Nature and a Sense of Time

Between preparing for my Art-Tasting open studio on December 5th and attending to family health matters, I am itching to get back to creating art. However, as I wrote in a previous blog (Daily Delights of November 26th), the natural world around me is sustaining and nurturing.

I was reminded of an article I had read in El Pais back in June, where journalist Isabel Lafont was interviewing Marina Abramovic. Whilst discussing her performance art, Ms. Abramovic talked of her upcoming MOMA retrospective that will last three months, with her performing day in, day out, all day in front of the public. The resultant mental and physical changes in her would thus be perceptible to the viewing public. She went on to remark, "We live in times that are so fleeting that we need to stop and become aware of the present moment. Artists need to do this and ensure that people stop for a moment and come to a sense of the here and now." (My translation from Spanish).

For me, nature provides that passport to the sense of here and now. When I am painting or drawing subjects from the natural world, that I hope will convey my messages to the viewing public about the healing, centering power of nature, I find that time stands still. One's sense of time is always relative, anyway, (haven't we all wondered when, oh when, something important will finally happen, or when something horrid will just end and go away?), but when I get involved in art, time has absolutely no meaning.

Calla Lilies, Palma, silverpoint Jeannine Cook artist

If people viewing my silverpoint drawings or watercolour pause and lose track of time for a moment or more, then I feel that perhaps I have been able to convey something of the timelessness and healing power of nature.

Daily delights

Since I have been involved with hanging an art exhibition for my upcoming open studio/wine-tasting event, my 15th Annual Art-Tasting, on December 5th, the business side of my brain has had to dominate in the past days.

Nonetheless, there are daily delights that feed the right brain and give me such joy as I busy myself in the studio. Looking out of the windows onto the salt water creek in front of the house, for instance, I caught sight of huge swirls of water along the edge of the creek. Curious, I grabbed the binoculars, so that I could see more clearly beyond the overhanging tree branches. Lo and behold, about fifteen white ibis were down on the bank, having the most wonderful, vigourous baths in the salt water. Once drenched, they flew up into the trees above. There, they shook out their feathers, poked and preened, stretched and fluffed. Such a production. The final stage in the grey early morning was a concerted flight up to the roof of our house, one wet ibis after another. It must have been the best source of heat around, in their estimation. In due course, looking up, I saw a V formation of pearly white-breasted ibis taking off from the roof - all dry and clean, ready for breakfast!

White Ibis in the Marshes

Other moments that give a wonderful moment of respite come from watching four brown pelicans glide in wondrous formation just above the water, seemingly effortless in their aerial ballet as they patrolled the creek for a likely meal of small fish.

Brown Pelicans (Image courtesy of Phil Lanoue Photography)

Or glimpsing a gathering of wood storks sailing higher and higher above the marshes on a thermal, soaring so effortlessly on their wide-spread wings, the essence of elegance that always makes me think of Japanese brush paintings of storks. Some while ago, I did a big watercolour painting of the wood storks, for I find them so magical.

Soaring above Creighton, watercolour, Jeannine Cook artist

Autumn brings its own share of sounds on the water too. Suddenly, we can hear the wonderful growling call of mergansers as they bob in unison far down the creek, fishing and preening in a mass of vibrant black dots on the water. The best sounds, however, are those of the dolphins blowing as they surface to breath, before diving again to fish and play. These sounds are a daily delight that are an enormous privilege to hear.

Somehow, preparing an art exhibition gets done, between these delicious distractions!

The Pope and his invocation of "beauty"

I am sure that a considerable number of members of the general art community around the world must have read with interest about the Pope's invitation to artists to a gathering at the Sistine Chapel this past 21st Nov. Whatever one's thoughts about such a invitation, the mere fact that one could sit, peacefully, and look at Michelangelo's ceiling in its brilliantly coloured restoration would make the invitation worth accepting, I suspect. About 250 artists of all disciplines did accept, apparently - from Placido Domingo to Santiago Calatrava and Zaha Hadid.

