Artworks

To my own regret, I did not see the recent film, “The Mill and The Cross,” filmmaker Lech Majewski’s 2011 restaging of Peter Bruegel’s 1564 masterpiece, “The Way to Calvary.” Adapted from the 2001 book by independent art critic Michael Francis Gibson (who also co-wrote the screenplay), it won raves.

More happily, I am now in the possession of a new edition of the original book — and it’s stunning. Published in English, French (at left) and German (University of Levana Press), the book contains a two-page spread of the whole painting, plus 130 details from every part of it. It also offers new material, “including stills from the film, photos of the shooting,” and — better yet — “a number of as yet unpublished details hidden deep inside the painting – aspects of what might rightly be termed the invisible Bruegel.” [their boldface, not mine] More about which in a minute.

First, I want to highlight what Gibson says at the start, that as a child he hated being told what to think of a painting before he’d seen it. He suggests: “Perhaps you shouldn’t read this book just yet. Why not look at the pictures first. Get acquainted with them. Step into their world without preconception.”

Brilliant — I so agree, always or almost always.  With his book, I did just that — and the details are delicious. Separate paintings, all of them. The painting is, as Gibson says, “a gigantic miniature.” My only complaint is that even with a two-page spread of the original, it’s hard to pinpoint where the details are located on the picture. Readers could have used some sort of key, perhaps an overlay of the numbered detail outlines on a copy of the painting in the back.

Now to the new details, which I cite even though I’m still looking at details, mostly, and haven’t read the book, except to dip in here and there. In the publisher’s billing, we hear:

As Gibson explained, he was looking at some close-up photos provided by the Kunsthistorishes Museum, when he was stunned to discover that a hundred or more original paintings lay concealed inside the larger one. One of these in particular impressed him.

“If you look to the right of the mill on its impropable rock,” he says, “you will find a sunless moor and a little man leaning into the wind and trudging up the hill towards a splash of sunlight at the top. But what took my breath away was the realization that Bruegel had taken the pains to paint in a light rain falling aslant on the moor. At which point I thought to myself, ‘that little rain has been falling up there for close to 450 years, but I may be the first to have seen it since Bruegel set down his brush.’ (Publisher’s comment; It turns out that the curators of Flemish paintings, who have ample opportunity to examine the painting at close quarters are indeed aware of the falling rain…)

You can see, sort of, what he’s talking about above right.

None of us will ever get as close to the painting as Gibson did — which he writes was “perched on a stool with a magnifying glass in my hand and my nose five inches away from Bruegel’s Way to Calvary.” Our only alternative is to buy this book.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of University of Levana Press (bottom)

We have another night of big auctions tonight, but I’m going to change the subject.

This is a sad story of a lost, or misplaced, artistic legacy. Over the years, the Coca Cola Co. commissioned many artists to make ads and trays for the company, and in the late 1920s and through 1935, Norman Rockwell was one of them. Rockwell made six paintings for Coke’s billboard and calendar ads. But somehow Coke was able to hang onto none of them. All six went missing.

Then in August 2001, it “found” Out Fishin’. Dated 1935, it portrays a young boy, resembling Tom Sawyer, sitting on a tree stump fishing, accompanied by his dog and a bottle of Coke. Coke has not disclosed where the painting was or how it came home, except to say it was located in the Atlanta area, where the company is headquartered.

Since then, two more works have found their way back to Coke, more about which below, and Coke recently launched a campaign to get the missing three back –  Office Boy – 4 p.m. – The Pause That Refreshes from 1930 (at left), The Old Oaken Bucket, 1932 (below), and Wholesome Refreshment, 1928. I first learned about this initiative from Bloomberg Business Week.

As Coke tells the story of its early 20th century interactions with artists, who included N.C. Wyeth as well as Rockwell, most of those the company engaged did not sign their work. Maybe that’s why, clearly, the company didn’t take enough care with the works — though paintings weren’t worth all that much in those days. Further, though Rockwell and Wyeth were well-known artists, these paintings were seen as commercial illustrations.

Barefoot Boy had apparently been left at the printers. It was recovered after a Coke executive received a call from the grandson of the president of a calendar printing company who reported that the company had the painting. Coke bought it back, and BW says the price was in the neighborhood of $400,000 to $600,000.

Coke found Carry Me Back to Old Virginny, from 1934, in the Atlanta area; it had been taken home by a Coke executive and his grandchildren sold it back to the company, price undisclosed.

I’m glad Coke wants the paintings for its archives. Other companies that also commissioned work by artists might follow suit. (Nabisco once published a wonderful of its advertising art; there must be others.)

Meantime, has anyone see the missing pictures?

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Coca-Cola

Yup, you may think the Brooklyn Museum is in such dire straights that it’s not buying art — but think again. Today it announced a purchase thanks to a deaccession.

The purchase first: it is a wonder, a mother-of-pearl-inlaid Mexican folding screen, shown at left, commissioned about 1700 by the viceroy of New Spain, that combines Asian, European, and American artistic traditions. The six-panel screen, painted in oil and tempera, is in laid with mother-of-pearl. Known as a biombo enconchado, these folding screens are rare, and at the time of purchase by the Brooklyn, was the only surviving one in private hands. Here’s a description from the press release, edited for brevity:

These panels constitute half of a twelve-panel screen, created after Asian models by artists working in the circle of the celebrated González family in Mexico City, where it was displayed in the …viceregal palace. The other half of the screen is in the collection of the Museo Nacional del Virreinato in Tepotzotlán, Mexico. The complete screen was commissioned by José Sarmiento de Valladares y Aines, the count of Moctezuma y Tula, during his reign as viceroy of New Spain from 1696 to 1701….Sarmiento declared his allegiance to the Habsburg dynasty in the New World by having the front of his monumental folding screen painted with a major Habsburg victory over the Ottoman Empire, a scene from the Great Turkish War (1683-87). He requested a hunting scene …for the back…which would have served as a backdrop for the women’s sitting room in the palace. Both sides of the screen are framed with a mother-of-pearl encrusted floral decorative border inspired by Japanese lacquerware created for the export market.

In 1701 …Sarmiento…was recalled to Spain…his prized biombo enconchado in tow. The screen was later divided into two in Europe, and one half found its way to the United States by 1965, when it was recorded in a private collection in San Francisco; it entered the Museo Nacional del Virreinato by 1970. The Brooklyn Museum’s half of the screen was in England…for generations, in the collection of Cockfield Hall, until the family sold…the screen…in 1996.

The screen, which won’t go on view until September 2013, was acquired with funds raised by the deaccession of Vasily Vereshchagin’s 1897 Crucifixion by the Romans (pictured at that link). Sold at auction last November, the painting fetched nearly $2.7 million, more than expected, and now the Brooklyn has used the funds for the Mexican screen. The museum did not disclose the screen’s price, but it was presumably less than that total.

Fair trade?

My feeling — at least we know how the deaccessioning money was spent, or think we do (money is fungible).

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum