Diane Arbus: Justified Criticism or Just A Matter of Discomfort?

I am planning to explore why the work of Diane Arbus is criticized while similar work by Diego Velazquez is characterized as sensitive. I believe that Arbus’ work is criticized because it stirs up a level of discomfort. This paper will give me an opportunity to further explore the idea of self, the gaze, and otherness. Now if I could just find the actual criticism of Arbus’ work and not just mention of it!

The Grid and its Transgressions

Fried and Formalism

I found this to be a refreshing article in light of most of the art historical texts we have read this semester. This text combined introduced, accepted, as well as challenged, the ideological socio-political argument T.J. Clark had made of The Burial at Ornans. Then, Fried proceeded in an in-depth argument of two separate beholders of the painting. One is the tout court and the other is a specific spectator to the left side of the painting. I have to admit that I was more influenced by the tout court analysis as I felt that myself, as a spectator, were situated within the grave. However, if I was standing in front of the 22 ft x 9 ft painting I believe my belief as to whether the beholder was in the center could be challened and I might feel that there is an outside spectator to the left.

However, I did enjoy the Vasarian-style analysis of the non-illusionistic quality of The Burial of Ornans vs the illusionistic, chiaroscuro quality of the Carravagio painting Supper at Emmaus. Because the grave portrays a minimalistic, suppressive illusion, its gives the effect, for me, of being Realistic. And this suppression of illusion is shown within the non-Romanticized landscape in the background of the painting. This suppression of illusion is what I feel is most important to Realism's formal qualities in terms of usage of light in paintings by Courbet. The range of light is compressed to devoid the emotional response of the tout court or the outside spectator that was triggered by Romantics such as David Casper Friedrich. It is kind of ironic to believe that illusion=distance and realism=proxmity as most people link romanticism with the inner spiritual and realism with reality. If I was to be in the "subjectivity camp", how would I not be able to defend that illusion=proximity and realism=distance????

Throughout the text, Fried contradicts himself by validating his first theory of the painter-beholder and the outside spectator to the left of the canvas based upon various assumptions such as the skewed orientantion of the open grave and the figure with the crucifix looking gazing outside the canvas. But I believe the multiple analyses are valid because it challenges whether this is a window onto reality or a flat surface facing the beholder. In doing so, we are subjected by the gaze of being looked at, situated within the grave, and as neither within the grave or being looked at because the left side of the painting contains figures that gazes outside of our view.

Lastly, I enjoyed the debate at the end of class yesterday. I think that we are all maturing in our belief systems and representations in our desire to be art historians. But I believe that HISTORY is very important and that it should never be forgotten. It can be valid to use that HISTORY as evidence to support a critical analysis of an art show such as the Jeff Wall show at SFMOMA or any other contemporary arts exhibition within the SF Bay Area museums.

See y'all next week. Ciao.

The Serpentine Tool

I just loved this essay by Michael Fried about Courbet in which he methodically deconstructs Burial at Ornans in order to show Courbet’s intended placement of the beholder painter or beholder toute court. The parallels that Fried draws between Courbet’s elements of serpentine lines in his landscapes and group portraits are interesting in that by way of a formal analysis they point to sociopolitical ideas as laid out by TJ Clarke, but also the painter’s relationship to other people including himself and the viewer – even us right now. Not only does the serpentine line represent something larger, but so do the aggressive use of paint and the use of a lack of color.
Fried begins by explaining previous arguments that have been accepted as deconstructions of the painting. The first is Linda Nochlin’s argument that the additive organization of the painting offers a sense of egalitarianism and that it is a painting of the everyday. The second argument is in regards to the sources that Courbet may have used or referred to. The third is an assumption based on Courbet’s relationship to Champfleury that the black clothing represents universal equality in that everyone is “celebrating some funeral.” But, Fried thinks that it has more to do with a particular “Parisian milieu.” The final argument was posited by our favorite TJ Clarke who said that the painting is related to the social and political events that unfolded during the years of 1848 – 51. In the end Fried points out that his own deconstruction does not refute Clarke’s argument, but can coexist alongside it.
Fried argues with Nochlin’s approach of seeing the additive formula as egalitarian by pointing to the individual portraits within the painting. Rather the additive construction and Serpentine-like construction allows for the lines back and forth across the picture plane that Courbet supposedly wants us to notice to bring an awareness that the painter and the viewer exist. Fried solidifies this argument by pointing to Courbet’s use of the serpentine in his landscapes and the ways in which they lead the viewer around the picture plane so that the viewer is in the painting. This is what I consider to be the most beautiful part of Fried’s account. That is his description of the imagined lines of vision across the picture plane and how they relate back and forth from the procession, to certain people within the painting (especially Buchon, the crucifix bearer, and the young boy with the vessel), to the grave, to the beholder and then again to the beholder toute court. The dip that occurs in the drawing and a bit less so in the painting draws the beholder’s eye directly to that space exactly in the same way that the dip in a valley would. All of this “affirms Courbet’s determination to affirm his (as well as the viewer’s) active presence...in the scene of representation.”
And Courbet did all of this in order to remove the previous fashion of the theatrical. But, isn’t all of this theater in a sense? Regardless of whether the viewer is in or out of the painting, there is a certain drama to the painting. The placement of the grave solidifies this. The beholder, whoever they are almost certainly imagines their self being beckoned into this grave. One wonders if Courbet is not calling to a very specific viewer to imagine himself or herself in this grave? Perhaps TJ Clarke touches more upon this idea by relating it to the political. After all, he has been described as one who “relished scandal as a shortcut to prominence.” (quote taken from New Yorker, July 30, 2007)