The Sistine Chapel

Since the Pope and the Vatican have quite a lot of fence-mending to do with the art world, in many ways, this was an interesting development. (Check out Edward Winkleman's comments too on the Pope's speech.) Whilst the Pope's announcement that the Vatican will participate in the 2011 Venice Biennale is a clear signal of involvement in the contemporary art scene, his speech seemed to dwell more on "beauty" and its potential pathway to the "transcendent". In some ways, his words resonate when he said, "In a world lacking in hope, with increasing signs of aggression and despair, there is an ever greater need for a return to spirituality in art."

Benedict XVI also said, "What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation - if not beauty?" Moreover, "the experience of beauty does not remove us from reality, on the contrary, it leads to a direct encounter with the daily reality of our lives, liberating it from darkness, transfiguring it, making it radiant and beautiful."

Wonderful words, hard to define really, let alone put into practice. Especially when the Pope also talked of "the beauty thrust on us is (too often) illusory and deceitful. It imprisons man within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy." Frankly, that is a passage that leaves me wondering who defines the Vatican's version of beauty. I don't know enough of present Vatican cultural politics. Does anyone else who is reading this ?

Nonetheless, I find it refreshing to see such a figure as the Pope talking of beauty and its central role in life, spiritually and culturally. Not so very long ago, particularly in the United States, the word, "beauty" was very much out of fashion in the art world. We are all impoverished when beauty, in its many, many forms and versions, is not part of our daily lives.

More Thoughts on Creative Passion

I was fascinated to listen, this morning, to Krista Tippett's programme, Speaking of Faith, during which she was interviewing Adele Diamond, a cognitive developmental neuroscientist who currently teaches at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

During the wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Diamond alluded to passages of various books which she had assembled in a book to present to the Dalai Lama whom she saw at Dharamsala, India, during a Mind and Life Institute dialogue. She cited one that made me reflect on what I had been saying in my blog yesterday about passion driving artists in particular. She quoted Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel from his book, "God and Man" and whilst the passage talks of a poet or a musician, the excerpt applies absolutely to visual artists too.

"Deeds set upon ideal goals, deeds performed not with careless ease and routine but in exertion and submission to their ends are stronger than the surprise and attack of caprice. Serving sacred goals may change mean motives. For such deeds are exacting. Whatever our motive may have been prior to the act, the act itself demands undivided attention. Thus the desire for reward is not the driving force of the poet in his creative moments, and the pursuit of pleasure or profit is not the essence of a religious or moral act. (My emphasis.)

At the moment in which an artist is absorbed in playing a concerto the thought of applause, fame or remuneration is far from his mind. His complete attention, his whole being is involved in the music. Should any extraneous thought enter his mind, it would arrest his concentration and mar the purity of his playing. The reward may have been on his mind when he negotiated with his agent, but during the performance it is the music that claims his complete concentration. (My emphasis again.) Man’s situation in carrying out a religious or moral deed is similar. Left alone, the soul is subject to caprice. Yet there is power in the deed that purifies desires. It is the act, life itself, that educates the will. The good motive comes into being while doing the good.”

What caught my attention was the issue of being totally involved in the act of creation, and not thinking of anything else like monetary reward, for instance.

Self-Portrait, 1659, Rembrandt (Image courtesy of the National Gallery)

Self-Portrait at the age of 63, Rembrandt.1669, (Image courtesy of the National Gallery)

So often one hears of artists caught up in having to paint in a certain fashion because previous versions of the painting/drawing or whatever have sold well, and pretty soon, the art being created ceases to have the same impact and nears the situation of "pot boiler". Yes, of course, there are definitely economic considerations, especially now, but nonetheless, there is always this danger lurking of "arresting concentration and marring purity". In other words, the passion for creation has been dissipated.

Branding, images and self-promotion

Just recently, it seems that every programme I listen to on National Public Radio or any magazine I read alludes to the necessity of branding in these times of high unemployment and economic woes. Very understandable, but as an artist, this is a topic that comes up, right from the moment one starts being an artist.

Listening carefully to the advice proffered and stratagems advised, I am often left thinking that the one thing I don't hear much talked about is passion. And yet, in the art world, without the passion to dream, plan, create and - frequently - promote, it is very hard and difficult sledding. So often, too, the passion that an artist feels is the best platform for other people to connect with the art created, making the artist the best sales person for him or herself. "You exist only in what you do" is a true observation when it comes to branding yourself in the economic and creative marketplaces. Federico Fellini, the wonderful Italian film maker, was very accurate in this observation.

