Egyptomania Hits the Dahesh

Yesterday the Dahesh Museum Gift Shop in Hudson Square played host to a capacity crowd for the debut of Bob Brier’s new book, Egyptomania.  Brier is, of course, the celebrated egyptologist who has written eight books, including The Murder of Tutankhamen, and was host of television’s The Great Egyptians and The Mummy Detective. 

Though an academic with multiple degrees (including actually getting a medical degree to better understand the underlying cause of death of the mummies he has examined), Brier brings to his field of expertise an infectious sense of fun and a true sense of wonder.  Rarely have I laughed so much at a lecture, nor can I remember having been regaled with stories by an expert who is as much entertainer as academic. 

Brier’s book chronicles our three thousand year obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs, and provides a wonderful juxtaposition between the learned (his chronicle of Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, complete with a retinue of savants to provides what might be history’s first ethnographic study) and the commercial, cataloging “mummy” sheet music, Cleopatra cigarettes and mummy movies featuring everyone from Boris Karloff to Peter Cushing.

Brier argues that no ancient civilization compares to Egypt for its romantic hold on our imagination.  He thinks this is a mixture of our fascination with mummies (here – easily recognizable – are human beings who walked the earth thousands of years ago); the art of Egyptian hieroglyphics; and, of course, what he calls “the Indiana Jones effect.”  Egypt has inspired exotic adventure fiction from pens as diverse as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sax Rohmer and H. Rider Haggard – and this touch of exotica continues in the films of Steven Spielberg and Stephen Sommers.

Your correspondent had the pleasure of interviewing Brier at his home in the Bronx, which is crammed with enough Egyptian artifacts to gladden the heart of Indiana Jones.  That interview, along with a more detailed review of his book, will follow in a few weeks.

In other Dahesh news, the country’s premiere museum-without-walls, has taken the remarkable step of purchasing Frederic, Lord Leighton’s imposing Star of Bethlehem, to expand the scope of the current exhibition, Sacred Visions: Nineteenth-Century Biblical Art from the Dahesh Museum Collection, on view until February 16, 2014 at the Museum of Biblical Art.  Curators and directors from each institution immediately agreed to add the painting to the current installation, as this presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the Leighton alongside other like-themed treasures.  The exhibition traces the renewed interest in Biblical myths following the expansion of biblical archeology and the advent of photography, which produced travel books with pictures of the Holy Land.

Curator Alia Nour said last night, “We decided to remove two smaller paintings to make room for this very large one and started to work on a new label. We deemed it worthwhile to give visitors access to one of the most powerful biblical works Leighton produced during the 1860s.”

New Yorkers who have not yet seen the show now have added impetus, and those who have already seen it an added reason to see it once again.  The Museum of Biblical Art is at 1865 Broadway at 61st Street, and admission is free.  For more information, call 212.408.1500.

The Chess Players by Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier (1853)

We finish would look at the works of Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891) with this treasure from 1853, The Chess Players.  This small scale painting (just 9.5x12.5 – slightly larger than the paper in your printer) is quite terrific.  One of the more interesting things about this picture, to my mind, is how Meissonier plays again and again with patterns.

A chessboard has a specific pattern – fair enough. But then see how he buffets this with square shapes representing the ornate room divider, the tapestries, and various pictures scattered about the room.  Also interesting is how he places his major players in the picture – the player on the left poised for attack, the player on the right hesitant, the sleeping dog and table with decanter standing off to the side like unused pieces in a game.  Here is composition as strategy, and it illustrates the keen eye Meissonier had for placement and his very conscious selection of components of a picture.

One of the other fascinating things about this work, when seen opposite some of his other pictures, is the lack of detail.  To be sure the chairs, the clothes, the tables and the dog are all depicted with a photographic sensibility, but Meissonier chooses to uncharacteristically wash-out some of the background detail.  We have only a sense of the tapestries, room divider and surrounding pictures.  I think, though, that this is in keeping with Meissonier’s overall approach to the picture: the “board” is less important than the psychology of the major “pieces.”

Unlike contemporary artists, Meissonier believed in that fine art helped make for a better citizenry.  He wanted art to be an elevating experience, filled with the grandeur of history and the lessons found in heroic deeds.  He consciously spent the later part of his life painting scenes of Napoleonic glory.  Executed with the same fine brushwork and acute attention to detail as his earlier subjects, these scenes from the great days of the French Empire eventually made Meissonier’s works the highest-grossing, most sought-after paintings of any living artist. The largest and most-ambitious of these works, finished in 1875, was Friedland (see below), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It sold for 380,000 francs, more than triple the highest price ever paid for a painting by a living artist.  Unlike his smaller works, Friedland was a large-scale picture which took the artist 14 years to complete.  It is considered by many to be his masterpiece, but I much prefer his smaller, more intimate pictures. 

