Climate Control for Artwork

The other day, the Indianapolis Museum of Art announced that it was allowing greater fluctuations in the temperature and humidity ranges in most of the museum galleries and storage spaces. The goal is to save energy and thereby reduce carbon emissions, a key initiative the Museum has apparently embraced for the last five years, according to the ArtDaily.org article.

Recent research has shown that there can safely be as much as 15% fluctuation in relative humidity and variations of as much as ten degrees Celsius in temperature in all but a few galleries (those where composite artwork is displayed or stored, such as Asian screens and scrolls). Conservation Analytical Laboratory researchers concluded that there is no need to be so meticulous over climate control as museums have been: "materials such as wood, cellulose, various polymer coating, fibers, minerals, pigments and the like share an overlapping range of tolerance to temperature and relative humidity. "It is thus far more energy efficient to allow more variations in temperature and relative humidity in museum facilities, according to the time of day, during a 24 hour cycle. According to the new standards set out by the IMA," with incremental seasonal adjustments, the range for humidity will be 50% RH +/- 8 (with a variation percentage of +/- 6% in a 24 hour period) and for temperature will be 70°F +/- 4 (with a variation percentage of +/- 2° in a 24 hour period."

What does all this mean for the general public, with artwork and other important objects in our homes or even in many galleries? I take it to mean that art in general, particularly work done on paper, for example, is more adaptable that most people believed to normal climatic conditions. Obviously, living in tropical or sub-tropical areas is extremely taxing on art and artifacts. Nonetheless, in a home which is air-conditioned and at temperatures comfortable to its human inhabitants, most work can survive reasonably - if, and a big if, it is treated archivally in the first place.

Works on paper need to be matted, if necessary, with acid-free museum mat-board, mounted archivally and properly protected in suitable frames. Hanging art work on outside walls, if they are not very well insulated, is hazardous, even with air-conditioning, and bright sunlight is another danger.

It seems to be that every one of us can be moderate and sensible about climate control in the stewardship of art. We can thus, even incrementally, help in the reduction of energy consumption. The Gulf debacle lends this endeavour even more relevance.

Making Art

I came across an interesting quote today: Sol Lewitt was talking of the "primacy of idea in making art". His thesis was the idea itself, even if it is not eventually made visual, is as much a finished work of art as any finished product. This is as succinct a statement as one could wish about Conceptual art.

Lewitt continued, "All intervening steps, scribbles, sketches, drawings, failed works, models, studies, thoughts, conversations are of interest." Thus the idea, the intention, the gestures, are all almost part of a choreography of creation, of making art.

Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing 565, June 1988 (Image courtesy of SFMOMA)

Whilst I know that some art-making is indeed a process of this type, with ideas that might or might end up as visual art, I find that there are other ways that art gets made. For instance, I know that when I am working plein air amidst wonderful scenery, I very soon find that after the initial spark of excitement and assessment of the viability of composition, what medium to use, and other technical considerations, I am no longer "thinking" at all. I am just some sort of channel for my eyes and my hand to work together to produce art. The process is in essence pure reaction, beyond having any idea per se. However, it does also mean that one needs to have a lot of practice, of trial and error, in order to make decent art, because instinct is not always a good guide to art-making!

Dedication and hard work are needed, in fact, whether one's avenue is conceptual or not. Making art is fascinating, complex, many faceted and endlessly stimulating. Sol Lewitt was an eloquent ambassador for art-making.

Artistic influences, conscious or unconscious

It is always fun to see an image and then link it back to another artist and deduce an influence or heritage, conscious or unwitting. Today, on Art Knowledge News, that wonderful daily Web magazine, there was the announcement of an exhibition opening at the Boise Art Museum. The accompanying image, a reproduction of a detail of Virginia Partridge, is a marvel of accuracy, composition, rhythm and energy. It was painted in 1825 but printed in 1829.

Detail from Plate 76 of John James Audubon's Birds of America. Virginian Partridge (Northern Bobwhite) under attack by a young red-shouldered hawk. Restored by RestoredPrints.com 2008.

As I delighted in the image, I suddenly realised that I had seen the same sort of fidelity to nature, allied with a wonderful rhythmic energy and sense of colour in another artist's work.

