The writings of Timothy Joseph Allen

Yarn Weaving

/0 Comments/in /by

A Kentucky Limner in a King Arthur-less Court

Until that pivotal moment, anyone wanting to record, commemorate, memorialize, honor, exalt, celebrate, immortalize, or simply capture a basic likeness for the purpose of posterity or for warming the cockles of a betrothed, had to come to us. But then, there it was, upon the stage it came, looking something like a bird feeder mounted on the legs of our easel––nay! ––a mythical creature of mischievous intent––a five-legged hooded chimera, spitting sparks and plumes of smoke and begging for a stillness unrivaled by even the most willing paramour of a snake-headed enchantress: the photographic camera. Sure enough, this would stir up some trouble, and we painters knew it. Little did we know just how much.

Of course, not everyone at the time was intent to fret: Edgar had fun dabbling with it, as did Jimmy (James to his nemesis JR). And some of us unwittingly brought it along for the ride: those shots of Johnny S. behind the scenes showing visages much better looking than the subject itself left us all a little nonplussed… why, the rumors those mouths were a little too pretty-like were true!

Others of us took it as an excuse to find other ways. Some palettes got more color, some results got more spotty, then low and behold, some even dismissed Leo’s ‘first intention’ and got totally flat. Some so much so those monochrome facsimiles we so fondly dismissed as ‘paper pancakes’ were a relief!

As 19 turned 20, this flatness was declared manifest destiny, a survival of the fittest in a linear evolution, and we limners were told to let the sun set. Most of us did, lap dogs that we were, in all but a few corners, and the darkness settled, and the flatness became boundless, and the anchors were thrown overboard, and the makers of things were no longer tethered by gravity, and the words flowed, and the money followed.

But in those few corners, hearth fires were quietly tended, the coals steadily stoked, and torches diligently passed on to illuminate. And time passed.

Then a strange thing occurred: the firelight grew enough to reveal more than dancing shadows. And then, there it was! Quivering in the corner––exposed, cold, hairless! ––not an evolution of our species, but a new and separate species entirely! The whole caper was cuckoo. How had we been so hoodwinked into believing it was one of our own? It most certainly was not.

Even the photographic camera had little choice but to sheepishly confess. If once it had displaced Gene’s lady liberty of la révolution, she could only sit idle and testify, like a pentito, to her role in what really had been a coup d’état of Darwinian proportions.

Except she wasn’t idle. Oh no, she had had other designs. And she had taken her time––a whole century worth! ––and shifted shape to find her way into the pockets of the masses, making our torch-lit discovery seem irrelevant. Her labors were everywhere: in books, on walls, in wallets, embedded and unrivaled. And time passed.

Then a strange thing occurred: she too became untethered. Her analog anchors were thrown overboard––her children were prisoners to paper no more! ––and the visions of her eye traveled into the ether, and 100 became 1,000, and 1,000 became 10,000, and 10,000 became 100,000, to 1,000,000, to 10 to the 100th power!

Now 21 leaves 20 well behind: the masses flock to a realm where information is universal, likeness is ubiquitous, ‘friendships’ are forged, words flow and the money follows.

Given these infinite bounties of knowledge, interconnectedness, and virtual comfort, were we only smarter, more gentle, considerate, kind, thoughtful, reflective, open to discourse, nuance, subtlety, and the secret supplications of the hearts of others. We most certainly are not.

***

Tomorrow I’ll go into my studio to work with the model. She is an Italian, Arianna, named for the weaver of tapestries, the one Theseus left behind on that island.

I know I’ll never leave this island. It’s a refuge here.

She sits and I check the pose. I ask if she is comfortable, if she is warm enough. She says she is and settles in.

I take a breath and pick up the brush.

