Public Art and the Civic Ideal in the Postmodern Age - Dissertation Example

Public Art and the Civic Ideal in the Postmodern Age I. Bernini and the modern age Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) is responsible for a great deal of Rome’s Baroque character, having creating an amazing number of sculptures and buildings throughout his lifetime under the patronage of powerful Popes. Although he also reportedly painted hundreds of paintings and authored several plays, very few of these survive, leaving only these stone testaments to his creative energy and vision. Fortunately, it was as a sculptor that Bernini chose to represent himself, considering this his greatest talent. A careful study of some of his multi-media works such as the Fountain of Four Rivers or the Ecstasy of St. Theresa can illustrate a great deal about Bernini’s new Baroque ideas regarding time and space that were entering Rome as the 17th century progressed. The Fountain of the Four Rivers, created between 1648 and 1651, commissioned by Pope Innocent X, is Bernini’s largest and most celebrated fountain. He was asked to erect a monument sufficiently large enough to emphasize the center of the square without upsetting its unity. “At the same time, the fountain – not axially related to the façade of S. Agnese – had to be attuned to the Baroque church that had been planned for the area, but not yet erected” (Wittkower, 1955). It was actually executed by a large group of co-workers who worked under Bernini’s direct supervision, but sketches provide proof that the idea and the design are definitely Bernini’s. Fountain of the Four Rivers The fountain itself represents the four continents that were recognized in Bernini’s time, which were Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas, via the four major rivers that were associated with each of these continents – the Nile, the Danube, the Ganges and the Rio della Plata respectively. The figure of the Nile was created by Jacopo Antonio Fancelli, the Danube by Antonio Raggi, the Ganges by Claude Poussin and the Rio della Plata by Francesco Baratta (Kren & Marx, 1996). Each figure can be identified by the objects he holds and the plants and animals that surround him. The Ganges is shown with an oar in his hand, representing his navigability while the Nile is seen with his head covered, perhaps because the origin of the river was not known at that time although other rumors persist that perhaps it was due to a rivalry between Bernini and Borromini, the architect of the S. Agnese. Ganges figure Nile figure The Danube River is shown holding his arms up towards the coat of arms of Innocent X’s family with doves and lilies above him, while the Rio della Plata is portrayed as a black man holding coins in one hand to indicate the riches of the Americas even as he gapes at the S. Agnese to demonstrate the innocence and naivety of the native peoples (Sullivan, 2006). Danube figure Rio della Plata figure Lions, elephants and other creatures join these personifications in the circular tank. The entire fountain works to support a 54-foot Egyptian Obelisk dedicated to the sun placed in the center. This is placed directly above several cutouts in the base rock that were made to afford a view through the fountain of the buildings on the other side. This placement creates an illusion of the obelisk floating in the air, apparently weightless. A large bronze hen pigeon was placed on top of the fountain to symbolize the peaceful work of the Church watching over the world as well as the family of the Pontiff who commissioned the work (“Rivers Fountain”, n.d.). Obelisk detail Cut-through detail One of the agreements Bernini made with the Pope was that the Pope would not look upon the fountain until it was finished. “When the Pope saw the fountain turned on for the first time, he was shocked and overcome by the beauty and natural appearance of the design. This naturalness was conveyed through the use of materials, but more so by the way the water naturally flowed over the sculptures appearing that the overall composition was not man made, and that it could be found in nature” (Hibbard, 1965). This use of water as an essential ingredient in portraying the natural aspect of the overall design represents one of the fundamental shifts that had occurred distinguishing the Baroque from the Renaissance. The water isn’t organized into orderly jets of thin, carefully directed paths, but is instead allowed to stream in several different directions in gushing torrents that help to reinforce the idea of “pulsating life and real movement” (Wittkower, 1955), bringing the concept of time into his artwork in a way that had not been accomplished before. Detail of naturally flowing water direction Tom Otterness is a contemporary artist who was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1952. He became a student of the Arts Students League in New York in 1970 and has worked most often to create public works of art. His work has been exhibited in numerous group shows and one-man exhibitions since the early 1980s, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Marlborough Gallery and the Brooklyn Museum. He was also a founding member of Collaborative Projects Inc. in 1977, which was mounted in a former bus depot and massage parlor and was designed to help boost the careers of then-emerging artists, such as Jenny Holzer, Kiki Smith, Jean-Michel Basquiar, Keith Haring and several others (Carducci, 2005). However, Otterness is most known for his unusual sculptures scattered throughout New York City in permanent and temporary displays. Greatly concerned