Frederico Fellini in the 19560s

Being true to a vision and belief in oneself means that there has to be a dialogue with that small inner voice that each of us has. The magic of any creative venture is that since each of us is different, responding to different experiences and environments, the art produced will most likely be individual and distinctive. That art can become a branding vehicle to make that artist's work recognisable, a vehicle to promotion if need be. In some strange way, too, an artist who is passionate and committed about making art creates work that rings true to the viewer, no matter what the type of art. Passion is one of the most fabulous attributes of a human being, it seems to me – in every realm of life – the essence of being alive. As Fellini also remarked, "There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life."

Back to drawing - hooray!

How nice it is finally to get back to drawing after travels and the imbroglio of daily life! Life drawing is a passport to sanity for me and makes me feel more centered again. That hush in the room as a dozen or so artists concentrate on drawing is like a benediction; it reminds me that there is this whole union of artists out there all over the place, quietly doing their best to create art in all sorts of versions and visions, all intense and passionate. A nice universe of which to be a part!

Time and time again, I read in the press the comment from an artist that only when he or she is actively involved in art-making is there a sense of coherence, even harmony, in that artist's world. When one is not drawing, painting or whatever the creation involves, then there is a feeling of disquiet, dislocation. It is true in my case.

As I peer at the intricacy of fingers clasped, or the play of light on muscles on an arm or across a back, time becomes meaningless, for a while. That is a good feeling. It makes me think of the quote I read the other day from Antoni Gaudi, the great Catalan Modernist architect from the later 19th and early 20th century (think of la Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona): "Everything comes from the great book of nature." Life drawing is certainly part of that enormous and endlessly fascinating tome.

Main Gate, Dragon, Antoni Gaudi, Guell Park, Barcelona

Another museum worth visiting in Mallorca

There is another small museum which has recently opened in Mallorca which offers a delightful focus to a visit to the town of Soller, nestled in a grandiose valley beneath towering mountain ranges, to the north of the island. Can Prunera is a small museum of modern art, housed in a refurbished Modernist building built between 1909 and 1911, in the era when Antoni Gaudi's influence was paramount. 

Facade of Can Prunera, Soller, Mallorca (Image courtesy of Can Prunera)

Many of the restored details of the house are delightfully typical of that time. Gaudi had indeed been working in Palma, restoring and improving the interior of the Seu, the wonderful Gothic Cathedral overlooking the sea. He had started work there in 1902 but by 1914, he had fallen out with the ecclesiastical authorities and stopped the work.  His influence, however, showed up in many Mallorcan Modernist buildings, and especially in Soller.

Can Prunera's staircase (Image courtesy of Can Prunera)

Can Prunera houses part of the art collection of newpapers owner, Pedro Serra, who has been instrumental in the refurbishment and launching of the museum through his Fundacion Tren de l'Art and Fundacion d'Art Serra.  His father apparently worked for the Soller-Palma train company for a time, and his son has completed this circle in time.

The day I visited the Museum, only a few rooms were open. Miró acquatints gladdened three galleries, and a collection of Picasso ceramics was exhibited in two other galleries. The connections between Picasso and Miró were underlined by big photo reproductions of the two of them together on different occasions. Apparently, most of the art planned for exhibition will have some connection with Mallorca. 

Off the beaten path in Mallorca

There are plenty of hidden gems in Mallorca that reward the explorer.  One of them that had long tantalised me is the Yannick and Ben Jakober Foundation at Sa Bassa Blanca, just outside Puerto de Alcudia, on the eastern coast.

En route to Sa Bassa Blanca, Mallorca (Rundle Cook photographer)

Nestled on long slopes sweeping down to sapphire waters, the buildings and gardens that form the exhibition spaces are an interesting mixture of foreign exoticism and Mallorcan architecture.  The house and partial exhibition spaces were built by Egyptian architect, Hassan Fathy, with white crenellated walls and an interior courtyard that harks back to the Alhambra.  Latticed windows and elements from Morrocco, Turkey and Andalucia all mingle to form an abode of great character, the backdrop to a collection of art and sculpture that underline Yannick and Ben Jakober's status of artist-citizens of the world.  Outside, oversized sculptures executed in Asia via Internet supervision by Yannick and Ben Jakober are scattered through the landscaped gardens.