Walter Anderson , a remarkable artist who was born in 1903 in New Orleans, spent many years recording the natural world in the Gulf of Mexico - work made even more poignant given the current oil spill disaster unfolding in the same areas. He spent a great time of time alone, after 1947, on Horn Island, one of the Mississippi Gulf Coast barrier islands. His watercolours of turtles, fishes, birds of every description, trees and water are marvels of luminosity and freedom. I had hoped to be able to illustrate this entry with one of the images which I find so evocative of Audubon's bobwhite illustrated above, but alas, the copyright situation with the Walter Anderson Museum precludes it. Nonetheless, the painting of red wing blackbirds is well worth the link-click to see it. There is a good selection of his work on the Google images for Walter Anderson- his sense of composition comes through clearly.

Redwing Blackbirds, Walter Anderson (Image courtesy of Walter Anderson Museum of Art

Anderson was given an art education at the precursor to the Parsons School of Design and then the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts before spending time in Europe. There he claimed to be more influenced by the caves and cathedrals than the museums' contents. Nonetheless, as I look at Audubon's wonderful studies of America's birds, I can't help feeling that, wittingly or unwittingly, Walter Inglis Anderson was greatly indebted to him. Just as we all are, as artists, down the chain of years when we learn of how other artists react to the world around us. We all stand on the shoulders of giants.

Those who love drawings

Back on 3st May, I wrote about how I felt sad for people who simply by-passed a drawing on a wall in favour of a painting and thus missed the intimate and fascinating dialogue that is possible with such works.

Very soon afterwards, I read Souren Melikian's article, "An Inspiring Case of Schizophrenia" in the June issue of Art + Auction. I should first say that over the years of reading this magazine, I have become a huge admirer of Mr. Melikian and his deep, encyclopedic knowledge of so many branches of art and antiques, from his main love, 16th century Persian literature and Iranian art, to old master paintings and drawings. This particular article, sub-titled "Paintings and drawings belong to different worlds. So do the collectors who seek them out", dealt essentially with the same attitudes towards drawings as I had been writing about earlier. Souren Melikian was writing about the March Salon du Dessin, in Paris, where an atmosphere of rapt, close attention is the norm on the gallery stands, totally different from the "bustle and boom" of other art fairs. He went on to describe some of the interesting and beautiful drawings to be seen, some of which had been discovered to be studies for later paintings after considerable connoisseurship and sleuthing.

"Great works on paper do not lend themselves to hype, nor can they be summed up in the sound bites that are so dear to the media and auction houses alike." Not only that, Melikian continued, they do not command the same prices, especially if the drawings cannot be linked to a painting. As most artists know, drawings are private works, often done to express thoughts and feelings without regard to the public arena. Often too, mediocre painters can produce dazzlingly wonderful drawings, even though the market place has difficulty in accepting such works. It takes someone who loves drawings for themselves and has developed a deep knowledge of them to appreciate such buying opportunities.

An interesting point made about drawings historically by Melikian is that they often herald, by many decades or even centuries, new artistic trends in painting. One example he cites is of 16th century drawings by the Genoan artist, Luca Cambiaso, who reduced human figures to simple geometrical figures in a way that could - or should - have led to a Cubist movement in Italy in the 1500s.

The Visitation, c. 1580,
pen & brown ink brown wash on paper, Luca Cambiaso (Image courtesy of the Art Gallery of South Australia)

Other artists he referred to include Victor Hugo, who was a pioneer in abstract art in the 1850 and 1860s with his amazingly atmospheric black ink drawings, many done while he sought political asylum from Napoleon's Second Empire in Jersey and later Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Another artist who could already be termed an Abstract Expressionist in his drawings of 1855 was the Spanish artist, Eugenio Lucas Velazquez, who signed himself Eugenio Lucas. A minor painter, his arresting drawings in black ink or pencil could easily be read as abstract works, a century ahead of his peers.

Eugenio Lucas, Madrid 1817–1870 Madrid,Priest Declaiming, ca. 1850, Black chalk and brown wash (Image courtesy of the Morgan Library, New York)

As Souren Melikian underlined, it takes faith in one's own eye and a knowledge of drawings, old or contemporary, to allow one to enter this quiet and rewarding world that runs parallel to that of paintings. When one does, the delights, surprises and rewards do not fail.

More on "Artists' Eyes on the Skies"

I heard a fascinating addendum to my blog entry of June 7th about artwork helping to unravel meteorologist mysteries of the past on NPR today. With the title, "Scientists pinpoint Monet's Balcony", host Guy Raz interviewed John Thornes, Professor of Applied Meteorology at Birmingham University.

