Helene Schjerfbeck: From Skilled Realism To ...

Helene Schjerfbeck (1862-1946) is widely regarded as one of Finland's most significant artists. I'd put her raw talent up there with that of Albert Edelfelt and Akseli Gallen-Kallela. She was a very good representational painter with a deft brushwork touch, but began to be seduced by Modernism about the time she turned 40. Thereafter, she painted some interesting works along with a number of second-rate derivative ones.

Her background is a little too complicated for this blog post to present, so I encourage you to link to her Wikipedia entry, these comments dealing with a Frankfurt Kunsthalle exhibit, and this rather lengthy and detailed set of observations and biographical items by a Belgian art critic.

The key point to bear in mind is that even though she lived to age 83, Schjerfbeck had poor health for most of her life. A childhood hip injury is mentioned, so perhaps she remained partly crippled. Also mentioned is chronic lack of energy that could have had a different cause.

Below is a chronologically arranged selection of images of her work found here and there on the Internet.

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On the Jetty - 1879
This is the earliest painting of hers that I could find, made when she was about 17.

Wounded Warrior in the Snow - 1880

Dancing Shoes - 1882
One of her best-known paintings. It sold for £3,044,500 at a 2008 Sotheby's auction.

Portrait of a Child - 1883
Note the brushwork.

Funeral in Brittany - 1884
Schjerfbeck had some art training in Paris and, like a number of other painters, spent some time in Brittany.

Death of Wilhelm von Schwerin - 1886
Perhaps because this kind of thing was expected in those days, she painted a scene from history.

The Seamstress - 1903
During the 1890s Schjerfbeck taught at a Finnish art school and apparently painted little, if what can be found on the Internet is any clue. But here, in her early 40s, we find representation starting to edge away into Modernism.

Costume Picture II (also known as Girl with Orange, The Baker's Daughter) - 1909
By this point, her paintings are becoming more thinly painted and the subjects simplified. I wonder how much of this was modernist influence versus whether this was somewhat due to her limited energy level.

Self-Portrait - 1915
About age 53.

Girl from Eydtkuhnen - 1927
Cubist influence. She did many paintings of women featuring simplified faces similar to what you see here.

Angel Fragment (after El Greco) - 1928
A slight return to her representational roots: nicely done Modernism-lite.

Brown Eyes - 1935-37
Schjerfbeck was aware of art trends outside Finland, but avoided the fashionable Social Realism style during the 1920s and 30s.

Friends - 1942
Age 80, painting very thinly.

Self-Portrait with Red Spot - 1944
One of her last works.

Towards the End: Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) was an alcoholic who when drinking in Greenwich Village bars, would often turn into a nasty drunk. This lifestyle ended in 1956 when the 44-year-old smashed his car into a tree, killing himself and a passenger. More regarding his life can be found here.

Pollock gained fame thanks to his huge "drip" paintings of the late 1940s. He would spread canvas on a floor and dribble, toss, or otherwise remotely cover it with various colors. It seems there was a limit to this artistic concept. Once he had made a large number of such paintings and he reached his 40th birthday, he apparently began to consider other paths. He tried a few abstract alternatives, but soon virtually ceased painting. And then he ended up dying in that crash.

Here are some of his last paintings.

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Blue Poles - 1952
One of his better-known late drip paintings.

Greyed Rainbow - 1953
Pollock was still fairly productive in 1953.  This abstraction seems to combine brush and drip.

Unformed Figure - 1953
Brushed areas show up more strongly here.

Ocean Greyness - 1953
This painting uses brushwork exclusively.

Portrait and a Dream - 1953
Now a dab of representationalism creeps in.

Easter and the Totem - 1953
Again, relatively large, uncluttered areas. No drips. New York's Museum of Modern Art's web page on the painting notes: "After 1952, dripping and pouring paint were no longer the primary means of expression for Pollock. The totemic forms at the left and right in Easter and the Totem reflect his renewed interest in using a brush to paint quasi-figurative images."

White Light - 1954
MoMA's White Light page mentions: "White Light is one of Pollock's last paintings and the only one he completed in 1954. He made it in part by squeezing paint directly from a tube onto the canvas evident in the sculptural white and black tendrils of paint that constitute the top layers. He also used a brush, creating subtle marbling effects by manipulating wet paint in certain areas. Though Pollock was tormented by an artistic block he would never overcome, White Light sparkles..." (emphasis added).

