Tag: images

Keith Haring

Flying Man

1975

Offset lithograph

Private collection

Essay by Kaela Kennedy

Keith Haring was an emblematic figure of the New York art scene in the 1980s. His iconography was ubiquitous and his characteristic figures pervaded everything from advertising campaigns to subway graffiti. Two of Haring’s pieces appear in this exhibit.  Both images are connected by subject matter, showing depictions of winged, angel-like men. The first, a print entitled Flying Man, is an offset lithograph work on paper.  It measures sixteen inches by twelve inches. This image shows the graphic black outline of a winged human figure surrounded by bright pink zigzag lines radiating outwards from the body. The print reflects Haring’s stylized treatment of the human figure. The androgynous figure is largely defined by two continuous lines that form the legs, torso, arms, and head. Its wings are suggested by two lines extending from the neck and head of the figure and intercepting the legs. Both the lines of the figure and the pink radiating lines maintain the same weight throughout the piece creating a sense of uniformity.

The second work is a window from a New York City MBA subway car that has been tagged by both Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat around 1980. The window is 24 inches wide by ten inches tall, and about half an inch deep.  This found object is transformed by the two symbols inscribed in black ink that can be attributed to Haring and Basquiat. On the right side of the plane, Basquiat’s tag is inscribed. His typical three-pronged crown is drawn in a single continuous line, creating a unified shape. On the left we see an iteration of Haring’s winged man. Here, the figure’s upper body suggests that the winged man has hands, unlike that of the lithograph. Another variant is a large X-shape on the chest of the winged man and six short black lines emanating from its head.

Haring’s work was likely influenced by his own fervent Christianity, manipulating typical angel iconography into androgynous, genderless winged figures. Haring’s work, though complex in iconographic language, is never arbitrary. By digging into Haring’s symbolism, it is possible to see that these two figures serve as commentary on the corrupt nature of modern culture. The winged figure in the lithograph is distinguished by the pink lines radiating from the body itself.

In other examples of Haring’s work, the same lines serve as symbols of nuclear radiation; the artist had a noted fear of nuclear holocaust, which manifests itself in many of his works. Here, the nuclear energy corrupts the figure. The figure drawn on the subway window is in a different way corrupted; he bears a hollow “x” on his chest, which Haring used as a symbol of damnation. This contradicts the ‘holy’ lines emanating from the angel’s head, which typically refer to purity and holiness in Haring’s work. This dichotomy illustrates a conflict of nature, similar to the fall of the winged Icarus.

Bibliography

“Bio.” The Keith Haring Foundation. Accessed March 23, 2017.

http://www.haring.com/!/about-haring/bio.

Haring, Keith, Ralph Melcher, and Götz Adriani. Keith Haring: Heaven and Hell.

Ostifildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2002.

Haring, Keith, Robert Farris Thompson, and Shepard Fairey. Keith Haring: Journals. London:

Penguin, 2010.

“Keith Haring: The Political Line Symbols.” de Young Museum. February 04, 2015. Accessed

March 23, 2017. https://deyoung.famsf.org/keith-haring-political-line-symbols.

Phillips, Natalie E. “The Radiant (Christ) Child.” American Art 21, no. 3 (2007): 54-73.

Henri Matisse

Fall of Icarus

1944

Lithograph

Private collection

Essay by Ryan McKenna

Towards the end of WWII, Henri Matisse crafted The Fall of Icarus. This piece, which measures approximately 13 3/4 inches tall and 10 5/8 inches wide, can be discovered in two forms; the cut-out and the print. The print, completed in 1944, was first displayed in “Couleur de Matisse” a unique issue of Verve magazine that focused on Matisse’s masterful use of color. Matisse supervised the making of this lithograph print, making sure it accurately depicted the original cut out. Matisse used gouache to establish the varying colored papers from which he cut each shape. On a blue background, he affixed glaring flashes of bright yellow, which simultaneously relate to the heights that Icarus himself achieved and the flashes of bombs bursting around those living in or near a war zone.  A white figure with a red form on its chest is prominently displayed in the center of the piece within a diagonal black stripe. The yellow forms and the red form were originally pinned down. The black strip and the white figure were collaged.

The work as a whole reflects France’s involvement in World War II as well as Matisse’s personal struggle. In the tale of Icarus, Daedalus and his son, Icarus, craft wings held together by candle wax in order to escape prison. When Icarus flew too close to the sun, his wings fell apart from the intense heat, causing him to meet his watery death in the Mediterranean. Around the time he created The Fall of Icarus Henri Matisse was trudging through a difficult period of his life. In 1939, at age 70, he divorced from his wife of 41 years. His health began to decline around this time as well, with his eyesight worsening and his ability to move becoming increasingly impaired. At this time Matisse surely identified with Icarus, who soared too high and lost his life.  Not only was Matisse’s personal life in shambles, but his French homeland had plunged into the chaos of WWII. The war profoundly impacted Matisse as the German military made their way through Europe, pillaging and conquering. His physicians speculated that the stress of the war was causing his health to decline. However, Matisse was able to find a way to surmount his struggles through his art. Prior to the cut-outs, Matisse was working with linocuts, an art form where one cuts into a piece of linoleum in order to create a reproducible image. As Hillary Spurling describes, “Linocuts gave him the spontaneity and directness he wanted” (p. 418-19). These linocuts served as inspiration for the cut-out.  Speaking of these well-known pieces, Matisse stated that “the sensation of flight which emanated from me helped me better to adjust my hand when it used the scissors…it’s a kind of linear and graphic equivalence to the sensation of flight” (quoted in Friedman 2014, p. 112-15). The cut-outs allowed him to create images in a way that was not as manually laborious as traditional oil painting. 

