Poussin's Humour

Reading Nicolas Poussin's paintings -- 'Poussin's Humour'

For a contemporary reading of

    Nicolas Poussin's paintings 

                      SEE

    POUSSIN'S HUMOUR 

         

  CLICK ON

http://www.nicolaspoussin.co.uk/index.html

If this link does not work from here, copy & paste it to your browser.

Submitting an article or

submitting a book on Nicolas Poussin to a publisher in USA --- David Packwood sent me this link re- the publish or perish power game http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VRBWLpYCPY

Poussin on Ice

David Packwood has just blogged on the Jonathan Jones vs Poussin controversy in The Guardian.

His comment on the slow progress of Poussin studies, often held up by a group of scholars who appear to be blocking new publications:

"But not all Poussin scholars regard Poussin as a figure of academic classicism to be preserved in amber for the delectation of connoisseurs. Outside the small circle of scholars grimly hanging onto the idealist view of Poussin, new work is emerging; but the problem is that it takes a very long time, not only for fresh writing to be published, but for work to become assimilated into the field. A high-ranking scholar once told me that Poussin studies moves "slowly." Substitute glacial for slowly, an apt metaphor for as far as Poussin studies are concerned, we seem to be frozen. We're looking at a cultural field that has turned to ice. Still, there are signs of the Great Thaw- the ice can't melt quickly enough for this Poussin Eskimo". For the whole comment see http://artintheblood.typepad.com/art_history_today

Poussin's Humour links

at present link to 'Poussin's Humour' information is not working on my blogs -- so please copy it & paste into your browser, or use Google to find 'Poussin's Humour', the book

more Poussin & Jonathan Jones in The Guardian

60 comments so far -- successful journalism by Jonathan Jones! -- but it simply will not do to say, as a critic, 'I don't get it'  -- that simply points to the inability & failure of understanding of the critic -- happily, Jonathan Jones doesn't go on to add '& you can't persuade me otherwise' [which is the language of bigotry]

I put the stereotypical view of Poussin as cold erudite & boring down to a rotting tradition of art historical treatment of his art that permeates the 20th century & continues -- & my colleague David Packwood is also indignant about the maintenance of that stereotype in journalism  -- his comment today in 'The Guardian' re- Jonathan Jones remarks about Poussin as the delight of snobs is worth repeating here:

"I can understand why you regard Poussin's paintings in this way, but believe me, there are Poussin professionals- like me- who want to make Poussin more accessible to a wider audience. But we're constantly hampered because of this perception- which your article helps to sustain- that the guy was a remote intellectual, a "mathematical" artist.

"I'm the co-editor of a forthcoming book of essays on Poussin that present a very different picture of the man. You won't find any writing on connoisseurship, the art market or the painter-philosopher. There's even an essay on Cezanne and Poussin which completely overturns your ill-considered view of their art history relationship.

"I'm only one of the few Poussin professionals- like Tony Green- who are sick to the back teeth with the stereotypical views of Poussin. As we know, there's much more to the man and his art..

"Your article shows how much we've got our work cut out!

David Packwood (Art History Today)"

Poussin snobs?

"When people enthuse about him, I can't help feeling that they're phoneys at some level. I'm sure I am wrong. But on Poussin, I'm a philistine and fear I always will be."

http://xrl.us/bgdeie -- Jonathan Jones in 'The Guardian'.

There are plenty of reasons why an intelligent & sensitive art-buff such as Jonathan Jones should feel cut-off from the paintings of that admirable painter Nicolas Poussin. But it sounds as tho it's thee current enthusers who are the real target for his dislike.

I remarked this morning in an email to a friend:

that part of the more recent arty public perception

of Poussin as an elite interest is probably due to

the information flow more about the market than anything else -- & the sky-high prices, the recent discoveries of 'lost' works, their scarcity outside public collections & hence the large amount of interest among scholars who are implicated in the market in attributions, copies, paintings existing in 2 versions --

& that's before you get to the insistent drone of 19th century [& 20th century idealist] aestheticism that still clings to this great 'classical' artist -- & the insistent hermeneutics of difficult erudite subjects that is still the mainstay of scholarly writing"

Be assured: you are not alone, Jonathan Jones, in an aversion to that version of Poussin -- that's the version that has [almost completely ] monopolised writing for 40 years --

there are a number of writers currently trying to change that version -- there's at least one important publication in the pipe-line -- [there's something going on there, but you don't yet know what it is...] -- apart from TJ Clark's close-up of 2 landscape paintings -- there's David Carrier's 'Poussin's Paintings' [1993].