It is interesting to contrast a picture like The Chess Players with Friedland.  Though both pictures are composition-as-strategy, and involve participation in a game of war, the smaller picture has a warmth, humanity and … sensitivity missing from the larger work.  Perhaps depictions of simple people, living their lives, is the most elevating artistic goal of all.

The Egyptian Expedition Under the Command of Bonaparte, by Léon Cogniet

This wonderful picture, from 1835, can be found on the ceiling at the Louvre.  It was painted by Léon Cogniet (1794 – 1880), a French historical and portrait painter.  Cogniet was born in Paris. In 1812, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied under Pierre-Narcisse Guérin alongside such heady company as Delacroix and Géricault.

Cogniet won the Prix de Rome in 1817 and was a resident at the Villa Medici from then until 1822.  He became famous for the painting Marius Among the Ruins of Carthage (1824), and later decorated several ceilings in the Louvre and the Halle de Godiaque in the Hôtel de Ville, Paris, and a chapel in the church of Madeleine.  At first he painted in classical style, but later adopted the more spirited free-flowing brushwork of the Romanticists.

While looking at this picture, it’s important to remember that Napoleon also created a beachhead in the Middle East.  The Emperor had decided that France’s navel power was not up to the task of defeating the Royal Navy in the English Channel, and proposed a military expedition to seize Egypt, undermining Britain’s access to its trade interests in India.  Napoleon’s plan was to form an alliance with the Muslim enemy of the British in India, Tipu Sultan.   (Clearly, forging agreements with Third World madmen is not a 20^th Century phenomenon.) 

Napoleon was elected a member of the French Academy of Science in May 1798.  For his Egyptian expedition, he brought with him 167 scientists: mathematicians, naturalists, chemists and geodesists among them; their discoveries included the Rosetta Stone, and their work was published in the Description de l'Égypte in 1809.  This work was a treasure trove for aesthetes, Orientalists and scientists – and is still consulted today for its candor and fresh approach to the region.

Napoleon invaded Malta en route to Egypt in 1798, losing only three men in the process.  The Emperor’s luck held once in Egypt – in the battle of Shubra Khit against the Mamluks (Egypt’s military caste), only 29 French were killed while 2,000 Egyptians were lost.  However, Horatio Nelson and the British fleet captured or destroyed all but two French vessels in the Battle of the Nile, and Bonaparte's goal of a strengthened French position in the Mediterranean was frustrated.

Napoleon moved his army into the Ottoman province of Damascus (Syria and Galilee) in 1799, with 13,000 French soldiers he conquered the coastal towns of Arish, Gaza, Jaffa, and Haifa.  There, he ordered 1,400 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning to save bullets.  The massacre would last three days.  Never a sentimentalist, when his own men were stricken with bubonic plague, Napoleon ordered them to be poisoned as they returned to Egypt. 

Napoleon had to abandon his dreams of Eastern conquest to return to Europe in 1801 to ward off further defeats for the French Army.  Not taking into account the extraordinary loss of life and cavalier attitude towards human suffering, Napoleon’s expedition was a scientific and artistic bonanza.  French Orientalist painting was transformed by this ultimately unsuccessful invasion of Egypt and Syria, which stimulated great public interest in Egyptology.

This wonderfully complex picture is almost allegorical in its attempt to comprise the Egyptian adventure.  The Emperor, of course, is upon a platform, the canopy overhead both protecting him from the sun and preventing him from overwhelming the picture.  On one hand, an officer, his back to us, reports on worldly affairs while an artist, on the other hand, sketches the mammoth statues in the distance.  (Look to the extreme right of the frame.)

Extreme left of the frame, a scholar pore over his notes while, before him, antiquarians collect and catalog treasures.  In the center foreground, a soldier gazes rapturously at a sarcophagus carried by two workmen (one, clearly disgusted).  Beside the soldier looking on, a white-clad Egyptian takes in the scene with a look of disdain.

The most interesting figure is to the far right of the frame talking to the chained slave: Jean-François Champollion (1790 – 1832).  Cogniet would do a larger, more formal portrait of Champollion, but here he shows the scholar holding the Rosetta Stone, from which he would decipher the hieroglyphs of the Ancient Egyptians.

More Cogniet tomorrow!

Carel Willink Week at The Jade Sphinx: Chateau en Espagne

The charming French phrase bâtir des châteaux en Espagne literally means to build castles in Spain, but a closer translation would be to build castles in the sky.  In short, it means to dream something clearly impossible, as is amply demonstrated by Willink’s picture.

This dreamscape illustrates the notions of impossible castles in the sky to moody effect.  As I said earlier with some of Willink’s pictures, while it is not exactly to my taste, the virtuosity on display is without question.