Henri Matisse lost his ability to pursue his passion for painting due to his fading health. Yet even through this tumultuous period, Matisse summoned the willpower and inspiration to explore his thoughts and feelings through new mediums. The cut-outs challenged conventional ideas and ways of working. With this new medium, Matisse pioneered an innovative type of painting. The Fall of Icarus epitomizes the cut-outs with its bright, contrasting colors, irregular shapes, and impeccable composition. Not only did it incorporate all the themes of Matisse’s work, but it also was highly symbolic of his own personal struggles and the conflict that was raging throughout the world.

Bibliography

Flam, Jack D. Matisse: A Retrospective. New York: Park Lane, 1990.

Friedman, Samantha. “Game and Endgame,” in Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs, edited by Karl Buchberg et al., . New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2014.

Hanne, Finsen. Matisse: A Second Life. Paris: Hazan, 2005. 

Selz, Jean. Matisse. Milan: Uffici Press, 1964.

Spurling, Hilary. Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse, the Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954. New York: A.A. Knopf, 2005. 

Max Beckmann

Icarus  (c.1935)

Offset lithograph

Private collection

Essay by Sarah Beach

       “And the boy

       Thought This is wonderful! and left his father,

       Soared higher, higher, drawn to the vast heaven,

       Nearer the sun, and the wax that held the wings

       Melted in that fierce heat, and the bare arms

       Beat up and down in air, and lacking oarage

       Took hold of nothing. Father! he cried, and Father!

       Until the blue sea hushed him, the dark water

       Men call the Icarian now.”

       Ovid, Metamorphoses, translated by Rolfe Humphries, lines 222-230

With these words the Roman poet Ovid describes the tragic death of Icarus, the climax of the myth.  Daedalus, the first craftsman, and his son Icarus were imprisoned on the island of Crete by King Minos. Discontent with this sentence, Daedalus crafted two pairs of wings from wax and feathers for them to escape, and he warned Icarus of their limitations before taking off.  The wings would fall apart when flown too close to the ocean or the sun. Despite this, Icarus got carried away with the joys of flight and soared too close to the sun, the wax melting, resulting in his drowning in the sea below. This is the best known version of the Icarus myth, and throughout history artists have represented the story in different ways.

Twentieth-century artist Max Beckmann’s offset lithograph entitled Icarus offers a different interpretation of the story from that in Ovid. The figure stretched diagonally across the page is not winged, but instead an ordinary man draped in plain cloth. It is as if he is suspended in air, as the tips of his toes bend under the tension of being the only part of his body grounded. Facing away from the viewer, Beckmann’s Icarus is in a pose that looks like one of prayer, with eyes closed, arms extended, and palms facing inward. The historical context of the print is essential in understanding Beckmann’s artistic choices. By 1935 in Beckmann’s home of Germany, the Third Reich had been established and the Nazi party was oppressing artists and other groups that did not fit German ideals. The figure’s pose of prayer reflects Beckmann’s re-focusing of the Icarus myth from the youth’s untimely death to that of hope for his escape.  A sun, represented by only a few thin lines, shines in the distance, offering optimism and hope for the future. This work reflects Beckmann’s own feelings of imprisonment within Nazi Germany and his inner desire to escape to somewhere better.  But Beckmann only managed to get as far as Amsterdam where there was still a prominent Nazi presence.

Leonard Baskin was a later 20^th-century Jewish-American sculptor and printmaker who also portrays Icarus.  The work depicts the right profile of a muscular male figure from head to knee. The figure is a hybrid creature, with the head of a bird sitting directly on the body of a man. Baskin’s depiction of the myth in this wood engraving entitled Icarus moves away from Classical representations of the subject and instead highlights his personal interests and experiences. Birds of prey were a particular interest of Baskin’s, as he admired their form as well as their potential symbolism for death. They fit particularly well with the myth of Icarus, where flight is a salient feature of the story.  The dark tone of this print reminds the viewer of Icarus’ sudden plummet to a watery grave. Such grotesque and dark subjects were a common theme throughout Baskin’s oeuvre, stemming from being raised during the time of the Great Depression and the Holocaust. Baskin was not personally affected by these events, but even witnessing them left an indelible mark on his artistic style.