View at the Fundación Yannick y Ben Jakober, (Rundle Cook photographer)

The core collection that attracts visitors down the four kilometer country lane to the Foundation is hidden elsewhere.  Deep underground in a wonderfully converted Mallorcan "aljibe" or cistern is housed the "Nins" collection of children's portraits dating from the 16th to 19th century. 

The collection began when Yannick purchased a 19th century Mallorcan work by Joan Mestre, "Portrait of a Girl with Cherries" in 1972.

Joan Mestre i Bosch (Escuela mallorquina), Retrato de una niña con cerezas, c. 1843, oil on canvas, Fundación Yannick y Ben Jakober, Mallorca

The collection has slowly grown to over a hundred works, mainly of the 16th and 17th century, mostly of children of important historical figures.  There are portraits from most European centres, from England to Italy.  About a third of the collection is on exhibit at any one time in the spacious "aljibe" galleries.

As you walk into the galleries, it is an introduction to aspects of art that are seldom underlined.  Not only are there lovely portraits, of all sizes and styles, many by well-known artists, but you learn how children were cared for, clothed and regarded down the ages.  Swaddled children are depicted, several times.  Little "adults" bedecked with elaborate accoutrements telling of their social status stare out seriously at the viewer.  Later, there were more informal portraits, when children were allowed to be a little more their real age.  Fashions changed, jewels evolved. Dogs come and go as companions, while birds often act as symbols.  Landscapes began to be introduced as backdrops to the portraits, rather than elaborately curtained interiors.  Some close-cropped head studies, particularly from the Netherlands and Spain, are poignant in their directness.  Others hint at illness and a complicated destiny.  Willy nilly, as you walk around the galleries, you find yourself caught up in the dramas and rarified atmospheres of these little children whose positions were often of such privilege that we know today of their existence in exquisite detail.  It is a unique experience to view this "Nins" collection.

Not only are there all these interesting aspects of art to savour, but in May, there is also a rose garden full of heritage roses of great beauty to enjoy.  Planted by Yannick Jakober, it is a perfect complement to everything else to visit at Sa Bassa Blanca.

The photographs above were taken by my photographer husband, along the road to the Foundation, and at the entrance to Sa Bassa Blanca.  Thank you, Rundle.

Back from Mallorca

I can hardly believe that time does not pass at double speed when I am in Mallorca, but seeing the date of my last post here confirms that the weeks have indeed passed in due fashion. Now that I have left behind the brilliant crisp light of the autumnal Mediterranean, clean-washed and windswept, and returned to the soft golden scintillations of coastal Georgia's marshes, I have to refocus my eyes and my mind.

Palma's diversity of music, art and dance was as beguiling as ever, and there are places about which I will write more in depth. However, there was a quote I found from Vincent van Goh, writing to his brother, Theo, which somehow seemed very apt for this visit home to Mallorca. I was in a very lovely place, Son Brull, watching the light play over the mountains in the late afternoon. Above me were wondrous old gnarled olive trees, possibly some of those planted by the Romans who lived in the Pollentia area twenty-two centuries ago. There was a soft tinkling of bells as a flock of sheep drifted into sight as they slowly but deliberately climbed the terraces higher and higher to grazing up the mountain's flanks. The grey dry stone walls and the warm golden brown of the olive tree trunks served to emphasise the subtle green of the olive leaves as they shimmered in the slight breeze. Below, the last glow of pink summer oleanders warmed the foreground and caught the evening sunlight.