Fried

Courbet is most likely the most influential realist painter during this time period. Realism demanded that artist to be of their time and to portray contemporary life. Courbet grew up in the rural city of Ornans, France and was the son of a wealthy framer.

It was not until the year of 1848 that Courbet became a well-known painter and actually “existed”. The painting After Dinner at Ornans won Courbet many awards and became a household name. During the summer of 1848 and 1849 Courbet went back home and began to paint three painting that would change the art world forever. The two that Fried discusses are the Stonebreakers and Burial at Ornans, these two painting are true to the realist form that capture the essence of contemporary life in the mid 19th century.

These two paintings are life size and like Courbet himself are in your face with the problems of that many people in rural area of France and maybe all over Europe. Michael Fried talks in his paper how and why these two paintings change the way we look at life in the mid 19th century. He also threw in other art historian’s ideas about how and why these two paintings are truly realist.

These two paintings are of life size and actually maybe even bigger in some instances. The Burial at Ornans is of an event that is about to take place. The essay talks about four curxs that this painting covers.

1) The burial is a break threw painting as a group with and exemplifying and additive mode of composition.
2) This painting is similar to that of the 17th century Dutch master that Courbet most likely saw in Amsterdam. And the colors are most like that of Velasquez. In the year of 1851 about three years after this painting was finished thought that this painting was supplicated and finds that it is the same art as naïve art.
3) That the black is representing of the total bourgeois and is the dress of contemporary life.
4) TJ Clark thinks that Courbet’s family emphasizes the status between the peasantry and the rural bourgeois. The prime subject matter is that of rural France.

Fried talks about the early works of Courbet and his landscapes, which helped him form this painting of the burial, is similar to that of the other landscapes. The composition is which had to be worked on over and over again is of the kneeling boy and that of the open hole.

Fried has four last points that
1) The skewed orientation with the open grave.
2) The people seem to looking at the viewer in the picture plane.
3) The young boy looks similar to that of the young boy in the painting Stonebreakers.
4) Is that the vantage point is front of the cleft or the fold is in the some sense that of prilivaged

Fred wraps everything up with that the close distance between painting and that of the painter seems to work very well with one another.

In Michael Fried's "The Structure of Beholding in Courbet's Burial at Ornans" he discusses the relationship between the painting and the beholder that is presented in the work. He mentions that Courbet is attempting something new as most works of that time attempt to exclude the viewer. This relationship between the beholder and the painting is emphasized by the lifesize scale of the work. The crowded of the figures demands our attention and conveys a sense of confrontation.

Fried discusses four points about the painting that are typically accepted theories. The first is that the painting has an additive composition that is based on juxtaposition. Next he says that the composition of the painting is usually attributed to influence from Dutch group portraits, 17th century Spanish painting, or 1830's woodcuts. He mentions the black costumes of all the figures as being thought of as a representation of the borgeoisie, and that it represents the ambiguos social situation between the peasantry and upper class.