Surely few people of his generation mastered light with such facility.  As with the two earlier pictures, Willink bathes part of his landscape in light, other parts in shadow.  Notice how the parts of the chateau in the background that are illuminated by the sun pop out thanks to the use of shadows along the side.  Willink also uses light to show that the chateau is all façade with no interior – in fact, the crumbled wall facing the viewer could only be part of a ruin. 

Light creeps through the rail columns, leaving shadows at the base of the statue of the Apollo Belvedere.  The base is illuminated, but the statue itself (a great masterpiece now on hand at the Vatican), is shrouded by darkness.

That Willink chooses the Apollo Belvedere is, in itself, of great interest.  It was first discovered circa 1489, and quickly became lionized as a great masterpiece of the Classical world.  The statue’s reputation waxed and waned over the years, and today it is considered one of the great touchstones of classic homoerotic art.  (A judgment that baffles your correspondent, but that’s another story.)  In 1969 the great art critic and historian Sir Kenneth Clark (1903-1983) wrote: for four hundred years after it was discovered the Apollo was the most admired piece of sculpture in the world.  It was Napoleon’s greatest boast to have looted it from the Vatican.  Now it is completely forgotten except by the guides of coach parties, who have become the only surviving transmitters of traditional culture.

The landscape seems to play upon one of the great themes in Willink’s work – that of separation.  We noted in two earlier pictures that figures and individuals in Willink’s cluttered world view were often denied the solace of connection.  Here, the chateau and Apollo are divided by a chasm that owes more than a little to Renaissance portraiture.  As with most of these Post Modern games, one gets the impression that Willink is trying to say something, but one is never sure what.

The sky is wonderfully effective and the dramatic import and again fills the viewer with a melodramatic sense of expectation. 

There sure is much to admire in this work – as with most of the Willink corpus – I just wish his vision made a little more sense.

Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard Part I: Madame Recamier

The history of art has few father-and-son acts of any merit.  Perhaps one of the most interesting duos was that of Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard (1780-1850), painter, sculptor and draftsman, who was the son of Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), one of the most famous painters during the reign of Louis XV and Louis VXI.

Before looking at Alexandre-Évariste, first a word about Papa Fragonard.  Jean-Honoré lived during a time of which Talleyrand said: “No one who did not live before 1789 can have any idea of the sweetness of living.”  For members of the upper-classes during that period, life was stimulating and delightful.  (The poor, of course, were another story.)  It was an age of brilliant and witty conversation, elegant fashions, charming women, style, sophistication, and exquisite art and craftsmanship.  Jean-Honoré Fragonard epitomized the entire rococo era, both in all its beauty and its excess.

For an idea of Jean-Honoré’s world and everything it stood for, look at the painting below.  Executed with magnificent brio, they are in many ways portraits of fantasy.  Painted for the artist’s own pleasure, his pictures cannot help but create pleasure in others.  Sometimes the effect is much like a too-rich dessert, but I often find Jean-Honoré’s over-the-top approach delicious.

Alexandre-Évariste, on the other hand, is an entirely different kettle of fish.  Alexandre-Évariste was tutored by his father, and by the great Neoclassical master Jacques Louis David (1748-1825).  One would be hard pressed to find two more contrasting approaches to seeing the world than the Rococo and the Neoclassical; and, whether from rebellion or sympathy with a changing world, Alexandre-Évariste was a Neoclassicist.

Alexandre-Évariste made his debut at the Salon in 1793 with Timoleon Sacrificing His Brother.  He would later create several allegories and make many drawings during the Consulate and the Empire.  He would also later evolve into something of a sculptor.  He would eventually sculpt the pediment of the Palais Bourbon in Paris – lost to us because it was destroyed in the Revolution of 1830.  His luck remained bad at the Palais Bourbon – his 1810 trompe-l’oeil grisailles decorating the Salle des Gardes and the salon behind the peristyle were either destroyed or covered by a later ceiling.

Today’s picture is a portrait of Jeanne-Françoise Julie Adélaïde Bernard Récamier (1777 – 1849), known as Juliette, a French society leader, whose salon drew Parisians from the leading literary and political circles of the early 19th century.  She was most famously painted by David, but I think I prefer this picture more than the more celebrated painting.

Récamier was married to a banker 30 years her senior, and it is believed that the marriage was never consummated.  Indeed, there was a rumor at the time that the man she married was really her father, who wanted to make his illegitimate daughter his heir.  Whatever the story, Récamier became a darling of the upper crust, celebrated as a great hostess; artists, writers and intellectuals were part of her salon.  She was exiled by Napoleon, and spent much time travelling through Europe.  Through various misadventures she would lose her considerable fortune, and end her days entertaining visitors in a 17^th Century convent.