In the same tones of delight and wonder, Van Gogh wrote, "Ah, my dear Theo, if you could see the olive trees at this time of year – The old-silver and silver foliage greening up against the blue. And the orangeish ploughed soil. It’s something very different from what one thinks of it in the north – it’s a thing of such delicacy – so refined. It’s like the lopped willows of our Dutch meadows or the oak bushes of our dunes, that’s to say the murmur of an olive grove has something very intimate, immensely old about it. It’s too beautiful for me to dare paint it or be able to form an idea of it. The oleander – ah – it speaks of love and it’s as beautiful as Puvis de Chavannes’ Lesbos, where there were women beside the sea. But the olive tree is something else, it is, if you want to compare it to something, like Delacroix." (Ah mon cher Theo, si tu voyais les oliviers à cette epoque ci – Le feuillage vieil argent & argent verdissant contre le bleu. Et le sol labouré orangeâtre.– C’est quelque chôse de tout autre que ce qu’on en pense dans le nord – c’est d’un fin – d’un distingué.– C’est comme les saules ébranchés de nos prairies hollandaises ou les buissons de chêne de nos dunes, c.à.d. le murmure d’un verger d’oliviers a quelque chose de très intime, d’immensement vieux. C’est trop beau pour que j’ose le peindre ou puisse le concevoir. Le laurier rose – ah – cela parle amour et c’est beau comme le Lesbos de Puvis de Chavannes où il y avait les femmes au bord de la mer. Mais l’olivier c’est autre chôse, c’est si on veut le comparer a quelque chôse, du Delacroix.) Van Gogh was writing on April 28th, 1889, while he was staying in Arles.

Olive Trees, Saint-Rémy, November 1889, Vincent Van Gogh,, (Image courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Art)

The Olive Trees, 1889, Vincent van Gogh, (Image courtesy of MOMA)

I could understand his inhibitions about trying to paint the olives - they are such extraordinary trees that they defy many attempts by artists to depict them. I have preferred to draw them in silverpoint, because of that oxidised silver green Theo talks of, but I never seem to have sufficient time to sit down and try to do them justice when I am in Mallorca. Manaña!

Hurray for exhibitions of Master Drawings!

It always delights me when I see that another exhibition of Master Drawings is on display, to celebrate this extraordinarily simple, yet sophisticated, diverse and direct medium.

I see that the Kunstmuseum in Basel, Switzerland, is opening a survey of 101 drawings from their huge collection in an exhibit entitled From Dürer to Gober. The earliest is apparently a 1400 silverpoint from the French/Burgundian court, where drawings of stylised, elegantly clad men and women seem almost to step from pattern books. Other silverpoints use the favourite method of the artist drawing on tinted grounds, which allows a wonderful play of highlights done in white gouache - often a perfect way to get rhythms going in the drawing and basically have some fun. On the Kunstmuseum's website's main page, the silverpoint portrait on green-turquoise ground has the most wonderful fur hat mostly done in white gouache. I can really relate to this white gouache highlighting - it is occasionally hugely satisfying to use when drawing in silverpoint!

The Heads of the Virgin and Child, by Raphael, ca. 1502, silverpoint on warm white prepared paper, 10 x 7. (Image courtesy of The Trustees of the British Museum, London

Standing Woman,1460-69, by Fra Filippino Lippi. (Image courtesy of The Trustees of the British Museum, London)

Another important Master Drawing exhibition is now also on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. From Renaissance to Revolution: French Drawings from the National Gallery of Art, 1500-1800. 120 drawings done by French artists and foreign artists working in France - what a feast for the eyes! Great, well-known artists, but apparently, also less-known ones, so it means that there is a richness and depth that will reward any lucky visitor to the show. I was fascinated to see that the earliest work is done about 1500 and that it is a landscape done in watercolour, of all media. "The Coronation of Solomon by the Spring of Gihon", it was done by the miniaturist Jean Poyet, who worked for Anne of Brittany, Queen of France.

I remember, not so long ago, when it was very unusual to find an exhibition of drawings, let alone Master Drawings. Now that the Drawing Center and other such institutions exist, and that both the public and artists themselves are appreciating much more the intrinsic interest and beauty of drawings, in all their diversity, there are so many more opportunities to see drawings displayed. It used to be that The Morgan and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Getty, the Louvre, the British Museum and others in European capitals were the bastions of such shows. Now, that has changed. A list in a spring 2009 issue of the Berkshire Review for the Arts is eloquent - lots of drawings on which people could feast their eyes earlier this year.

Vive le dessin!