Try a dose of 'Poussin's Humour' -- see if it doesn't give you reason to think again & actually get to enjoy paintings that a number of contemporary non-snobs do enjoy.

http://www.nicolaspoussin.co.uk/index.html

Len Lye week

Len Lye week for me -- yesterday Wystan Curnow put into my hands a copy of 'Len Lye' edited by Tyler Cann & Wystan Curnow  -- beautiful design by Kalee Jackson -- big book, c. 290 x 250 mm ] --
published by the Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth. A brilliant picture book with some really interesting new essays by McCann, Curnow, guy Brett, Roger Horrocks, Tessa Laird and Evan Webb-- more like a magazine than a book, a serious piece of coffee-table decor, full of many new photos of strips of film, hand-written documents, sculpture, photograms [& some more familiar, including the photos of Lye with friends erecting a Wind Wand in New York].

see http://xrl.us/bgdaip

This should generate some excitement about Len Lye in the [arty] public at large. 

& on Friday Roger Horrocks long awaited new book on Len Lye's art [to complement his fine biography of Lye] will be launched "Art that Moves: the Work of Len Lye" [Auckland University Press] -- with DVD of some movies & Roger Horrocks' short movie about Len Lye that was shown at the NZ International Film Festival this year Film Festival

see http://xrl.us/bgdajw

Poussin conference in Rome

Conference of the Académie de France à Rome – Villa Medici

 

Poussin e l'Antico

I wish the conference good luck for Friday 13^th November

& Saturday 14^th November.

 

The main topic will be the analysis of the way in which the painter made reference to antique literary sources.

 

That sounds interesting and is certainly germane to 'Poussin's Humour'.

Unfortunately I cannot go to
Rome next weekend. I would have liked to hear the papers to be given

by Henry Keazor and Todd Olson.

 

 Information on the conference was not as widely distributed as might have been expected. By invitation only? 

The news reached me this morning thanks to David Packwood in UK, who had only just heard about it. Perhaps the papers of the conference will be published one day.

new book arrives

a parcel of copies of "Poussin's Humour" arrived in the post today -- publication date is November 19 http://www.nicolaspoussin.co.uk/index.html

'Poussin's Humour' pre-publication

intersting: Amazon have my new book 'Poussin's Humour' discounted pre-publication publication due mid-November http://xrl.us/bfs7a9

Le Poussin burgers

Sydney Morning Herald today carries story from Daily Telegraph about the Big M of the Golden Arches invading The Louvre -- whatever next! hope they've got the Le Poussin burgers lined up for my next visit, Manna from heaven!

Poussin's Humour - pre-publication in NZ

"Poussin's Humour' will be published towards the end of November.

NZ readers should contact the publisher for special pre-publication price at

tgreen@clear.net.nz

Poussin's Humour - press release

Download Press release draft 1

details of the book & sales are on http://xrl.us/bfmp5s

& the theme song  http://xrl.us/bfmpr4

Poussin's Humour - summary of the book

POUSSIN’S HUMOUR

 

1

The author, writing about Poussin’s paintings, explains where he is coming from and the scheme of art history that was in operation at the Courtauld Institute of Art in the 1950s and 1960s. He sees that as lacking an art critical component and interested primarily in iconographical meanings. That scheme has operated especially in the case of Poussin’s paintings. They became – and remained – an important model for classical academic art beginning in the years immediately after Poussin’s death (in 1665).

 

2

By contrast the author, starting from an admiration for painters like Henri Matisse and intensely concerned with colour, became interested only slowly and gradually in Poussin’s practice as a painter. His first writing about Poussin’s Sacraments paintings, a doctoral thesis (Edinburgh, 1968) was conservative, largely concerned with iconography, and also with sources in antique art and in book illustration. But later concerns with teaching Fine Arts students and with new interest in contemporary art practice shifted his investigations to unexpected irregularities and peculiarities of some of Poussin’s paintings. These he found have not been commented on before, and the reason, he believes, is the aforesaid lack in art historical practice of concern with the practice of painting. The result of this lack is a failure to recognise Poussin’s wit as a painter.