with the direction our society has taken, these sculptures often have something biting to say about the modern world. Although friendly, approachable and often displaying a great sense of fun, most of these sculptures speak with a negative voice about the Western world’s overwhelming preoccupation with money and the effect this has had. This concern is reflected even in his work designed for a children’s playground in Battery Park entitled “The Real World.” Overview of “Real World” Installed in 1992, “The Real World” is envisioned as a map of the world beyond the playground, exposed for what it really is – a bunch of pint-sized individuals running around chasing after the penny that looms ever-large in their perspective, blinding them to other pursuits. Each of the characters portrayed within the park are designed to bring delight and enjoyment to the children who visit, but make serious social comments to the parents watching their children play in a series of vignettes found in areas such as the food chain and the fountain. The food chain consists of a series of small bronze sculptures that follow a familiar pattern. An almost friendly-looking bulldog stands in erect attention with all of his concentration focused on a cat crouching on a nearby wall. Detail of Dog and Cat in Food Chain His stillness is explained by the formidable chain strapped around his neck and attached with a lobster-claw catch around the base of a drinking fountain. The flat back of the dog serves as a handy stepping stool for small children wishing to get a drink while it also emphasizes man’s superiority over the other creatures and his position at the top of the food chain. The cat, crouched low and ready on the wall, is equally absorbed in the contemplation of a small, geometrically composed bird perched at the corner, inching his way closer to a fatly wriggling worm just ahead of him. The worm is being held up by one of Otterness’ Lilliputian figures, who often serve to represent the common man too often overlooked in the capitalist society. Detail of Cat, Bird and Worm held by Man in Food Chain By placing this person at this point in the chain, Otterness gives the impression that the tiny man is offering the worm to the bird as a substitute for himself, suggesting the necessity for the common man to sacrifice his fellow creatures for his own survival. The central fountain provides another allegory, this time centering around the idea of what happens when greed gets out of control. The fountain features a very rickety construction of a tower, representing the tower of babble or perhaps the state of disrepair that can occur when a man grips too tightly to his money rather than investing in the world around him. “Real World” Fountain Perched at the top of this tower is a Humpty-Dumpty type creature who has become fat on his own horde and is now under attack by a large dinosaur intent on cleaning house. “Real World” Fountain detail When the Humpty Dumpty creature finally falls, he cracks open just like his namesake character, or perhaps like a child’s piggy bank, and spills out all the pennies he’d been working so hard to hold onto. The former workers hurry to roll the pennies away for their own safekeeping, failing to learn the lesson just provided. Yet the pennies have suddenly become gigantic compared to their own station in life, suggesting that they will have to come across an improbable number of lucky incidents such as this one before they will ever attain the status once enjoyed by the Humpty-Dumpty figure. Big Penny detail Like Bernini, Otterness worked to incorporate what he saw in the world into his art when producing the playground. More than being simply pleasurable, creating structures meant to be touched, climbed upon and interacted with, Otterness has included commentary regarding the relationships of people within the modern society, some small and dressed in the overalls that seem to be the quintessential uniform of the blue collar worker and others parading around in top hats and standing triumphantly atop the crumbling structures they’ve erected to their own greatness. The figures are symbols, like Bernini’s river personifications, that speak eloquently of their position in the greater worldview. The incorporation of running water into these sculptures works to also bring in the issue of time, helping us to realize that these are events that occur over and over again, ad infinitum. Although designed and planned prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, Brian Tolle’s Irish Hunger Memorial captures the sense of tragedy, despair and loss associated with both events. Created on a half-acre base of limestone transported from Ireland itself, the monument focuses on the fragility of the land and features the roofless cottage of a typical Irish farmer during the famine period, from 1845-1862, in which more than 1.5 million people died of starvation. Everything placed on top of the limestone base was brought to New York from Ireland, including the cottage, carefully reconstructed on site stone by stone. Irish Hunger Memorial The cottage is surrounded by 62 species of Irish flora grown from native seeds and allowed to grow wild on the site, presenting an authentic landscape that illustrates both the wild beauty and the delicately balanced nature of the bogland ecosystem. To symbolize the empty potato harvests that occurred in 1845, 1846, 1848 and 1849, fallow potato ridges have been pulled into the landscape, planted in between with clover. A wall surrounds this empty quarter-acre crop area to symbolize the Gregory Clause which was added to