The Poetry of it All
Overcoming confusion by believing
Pontormo predates Magritte.
The reluctance, or should one say refusal, of modern artists to tackle religious subjects is bewildering. It would be interesting to see who among the noted artists of today may have recently attempted, say, a "Last Supper". Standards exist in art in many forms and for reasons of continuity and for acknowledging the roots of artistic excellence. In music for example, there is a standard repertoire of classical symphonies that any self respecting orchestra would tackle as a given. Even in modern music, especially Jazz, there are compositions which are called 'standards' around which improvisations are delivered by virtually all competent jazz ensembles. In painting, up till fairly recently it was expected of practitioners to try their hands at reinterpreting 'standard' themes, usually religious, which were tests of both artistic skill and imaginative power. Standards are a means of pleasing and connecting with a knowledgeable public who appreciate that art has a specific genealogy. Traditionally the subject matter of western art is almost entirely mythological or sacred with profane expression finding form mainly in portraiture. At some point in our history Romanticism would step in and connive with the complexes of the scientific age (led by Descartes, Newton, Darwin and Co.) to allow the confusing of beauty with the sublime. In our age, we are induced by institutionalised systems of arts governance into taking seriously events such the Turner Prize. A man finds some old bits of wood and first turns it into a boat and then a shed, places a bicycle in front of it and everyone utters the word which would encompass the entire Universe, "Cool!" Surely for those with a greater appetite for beauty, this is not necessarily a satisfactory state of affairs.
The eye that looks out from the top of Jacopo Pontormo's painting, "Cena in Emmaus" is, to say the least, mysterious. Art is indeed what the vision makes of it but someone still has to bring the meal on a plate.
The triangle could be read simply as a symbol of Trinity but the artist has done a rare thing, surpassing even the best intentions of a modern surrealist. While we are looking at the painting, the painting is also looking at us. If we connect this observation with the apparition of the Resurrected Christ before two of his disciples, the painting, by its composition, studies the nature of belief. It makes us rethink what Christ's resurrection meant to the disciples and by extension to Christians themselves. The painting reveals that the resurrection was a powerful 'visual' event. The affirmation of the 'truth' is in what the eye sees. We may suddenly realise that not only can God see everything, but we too can see him through Jesus as an incarnation. Belief is a reciprocal event. He shows not only just his earthly presence but that Man is indeed made in his image. God can now not only be 'believed in' but actually perceived using our senses. The divine re-apparition of Christ symbolises an awakening to this new reality. He appears at the moment when the disciples are intent on preparing the supper. Christianity equates the act of bodily nourishment with that of spiritual nourishment. The scene echoes the moment of the first eucharist offered to the disciples from whence begins the Passion. Thus we are reminded of the series of carthatic events that establish the tenets of Christian belief in the life eternal. With his reappearance the momentous drama of the Passion is resolved.
Jacopo Pontormo's unusual personality, artistic development and personal habits are intimately described in the second volume of Giorgio Vasari's "Live of Artists". One can't help feeling that he predates much of the modern myth of the eccentric genius. Unlike many contemporary artists to whom creating a personality cult is almost an economic necessity, Pontormo's eccentricity
was a natural by-product of his uncompromising pursuit of inspiration and search for poetic content. Vasari mentions how Pontormo would remain still in his workshop for hours on end just thinking. Whilst the modern phrase "lateral thinker" is irksome, it is rather apt in describing the artistic impulses of Pontormo. The results of his painstaking mental efforts are evident. For example, the soft delicacy of the diffuse colours in scenes such as "Visitazione" and "Pietà", render an amazing lightness that suggests that the painted figures are actually 'floating. One can feel their movement. A way of interpreting this would be suggest that Pontormo represents the characters not necessarily as imitations of 'real' people but as personifications of spirits, thus weightless but extant in our collective imaginations as icons of virtue.
The atmosphere created by Pontormo's works or for that matter, those of his contemporary Correggio, is that of a spatial entity that we might call, for want of a better term, the moral dimension. If we buy into this logic, the reward is clarity. Not because there is some intrinsic rightness about depicting religious belief but because one observes that art is the only means of drawing out and ordering those seemingly intangible loose figments of thought in the realms of human imagination. Inversely art makes so much more sense if we recognise that the human imagination is entirely focalised on the formation of nothing other than spiritual awareness.
In modern times we seem to suffer from an essential mental imbalance conditioned as we are by science to think that such a thing as rational thought is more reliable than simple belief. By now we are well entrenched in a technological era and one is beginning to detect that an overarching reliance on calculated actions has created great inner confusions about our origins and what human nature itself may be. Edvard Munch's famous work "The Scream" is a vision of humanity in a state of psychic disorientation. Perhaps it is time to go back to basics. Art appreciation, contrary to facile modern assumptions, is not simply a matter of attaining aesthetic sensibilities. Perceptions are motivated by belief. Seeing they say is believing and that is what is happening in the minds of Christ's disciples in Pontormo's work but in our more arrogant and cynical age, that quality most necessary to believing, humility, seems hard to attain but surely it is only that which will give us back our capacity for awe: the open mind and innocence so essential to seeing that most elusive of substances that we call beauty.
To that end HAR is pleased to announce the formation of the Rome Drawing Academy, a place where classical techniques in drawing and painting will be practised at the same time as learning to see. It is thought that HAR will eventually become the journal reporting on the themes centred around the programs and activities run under the auspices of RDA. First up RDA is endorsing a summer drawing course for 2006 being organised by the Notre Dame School of Architecture. For those interested the information is available at their web site and also at the new RDA web site:
http://architecture.nd.edu/admissions/summer.shtml
http://www.romedrawing.org
Thanks as usual to our small but growing number of readers for continuing to visit us.
Taeho Paik - HAR Co-Editor
