ILLUSTRATING INFINITY

"The unutterable and the formless must needs be concealed"
.................--the Pythagorean brotherhood, circa 500 BCE

Saul Steinberg

Illustration art is commonly faulted for its "low" subject matter. Critics complain that, compared to fine art, Norman Rockwell's subjects were cheap and sentimental. Illustrations for the fiction in women's magazine or for shoe advertisements could never compare with "fine" art, where the artist has the freedom to address the most profound subjects.

But of course, there is no limit to the possible subject matter for an illustration.

Michelangelo's illustration of the Book of Genesis

In fact, the subject of an illustration can be more profound than the subject of so-called "fine" art, especially in an era like ours where fine art so often gravitates toward minor themes. Here is the art of contemporary art superstar Jenny Holzer:



Holzer takes platitudes fit for a fortune cookie and converts them into art by projecting them on the sides of buildings or flashing them on electric signs. It's hard to imagine Norman Rockwell settling for such simple minded content.

When it comes to profound, challenging subject matter, you can't aim any higher than the absolute. Great writers and artists sometimes aspire to "catch a glimpse of eternity through the window of time," transcending their small vantage point in history by identifying things immutable and great. Even if the quest for universal principles and eternal truths is a hopeless one, the mere search elevates the artist because it compels him or her to step outside of the fashions and styles of their day and focus on the most permanent things they are capable of conceptualizing. It stretches an artist to create forms commensurate with great themes.

Of course, great themes can also make an artist look foolish, which is one reason most artists don't try to go there any more. If you want to transcend the limitations of your time and place, it is disastrous to get too literal:

Here are some truly lovely examples of illustrations of the origin of the cosmos. These works, which were located and described by art historians Debra Diamond and Catherine Glynn, transcend some of the limitations of their time by reaching out to abstract beauty and putting aside literal solutions:


1. A color field of gold represents "the self-luminous Absolute."

2. The first manifestation of the cosmos

3. The siddha, "exuding silvery light (jyoti) engenders the next level of cosmic light and consciousness."

Now that's what I call sequential art! The difficulty of finding shapes and colors to portray such subjects is underscored by the corresponding text from the ancient Hindu treatise, Shiva Purana:

When the present world is not in existence, the Absolute alone is present. It is incomprehensible to the mind [and] cannot be expressed by words. It has neither name nor color.... it is immeasurable, propless, unchanging, formless, without attributes, perceptible to Yogins, all pervasive and the sole cause of the universe.

This next triptych conveys "The emergence of spirit and matter at the origin of the cosmos." I think spirit is the guy on the left:





One measure of the universal adaptability of this work is that it is compatible with modern scientific theory about the big bang, where the four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, strong interaction and weak interaction) emerged from nothingness at the origin of the universe.

An artist who attempts to realize timeless ideals by making an imperfect mark on a perishable surface reminds me of the Great Gatsby preparing to kiss Daisy:

He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star.

And yet, you do it anyway. Without the commitment of that mortal kiss, what's the point of all that perfection?

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DRAWING WITHOUT ELECTRICITY

The painter Margaret Keane married a real jerk.

Early in her career, Keane created a popular style of painting children with huge, sad eyes. Although artistically dreadful, the paintings became wildly popular in the 1950s and 60s.



Keane's domineering husband Walter boasted that he painted the pictures, and he persuaded her to go along with his lie. For twelve long years, Walter took credit for Margaret's work. When their marriage dissolved and his meal ticket seemed about to disappear, Walter insisted that he owned the rights to the art, and even challenged Margaret's legal right to continue painting using the now famous "Keane" name. In court, it was his word against hers.

Then the judge came up with the ultimate test: he asked both Margaret and Walter to paint in front of the jury. Margaret successfully painted one of her trademark portraits. Walter claimed he was unable to paint due to a sore shoulder so they kicked his ass out of court.

There is no test of an artist more unambiguous than what he or she can do all alone with a pencil or brush. Again and again, people have returned to this standard as the measure of an artist.

After World War II, Han Van Meegeren was prosecuted for having sold an important cultural treasure, a Vermeer painting, to the Nazi occupiers . Faced with long imprisonment, Van Meegeren objected that he was not guilty because he personally forged the "Vermeer" he sold.