These two works reveal how artists further develop the mythology of the Icarus story and its allegory of hubris.  Max Beckmann and Leonard Baskin reframe the Classical narrative and meanings of Icarus to reflect new themes.  The results are two dramatically different prints that convey the inner feelings of each artist, creating new versions of the Icarus myth and imbuing them with contemporary significance.

Bibliography

Baskin, Leonard. Baskin: Sculpture, Drawings & Prints. New York: George Braziller, 1970.

Goggin, Mary-Margaret. “‘Decent’ vs. ‘Degenerate’ Art: The National Socialist Case,” Art

Journal 50, no. 4 (Winter 1991): 84-92.

Rainbird, Sean, ed. Max Beckmann. New York:  Museum of Modern Art, 2003.

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Translated by Rolfe Humphries. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,1983.

Spence, Robert. “Leonard Baskin: The Artist as Counter-Decadent,” Art Journal 22, no. 2

(Winter 1962): 88-91.

Leonard Baskin

Icarus

1968

Wood engraving

Private collection

Essay by Sarah Beach

                “And the boy

                Thought This is wonderful! and left his father,

                Soared higher, higher, drawn to the vast heaven,

                Nearer the sun, and the wax that held the wings

                Melted in that fierce heat, and the bare arms

                Beat up and down in air, and lacking oarage

                Took hold of nothing. Father! he cried, and Father!

                Until the blue sea hushed him, the dark water

                Men call the Icarian now.”

                Ovid, Metamorphoses, translated by Rolfe Humphries, lines 222-230

With these words the Roman poet Ovid describes the tragic death of Icarus, the climax of the myth.  Daedalus, the first craftsman, and his son Icarus were imprisoned on the island of Crete by King Minos. Discontent with this sentence, Daedalus crafted two pairs of wings from wax and feathers for them to escape, and he warned Icarus of their limitations before taking off.  The wings would fall apart when flown too close to the ocean or the sun. Despite this, Icarus got carried away with the joys of flight and soared too close to the sun, the wax melting, resulting in his drowning in the sea below. This is the best known version of the Icarus myth, and throughout history artists have represented the story in different ways.

Twentieth-century artist Max Beckmann’s offset lithograph entitled Icarus offers a different interpretation of the story from that in Ovid. The figure stretched diagonally across the page is not winged, but instead an ordinary man draped in plain cloth. It is as if he is suspended in air, as the tips of his toes bend under the tension of being the only part of his body grounded. Facing away from the viewer, Beckmann’s Icarus is in a pose that looks like one of prayer, with eyes closed, arms extended, and palms facing inward. The historical context of the print is essential in understanding Beckmann’s artistic choices. By 1935 in Beckmann’s home of Germany, the Third Reich had been established and the Nazi party was oppressing artists and other groups that did not fit German ideals. The figure’s pose of prayer reflects Beckmann’s re-focusing of the Icarus myth from the youth’s untimely death to that of hope for his escape.  A sun, represented by only a few thin lines, shines in the distance, offering optimism and hope for the future. This work reflects Beckmann’s own feelings of imprisonment within Nazi Germany and his inner desire to escape to somewhere better.  But Beckmann only managed to get as far as Amsterdam where there was still a prominent Nazi presence.

Leonard Baskin was a later 20^th-century Jewish-American sculptor and printmaker who also portrays Icarus.  The work depicts the right profile of a muscular male figure from head to knee. The figure is a hybrid creature, with the head of a bird sitting directly on the body of a man. Baskin’s depiction of the myth in this wood engraving entitled Icarus moves away from Classical representations of the subject and instead highlights his personal interests and experiences. Birds of prey were a particular interest of Baskin’s, as he admired their form as well as their potential symbolism for death. They fit particularly well with the myth of Icarus, where flight is a salient feature of the story.  The dark tone of this print reminds the viewer of Icarus’ sudden plummet to a watery grave. Such grotesque and dark subjects were a common theme throughout Baskin’s oeuvre, stemming from being raised during the time of the Great Depression and the Holocaust. Baskin was not personally affected by these events, but even witnessing them left an indelible mark on his artistic style.

These two works reveal how artists further develop the mythology of the Icarus story and its allegory of hubris.  Max Beckmann and Leonard Baskin reframe the Classical narrative and meanings of Icarus to reflect new themes.  The results are two dramatically different prints that convey the inner feelings of each artist, creating new versions of the Icarus myth and imbuing them with contemporary significance.

Bibliography

Baskin, Leonard. Baskin: Sculpture, Drawings & Prints. New York: George Braziller, 1970.

Goggin, Mary-Margaret. “‘Decent’ vs. ‘Degenerate’ Art: The National Socialist Case,” Art

Journal 50, no. 4 (Winter 1991): 84-92.

Rainbird, Sean, ed. Max Beckmann. New York:  Museum of Modern Art, 2003.

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Translated by Rolfe Humphries. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,

1983.

Spence, Robert. “Leonard Baskin: The Artist as Counter-Decadent,” Art Journal 22, no. 2

(Winter 1962): 88-91.