the Poor Law of 1847. This law stated that “any person occupying more than one-quarter acre was not eligible for any form of governmental relief” (Frankel, 2002). This, of course, led to widespread evictions and homelessness, resulting in the great migration to American. It is said the roof remains unthatched as a reminder that many families were forced to pull their roofs down as a symbol of poverty in order to qualify for relief aid while others simply crept into their homes to die, knowing the thatch roof would eventually fall in on them and provide them with the closest thing to a Christian burial they were likely to receive. Cottage exterior Cottage interior To further evoke the spirit of Ireland, and recognizing that the famine didn’t occur in one province alone, there are thirty-two stones placed randomly about the site, each from one of the 32 counties of Ireland. “The pilgrim stone is inscribed with a cross of arcs, a motif of great antiquity that is associated with County Kerry’s St. Brendan” (“The Irish Hunger Memorial”, 2006) and is reminiscent of the many cross-decorated stones that can be found throughout the west of Ireland. These are invariably associated with sites that are considered sacred. The cross of arcs is “a motif of great antiquity that is associated with County Kerry’s St. Brendan” (“The Irish Hunger Memorial”, 2006). Stone details Visitors to the site have the option of looking out over the cantilevered overlook at the Hudson River, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, or east toward the site of the World Trade Center and St. Paul’s Church, which proved to be a refuge for the thousands of 9/11 rescue workers that arrived to help following the terrorist attacks. “The western entrance to the Irish Hunger Memorial provides a formal, ceremonial passage that leads to the center of the memorial, the Slack Cottage. This entrance recalls the neolithic passage graves of the Boyne Valley: Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth” (“The Irish Hunger Memorial”, 2006). Underground tunnel detail Tolle’s work required less sculpture than the works of Bernini and Otterness to portray the ideas, feelings and emotions of his subject, but he is able to do so through the careful reconstruction of a piece of Irish countryside in an obviously contrived and determined place in New York. That this site happened to look upon the site of the World Trade Center tragedy and that it provided a quiet place of remembrance and honor to the fallen was coincidental in its original design, but purposefully incorporated in its execution. The site was dedicated to the memory of those who fell at the World Trade Center and elsewhere upon its opening and reflects the more somber, reflective mood of the country following the attacks as opposed to the playful, almost evilly whimsical creatures of Otterness’ creations prior to the attacks. II. Leonardo and the Da Vinci Code Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was one of the most famous engineers, artists and inventors of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most well-known for his masterpiece “The Last Supper” in Milan and his “Mona Lisa” painting now housed in France’s Louvre museum. Recent attention has been given the artist, though, for his involvement in a best-selling novel written by Dan Brown entitled “The Da Vinci Code” in which Brown suggests that Mary Magdalene was not the prostitute she has been portrayed as for millennia and was instead Jesus’ wife and the mother of his child. The book traces a series of clues provided in the artwork and mathematical gadgets of Leonardo to find the answer of the Holy Grail. The significance of Leonardo’s works to the story are first introduced when the Louvre’s fictional curator Jacques Sauniere is found dead within the locked museum having placed himself within a life-sized replica of da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. However, this symbolism was only the beginning of the code that was supposed to have been preserved by da Vinci. The majority of the codes pertaining to Jesus and Mary Magdalene were argued to be placed within da Vinci’s Last Supper and Mona Lisa. Leonardo was commissioned to paint the Last Supper in 1495 for the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan by the Duke Ludovico Sforza. He finished it in 1498. The Last Supper The 15 by 29 foot painting was placed on the northern wall of the refectory. Although it’s often referred to as a fresco, Leonardo actually painted The Last Supper using a combination of tempera paints and oils. Frescoes are created by painting on wet plaster so that when the plaster dries, the paint is embedded within it making it more or less permanent. The drawbacks to this technique were that it was limited in the colors that could be used and that it was difficult to work with in terms of adjusting colors or making corrections. The technique Leonardo devised utilized tempera paints, which were a mixture of egg yolk and vinegar, and oil paints spread upon dry plaster (Shea, 2006). This provided Leonardo with a greater variety of color choices and a greater flexibility in his painting. The technique proved to be ineffective, though, as the paint almost immediately began flaking off the walls in the humid climate, making it difficult for us today to know what was originally contained in the details. Detail of Damage Although the Last Supper is a very traditional subject, da Vinci changed the way in which it was typically portrayed by focusing on a particular moment in the evening, supposedly that moment immediately following Jesus’ announcement that one of the disciples will betray him, capturing the reactions of the various people gathered in the room. However, arguments persist that it could as easily be referring to the moment when Christ announces that the traitor’s hand would be with him on the table. This view can be seen in the careful positioning of the hands seen around the table. Detail of Jesus and Judas’ hands Jesus and Judas are both reaching for bread around the same dish and several other people’s hands are thrown in the air, recoiled in denial. Others see in the painting the responses of the disciples to one another indicating that not all of the disciples are existing at the same moment in time (Steinberg, 2001, p. 24). There are several other ways that Leonardo differed in his depiction of the subject from those who had painted it before. He rejected the traditional approach of portraying the disciples grouped around a circular table because that would have forced him to paint some of them with their backs to the viewer, preventing us from seeing their expressions. He also rejected the tradition of portraying Jesus feeding Judas at this moment or of John leaning his head against Jesus. “His conception of the theme was completely dominated by the idea of bringing out the announcement of the betrayal as the dramatic central motif” (Bianco, 2001). Leonardo also gave his figures a natural life and movement in response to shocking news, portraying through body language what they are thinking. “The Apostles are arranged in four groups of three with Christ in the center. Leonardo’s depiction of Christ as the focal point in perspective and in the form of a triangle, symbolic of the Trinity, provides for calmness and stability, whereas the gesticulation and facial expressions of the Apostles conveys their sense of astonishment” (Bianco, 2001). Contemporary student copy of Leonardo’s original It is in the hands that the figure of Jesus becomes more complex and ambiguous. According to Leo Steinberg (2001), there are at least seven meanings conveyed in the shape and positioning of Christ’s hands. Jesus’ hands Having both arms lowered to the table indicates his surrender to his fate. The slump of the shoulders natural in this motion also serves to bring Christ’s body into the triangular shape that provides stability, balance and the divinity of the trinity into the painting. His hands reach out for bread and wine, suggesting the idea of the communion table and the sacrifice he knows he’s about to make. Because his hands are placed directly under the edges of the arched doorway behind him, Christ seems to be completing a protective dome or doorway into a mysterious landscape beyond. His arms spread open and his hands reaching across the table, he seems to be inviting anyone who wishes to join them at the table. He also seems to be acting as a judge with one hand uplifting and the other putting away because one palm is up and the other is down. With his left hand inverted palm up, Christ at first appears to have two right hands, causing us to look closely and symbolizing his supreme divinity in that he did not have an evil side. Space in the painting also works to create duplicity of meaning in the painting. Steinberg (2001) suggests that the problems observed in relation to perspective in the painting arise because the painting doesn’t use perspective to simply dive into the painting, it also allows the painting to radiate out. “The pictured space delivers simultaneous alternatives. We can imagine it as a chamber built before the diners arrived and bound to survive their departure. And we can see the lineaments of this same fabric unraveling from their vital node in the person of Christ, as if the structure were not performed so much as in process of being engendered, obedient to the action onstage” (Steinberg, 2001, p. 154). Detail of background space The space in which the figures sit is deliberately ambiguous, avoiding any conscious effort to bring the shapes together. Instead of creating the rectangular space we’re expecting, a look at the elements reveals a trapezoidal ceiling that defies the space from which we’re standing. There are several Christian symbols involved in the painting in addition to its overall subject matter. Christ is represented as an almost perfect geometrical triangle, symbolizing the stabilizing strength of the Trinity and the calming effect it has within its embrace. Jesus’ hands, one palm up and the other palm down, bring in the notion of justice and balance while the presence of the bread and the wine serve to remind us of the Holy Communion and Christ’s sacrifice. The capital on the window behind Jesus provides a halo-like arch above his head while the open windows provide him with a further halo of light and open upon an Edenlike landscape in the distance. However, the painting also includes several more and perhaps less obvious symbols which are explored fully in the Da Vinci Code. Within the novel, Dan Brown points to the negative space that exists between Jesus and John, forming an inverted triangle and symbolizing the feminine. This shape, it is argued, is meant to be a clue to bring doubt upon the figure historically presumed to be that of John. According to Brown, the figure resembles a woman more than a man and is presumed to be Mary Magdalene. Further, this same shape can be representational of a chalice, or the Holy Grail, again pointing attention at the John/Mary figure. In this argument, it is Mary’s body that serves as the chalice containing Jesus’ blood, or offspring. Because Mary Magdalene has been regarding as a poor prostitute