Scholars and art experts ridiculed his claim, but the court put him to the test by demanding that he paint another Vermeer in prison under observation. The testimony of Van Meegeren's brush was more persuasive than all of the art experts and scientists combined. The prosecutor dropped his charges of collaborating with Nazis (and prosecuted him instead for forgery).

Whether an artist is locked in a jail cell or isolated in a courtroom or stranded on a desert island, they always retain the crucial ingredients for their art: their eyes, fingers and mind. These are what the judges were trying to measure by eliminating interference from assistants, collaborators, photoshop, xerox machines, mechanical crutches or other such camouflage.

I sometimes think about the relevance of this test when I am enjoying the extraordinary new fruits of digital art. I have been dazzled by the brilliance of the animation art in Wall-E:



as well as the fabulous garden scene in Coraline.

These works of art are extraordinary and consuming, but they can neither be made nor viewed without the collaboration of utility companies to provide electrical power, financial institutions to provide funding, computer companies to develop software, and hundreds of animators, visual effects experts and other art professionals. None of them as an individual could "prove" their worth the way that Keane or Van Meegeren did for earlier generations. Today the creativity of electrical engineers can be as important as the creativity of the art director.

I sometimes wonder whether in the future this marvelous art form will eclipse more antiquated art forms, such as drawing and painting. And if it does, what will be the ultimate proof of an artist then?

Pieter Brueghel's masterpiece, The Tower of Babel, 1563

I do not call one greater and one smaller,
That which fills its period and place is equal to any.
..................................-- Walt Whitman

John Singer Sargent's preliminary design for his portrait of the Wyndham sisters

..

PETER MAX

"Mistah Kurtz, he dead"

Like Andy Warhol and LeRoy Neiman, Peter Max was a talented, hard working illustrator before he became a pop culture phenomenon. He studied for years with the great teacher Frank Reilly at the Art Students League in New York and learned the skills of a serious artist.

In 1963, Max was selected to paint a jazz record cover. The young and ambitious artist worked hard to finish the project on time, but his art director was less than enthused. Max begged for a one day extension and started over with a totally different approach.

He dug deeper, stayed up most of the night, and produced the following cover which won a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators for the best advertising art of 1963:

One look at this lovely picture tells you that Max was an artist who had what it takes. Note how the highest contrast and the sharpest focused lines are right on that piano keyboard where he wants to direct your attention. Beautiful.

A few years later, Max hit the jackpot with his "Cosmic" art style, which became wildly successful in the 1960s. His trademark psychedelic look soon adorned everything from perfume bottles to airplanes. Max sold millions of posters and limited edition prints and became immensely wealthy.

Max enjoyed the celebrity lifestyle. His personal chauffer drove him around Manhattan in Max's custom designed Rolls Royce. He painted Ringo Starr's piano and performed exhibition painting on the white house lawn. He was featured on the cover of Life Magazine.

Max now had complete artistic freedom. No more deadlines, no more unreasonable client demands, no more unappreciative art directors. He could just look within his heart and paint whatever he found there. His fan base would buy anything with his signature on it. He began making his signature bigger and bigger.



The funny thing is, as his signature got bigger, his talent got smaller:





The artist who started out as a sharp minded and keen eyed competitor became artistically flabby. Here is his painting entitled "I love the World," depicting an angel embracing the planet.

Without the benefit of anyone to challenge or reject his work, Max sank deeper and deeper into a morass of narcissism. Here are some official facts about Max from his web site:

He loves to hear amazing facts about the universe

Peter's early childhood impressions had a profound influence on his psyche, weaving the fabric that was to become the tapestry of his full creative expression.

This new style developed as a spontaneous creative urge, following Max's meeting with Swami Satchidananda, an Indian Yoga master who taught him meditation and the spiritual teachings of the East.

In the 1970s, Max gave up his commercial pursuits and went into retreat to begin painting in earnest....

[I]n October, 1989, Max unveiled his "40 Gorbys," a colorful homage to Mikhail Gorbachev. Prophetically, a few weeks later, communism fell in Eastern Europe....

Max could be forgiven for his nutty philosophy, but when he gained the freedom to say or do anything, his art clearly suffered.

Where oh where is that art director who once told Max to go back and try again?