 

3

Since the book does not have any reproductions in either colour of black and white, he lists available reproductions of Poussin’s paintings and drawings. In addition he provides general notes on his reading for the writing of this book.

 

 

4

STUDYING POUSSIN

 

The author reviews the state of art historical knowledge of Poussin. It is rich in iconographical study and in a close attention to the intellectual context of the painting, that is to say, the currents of philosophical thought with which Poussin and his patrons might have been familiar. There has also been extensive and valuable work done on establishing the oeuvre in painting and drawing, by documentary research and by connoisseurship. In addition there have been occasional attempts to recognise Poussin’s practice as a painter, by Michael Podro, Oskar Bättschmann, David Carrier, Todd Olson and recently, and most notably, by T.J.Clark.

 

5

Poussin has been studied as if his ‘thought’ was to be found by examining the content of his paintings and their links to the history of ideas, that is to say the history of philosophical and literary expression of ideas. This supposes that writing rather than painting is the measure of ideas and his thinking. In particular, his painterly play with artifice and illusion has been disregarded.

 

6

This is maintained in the literature by denying as far as possible the baroque, the devotional and the irrational and illusionist features of his painting. In the 1960s, on the basis of highly selective biographical details, he was regarded as a liberal agnostic and an academic classicist, painting that seeks respectability among literary people by aping literature. In contrast with the insistence of historical scholars on content, there was an insistence by art critics on the formal design character of the paintings. These were valued as part of a classical tradition that led to the paintings of Paul Cézanne and thence to the formal inventions of early modernism and abstraction. But this tends to ignore the process in the medium.

 

7

There follows a discussion of the basis of the widely practised iconographical study, that is to say the study of recognisable scenes and the apparent actions of figures, as if they were scenes with actors in a theatre. It is there that the author sees a lack of understanding, and a need for a close attention to the conditions of painting, since the scenes in Poussin’s pictures are not tableaux vivants, but painted figures made visible by painting.

 

8

The author summarises the prevalent view of Poussin’s development as a painter, from baroque to classical. He wishes to add to this an account of Poussin’s artifice, that is to say, the conscious construction of images from the materials of painting. He discusses the various ways of describing the respondent to painting. He settles on the term ‘reader’ and asks the crucial question of the book: what does it mean to be a reader of Poussin’s paintings?

 

9

 PAINTING AS A PRACTICE

 

 

The importance of la pratica, practice, is stated by Poussin in his Osservazioni (in Bellori’s Life). This has only a very restricted meaning for academic theory: it omits knowledge of the medium and the effects of the application of paint. That is a heuristic kind of knowledge, practical know-how. In academic theory practice becomes no more than a mechanical operation of representation, the kind of practice that gave rise to Marcel Duchamp’s scorn: bête come un peintre. Practice, as execution, had to be rescued by Delacroix’s writings and practice and by Baudelaire’s criticism in the 19^th century. In discussion of the creation of beautiful figures, critics have repeatedly neglected painting as the mere means of signification and concentrated on the figures signified. This is a modernist procedure, it fails to goback to Aristotle’s view of mimesis, as including the colours and drawn shapes. ‘Seeing as’ is then left to the reader of painting’s sharp definition or its loose and ambiguous vagueness. Painting is a double structure of ‘figures’ in the sense of drawn shapes and colours and ‘figures’ in the sense of the figures of recognizable things. Although a purely formal discussion is not to be recommended, yet there is much room for a discussion of the strategic thinking involved in the practice of painting and drawing.

 

 

 

10

 ANTIQUE THEORY & PAINTING

 

11

 Poussin as a painter in the antique manner

 

Although Poussin’s later paintings – from the 1630 onwards – do not have obtrusive brushwork of the kind found in many of his contemporaries, there is still a residue of his earlier manner of open brushwork, but on a smaller scale.