Fried then moves on to discuss his own thoughts on Burial at Ornans. He denies that the composistion is purely additive and says it is processional. The overall scene implies a slow continuous movement. This processional composition is emphasized by the wide format of the space. And the mass of black contributes by creating a collective dift throughout. I think Fried's article is well organized and easy to read. He explains all aspects of the painting well and the different ideas about it that exist before presenting his own.

Fried's Objecthood...

Wow, were actually reading about art! Adding in some formal analysis and we’ve got an art class back. I was/am a little lost because we’re not so direct this week, like subjectivity or semiotics, but I’m presuming that Fried interest is primarily in the relationship from viewer to the object being viewed. He says all paintings face their beholder. Expressing his view that because the artist expressed himself through the painting, it is now in concrete form, therefore more real than before. If I am getting his point straight, then I can concur with this theory, and one could say not for all art, but I think it’s true. No matter the object of reproduction in an artistic way, the artists is still going to make very specific markings only distinct to that person. He jumps right into the paintings within the first paragraph, and does a well job at explaining them in a not so dry tone. Painted between 1848-1850, he provides briefly all summaries of four different paintings, but focuses his analysis on only one, Burial at Ornan’s. Perceived by generations of historians, about the overall stylistic character of the Burial, all have emphasized its effects of brute material, both as representation and as artifact.

Saying that there is an aggressive presence of the personages, due to the aggressive presence of the paint. Also stating that the people in the paintings are nothing, but elements on the canvas. This essay was well written except for the fact that I didn’t get a clear sense what Fried was trying to prove. I felt he had a huge sales pitch to throughout there, unclear about his reference to Manet, Seurat, and Picasso following Courbet’s initiative. I’m sorry I just felt a little bored reading through this piece, even though it was much clearer than some of the other works, maybe it’s realism that puts me to sleep, I hope our class discussion can boast my interests.

Fried and the Beholder

Michael Fried provides several theories on Courbet’s Burial at Ornans that differ from earlier discourses. I enjoyed Fried’s writing style because he told us what he was going discuss and how he was going to get there. He even warned us when he was straying away from his point and then let us know when he was back on course. Fried does a nice job of leading us into his theories by first providing us with some background information on the four major paintings Courbet completed between 1848 and 1850, two of which Fried has already written about extensively. Fried also provides brief summaries of previous discussions about the Burial and the four major theories posited (1) the additive composition, (2) sources from Dutch paintings or French woodcuts, (3) the black attire and what it represents, and (4) the social and political connotations.

Fried spends a considerable amount of time on the procession and its movement from left to right and back to the left. Fried looks at Courbet’s earlier works and notes Courbet’s tendency to use an S-shaped flow in his landscape paintings. Fried also shows us how Nadar’s Demenagement de l’Assemmblee constituante and Bertall’s Le Jubile des culottes de peau may have inspired Courbet’s procession. (I find these two examples the most intriguing part of this discussion.)

Getting to the main point of the article, Fried is concerned with the concept of the beholder and where exactly the beholder is situated in regards to the scene. For Fried, there are two beholders, the painter-beholder and the beholder tout court and both are part of the painting. Fried discusses at length the depiction of the grave and its location at the bottom of the painting. He suggests that one of the beholders is standing at the unseen side of the grave. Fried also discusses the outward glaze of the crufix-bearer, Colard, and suggests that Colard is staring out at another beholder. Fried goes on to suggest that the gaze is not returned by the beholder and instead is drawn to the hatless figure in profile behind and to the left of Colard. This figure has been identified as one of Courbet’s friends, Buchon. Fried then goes out on a limb and theorizes that because of their friendship and closeness, Buchon is actually Courbet and thus Courbet has placed the painter-beholder inside the painting. While Fried’s arguments about the beholder may need some more work, he has brought up some interesting issues about the beholder and how they are drawn into paintings.