Like other scientists looking at artists' work to learn of past weather conditions and other situations, John Thornes has been studying Claude Monet's paintings which he did in London in the winters of 1899-1901. These famous paintings of Waterloo and Charing Cross Bridges and along the Thames to the Houses of Parliament - 95 images in total - were painted from the balcony of his rooms at the Savoy Hotel. As Monet did so often, he worked on different canvases as the light moved. He apparently used the morning light to depict Waterloo Bridge, the midday hours to paint the Charing Cross Bridge and ended his busy days capturing the sunsets along the river towards the Houses of Parliament.

Impression, Sunrise,  1872, oil on canvas, Claude Monet, (Image courtesy of the Musee Marmottan)

Professor Thornes and his team used solar geometry and historical weather data to determine exactly which balconies of the Savoy had become Monet's painting sites, based on the sunlight that Monet painted in each canvas. Monet, like many other artists, was amazingly accurate in his representation of the prevailing weather, so the visual coloured record of wintertime London is also one of the famous "pea souper" conditions that prevailed for so long in the smoky, foggy city. Monet, in fact, damaged his health by exposure to all that pollution, even though he apparently considered all the smog as an "envelope" between him and the scenery.

Clearly scientists have a rich resource to mine in artists' observations of the skies and world around them. For John Thornes, for example, the next of Monet's paintings to be examined for meteorological information is his Impression, Sunrise, the canvas painted at Le Havre that purportedly gave rise to the name of Impressionism. It must be a thrill to combine one's passions for art and science in these sleuthing ventures.

More Proof of the Value of Art in Education

Although most artists instinctively know how valuable a tool art is in all aspects of their life, helping in so many ways that don't seem directly connected with art-making, it is always interesting to have it "officially" confirmed.

The Guggenheim Museum in New York has just held a conference entitled "Thinking like an Artist: Creativity and Problem-solving in the Classroom". This is the culmination of a four-year research initiative focusing on the Art of Problem Solving, using arts education as a pathway to foster creativity and help problem-solving techniques. The U.S. Department of Education funded the study and conference.

The bottom line at the end of the study is that the Learning through Art instruction methods help in developing different skills: flexibility (the ability to rethink or revise one's plans when faced with challenges), the connection of means of achieving goals and the results achieved (the ability to assess the success of meeting the goals one had set out in the work of art) and resource recognition (the ability to identify additional materials that could be used to complete the project). Imagining, experimentation and self-reflection are other benefits mentioned in the study.

So, after four years and a million dollars spent, we can all know for certain what artists knew already: art is hugely helpful for problem-solving and general coping with life. An earlier study done under the same auspices had already confirmed that Learning through Art improved students' literacy and critical thinking. But as a result of these studies, more children might at least acquire more tools to prepare them for life if they have art incorporated into their curriculum. That would be really good.

Art as Witness for Ourselves as Humans

A well-respected and prolific Spanish writer, poet and essayist, Felix de Azua, has just published an Autobiography without Life or Autobiografica sin vida (Mondadori 2010) which sounds fascinating and thought-provoking.

Starting with the book cover which uses an image from the 30,000 year-old drawings of horses found in the Chauvet Caves in France, he traces his own life, that of his generation and, in a wider sense, that of western art in general by images of artwork down the ages. His thesis is that the art we humans create bears witness for us as human beings. For century after century, representative art has reflected our place in the world, showing what surrounds us, and what matters to us. At the same time, that art also acts as a substitution for the reality depicted.

For the people frequenting such caves as Chauvet, Lascaux or Altamira, the magic of the rock face art was potent. Its power still reaches us. (As a confirmation of this, I read this week that the Spanish authorities have decided, despite the chorus of opposition from the scientific community, to reopen the Altamira caves to public visits.)

Rupestrian Art, Altamira Caves, Spain

Chauvet Cave Art Paintings (Image courtesy of Bradshaw Foundation)

But over the generations, Felix de Azua contends, this magic has been diluted, dissipated, stolen from art - he cites David's Marat, Goya's Disasters or even Rothko's work as having converted art's magical qualities into shadows and undiluted (maybe soulless?) representation culminating in today's performance art. In Azua's opinion, the nuclear bomb unleashed at Hiroshima not only proved to all mankind that our species is capable of total self-destruction, but it also caused a huge rift in the history of art.

Azua feels that we are thus in the early days of a totally new era in art, one that is full of complexities, given man's awareness of his own potential disappearance. Our awareness of the nuclear threat may be only subliminal now, but the threat does influence today's forms of art. Nonetheless, the magic inherent in art-making still exists or can exist. This "communion with the cosmos" is still necessary for us as humans, in art, in literature, in falling in love. As Azua remarks, "I also know that we cannot do without art, just as we cannot do without religion or science."

