and artistic magic and myth and the only real truth they know is the objects of art they leave behind for the rest of us.  Picasso made over 20,000 objects of art so he did understand that kind of truth quite well.

 

Jarry lived in a hallucination and Apollinaire made up his own personal history when he needed or wanted to.  While they left behind an array of artistic gems between them you simply would never rely upon them for the truth of any matter whatsoever.  No that would be absolutely no fun at all for them and foolish for you to consider.

 

If the three of them did not know each other very well, or at all, they should have.  The magic of the avant-garde years was all mixed up in the water and the air and the mood that these great artists lived in and these three men worked hard and long stirring up this glorious mix and romance of the modern age.

 

These are the years that define our past greatness our past golden age of Being. That is, if you are a writer of Arty History, such as me.  That is what I do.  I write about Arty History.  I am not a Historian and I am not an Art Historian.  And I am not a scholar who writes about Art.  I write about Arty History as an Artist would write about history and if the truth is bent to its knees so much the better.  Like Pere Ubu said, “doesn’t that make such good literature.”   I learned long ago that the truth, in literature, is intolerably dull.  What is really so much better, as a writer, is to catch people’s imagination with as little truth as you might need and as much make-believe as you can dream up for your story.

 

Viva the liberation.

 

 

Slavko: Museum Night in Croatia

. . . this is not a place where you would expect to see Nada, among
artifacts, but yes, it did happen!
Last night was an Open Museum Night, with free admittance to Croatia's
museums from 6 PM - 01 AM, and since we have a museum in Skrip we went,
me and two Nada's (Nada = Hope)!
The theme was Herakles, that explains togas, and Roman time food.
250 people by 8 PM!

Slavko

Charles Writes: Again an again and again

Another major snow storm today big saucer flakes 5 to 8 inches.

Apollinare

 Charles writes:  Chapter Three:  Guillaumie Apollinaire

Apollinaire arrived in Paris in 1899 after a murky childhood that was all mixed up with a ruthless and difficult Russian mother, Vatican secrets, questionable suitors of his mother and a life spent on the road between the South of France, Italy and Belgium as the family would need to skip town every so often when the gambling debts came due.  Apollinaire grew into becoming a handsome articulate man and decided that being a French writer was just exotic and possibly erotic enough of a career for a man of his talents.  Being a writer was perfect for Apollinaire because as his background was sketchy his writing talents allowed him to fabricate a more interesting past as he went along.

Apollinaire was charming and filled with a personal rage towards those who were limited in intellect.  And while only seven years younger than Jarry he, just as Picasso was to receeive, an education at the knee of Ubu Pere on the Art of the Modern.  Jarry’s last advice for Apollinaire was to get on with it.

Apollinaire’s charm and personal wit allowed him to become the circus master of the avant garde painting, in these pre-war years, so much so that he would become the critical theorist for Cubism, Futurism and even as early as 1917 he foresaw the Surreal Art school forming in post war France.  Apollinaire was not always correct in his criticism but he was always formulating his cultural vision for other people to understand these new art forms.

Apollinaire can be seen as the Juggler of Modern Art and all of the personalities of his artist friends revolved in the air around him.  He was the impresario of the future of Art.  Apollinaire galavanted about Paris gathering all the interesting artistic talent of the town into his modern circle of creativity.

Picasso and Apollinaire became great friends in 1904 just as Picasso was beginning to settle into his studio at the Bateau Lavoir.  It was at his studio that Picasso hung a sign on the door that read “les rendezvous de poets” and it was here that Picasso would welcome his literary friends Andre Salmon, Alfred Jarry, Max Jacob and many others to toss around the ideas that were to become the basis for modern art.  And now Picasso would welcome the greatest promoter of Modern Art into his life, the poet and provacteur Guillaumie Apollinaire.

Picasso needed another great mind, other than his own, to feed off of to develop his Art and he found that this need was fulfiled in the person of Apollinaire.  Apollinaire’s poetry and novels were groundbreaking work in literature and he was a challenge to keep up with in conversation and in his daily pursuit of his Art.  He and Picasso were both uber individuals in the Nietzsche legacy and through mutual respect for the others work he and Picasso became the fastest of friends and especially between the years of 1904 and 1908.

Apollinaire opened up Picasso’s youthful mind to Primitive Art, sexual sensibility and he gave intellectual Anarchist fuel to Picasso’s desire to upend the existing order of the Art world and the social order of life in general.

Many friends of both of the men claim that it was Apollinaire who gave advice and encouragement to Picasso that allowed him to leave the stark blue period and to begin to paint scenes of Paris life in a warmer rose color.  While the new paintings were still mostly taken from street life they were now populated with subjects like circus performers who were part of the working poor instead of the abject poor of the blue period. 

It is said that Apollinaire introduced Picasso to the secrets and imagery of the Harlequin and he made Picasso a believer that the Harlequin was a soul that had escaped from the depths of Hell.  Apollinaire gave Picasso a keen interest in the Saltimbanques and other street performers on the Paris Streets.

And finally in the early years of their friendship it was Apollinaire who lifted Picasso out of poverty by convincing the art dealer Vollard to purchase 20 of Picasso’s early works.  After this purchase by Vollard Picasso never had to ask his friends and family for money to support himself ever again.  Ironically it was always Picasso who helped his friends with money after this financial reward even though most of them had turned their heads when Picasso was in financial need as a youthful painter.

Chapter Four:  Cezanne, Matisse, Braque and Picasso