Sent - 1955

Search - 1955
These were Pollock's last paintings, the only two he made in 1955. He died seven months into 1956 without completing another one.

Towards the End: Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) is one of the most famous French painters of Revolutionary and Napoleonic times. Many of his works were directly or indirectly political, and he was personally involved in political matters during the heyday of the Revolution. A fairly lengthy Wikipedia entry on David is here.

David's basic style was what has been derisively termed "Pompier" in reference to the Greek-style helmets worn by Parisian firefighters. This had to do with subject matter and the idealized depictions done in a highly "finished," hard-edge manner. More regarding his evolution can be found at the above link.

Given his political stances, David was reluctant to work in France following the Bourbon restoration. Having fled to what is now Belgium after Napoleon's fall, he remained in Brussels for the last years of his life.

Although David remained capable of making Pompier works during this time, some casual paintings of a greatly different character survive. I found two examples in December at San Francisco's Legion of Honor museum.

Gallery

Mars desarme par Venus - 1824
According to Wikipedia, this is David's last Pompier painting.

Laure-Emilie-Felicité David, La Baronne Meunier - 1812
A portrait of one of his twin daughters. Napoleon was still in power and David was still in Paris. But at age 64 this can be considered a late work.

Laure-Emilie-Felicité David, La Baronne Meunier - 1812
Close-up view. This seems to be little more that a sketch or study. Or might have David anticipated artistic trends 50 years in the future? Probably not, but I don't know enough to be categorical about this.

La bonne aventure (The Fortune Teller) - 1824
This was painted the same year as the Mars and Venus painting, within two years of David's death. Again, the style is casual and sketchy. Could this have been a study for a more finished work that was never made? Again, I don't know.

La bonne aventure (The Fortune Teller) - 1824
A slightly closer view.

Towards the End: Brangwyn at Radio City

Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956) was in his mid-60s when he painted murals for the lobby floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the tallest building in the original Rockefeller Center complex in New York City. (In its early years, Rockefeller Center was popularly called Radio City, and the Radio City Music Hall is the name of its famous huge theatre where the Rockettes danced.) The Center's web site mentions him here.

Brangwyn is an artist that interests me greatly, especially for his work as a muralist. I posted about that aspect of his career here.

It seems that the Rockefellers were in the market for Big Name Artists to create murals for their huge, Depression-era project. Matisse and Picasso were approached, but weren't interested. Diego Rivera, the well-known Mexican muralist accepted, but he famously created a work of political propaganda that was inappropriate for its setting and destroyed.

So the Rockefellers dropped to their B-list, selecting Josep (José) Maria Sert and Brangwyn to paint huge, monochrome murals. Sert's murals are rather bombastic, and are better known than Brangwyn's because some are located in a large, open area. All of Brangwyn's are found on a side corridor.

Worse, Brangwyn's murals are not very good. He was an interesting colorist, but the Rockefellers apparently desired monochrome murals that would blend with the rich, late Art Deco interior architecture and decoration of the building. It is possible that Brangwyn was also losing his touch due to age.

When I was in New York City in September I made a point of tracking down his murals and photographing them. Unfortunately, lighting conditions and the comparatively cramped setting made it impossible to get decent photos. Still, I hope you will find them of interest.

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If you enter 30 Rockefeller Plaza from the eastern, sunken plaza side, this huge Sert mural awaits you. Branwyn's are to be found around the corner by the pillar seen at the far left of the mural.

For some reason Brangwyn filled his Rockefeller Center murals with ugly people.

Another mural.

Detail of the mural in the previous image. Not being able to use color, Brangwyn had to resort to hatching. This, and his use of lightened paint to depict depth, resulted images that are weak by normal Brangwyn standards.

The murals would wrap around corners. Here is a side-aisle example that's distorted because I couldn't shoot the photo squarely-on.

This is a squared-up photomontage image found on the internet. Brangwyn used it for the mural shown in the next few images. This mural wrapped around a corner, and the soldier shown in the previous photo can be seen here at the left.