Artists and critics chafe at any restriction on the artist's freedom. In fact, it seems that illustration is held in lower regard than "fine" art mainly because the illustrator's vision is subject to restrictions from some client or art director. There is some truth to that criticism, but Peter Max demonstrates how the lack of restrictions can be just as hazardous to the quality of art.

In my view, Peter Max, along with Andy Warhol and Leroy Neiman, are good examples of artists whose work was spoiled and made rotten by excessive freedom. Today's fine art scene offers many additional examples of artists whose self-indulgent work has little relevance or value outside their own cloistered circle. When the world provides resistance to an artist (whether in the form of a deadline, or a client's specifications, or poverty, or totalitarian censorship) it can have a beneficial effect on the art. As the old proverb says, "the wind in a man's face makes him wise."

Artistic freedom can help or hurt art. But if great art can be produced in a prison cell or a concentration camp, it's silly for the fine art community to suggest that it can't also be produced within the constraints of a commercial art studio.

ONE LOVELY DRAWING, part 26

The great Joseph Clement Coll (1881-1921) drew like he was conducting a symphony orchestra.


From the Kelly Collection of American Illustration

Note in the following close up the range of effects Coll employed-- the difference between the fine pen lines and the broad brush strokes; the difference between the accuracy of the eyelashes and the almost abstract wiping of a dry brush on the cloak; and notice how Coll achieved the value he wanted for the background by first painting it with ink, then scratching it with a blade:   



Coll's line was vigorous and varied and confidently rendered.  No simple, monotonous shading here.  Look at how his line curls and twists and plays in ways that would not be visible to the reader of the printed page in Coll's era, but which nevertheless contributes to the overall vitality of the drawing.    





James Montgomery Flagg, another talented pen and ink artist, gave a good description of his superior, Coll:

There is no doubt that he was one of the few masters of pen and ink in the world.... He found romance in a story and doubled it, lavishly, prodigally.  He gave himself in his work instead of selling his signature on half-heated stencils. In short, he was a great artist.

ONE LOVELY DRAWING, part 25

I got a huge kick out of Steve Brodner's version of Diogenes, the ancient philosopher who carried a lantern through the streets of Athens in broad daylight, searching for an honest man.



This drawing may appear casual, but it is razor sharp-- a highly skilled, witty execution of an intelligent concept.

Brodner's scraggly line perfectly conveys the belching smoke from the grotesque cigar, the monstrous paw holding it, the neck of the gluttonous monster, the porcine nostrils inhaling more than his fair share of oxygen; it would have been easy to overplay or underplay any of these touches but Brodner balanced them just right.

Perhaps his wisest touch of all is the vapid, uncomprehending expression on the face of the man. A heavier hand would have given him a sinister expression, but the more persuasive explanation for the man's offensiveness is his utter lack of concern.

These are the touches of a master story teller with line.

DRAWING A CROWD

I have a soft spot in my heart for artists who like to draw large crowd scenes.

It's not because crowd scenes require technical skill to handle perspective, foreshortening and complex interaction.



Gluyas Williams was famous in the 1920s and 30s for his clever drawings of large groups.



And it's not because crowd scenes require the creativity to come up with a wide variety of faces and psychological relationships.



The great Albert Dorne was famous for his crowd scenes. Note how he handled the complex architecture of this mob.

No, what I like most about artists who specialize in drawing crowds is their obvious pleasure in the act of drawing.

Most artists working under a deadline look for shortcuts. They do a good job, but they want to complete a picture as efficiently as possible and get paid. But some artists just seem to love making marks on paper, and they regularly create unnecessarily grand challenges for themselves, like these ambitious crowd scenes.

In this category, I know of no better artist than the brilliant Mort Drucker.









This panel from the MAD Magazine spoof of Beverly Hills Cop is a good measure of Drucker's talent:



Despite the effort that went into this crowd scene, the drawing never looks labored.

This drawing is a complex engineering feat, but it is delivered with the spontaneity of a spring popping out of a pocket watch:

Drucker, like Dorne, Williams and other artists in this rare species, draw with great abundance and generosity. You never get the feeling they are measuring their level of effort against the pay they are receiving for the picture. These are artists who love to draw, and it shows.