PIN-UP ART

Most pin-ups don't need to be good art, and therefore they are not. This is what economists call the efficiency of the marketplace. If customers don't buy pin-ups for artistic merit, it would be inefficient to waste time creating it.



For example, the famed pin-up artist Alberto Vargas is (in my opinion) an uninspired technician with no visible artistic ability. The same might be said for many of the other popular pin-up artists, such as Earl MacPherson, Zoe Mozert, Al Buell or Art Frahn (despite the fact that their "art" is now published in fancy art books and sells for astronomical sums).

Of course, there are non-artistic reasons to enjoy pin-up art. It is a wonderful celebration of the huge clanging dumbnicity of men:



Gene Weingarten once wrote,

Many, many years ago, when God was still an adolescent, he decided that for the survival of the species, it was necessary that men be loathesome, prurient pigs.

Yup. And darned proud of it.

But there is at least one real talent in the field of pin-up art, the great George Petty. His well designed pictures and beautifully idealized forms stood out from all his competitors.







Unlike many of his peers, Petty was a genuine artist. You can see his special gift in this assortment of graceful hands from his pin-ups. They look like a flock of birds taking flight.


















I like Petty's work, especially his early years for Esquire Magazine. You can flip through pin-ups by a hundred different artists, but Petty's quality stands out.

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural drawings are beautiful abstract designs that compare well with any fine art. At the same time, Wright's work had to comply with the laws of engineering and plumbing. The result is a marvelous blend of art and science.







One reason I often prefer illustration to today's "fine" art is that illustration is more engaged in the world. It is robust and vulgar and dynamic in an era when so much of gallery art is self-indulgent, narcissistic and pallid.





Architecture may be the ultimate example of art that is "engaged in the world." Wright's art required him to wrestle with gravity and structural engineering the way Jacob wrestled with the angel. That struggle grounded his work in the world, giving his drawings an inherent strength, relevance, and ultimately-- legitimacy.



Some of Wright's fine art counterparts who created "art for art's sake" did not need permission to take liberties with form-- they simply took it. They were left with nothing to wrestle with but their press agents and gallery owners, and it shows.

ARTISTS IN LOVE, part nine

Cowboy illustrator Charlie Russell (1864-1926) apparently melted down a gold nugget to make this ring for his 18 year old bride-to-be, the lovely Nancy Cooper of Cascade, Montana.



History does not record whether Nancy had qualms about putting on a saddle as a symbol of their marriage. Coming from a cowboy in the old west, perhaps such a ring even qualified as romantic.


Wedding picture of Charlie and Nancy, 1896

Before Charlie got married, his art studio was a back room in Jim Shelton's Saloon in Utica. After they were married, Nancy moved Charlie's studio into a respectable log cabin where she cleaned him up and sold his work. By most accounts she made him a success. It's not clear who really wore the saddle in their marriage. I suspect that, as with most long term relationships, the difference between who rides and who is ridden depends only on the time of day.

I kinda like this ring, both as a sculpture and as a symbol. Some might view it as a symbol of oppression, and perhaps it is, but there is a lot to be said for Robert Frost's insight into the true nature of freedom: "You have freedom when you're easy in your harness."

Charlie and Nancy seem to have been happy together. They lived through 30 interesting years of great change, until Charlie died of a heart attack. Then Nancy and their son packed up and left Montana forever. Years later, the US government established the Charles M Russell National Wildlife Refuge near the beautiful place where for 30 years Charlie and Nancy spent their nights under the big Montana stars.

When I look at Nancy's ring, I can't help hearing the faint strains of an old calypso song that Harry Belafonte sang in the 1950s:

My girl's name is Senora.
I tell you friends, I adore her...
Senora's dance has no title.
Just jump in the saddle, hold on to the bridle.

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ONE LOVELY DRAWING, part twelve

I love this apocalyptic drawing by John Hendrix, one of the more distinctive voices in the field of illustration today.



In the tradition of Brueghel and Heironymous Bosch, this drawing is dense with symbols and weird iconography. Hendrix implies a larger universe of prophecy and mysticism but he knows enough to stop with mere implication. As Carl Sandburg said, poetry is "the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during that moment."

