Two Views of Hiroshige

We drove out to Pasadena to revisit the fantastic exhibit of prints by Hiroshige at the Norton Simon Museum. One visit wasn’t enough. There’s a whole lot of prints to see and each individual picture of early 19th century Japanese life requires a lot of nose to the glass perusal. The sheer number of geishas, workmen, dancers, pilgrims and holiday makers demands a second viewing — and another viewing in the future as well, and one or two after that.

I was all pumped to write an in-depth appreciation of Utagawa Hiroshige and how the Norts had assembled several entire print series — e.g. Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji – but fortunately, when I had changed earlier from my blue shirt into my yellow shirt in order to be dressed appropriately for National Mustard Day, I unwittingly left my spy cam in the breast pocket — and as anyone knows, you can’t write a weblog post about an art exhibit without photos. So I’m off the hook. Instead, I can go have a bowl or two of Cap’n Crunch. Museuming makes me hungry.

All I had on me at Nort was my camera phone with which I captured the fuzzy image above, but phone photos don’t count.

The Sound of One Hand Oxidizing

You can tell a lot about a figural sculptor from his treatment of hands. Or, to be more accurate, you can tell one or two things about a figural sculptor from his treatment of hands. Or, well, okay, to be perfectly honest, you may or may not be able to tell anything about a figural sculptor from his treatment of hands — I have no idea — but I wanted to start out this photo-essay with an artsy sounding assertion that made me sound more knowledgable than I am.

That’s a detail up there, of a bronze by Auguste Rodin that stands motionless (though it walks at night) on the grounds of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. It seemed to me that an artist working in clay — especially on a monumental scale — would be thinking about his paws more than the usual guy, if only because they were chronically dry and itchy. So I risked armed response from the lurking guards by tip-toeing up close and getting a shot of Jean de Fiennes‘s ambiguous gesture.

The next photo, on the left somewhere, shows one Pierre de Wissant, aghast, raising his bronze hand as if to say, “WTF?” Actually, the face on this one caught my interest more than the hand, but let’s stick with the theme, shall we?

Down below, I give you a pair of fierce, grippy hands belonging to one member of a group of Burghers of Calais, 1884-95. Now there is a pair of sculptor’s hands, don’t you think? Blue-collar hands. I don’t know how much manual labor those Calais Burghers had to do, but I suspect these sinewy mitts have more to do with Auguste than Jean, Pierre or any of their fellow public servants. I’ll bet they all had French tips.

As long as we’re hanging around on the lawn anyhow, let’s get within guard-alarming distance of the graceful hand of Rodin’s Saint John the Baptist, 1878-80.

Nice hand, eh? But I think Rodin has it a little backwards: this should be the Burgher’s hand, and the Burgher’s hand should be here instead. John Baptist lived an ascetic life in the desert subsisting on bugs and honey. I picture something a little more weatherworn and rugged on the end of his wrists, though maybe all the baptizing had a softening effect. The gesture is surely meant to be an orator’s flourish in keeping with John’s role as a voice in the wilderness.

One more Rodin hand. This one belonging to… oh, rats. My notes are all in disarray. I think it belongs to Pierre de Wissant, but it might go with one his many Burgher Buddies. They’re milling all over the lawn at the Norton Simon; it’s hard to keep them straight. And which Pierre was it? There are two studies  — one draped and one nude– and yet another Pierre amid the group portrait.

Sorry, I just can’t remember which one the hand goes with, but I suppose a draped hand would be wearing a mitten, yes? We’ll just call it the Bare Pierre and let the ever-vigilant error-finders of the Web pounce if we’re wrong.

Now, just to round things off, let’s lean mere inches from one of the three ladies comprising Aristide Maillol’s bronze Three Nymphes, 1930-37. I include it mostly because I have it, but also because it provides a nice contrast to Rodin’s rugged technique. Maillol’s sculptures are smooth as eggs and as geometrical, too. They come dangerously close to being ice-cold and Deco-ish, but some residual animating grace saves them. After all, even the 20th century didn’t manage to be completely anti-human. That will be the job of the 21st, beginning tomorrow.

Norton Simon Museum Without a Camera

Today I so wanted to climb up into the Hollywood Hills above Studio City to locate Detective Harry Bosch’s home on Woodrow Wilson Drive, but I was outvoted and we went to Pasadena instead.

Pasadena? Pasadena? Why Pasadena? Because Pasadena boasts the presence of the Norton Simon Museum, which in turn boasts the exhibit of a Vermeer on loan from the National Gallery.

Twenty-eight miles of laughing at vanity license plates and we were parking (FREE!) at the serene, low-slung and somehow secluded Norton Simon. Once inside I discovered I’d left my trusty Kodak EasyShare™ at home. Despair was quickly followed by determination. A dash into the gift shop put me in possession of a hard-lead pencil and 3 x 4.5 inch pocket notepad. If I could not bring you a photographic record of the Norton Simon, then I would bring you doodles.

For example: Here’s my hasty sketch of a painting — itself sort of hasty and sketchy — by the Dutch Master, Rembrandt van Rijn. It’s entitled, rather generically I think, Portrait of a Boy, but everyone with an MFA who has earned the right to an opinion on the subject agrees that the kid is none other than Titus van Rijn, the painter’s son. Me, I’m agnostic on the whole vext question, though, I must admit, the family resemblance is pretty hard to deny. Titus has that distinctive van Rijn chiaroscuro. Also the hat.

About the same time Rembrandt was barking at Titus to stand still, his compatriot Frans Hals was having a laff riot painting his Portrait of a Young Man:

I realize the titular young man looks kind of goofy here in my doodle — all puffy, wild-haired, and half-smiling — but, really, in the actual painting the guy does look all puffy and wild-haired and he is smiling in that weird way. Hals, the informative placard on the wall informed me, is known for the good humor exuded by his portraits. Well, okay, we’ll call it “good humor” if they insist, but it’s good humor of a Cheech and Chong sort I suspect.

Two centuries later, and a many days journey south on foot, we come to this colossal figure study, The Ragpicker, by Eduard Manet. It’s over 6 feet (19,304,000,000 angstroms) in height.

I dunno… Something about the guy makes me think he’s not in fact a ragpicker. He looks too… perceptive, too aware of what’s going on. Watchful. I believe he’s really some kind of investigator in disguise; a Sherlock Holmes, or an Auguste Dupin; perhaps Allan Pinkerton himself. At least I hope so. Otherwise we’re left with the question Manet always leaves us with: Why on earth did he bother to paint that?

Finally, we’ll jump ahead another century or so and meet up once again with our old pal, Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975), the British sculptor. You may recall her big-as-your-average-walrus sculpture from the Milwaukee Art Museum featured earlier on this site.

This one — or this group — is not very tall. Even raised as they were on the foot-high stainless steel base the bunch of rocks were only maybe four and a half feet at the tallest. The gang is called Assembly of Sea Forms. The pieces are all bright white marble, smooth as old soap and polished to a gleam. Each stone has a name. In back are the Sea Mother and Sea King. (I think dad is the squarish guy with the hole.) Up front are lil Embryo and Seabird. The middle group are named Shell, and Young and Rolled Sea Forms. Oh… listen! The kids are singing like the von Trapp Family!