Récamier was often painted in the garb of a virgin.  This is, by any yardstick, quite a stunning picture.  Look at how Alexandre-Évariste twists her body, the feet nearly flat on the floor while the torso pivots on the settee.  (In fact, the type of sofa on which she liked to recline, the récamier, was named after her.) The exposed shoulders show feminine loveliness, but there is no hint of the voluptuous.  The expression may be coy and playful, but in no way carnal.  It is easy to see how a woman so girlish and charming could captivate legions of admirers – as was the case with Récamier.

The setting is a Neoclassical paradise, complete with pillars.  The cool marble floor and the distant classical building in the background (along with the neutral colored sky) make for a cool picture – heat, sexual and otherwise, is not in the Neoclassical purview.  I also draw your attention to the delicate handling of the tassel and, more tellingly, the subtle design of her yellow drapery.  Even the design at the tip of her hairpin is executed with a remarkable precision.  The portrait has a high level of finish and finesse – this is the work of a master.

Now, take a moment and contrast the portrait above with the painting below.  One would be hard pressed to find two more different views of the world.  They are, in their way, equally beautiful.  But the world of Papa Fragonard is a wonderland of delicious excess, while Alexandre-Évariste finds beauty in control, modeling and exactitude.  This is not only the change of one generation into another, this is, within one family, a dramatic change in the way in which the world can be seen.

More of the Fragonards tomorrow.

Alexander the Not-So-Great

Few figures have straddled the region between fact and fantasy as securely as Alexander the Great.  This simple Macedonian lad created an army that conquered most of the known world, leaving behind a legacy that is equal parts truth and myth.  Alexander was a cornerstone figure of the classical Greek period, an era that has had an incredible impact on our contemporary world.

But who was Alexander?  And can we measure him by contemporary standards?  These are questions asked by the late Norman F. Cantor (1929-2004) in his book Alexander the Great: Journey to the End of the Earth.  This was Professor Cantor’s last book (Dee Ranieri is also credited on the title page), and it is not a biography in the commonly-accepted sense of the word.  Rather, Alexander reads more like a series of informal talks with a man deeply committed to researching and understanding the ancient world.

Cantor provides a great deal of color to the world of ancient Greek city-states and the kind of life lived there.  He also offers keen insight into Alexander’s family, including his cold and calculating father, and his mother, who was the center of a cult of snake worshippers.  (Needless to say, the distant past is often quite colorful.)

Cantor wisely positions Alexander as a figure of a pagan, pre-Christian world.  As such, it is nearly impossible for us to know him through the prism of our contemporary lives – the people of his era were physically like us, but otherwise may as well have been from Mars.  How can we fully understand a man who, because of omens and other talismans, could believe that he was the son of Zeus?  How can we judge a man who was as much an adventurer/explorer as conqueror when today most of the remotest parts of the world are open to anyone with a credit card?

Cantor walks us through Alexander’s long-term love affair with fellow-soldier Hephaestion and his devotion to the Persian eunuch Bogoas, and maps his brilliant military victories in Afghanistan (even then a graveyard for soldiers), Pakistan, and India.  He tells us of his alcoholism, his heroism, his education under Aristotle and his ability to inspire men.  Because of the conversational tone of the book, one gathers a more familiar, accessible idea of Alexander than might otherwise have been available through a more conventional biography.

However, the real treat of the book comes at the end – where Cantor asks “How ‘Great’ Was Alexander?” – a chapter that puts his personal triumphs and demons, his military coups and administrative failures, into some sort of perspective.  Cantor writes, Alexander emphasized the attributes of courage and strength.  Under the laws of war he leveled cities and sold their inhabitants into slavery.  He was merciless, even to those he cared for.  He risked the dismay of his Companions, and when, in a drunken stupor, he killed one of his best friends, his act ultimately led to an assassination attempt against him … The Athenian tragedians warned against arrogance, and Plato and Aristotle sought the refinements of reason.  But these qualifications to the spirit of paganism did not seem to affect Alexander, although Aristotle had been his tutor in his early years.  He sought glory on the battlefield, stole the Persian emperor’s treasury, and disported himself like a Homeric hero, all without conscience.  In his lifetime he caused the deaths of half a million of his enemies’ soldiers, and accepted without equanimity the loss of at least 25,000 of his own battle-hardened soldiers.

The grief, misery and death that Alexander left in his wake are a little hard to reconcile with our vision of a warrior-hero.  Like many books that cover figures as diverse of Charlemagne, Richard the Lionhearted and Napoleon Bonaparte, we ourselves feel sullied after reading about Alexander when we remember that most of the “great” men of history were professional murderers blood simple on dreams of conquest or religious “liberation.”  Kudos to all historians, novelists and artists who ask the key question of all of our Great Men – what was the cost?