Shape and Object

I enjoyed both of Fried’s essays on the experience and participation of the viewer in a work of art. What I did think was interesting and actually noticed right away, was that Fried picked monumental, larger than life size pieces of art in which to discuss the position of the viewer. As he points out in “Art and Objecthood,” the pieces are so big that there is no denying their presence. To me, this seems obvious. I think when a piece of art is large, it is easier to imagine yourself within or a part of because of its size. I would have liked to hear his take on the viewer within a smaller piece of art. It is however also interesting that the essays we were assigned to read questions the viewers place or role in a narrative, figurative painting and one in a simplistic, literalist sculpture with no apparent narrative or subject matter other that that of the experience of the viewer in relation to it. From what I can gather, and perhaps this may be too general, too simple, but the viewer is placed within and meant to experience both of these pieces. (Even though in Courbet’s “Burial” the artist is placing the viewer within a specific scene, I still think Fried’s conclusions are similar.) There did not seem to be a huge difference to me in Fried’s results and conclusion of the beholder, but rather the difference was in his analysis. Overall, I enjoyed his analysis from “Art and Objecthood” more than his essay on Courbet because the question of identity and what forms identity is once again evoked. Simply put, in Fried’s essay on Courbet he conveyed to me formal aspects of the painting that I hadn’t noticed before as well as the artist’s painting history leading up to the “Burial.” However, in “Art and Objecthood,” Fried brought up things that I hadn’t thought about before, or had thought about before, but took my thoughts in a different direction.

In Fried’s essay on Courbet, while I was relieved with his writing style in comparison to that of T.J. Clark, I was more interested in Fried’s introduction before his seemingly more formal analysis. Here he included socio-political theories made by Clark and other critics based on their analysis of “The Burial at Ornans” and it relationship, conveyance, and portrayal of the politics of rural France during the time in which Courbet was painting. I thought it was especially interesting that Clark mentioned that Courbet as an artist and a citizen would have had to choose what type of political person or ideal he was painting, meaning that there was a need to choose a side.

In Fried’s “Art and Objecthood,” I again began thinking about Valadon’s nudes and what shape’s their identity. (They are naked females, and according to Mulvey and Valadon, are meant to be perceived as more than a body. How do you convey something you cannot see especially when something physical and so blatant as a female nude is starring back?) Mulvey argued that Valadon’s nudes were subjects, individual and separate from the shape they took as nude females. Similarly, Fried questions the identity of painting and sculpture suggesting that in modern painting objects rely and are defined by the shape that they take. While in minimalist art, or literalist art as he refers to it, the shape is the object. I don’t know if Mulvey would agree with this because the “shape” in her article is a female nude, and that would mean if shape is object, then the subjects of Valadon’s painting are actually objects in that of female body. So, how does an artist convey more through art? Is there anyway that Valadon could have posed or painted her subjects differently in order to convey “a real, thinking woman” and still portray them nude? I think Valadon may be trying to get the viewer to look passed the body and see a woman, not the physical characteristics of a woman’s body that seems to dictate so much of how she is viewed and perceived, but instead the being that makes up the woman. (I must say however that if I had not read Mulvey’s article on Valadon’s nudes and came across one in a museum, I don’t know if I could read this much into it. At the most I might think that Valadon is trying to convey the body of a real woman, not necessarily the mind set. After all, in the end, I am still looking at a nude female. I would think the choice to portray a female nude is suppose to be the area of concentration.)

Now, I don’t know if Valadon’s nudes in comparison to a minimalist sculpture is a fair one in terms of object and shape, because the sculpture as Fried says does not have a precise subject matter, but is meant to be experienced by the viewer, while Valadon has a pretty specific subject matter in mind. However, for me the question is still there. Is shape and object the same? Does the physical become the first identifying factor, or is it possible to see past the shape before reading into and experiencing it?

Michael Fried and Courbet's Burial at Ornans

Michael Fried provides us with a new reading of Gustave Courbet’s The Burial at Ornans of 1849-50 using evidence presented by the image itself as the basis for his interpretation. He is concerned with what he describes as Courbet’s determination to create an “antitheatrical relationship” between the painting and its viewer (636). He then proceeds to refute what he characterizes as the 4 cruxes of previous readings of this painting: the additive mode of composition, the juxtaposition of discrete, self sufficient entities with no internal connection; 17th c. Dutch and Spanish painting as possible sources for the Burial; Baudelaire’s “Salon of 1846” as a connection to the black costumes of the rural bourgeoisie shown in the painting; and the painting as reflecting the social and political developments occurring at the time it was made. This refers to T. J. Clark’s emphasis on social, historical and political context in his book “Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution.” Although Fried calls Clark’s work “the most original study of Courbet to appear in many years” (637), he says the political significance of Clark’s claims is modest. He also faults Clark for barely discussing the pictures themselves.