Artists' Eyes on the Skies

I am sitting on a hotel terrace in the Thousand Islands area of the St. Lawrence Seaway, Ontario. A rainy day has yielded to golden light and jewel-like sparkles in the water in the early evening, with hours of light still remaining - in these northern climes. The River is sprinkled with small islands, mostly crowned with a cluster of trees, which are ebulliently vivid in their variety of greens above the ochres and greys of the granite rock shorelines. Limpid reflections shimmer on smooth waters. Above, osprey hover and dive, while great blue heron wing purposefully west above the pine tree crowns on the distant shore.

I have been watching this wonderful parade of light and magic because I have my artist's eye turned on. I keep analysing the scene in terms of how to depict what I see. I don't mean literally, in terms of representation, necessarily, because I am always "pruning" and editing the scene I am looking at, trying to select the most relevant details. Nevertheless, at the back of my head, I am aware that the veracity of a painting of drawing is underlined by the references, direct or indirect, to the climate, the light, the prevalent weather ... In the days that I have spent here, the light has been amazingly varied but always wonderful and very northern and cool, compared to the light of coastal Georgia or the Mediterranean.

Artistic fidelity to weather and atmospheric phenomena has proven useful on occasions. I have read that meteorologists have consulted paintings done in previous centuries to confirm weather events, volcanic eruptions, meteor showers and more. We were all recently reminded about the amazing sunsets caused by volcanic ash. I heard Simon Winchester talking on PBS about the insights into wind patterns circling the globe that were obtained from paintings done around the world by artists enthralled by the sunsets drama caused by the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883.

Constable's drawings and paintings of clouds and related weather in 18th/19th century England have also yielded good science, thanks to their accuracy. He spent many an hour studying clouds and drawing them in their fugitive glory. I felt considerable empathy with him when I was Artist in Residence in Brittany in autumn, 2008, because there, too, the weather is never the same for more than half an hour!

Seascape Study, Boat and Stormy Sky, 1824, John  Constable  (Image courtesy of the Royal Academy)

Another benefit of artistic fidelity to weather conditions was written about by Dan Falk, an environmental journalist writing on June 6th, 2010, in the Toronto Star. A Canadian artist, Gustav Hahn (1866-1962), depicted a west Toronto neighbourhood in the winter of 1913. Above, the night sky shows the constellation, Orion, and also a bright series of objects streaking across the sky. Hahn, also an amateur astronomer, was recording the famous Canadian Fireball Procession of 1913, a very rare event when meteors graze the earth's atmosphere at a very low angle and break up into glowing fragments. This painting yielded all sorts of insights for Donald Olson, a physicist at Texas State University, who is known as the world's leading "forensic astronomer". He mines classic works of literature and art for references to our universe - the moon, the stars and the sun - and calculates where and when each piece of art was created. For example, Olson has calculated the exact spot and time when Van Gogh painted Moonrise: 9.08 p.m. on July 13th, 1889. Another piece of art that became important in Olson's studies was a painting by Hudson River School artist, Frederic Church, entitled The Meteor of 1860, showing a peaceful late evening river scene, with a brilliant array of meteors streaking across the sky on an almost horizontal trajectory. Olson later deduced that Walt Whitman, in New York, had witnessed and then written of the same event in one of his poems. Both conclusions were buttressed by his having seen a copy of Hahn's painting of a meteor procession. Olson's analysis is appearing in the July issue of Sky and Telescope magazine.

Painting of The Meteor of 1860 by Hudson River School artist Frederic Church. (Credit: Frederic Church courtesy of Judith Filenbaum Hernstadt).

Without the keen watch that artists keep on the skies above, we would all lose a lot of fascinating information.

Tuning into Drawings

A remark that was made by Andrew Lambirth in the Spectator magazine in mid-April has stayed with me. Writing about a recent exhibit at Tate Modern, Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective, he wrote, "One of the chief pleasures and revelations of this show is the drawings. The five works here, including 'Study for the Liver in the Cock's Comb', are rich enough to merit a couple of hours' study, and yet most people only glance at them en route to the paintings." (my emphasis).

The Plough and the Song, 1947, Arshile Gorky. (Image courtesy of Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College.)