throughout a great deal of recorded history, the concept that she might have been the wife of Jesus and mother of his child has caused vehement reactions around the world. Mary/John and Jesus with negative space In addition, the figure of Mary/John and Jesus together created the outline of a letter M, perhaps intended to reference Mary. The Mona Lisa is another infamous work by Leonardo that plays a significant role in the novel, but in a rather different way. The Mona Lisa was painted on poplar wood using oil paints. It’s size is actually quite small, measuring only 31 by 21 inches, but its reputation has survived for several reasons. The soft environmental effects Leonardo used in painting the background have served as a superior example of his mastery of the art of sfumato, or atmospheric painting. The landscape remains imaginary and is mismatched, allowing one side to have a higher horizon line than the other. The mysterious woman depicted in the painting is given a small smile that is described in several different ways, making her personality impossible to determine. Her eyes are created in such a way as to create an illusion that they are following the viewer regardless of where they stand in relation to the painting. Also contributing to her fame is the fact that the Mona Lisa is one of only two paintings that Leonardo kept with him until the day he died. Mona Lisa Generally, the painting has come to represent the ultimate in feminine mystique and beauty. With her indecipherable smile and fantastic environment, the Mona Lisa presents all the desirable aspects of womanhood in the soft folds of her clothing, her gentle facial expression and relaxed and stabilized pose. However, she also remains completely inaccessible. We cannot find her on a map based upon the landscape behind her. We cannot approach her emotions, not being completely sure of the nature of her smile. And we cannot escape the gaze of her eyes. It is believed that this feminine unknown associated with the Mona Lisa has contributed to her fame in the modern era, as surrealists and pop culture have adopted her into their iconography. Marcel Duchamp, for instance, reproduced the Mona Lisa in 1919, providing her with a moustache and goatee and the inscription LHOOQ (which sounds a lot like ‘she has a nice ass’ when read aloud in French). He did this supposedly to imply that the woman in the painting was in a state of sexual excitement and availability but needed a more manly image to appeal to her artist (“Mona Lisa”, 2006). Duchamp’s Mona Lisa Although she plays an important role in Brown’s book, the Mona Lisa’s secrets are divulged as a means of finding yet another clue to the secret Sophie’s grandfather had been keeping. Langdon figures out the need to visit the painting after realizing the connections made between the fleur-de-lis, or flower of Lisa, that was the symbol of Priory of Sion, and the Mona Lisa. The reason this painting would have been important to them emerges when the symbolisms of this painting are understood. Some of these concepts are brought out in a mini-lecture provided in the book itself. “By lowering the countryside on the left, Da Vinci made Mona Lisa look much larger from the left side than from the right side,” Langdon explains (119), the side which was historically linked to the domain of the feminine. In addition, Brown brings out the ideas that the Mona Lisa might be a self-portrait of Leonardo himself, however, it is her ambiguity that is brought out as being her link with the brotherhood. “Mona Lisa is neither male nor female. It carries a subtle message of androgyny. It is a fusing of both” (120), a concept represented in her very name, a combination of the Egyptian male and female deities of fertility. Detail of Mona Lisa’s androgyny Within the plotline of the story, though, the Mona Lisa simply provides the location for another clue left by Sophie’s grandfather within the museum on the night he died. Works Cited Bianco, Luigi. Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. (May 8, 2001). University of Pennsylvania. June 2, 2006 Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code. New York: Doubleday Books, 2003. Carducci, Vince. “Tom Otterness: Public Art and the Civic Ideal in the Postmodern Age.” Sculpture. Vol. 24, I. 3, (April 2005). Frankel, David. “Hunger Artist: David Frankel on Brian Tolle – On Site – Artist’s Monument to Commemorate the Irish Potato Famine New York City.” Art Forum. (Summer 2002). June 3, 2006 Hibbard, Howard.  Bernini.  Maryland: Penguin Books, Inc, 1965. “Irish Hunger Memorial at Battery Park City: A Teacher’s Guide, (The).” (2006). State Education Department: University of the State of New York. June 3, 2006 Kren, Emil & Marx, Daniel. “Fountain of the Four Rivers.” Bernini, Gian Lorenzo. (October 1996). Web Gallery of Art. May 25, 2006 “Mona Lisa.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. (June 4, 2006). Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. June 4, 2006 . Otterness, Tom. [Professional Webpage Portfolio]. June 1, 2006 “Real World, (The).” Tom Otterness. (1992). Battery Park City Authority. June 1, 2006 “Rivers Fountain by Bernini.” Deepenings. (n.d.). Rome Viva. May 25, 2006 Shea, Lisa. “The Last Supper: Leonardo da Vinci, Mary Magdalene, The Hand and Knife.” (2006). Minerva Web Works. June 3, 2006 < http://www.lisashea.com/hobbies/art/lastsupper.html> Steinberg, Leo. Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper. New York: Zone Books, 2001. Wittkower, Rudolf. Bernini: The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque. London: Phaidon, 1955. Read More