 

12

His paintings are painted as if they are ancient works of art, rather than as if they are things seen and recorded. This follows a tradition that is most obvious in Mantegna’s painting and then in the small history scenes inserted in sixteenth century fresco decoration. Poussin’s however are movable, framed oil paintings, independent of decorative framing on a wall.

 

13

Poussin’s well-known distance from Caravaggio’s painting can be seen as a refusal to become a painter of the visible. He insists instead on the actions and passions of his figures, the invisible. But this entails an extremely careful attention to the visible appearance of his figures by which the invisible can be known. For this reason the operation of the painting in the construction of a scene is of crucial importance.

 

14

The writings of the Philostratus family are significant for Poussin, both in the

ekphrasis, or description, of paintings and in the discussion of painting in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana. These are a rich source for the notion of a playful illusion in the relation between material painting and resulting image. This tradition is conspicuously present in Bellori’s 1672 Life of Poussin, but largely absent in subsequent writers. For Poussin as for any artist the imaginary is at work in the manipulation of wax to model small figures or in drawing and painting.

 

15

Only in T.J.Clark’s recent book ‘The Sight of Death’ is the question of Poussin’s artifice properly opened up. Artifice is also at issue in Jean-François Lyotard’s Discours, figure in which he distinguishes between the effects of text and of image. The importance of figure, image and picture is that they are instruments not of ‘signification’ but of ‘designation’, of pointing to things.

 

16

  JUDGEMENT OF SOLOMON

 

The problem for a painter is how to show which of two women (harlots, only witnesses as to the death of a child) is the true mother of a living child. In the Bible the problem is solved by the words spoken by the two women in response to Solomon’s ruse: he orders that the living child be cut in half. But that resolution is impossible in a painting without words.

 

17

Poussin thought it was his most beautiful painting, a judgement based, no doubt, on the beauty of its concetto, since the common judgement of its general appearance is that it is harsh and austere.  But all judgements are open to question in this painting. Even the symmetry of the architectural setting is flawed and questionable.  The spatial effect of the figures is elusive, with a typical Poussinian play between surface and illusional depth relations.

 

18

An analysis of the drawings for the painting shows that Poussin gradually changes the figures so that the one on the left, who in Raphael’s paintings is usually the True mother, gives only a superficial appearance of being the True mother. Even the facial expressions are far from conclusive. The difficulty of deciding by appearances is increased. It has not been noticed that the women have exactly the same facial profile, mirroring one another, one in light one in shadow.

 

19

Experience shows that this painting commonly leads to an animated debate, not unlike the contestation in a courtroom. All the possible factors in the appearance the women are to be considered, and none of them, is conclusive. The essay ends with an observation that has not been made before and which may to settle the matter. To say more would be a ‘spoiler’.

 

20

 REBECCA AT THE WELL

 

This, like the ‘Judgement of Solomon’, was painted for Jean Pointel. It too should engage the judgement and intelligence of the reader. How is Eliezer to choose a bride from among the beautiful girls drawing water from a well at Nahor?

 

21

There is one very strange detail that commonly baffles all but the most attentive readers. This has not been discussed in the literature. Nonetheless it requires a practical judgement of exactly what is represented that is of a kind rarely given proper attention. Furthermore, while the painting has been praised as a presentation of beautiful women, it is seldom pointed out that their beauty is only a beauty of appearances. They appear on closer regard to be idle or clumsy.

 

22

Famously discussed in the Academy, the camels of Eliezer are not visible in the painting. They are not even ‘hidden’ in the landscape, as in puzzle pictures. That is not surprising, since Poussin in his landscape paintings rarely gives a hint of an anthropomorphic reading of landscape features.

 

23

In addition to the figures, there is one item that is in all probability derived from the Renaissance interest in ancient hieroglyphs. There is a sphere on a pillar, which, in all probability is a sign that the one God presides over the conjunction of  Rebecca and Isaac. The sphere on a column recurs in two of Poussin’s pictures referring to divinely ordained marriages: the second version of Marriage of the Sacraments, and the impending marriage of Moses and Zipporah in the engraving of Moses and the daughters of Jethro. 