These cursory glances at drawings en route to paintings in exhibitions make me sad. For many a long year, particularly in the United States, the average person has somehow retained the impression that drawings are very much a second class affair, unworthy of much attention and still less worth acquisition. Since drawing as a medium fell out of fashion during the time when abstract art reigned supreme, it is somewhat understandable. Yet drawing permits a depth of understanding, appreciation and - yes - delight in a viewer willing to pause and really look.

Drawings seldom are as commanding as a painting; their presence is more discreet, more intimate. Yet a drawing is not only a pathway to understanding the artist's paintings, it is also a porthole allowing one to see the artist's inner workings and concerns in the most direct and unadorned fashion. Drawing also allows such an enormous variety of approaches and methods that it makes painting - in oil, acrylic, watercolour, encaustic or egg tempera - seem positively staid. Take Gorky's drawings, with their extraordinary inventiveness of form and use of colour - many of them were the result of numerous repetitions and permutations based on drawings done in the fields and meadows of Virginia on his in-laws' farm. At the other extreme is the delicacy of a silverpoint drawing done by someone such as Koo Schadler, who works in classical media today.

There are - happily - more and more exhibitions of drawings, master drawings for the most part. The public which appreciates drawings is a minority, but a very appreciative and passionate one. Ideally, the task of every artist today is to convey to their supporters and collectors how important drawing is in the artistic process, whether it is a working drawing or a finished one which stands alone. If a viewer understands that a drawing is an "open sesame" to understanding that artist and his or her work, then the whole artistic experience is enriched.

That a drawing merits more than a glance - that's the goal! For each artist and then for each viewer.

An Admirable Art Project

On Morning Edition this morning, I heard of a really wonderful art project. Artist Matthew Mitchell, whose studio is in Amherst, Mass, is painting One Hundred Faces of War. Apparently one third of the way through the project, he is doing portraits of men and women who have served in the military in recent times, from very different ranks and varied walks of civilian life. He reflects the faces of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, people who have chosen to journey forth from America to these distant lands. Accompanying the very accomplished portraits, some posthumous, are statements written by the people themselves or by their survivors.

This project struck me as brilliant, not only because it is a wonderful way to make one's way professionally as an artist, with all the attendant publicity and exhibitions, but also because it seems a very necessary and important thing to do for society in general. As artist Mitchell remarked himself in the NPR interview, he did not know people in the military when he started out on this project. This is very frequently the case, I suspect. Certainly I do not know many people who have served in recent conflicts. In countries such as the US, where conscription has been abolished, the general awareness, on a personal level, of matters military is far more limited.

Nonetheless, America has a large number of very dedicated and admirable citizens who have served or are now serving; Iraq and Afghanistan are both terrible crucibles for these volunteers. I frequently have the uncomfortable feeling that their sacrifices are not always recognised sufficiently. Thus the Hundred Faces of War project is a wonderful way to convey to a wider public just what being a soldier means to men and women today. The portraits shown on Mr. Mitchell's website are eloquent and moving, made even more meaningful by the accompanying written statements.

Emilio Fernandez, IT Project Manager at the Veteran's Administration, From Phoenix, AZ, Marine, Sergeant, Artillery Fire Directional Controlman / Watch Chief, Iraq 2/03-6/03, 2/04-4/04 (Image courtesy of artist Matthew Miller), for Emilio Fernandez' statement, see http://100facesofwarexperience.org/portrait-gallery/100-faces/17229798

For artists, finding such projects is important but not always easy. Each of us has passions and concerns, and when the stars align to allow a project that combines our passion and our artistic skills, the results are usually powerful. The ventures are as diverse as are the artists involved - from a personal odyssey depicted in a series to plein air work done to raise awareness of an area's importance or an abstract exploration of feelings or memories... Each time one dreams up a project to execute, there is a thrill of excitement, often apprehension (as Matthew Mitchell also recognised in his NPR interview) about being able to tackle the task, but then a certain impetus and logic of the project itself seem to take over. One just goes about trying to execute it to the best of one's ability. Depending on the size and ambition of the project, it can become life-consuming. There is, nonetheless, an almost certain personal enrichment involved too. I have found that fascinations, insights, diverse joys and fresh knowledge come from each such venture - unexpected bonuses that remain with one. They often lead to the next project too, just as research for a book yields additional avenues later to be explored for other books.

I found the NPR story about Matthew Mitchell to be inspiring and reassuring - a timely reminder to be thinking of my next artwork series. I wonder if anyone else felt the same thing after hearing about him?