This is a smart, literate drawing, but Hendrix's graphic images are as strong as his content. He conjures up great symbols such as the train careening downhill and exploding on the bridge as the "pride of man" ( Isaiah 2:17: "The pride of man will be humbled And the loftiness of men will be abased.")



Equally striking is Hendrix's vision of the "axe of God" (from Matthew 3:10)



This drawing has a hundred little clevernesses but like all good art it is more than the sum of its parts. Look at how the components come together for a vertiginous effect: the perspective is all askew, as the earth opens up and the tidal wave with a face rushes over the horizon and the train speeds at an odd angle into the pit. Nice job-- a drawing that makes you think. And laugh.

THE LATEST NEWS FROM THE DISTANT PAST

Holland Carter once wrote, "I go to museums to get the latest news from the distant past."

There's no better place to look for news than in the changing depictions of the human form. Artists have been drawing the human body for over 20,000 years and while the body has remained the same, the drawings keep changing.

Every pose, angle, and facial expression has been drawn a thousand times by talented artists. Look at these figure drawings by the great Annibale Carracci in the 16th century:







Who would have the nerve to continue drawing the figure after Carracci if there was no new information to convey? What could another drawing possibly contribute?

The fact is, while the human form remains unchanged, each era presents fresh questions for the artist. And even when the question remains the same, the answers continue to change. Look at all the news in this wonderful drawing by Aubrey Beardsley.



Or contrast Carracci's drawings with these recent images by the talented Phil Hale:







The muscles, bones, arms and legs are the same-- and yet what a difference!



If our bodies were merely machines, they would not be a source of infinite fascination for artists. As it is, artists keep returning to the human form for fresh news about our humanity.

BINARY CHOICES

All the magic of the internet-- the movies, music, youtube animation, color pictures-- comes to you through a series of simple binary choices. Your computer has only two digits (0 or 1) to choose between in processing all that information. The electronic signal is either off (represented by a zero), or on (represented by a one).

Similarly, a line drawing is just a series of binary choices: it is either black or white.



Unlike a painting, which presents a rich variety of layered choices and half-choices, a drawing is a commitment: either line or not line. Look at the bold, black-or-white choices in this stunning set of illustrations by the great Harold Von Schmidt in 1929 for Death Comes For The Archbishop:





The following full page illustration demonstrates the same kind of restraint and care that abstract expressionist Barnett Newman used in selecting the perfect location for a zen stripe on a huge blank canvas.



I admit that I prefer drawings to paintings, sculpture, movies or other art forms. Through a series of binary decisions, an artist can evoke the most extraordinary effects.



These are strong, wonderful drawings worth revisiting by any fan of illustration.

ART THAT IS "SUI GENERIS" (part 1)

Every once in a great while, an artist creates an image that is sui generis-- one of a kind. You look, you tilt your head sideways and squint, you try to fit it into some existing category, but you're still not exactly sure how to react.

For me, Ivan Albright's painting "the door" (official title: "That which I should Have Done I Did Not Do") is such a painting.



Its dark, brooding subject and its melodramatic title are hardly unique. However, Albright worked on this painting for ten years. It towers over eight feet tall, and it has a level of detail that is, to say the least, psychologically troubling. Albright sometimes painted with a brush he made from one lateral spine taken from a single chicken feather. You are looking at a ten year obsession with mortality and the weight of the road not taken. This is one freaky painting.



Normally a viewer might look at a picture and ask, "Does this composition work? Do I like the color? Is it successful compared to similar pictures?" Such questions don't begin to digest such an epic statement.

Albright was not well known, but he was one of Jean Dubuffet's favorite artists. Curiously, Dubuffet had the opposite style-- he specialized in spontaneous, impulsive scribbles-- but he was stunned by Albright's door, writing "all the notions on which we have until now based our standards of appreciation of all things are erroneous."




If you are ever in Chicago, I urge you to go see this wonderful painting on display at the Art Institute.

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