 

24

Though the painting is concerned with a plausible presentation of he biblical story, it is also a challenge to the reader’s judgement of what is actually there to be seen. There is not only a tempting possible confusion about the drawing of one of the women at the well, there is also the temptation offered by Eliezer’s sword-hilt at his waist. Given the encounter between the man and these beautiful women, a lewd-minded reader might perhaps misinterpret it.

 

 

25

ADDITIONAL NOTES

 

There are also brief notes on the peculiarities of figuration in Narcissus & Echo Louvre), The Rape of the Sabines (Metropolitan Museum, New York), The Feast of Pan and the small Adoration of the Shepherds (National Gallery, London). The first three of these are in the form of  Philostratus-like descriptions, which point to the artifoce of the paintings, but without exensive interpretative commentary. The fourth takes the form of a series of questions requiring attentive observation of the painting of the picture.    

 

26

ET IN ARCADIA EGO

 

 

Once more, writing about the morality of a picture would be incomplete without writing about the play of its signifying material. Taking all of that in makes for a full reading.

 

27

The problem of the date of the Louvre version is not easily resolved. The argument is maintained that it is as enigmatic as any and all allegories. The reading of the painting through conspiracy-theory suspicion of European religion and politics is particularly unsubstantiated.

 

28

Lawrence Steefel Jr’s attended to the shadow of a shepherd on the tomb and Louis Marin concluded it was the image of a scythe. Both authors were looking for further symbolic images within the picture to incorporate in moralising interpretation. But neither considered the fundamental issues of visibility in shadows and lights in painting, sticking rather with legibility. 

 

29

Erwin Panofsky’s reading of the meaning of the inscription, accepted, but his view of the change in moral sentimental between the two versions of the subject, rejected. Interpretations of the actions of the figures are inconclusive. Félibien ‘s description compared with Bellori’s: the change in moral sentiment between the two versions attributed to Félibien’s misreading, rather than to Poussin.

 

30

A material reading (visibility) could begin with the inscription on the tomb. It is painted to make it visible, as shadow and light rendering of letters cut into the stone of the tomb. The inscription is incomplete and part of it barely visible, because of interruptions by the figures and by the shadow of the shepherd cast on the tomb. The shepherd reading the inscription, spelling it out, touching each letter in turn, leads to ain interpretation of the figures as having varying degrees of literacy and varying abilities in relation to understanding the meaning of the inscription.

 

 

31

 SELF-PORTRAITS

 

Interpretation of painters’ self-portraits is usually wrongly based on biographical evidence (writings) & sentiment, excluding the painterly construction.  Poussin’s have been elaborately discussed in terms of the isolatable symbolic items. There has also been attention recently by Bätschmann and by Cropper and Dempsey to the thematics of absence-presence in the paintings. The question asked now is what is the relation of the image to truthful actuality?

 

32

Both paintings are discussed as illusions of presence or actuality, life as opposed to death, material paint on canvas as opposed to illusion of presence. The analysis of the Louvre painting begins with the representation of a nail-hole in the wall. Then the frames and the canvases behind the figure are discussed. The peculiar presence of the inscription on a blank canvas, with the shadow cast over it by, presumably the figure of the painter, is taken as an indication that in thee illusional construction the figure of the painter is in front of the canvas to which it should belong, as if it were therefore to be seen as a real presence instead of a mere painted one. This is seen as a characteristically seventeenth century device for claiming actual presence in a portrait. 

 

 

33

ECSTASY OF ST PAUL

 

Is it possible to imagine the painting not only as a fine religious image, fine especially in its illusionistic construction, but also as possibly to be read by those who knew about Scarron’s licentious behaviour as a satirical portrait of him, as St Paul seated on thee laps of beautiful androgynous angels? This is not asserted as a ‘correct’ reading, but as a possibility for Poussin’s circle, who are offered opportunity for  misreadings of details in construction in several other paintings, as previously argued.

 

 

34

 MARTYRDOM OF ST ERASMUS

 

This revises the dossier in two ways. First, the legend of the original reception of the painting is misleading. The argument is that the e4vidence from Sandrart’s account of the reception of the picture has been misread; and that the probable source of the legend of its lack of success is due to Guido Reni and his friends. 