Timothy Joseph Allen
Rome, Italy

Written February 12, 2023
Published October 12, 2023

Seeing is Believing: Caravaggio’s Conversion of Saul, Formal Analysis and Critical Thinking

/3 Comments/in , /by

I teach a 100 level on-site Art History class for The American University of Rome called Art of Rome.¹  I began teaching it in the Spring of 2007 and, as of this writing, have taught it every semester since.  It is, in essence, a hybrid of historical fact—names, dates, places and vocabulary—combined with a methodology designed to enable students to describe, analyze and interpret the meaning of a work of art based on its formal qualities.

It was back in December of 2006 with The Calling of Someone at the Table that I demonstrated how formal analysis serves the understanding and interpretation of a painting.  Here is yet another attempt—perhaps long overdue—to further the cause.

What Something IS is Not What Something MEANS

This is the hardest thing to get beginning students of formal analysis to understand.  This concept runs parallel to the mantra I use with my beginning drawing students: draw what you see, not what you know.

When discussing this idea in class, I’m quick to make comparisons with literature, i.e., pointing out that The Wizard of Oz is a story about a girl, her dog, a tin man, a scarecrow and a lion and their quest to find a great and powerful wizard who can help the girl and her dog return home.  But what The Wizard of Oz means is something else entirely and it is fun to point to some of the many theories that litter the web.

Now, while narrative is often the fruit of the sum of the parts of a figurative painting—the hand of a nude female extending fruit to a nude male easily excites a literary imagination—often times the way in which those parts are arranged, modeled and emphasized may speak to a meaning that is completely detached from the title of the work or the overt actions of the figures.  Narrative in formal analysis is a trap.

What is Formal Analysis?

Formal analysis is an examination of the formal qualities—the parts—of a painting; it is an investigation of the management of those parts and an attempt to understand why and how the decisions made by the artist affect meaning.

The formal qualities of a painting include: size, subject matter, scale, light, line, shape, color, texture, perspective, proportion, rhythm and composition.

With so many to choose from it can at first seem overwhelming, but, often times the artist helps us by limiting the thrust of meaning to one or several of these formal qualities.  Let’s take Caravaggio’s (second) Conversion of Saul as an example:

779px-Conversion_on_the_Way_to_Damascus-Caravaggio_(c.1600-1)

What Is the Painting According to the Patron and Context?

For the answer, all we need to do is read the title: The Conversion of Saul on the Road to Damascus.  Easy enough.  In fact, Caravaggio’s realism makes it hard to see it differently.  Saul, having fallen from his horse, embraces the divine light (as opposed to seeing the light—clever to the last, is Caravaggio not?) and marks his conversion to Christianity and his change in name from Saul to Paul.

What Is the Painting According to a Philistine* or a Man from Mars?

A man on the ground, on his back, arms outstretched, his head closest to the viewer, with the body of a horse above him and a second figure standing behind the horse’s head.

In essence, this is the first part of our methodology, Description, albeit a succinct version of it. Description is an objective account of the image with every effort made to avoid value judgements.

* Philistine: a person who is hostile or indifferent to culture and the arts, or who has no understanding of them.  Apple dictionary.

Formal Analysis of the Conversion of Saul on the Road to Damascus

Let’s pick four formal qualities: Light, line, shape and composition.

  • Light serves the drama and the mystery. It is hard to understand the setting (where) or the time of day (when) or where exactly the light originates (top right), or even the source of the light.
  • Line serves the emotional and psychological complexity: Saul’s facial expression is serene, the horse’s juxtaposed ears allude to perplexity and the visual stitch of legs—made of the horse and standing attendant—is disorienting.
  • Shape serves the curvilinear mass of the horse’s body juxtaposed with the curvilinear form of Saul’s embrace, which together emphasize a circle (and whatever is contained within that circle).
  • Composition, which is essentially the final arrangement of all formal qualities, specifically serves the compression of space, the division of the lower half (Saul) to the upper half (the horse and standing figure), the position of the horse’s weight-bearing foot to Saul and the position of the horse’s lifted hoof to the oval shape created by Saul’s outstretched arms.  Note: there are many more observations we could make about the composition, but these are the ones I’ve chosen to focus on.

