James McNeill Whistler," Nocturne in Black and Gold,
the Falling Rocket," 1875
Good morning art reads:
1. In 1878, James McNeill Whistler sued John Ruskin. It was a matter of artist versus critic, the freedom to paint anything you want versus the freedom to write anything you want. Central to the case was Whistler's Nocturnes, which Ruskin had shredded in print, and the paintings themselves were used by the defense. Mary Zajac's article from last fall's Humanities is an interesting account of the case:
http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/septemberoctober/feature/how-did-james-mcneill-whistler-create-his-distinctive-brand
2. With the same fervor Ruskin hated Whistler's Nocturnes, he loved the work of J.M.W Turner, which we currently have an opportunity to assess for ourselves at The Getty. Christopher Knight demonstrates in a wonderful way why the new show might actually be new, which is a difficult prospect for an exhibition of such a well known and beloved artist. Turner, so Knight argues, is as impressive in his own time as he was to anticipate a hundred years of advances in painting. Turner's technique would appeal to the Impressionists and the Abstract Expressionist, yet it also is necessary for showing the exact moment in British history that Turner perhaps showed better than anyone else.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/museums/la-et-cm-knight-turner-review-20150224-column.html#page=1
3. Sally Mann has published a memoir. Never quite accepted by either the artworld or the public at large, Mann has had her share of controversies, mostly do, I'd say, to the effectiveness of her practice and her ability to see beauty in way a mother would, which is naturally unsettling to a paternalistic and aggressively masculine society. This is an impressive launch of the new book, complete with an essay by Mann:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/magazine/the-cost-of-sally-manns-exposure.html
5. The New York Review of Books seems to be extended its visual arts coverage, which can only be a good thing. It is not so much the contents of the following article that is impressive as much as the run of images, which aims to explore one summer when Manet happened to live practically next door to Monet and the successive impact that encounter had on Manet's work. This article is not nearly enough to make the case of Manet's conversion to Impressionism successfully. I guess I will have to read the book that article clearly serves to promote.
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/gallery/2015/apr/14/manet-paints-monet/
This week's video:
6. There is really no explanation needed for this video. It is an absurd moment for the ages, Joseph Beuys singing an anti-Ronald Reagan pop song, supported by back-up singers and perhaps the most 1980s cast of characters imaginable. I can't imagine a better way to start a Monday morning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ1_ALxGbGk
Poem for the week:
7. I've long been obsessed with the poet Frank Stanford. His new collected poems, What about this, is published Copper Canyon and is now available. This should be a literary event, for Stanford has moved from a shadowy regional figure into a cult icon since his death by suicide in 1978. Now, almost 40 years later, the poems that were scattered across several obscure books printed by Lost Roads Press will be united with the more known poems of his one, woefully inadequate collection, The Light the Dead See (Arkansas Press, 1991). At last, the poetry world will be able to take in all of the corners and edges of Stanford’s work, along with an essay on Stanford’s influence by Dean Young.
My connection to Stanford is personal. My father was in his
graduating class at Subiaco Academy, a school which I also attended. Stanford’s
high school English teacher was my elementary school priest. I know the
Arkansas of which Stanford writes: I have been to many of the towns and places
that he frequented and I have drifted in canoes down the Arkansas River in the
same way as the people in Stanford’s poetry. When Lucinda Williams, Stanford’s
former lover and friend, sings Pineola
about Stanford’s funeral, I know many of the people who would have been at
Subiaco Cemetery on what must have been a hot, muggy June day in the Ozark
foothills. I am currently hard at work at an extended essay on Stanford.
Stanford’s story is an interesting one. As child, he lived
in the levy camps along the Arkansas/Tennessee border, dividing time there with
a regular, middle class life in Memphis. His mother was later interviewed by
Joan Williams, longtime lover of William Faulkner, for her book Old Powder Man. Williams later gave an
account of how she never really knew at the time that the little boy in the
next room would become one of Faulkner’s heirs. Stanford’s official life as a
writer would not begin until he went to the University of Arkansas, but these
early memories of levy camps and quick, sudden Southern violence become the
molten core of everything that he wrote.
This poem, The Snake Doctors, is dedicated to my elementary school priest and is a great example of Stanford's work. Find it here:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180479
One click deeper:
8. Perhaps the definitive essay, thus far, on Frank Stanford is Ben Ehrenreich's 2008 essay, The Long Goodbye, for the Poetry Foundation. On the occasion of Stanford's new collection, the essay is reprinted here:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/181083