 

35

Second, the peculiar perspective structure and the extreme asymmetry of the picture have not been noticed or discussed since Bellori published his Life of Poussin in 1672. Properly taken into account, this answers the question raised by Anthony Blunt and Sir Denis Mahon’s dispute of the 1960s: is Poussin a baroque or classical painter in his early years. The relation of   the altarpiece to paintings by Titian and Caravaggio is discussed, especially to an engrving by Cornelis Cort after Titian’s St Lawrence in the Gesuati  and to Caravaggio’s paintings in the Cerasi Chapel.   

 

 

 

36

 FECIT OR FACIEBAT?

 

A note on Nicolas Poussin’s signature and inscriptions on his paintings, explaining the antique usage ‘faciebat’.  

 

 

 

37

ANTHONY BLUNT WRITES ABOUT POUSSIN’S DRAWINGS

 

The virtues of Blunt’s work on Poussin are those of the thorough museum professional maker of dossiers. His approach to stylistics is, however, lacking in articulation. Poussin’s known method of preparation for paintings centres on his wax model figures on his model stage and his larger, draped modelled figures. There are no clearly identifiable detailed drawings of large figures. Do the larger figures take their place? Whether this is the case or not, there had also to be a process of reckoning how the model theatre and the larger figures are turned into painting rather than sculpture. Blunt does not account of that process. His only approach to style is through supposed appropriate style for subject, a crude expressionist approach. So violent subjects need ‘vigorous’ – his favourite term of praise – treatment in a drawing? He regards the drawings in terms of verisimilitude to something already seen, but not the making of something that can be seen only when the drawing has

been done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poussin's Humour - summaries of contents

POUSSIN’S HUMOUR

1 The author, writing about Poussin’s paintings, explains where he is coming from and the scheme of art history that was in operation at the Courtauld Institute of Art in the 1950s and 1960s. He sees that as lacking an art critical component and interested primarily in iconographical meanings. That scheme has operated especially in the case of Poussin’s paintings. They became – and remained – an important model for classical academic art beginning in the years immediately after Poussin’s death (in 1665).  

2 By contrast the author, starting from an admiration for painters like Henri Matisse and intensely concerned with colour, became interested only slowly and gradually in Poussin’s practice as a painter. His first writing about Poussin’s Sacraments paintings, a doctoral thesis (Edinburgh, 1968) was conservative, largely concerned with iconography, and also with sources in antique art and in book illustration. But later concerns with teaching Fine Arts students and with new interest in contemporary art practice shifted his investigations to unexpected irregularities and peculiarities of some of Poussin’s paintings. These he found have not been commented on before, and the reason, he believes, is the aforesaid lack in art historical practice of concern with the practice of painting. The result of this lack is a failure to recognise Poussin’s wit as a painter.  

3 Since the book does not have any reproductions in either colour of black and white, he lists available reproductions of Poussin’s paintings and drawings. In addition he provides general notes on his reading for the writing of this book.    

4 STUDYING POUSSIN   The author reviews the state of art historical knowledge of Poussin. It is rich in iconographical study and in a close attention to the intellectual context of the painting, that is to say, the currents of philosophical thought with which Poussin and his patrons might have been familiar. There has also been extensive and valuable work done on establishing the oeuvre in painting and drawing, by documentary research and by connoisseurship. In addition there have been occasional attempts to recognise Poussin’s practice as a painter, by Michael Podro, Oskar Bättschmann, David Carrier, Todd Olson and recently, and most notably, by T.J.Clark.  

5 Poussin has been studied as if his ‘thought’ was to be found by examining the content of his paintings and their links to the history of ideas, that is to say the history of philosophical and literary expression of ideas. This supposes that writing rather than painting is the measure of ideas and his thinking. In particular, his painterly play with artifice and illusion has been disregarded.  

6 This is maintained in the literature by denying as far as possible the baroque, the devotional and the irrational and illusionist features of his painting. In the 1960s, on the basis of highly selective biographical details, he was regarded as a liberal agnostic and an academic classicist, painting that seeks respectability among literary people by aping literature. In contrast with the insistence of historical scholars on content, there was an insistence by art critics on the formal design character of the paintings. These were valued as part of a classical tradition that led to the paintings of Paul Cézanne and thence to the formal inventions of early modernism and abstraction. But this tends to ignore the process in the medium.  