What Does the Painting Mean When Taken in Context?

Here is where we get to turn the screw.  In one to three sentences, I’ll declare an interpretation of these formal qualities while also taking into consideration the sociopolitical environment in which it was made, i.e., the Counter-Reformation:

Caravaggio uses a journalistic realism to convince his religious patrons that his aim is true to the cause of conversion while simultaneously using composition as a vehicle to subvert that message and “counter-reform” meaning: at the center of Saul’s circular embrace is nothing more than the hoof of a horse, a visual pun inferring that those devoted to the light of Christianity are but willing victims to a doctrine and dogma that tramples the spirit.

tja-caravaggio-saul-formal-analysis

Wow.  Now that’s an interpretation using only formal analysis.  But, it does require an understanding of context.  So what if don’t have even that?

What Does the Painting Mean without Knowing the Context?

Well, let’s refine our formal analysis.  Let’s say we don’t know the title and thus don’t know the name of the protagonist.  That means our analysis would now look like this:

  • Light serves the drama and the mystery. It is hard to understand the setting (where) or the time of day (when) or where exactly the light originates (top right), or even the identity of the source of the light.
  • Line serves emotive complexity: Saul’s the facial expression of the figure on this back is serene, the horse’s juxtaposed ears allude to perplexity and the visual stitch of legs—made of the horse and standing attendant—is disorienting.
  • Shape serves the curvilinear mass of the horse’s body juxtaposed with the curvilinear form of Saul’s the lower figure’s outstretched arms, which together emphasize a circle (and whatever is contained within that circle).
  • Composition, which is essentially the final arrangement of all formal qualities, specifically serves the compression of space, the division of the lower half (Saul the figure on his back) to the upper half (the horse and standing figure), the position of the horse’s weight-bearing foot to Saul the lower figure and the position of the horse’s lifted hoof to the oval shape created by the Saul’s lower figure’s outstretched arms.

By not naming the subject matter we help to ensure that we won’t be mislead by what we may know of the narrative.  Also, we could even push this to the furthest extreme and pretend we don’t even know the name of the artist, let alone the sociopolitical environment of the time.

In light of that, I’ll change my interpretation entirely:

The artist takes the narrative of a horse and fallen rider and transforms it into a moment of prurient revelation. This theme of sexual enlightenment is triggered by the visual and literal weight of the horse’s weight-bearing foot that falls upon the groin of the fallen rider.  In truth, the illusional space allows for this foot to be behind the groin, but the compositional alignment of the foot and groin with regard to the pictorial space (the flat surface of the picture) can not be by chance.  Despite the visceral response this discovery might have upon the viewer, the fallen rider’s serene expression contradicts any sense of physical trauma and instead announces, with arms outstretched, a knowing and joyous embrace of the worlds’s earthly pleasures.

tja-caravaggio-saul-formal-analysis-2

Could a reasonable person disagree with that?  Absolutely.  Have I effectively used formal analysis to support my claim.  I think so.

And there you have it.

¹ Art of Rome is an Art History course created, developed and taught by the late great Prof. Terry Kirk for The American University of Rome for more than twenty years.  I literally took this class with Prof. Kirk in the Fall of 2006 (the semester before I taught it) and we went on to have many joyous and energetic discussions regarding its continuous evolution and refinement.  It is a great honor for me to continue his legacy and it is his memory that ever inspires the enthusiastic and tenacious teaching spirit I try and bring to every class.

Illustration vs. Painting

/0 Comments/in /by

Decades ago this would often come up in discussion with Maestro: what is the difference between “Illustration” and “Painting”?

Here’s a thought I had tonight on the way home from Tuesday’s figure drawing lesson:

Illustration is execution; Painting is performance.

Illustration is the end of the journey; Painting is the means of the journey.

Your thoughts?