Fried’s own interpretation focuses on only a few of the elements of the painting: the serpentine path of the mourners, the skewed orientation of the open grave, and the exact location of Courbet’s friend Max Bouchon within the painting. Fried traces a history of possible alternative sources for the serpentine path citing Courbet’s early landscapes of the 1840’s showing the same terrain, and caricatures of processions of recognizable figures in Le Journal pour rire. In The Burial, Courbet uses the serpentine path to emphasize the lateral orientation of the procession of larger than life sized figures moving from left to right and left again across the broad expanse of the painting. They become compressed from 3-D to 2-D pushing toward the front of the picture plane. On the right, the bodies of 15 figures become a black mass differentiated only by their heads, hats and handkerchiefs. Also important to Fried’s argument are his speculations on Courbet’s treatment of the grave. He uses as a point of comparison Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus c. 1597 in which the gestures of the figures project into our space dissolving the boundary between the painting and the viewer, suggesting that both spaces are equally present to our senses. This plus the use of chiaroscuro heighten the dramatic effect of the painting. Fried calls this Baroque illusionism (661). It can be described as a theatrical effect. In opposition to this is Coubet’s treatment of the open grave at the bottom center of The Burial. It is treated with minimal illusionistic effect undermining the bottom framing edge and literally giving the viewer opposite the grave no ground on which to stand. Instead of projecting into the viewer’s space, the viewer is subsumed into the space of the painting. The viewer is not just an “eye” witnessing the illusion, he or she is drawn bodily into the image destroying the traditional notion of spectatorship. In addition to the lateral orientation of the procession of mourners described above, there is a vertical axis emphasized by the crucifix and the line of figures below it. The crucifix leads your eye to the man holding it, identified as the peasant Colard, who is staring out from the picture. Completing this vertical line is the dark haired boy holding a bucket. This boy’s red hat points to the yellow haired boy behind him and to his left. The second boy is looking up at the pallbearer to his left, whose hat, Fried suggests, has been jostled by the boy’s candle. Directly above the pallbearer’s dark hat is the head of Courbet’s friend Max Bouchon. So an acute angle leads your eye from the vertical axis to the head of Bouchon. Fried makes much of the significance of oblique angles in Courbet’s paintings.

Fried identifies two possible points of view outside of the painting. The first is directly opposite the open grave. He calls this (no) view, the view of the generalized viewer (Fried’s term is the beholder tout court.) A second position is implied by the skewed angle of the open grave. The fact that we can only see into the right side of the pit suggests this position is to the left of the open grave and Colard’s stare further pinpoints this position as directly in line with his intent gaze. Fried calls this the position of the painter/beholder, a specific viewer. Colard looks at the painter/beholder who deflects this gaze and looks at Bouchon instead. So the looking is not reciprocal. Fried conjectures that Bouchon is the beginning of the procession to the grave. If we imagine the painter/viewer, in this case Courbet, projecting himself bodily into the representation of Bouchon (with whom he identifies because of their friendship), then Courbet joins the procession at its source, enters the painting and obliterates his own spectatorship. Both Fried and T. J. Clark see Bouchon as a pivotal figure although T. J. Clark's interest is in Bouchon’s political views and not in where he was placed within the painting.

Fried says his views are based on conjecture, they may not be convincing, may contradict some of his earlier positions and may fail to answer some basic questions. Although I am not sure I agree with all of his arguments, they are thought provoking and open the discourse to new possibilities.

The readings we have done so far increase our understanding of Fried’s views. Even though Freud and Lacan are not mentioned directly, Fried describes ambivalences within Courbet’s painting, such as the merging of the artist into the painting and his resistance against this merging as a reaction formation, a Freudian term meaning the blocking of a desire by its opposite (See Introduction to Critical Theory http://www.cla.purdue.edu/English/Theory/psychoanalysis). His 2 nonreciprocal views of the cross bearer Colard staring out of the painting and the painter beholder avoiding that stare to look at Bouchon instead is reminiscent of Lacan’s eye and the gaze (“You never look at me from the place from which I see you”). The extreme strategy of Courbet projecting himself bodily into a painting can be seen as a social and political fact with Foucauldian implications (see note 55, p.677). It also exemplifies the phenomenological approach of Merleau Ponty in which the material world is experienced through the body and not just through the eye or the Cartesian mind. And instead of viewing T.J. Clark’s contextual approach and Fried’s more formalist methodology as antithetical to each other, Cixous, Butler, Bhabha and Munoz propose models where contradictions can be seen as complements coexisting simultaneously within a larger discourse.