That is Christ at the top. He is facing away because the Rockefellers apparently decided His face should not be shown.

Detail of the above mural.

Another detail. Note that in this set of murals Brangwyn chose to have many of his subjects depicted with large, oddly-shaped noses.  I can speculate why, but won't because I have no way of reading his mind.

A Review, then Towards the End: Hugh Ferriss

Hugh Ferriss (1889–1962) is my favorite architectural delineator. He has plenty of other fans, if the nearly 200,000 results from Googling his name is any indication. A brief Wikipedia entry about him is here.

Ferriss is probably best known for two aspects of his work. The first deals with 1920-1930 renderings of skyscrapers actually built or that were proposed but not built for one reason or another. The other is the set of speculative rendering of a future city collected in his book "Metropolis of Tomorrow" (1929). Many of these images are iconic of their times.

He usually rendered using pencils, charcoal and related shading media. This suited the high-rise architectural themes of the 1920s -- styles known as Art Deco and something that might be called streamlined Gothic.

The 1930s saw the Great Depression with its general lack of new construction aside from government buildings that often featured highly simplified classic themes with a hint of Deco. Post- World War 2 architecture soon conformed to International Style dictates. That is, tall buildings were severely rectangular with glass-and-steel cladding while lacking any form of decoration.

Ferriss' successful 1920s rendering style and mediums were not really appropriate for depicting International Style buildings. They worked best with buildings with more intricate shapes, stone or brick cladding, and ornamentation. Although he was involved in some major projects, the resulting renderings were not nearly as impressive as his earlier works. This was despite an effort to adjust his style to the new circumstances.

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Wanamaker's Bridge (New York City) - 1917
Wanamaker's was a major Philadelphia and New York City department store.

American Radiator Building (New York City) - completed 1924
The building still stands on West 40th Street across from Bryant Park.

Fisher Building (Detroit) - 1928
Located on West Grand Boulevard across the street from what then was General Motors' headquarters.

The Majestic Hotel (Chanin Construction Co.) - 1930
A speculative project, probably in New York City.

Future city scene
As was the case for the previous images, Ferriss' style matched the architectural style very well.

Metropolis of Tomorrow - 1928
Again, the buildings are sculpted masses where windows are comparatively small details.

Metropolis of Tomorrow - c.1928
Dramatic night scene. I wish I were at that cocktail party on the terrace at the lower right of the rendering.

United Nations Headquarters - c.1948
A proposed ensemble.

United Nations Headquarters - c.1948
More about the UN Headquarters here. Design began in 1947, a cornerstone was laid in 1949 and the initial grouping was completed by 1952. The tall Secretariat building is steel-and-glass on the longer sides, and all this reflective material is hard to depict using Ferriss' toolkit. Here he did his best to emphasize massing rather than fenestration.

Lever House (New York City) - c.1949
The Lever House, built 1950-52, was an early International Style office building in New York. Sensational when it was new, but now nondescript. It is on the west side of Park Avenue between 53rd and 54th Streets. In this rendering, Ferriss selected a night setting that allowed him to capture some of the structural elements without the complication of reflections off the glass.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts - c.1959
The main Lincoln Center groundbreaking was in 1959, and the original ensemble largely complete by 1966. Shown here is the Metropolitan Opera House. It was completed in 1966. Given that Ferriss died in January 1962, it is likely that this is one of his last renderings.

Towards the End: Roberto Matta Does Mark Tobey

Roberto Matta (1911-2002) was a surrealist and abstractionist painter from Chile who had a long, successful career, dying age 91. His Wikipedia entry is here.

Around the time he was 80 he painted in a style that reminds me of that of Mark Tobey (1890-1976), who I wrote about here. Matta lived in the USA for most of the 1940s, so it's hard to believe that he was unaware of Tobey's emerging "white writing" style. But it's possible that, 45 years later, he might have forgotten what he had once known.

For what it might be worth, below are some examples of Tobey's work along with some late Matta's that strike be as being similar in style and spirit.

Gallery
Tobey ...

People - 1945

The New Day - c.1945

Lovers of Light - 1961

Matta ...

L'Ultima Cena - 1985

Cosmos Mental - 1991

The Fall (Autoritratto d'ognuno) - 1991