Further Notes on “Netherland”

/0 Comments/in , /by

While speaking with the Maestro earlier tonight on Skype we spent some of the time discussing some of the finer points I made during the presentation I gave of Netherland from a few weeks back, and it occurred to me that I had failed to write any of it down.  It now occurs to me that I should.

For starters, I’m inclined to believe there are three kinds of paintings:

  1. The kind where I know what I want, I make a plan, then execute (rarely does this happen);
  2. The kind where I say, I’ve got two hours to do it, and at the end of the two hours it’s done;
  3. The kind where I have just a point of departure and the suspicion that those first steps will lead me on a great adventure—that was Netherland.

(There is also a fourth kind: the kind I don’t finish.)

Then, there is the looming question that inevitably follows any Odyssey of the Third Kind: if I knew that the final image was what I wanted from the start and painted it so directly—without the months of twists and turns—would it still resonate the way I feel the final image does?

On the one hand, I hope the answer is “no,” as I would like to think the blood, sweat and tears adds to the magic.

On the other hand, I hope the answer is “yes,” as I would like to complete magic paintings faster.

Ultimately, Netherland has taught me that I must better set the stage for what I love most about the act of painting:  accuracy, economy and spontaneity—I must pursue further a process that isn’t just about getting it right (accuracy), and getting a lot from a little (economy), but making it so that little takes little to do (spontaneity).

These are good things to remember.

The Calling of Someone at the Table

/0 Comments/in , /by

A painter’s analysis of Caravaggio’s Calling of Saint Matthew by Timothy Joseph Allen.
Written as a response to my late great colleague Professor Terry Kirk in December, 2006.  Published on pLog July, 2010.

Terry, your analysis and interpretation of this painting is intriguing.  I especially like your idea about pinpointing the exact moment in time that has been captured–and if I’ve understood correctly–you assert it is just after the words of Christ have been spoken, but just before the words of Christ have been heard by its intended recipient–the figure on the far left.

However, I would argue that Levi–soon to be Matthew–is indeed the one in the center of the table.  I’ve created the following diagram to support my argument.

Tip: right click to open in new window to see a bigger version in a separate window while you read.

Read more

A Story About Jan

/0 Comments/in , /by

Here is what happened: I just listened to the story on NPR about Plato, which mentions Pythagoras, which makes me think “Art = Math”, which makes me think Velazquez, then Las Meninas, then I remembered mentioning that in a short story I wrote while rafting through the Grand Canyon in 2008.

Here is that story:

A Story About Jan

The First of Many

(Changed from the previous title: How Unspeakable Acts of Wickedness Shape my World View.)

Jan denied me an M&M again today.  As her boat came along side mine I said:

“Hey, Jan!  Throw me an M&M!”

She shook her head.  “Only for my boat,” she said, and drifted past.

Of course, it is important to keep such moments of pain and unrequited pleasure in perspective, but I am slow in doing so.  I reluctantly hear the voice of my father float back from down stream, from a past, not a future, and it reprises the irritating truth:

“In twenty years, who’s going to care?”

But in a river of walls that has seen its share of twenties, truth begs revision.  How deep yet subtle our solipsism sets its roots and shapes our thinking.  From now on I’ll say:

“In a billion years, who’s going to care?”

From now on I will begin discussions on precious art with the preamble that ten billion years from now our sun will explode–so Meredith says–and the finger of Thomas will melt away in the wound of Caravaggio’s Christ and the angelic face in Velazquez’s Meninas will incinerate.  From now on I will tempt others with the unpopular:  When measuring the probabilities of miracles, the most probable is the one you are living.

If nothing else, these ruminations are a satisfying distraction.  A good way to keep my head up, to keep looking down stream, to the future, not the past.

Ahead I see Jan’s boat.  Maybe tomorrow she’ll give me an M&M.

TJA
On the Colorado River, Grand Canyon
August 17th, 2008

PS  Later in the afternoon I read Jan my story.  That night she gave me a beer.

Note to self:  write more stories about Jan.