7 There follows a discussion of the basis of the widely practised iconographical study, that is to say the study of recognisable scenes and the apparent actions of figures, as if they were scenes with actors in a theatre. It is there that the author sees a lack of understanding, and a need for a close attention to the conditions of painting, since the scenes in Poussin’s pictures are not tableaux vivants, but painted figures made visible by painting.  

8 The author summarises the prevalent view of Poussin’s development as a painter, from baroque to classical. He wishes to add to this an account of Poussin’s artifice, that is to say, the conscious construction of images from the materials of painting. He discusses the various ways of describing the respondent to painting. He settles on the term ‘reader’ and asks the crucial question of the book: what does it mean to be a reader of Poussin’s paintings?  

9  PAINTING AS A PRACTICE     The importance of la pratica, practice, is stated by Poussin in his Osservazioni (in Bellori’s Life). This has only a very restricted meaning for academic theory: it omits knowledge of the medium and the effects of the application of paint. That is a heuristic kind of knowledge, practical know-how. In academic theory practice becomes no more than a mechanical operation of representation, the kind of practice that gave rise to Marcel Duchamp’s scorn: bête come un peintre. Practice, as execution, had to be rescued by Delacroix’s writings and practice and by Baudelaire’s criticism in the 19^th century. In discussion of the creation of beautiful figures, critics have repeatedly neglected painting as the mere means of signification and concentrated on the figures signified. This is a modernist procedure, it fails to goback to Aristotle’s view of mimesis, as including the colours and drawn shapes. ‘Seeing as’ is then left to the reader of painting’s sharp definition or its loose and ambiguous vagueness. Painting is a double structure of ‘figures’ in the sense of drawn shapes and colours and ‘figures’ in the sense of the figures of recognizable things. Although a purely formal discussion is not to be recommended, yet there is much room for a discussion of the strategic thinking involved in the practice of painting and drawing.      

10  ANTIQUE THEORY & PAINTING  

11  Poussin as a painter in the antique manner   Although Poussin’s later paintings – from the 1630 onwards – do not have obtrusive brushwork of the kind found in many of his contemporaries, there is still a residue of his earlier manner of open brushwork, but on a smaller scale.  

12 His paintings are painted as if they are ancient works of art, rather than as if they are things seen and recorded. This follows a tradition that is most obvious in Mantegna’s painting and then in the small history scenes inserted in sixteenth century fresco decoration. Poussin’s however are movable, framed oil paintings, independent of decorative framing on a wall.  

13 Poussin’s well-known distance from Caravaggio’s painting can be seen as a refusal to become a painter of the visible. He insists instead on the actions and passions of his figures, the invisible. But this entails an extremely careful attention to the visible appearance of his figures by which the invisible can be known. For this reason the operation of the painting in the construction of a scene is of crucial importance.  

14 The writings of the Philostratus family are significant for Poussin, both in the ekphrasis, or description, of paintings and in the discussion of painting in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana. These are a rich source for the notion of a playful illusion in the relation between material painting and resulting image. This tradition is conspicuously present in Bellori’s 1672 Life of Poussin, but largely absent in subsequent writers. For Poussin as for any artist the imaginary is at work in the manipulation of wax to model small figures or in drawing and painting.  

15 Only in T.J.Clark’s recent book ‘The Sight of Death’ is the question of Poussin’s artifice properly opened up. Artifice is also at issue in Jean-François Lyotard’s Discours, figure in which he distinguishes between the effects of text and of image. The importance of figure, image and picture is that they are instruments not of ‘signification’ but of ‘designation’, of pointing to things.  

16   JUDGEMENT OF SOLOMON   The problem for a painter is how to show which of two women (harlots, only witnesses as to the death of a child) is the true mother of a living child. In the Bible the problem is solved by the words spoken by the two women in response to Solomon’s ruse: he orders that the living child be cut in half. But that resolution is impossible in a painting without words.  

17 Poussin thought it was his most beautiful painting, a judgement based, no doubt, on the beauty of its concetto, since the common judgement of its general appearance is that it is harsh and austere.  But all judgements are open to question in this painting. Even the symmetry of the architectural setting is flawed and questionable.  The spatial effect of the figures is elusive, with a typical Poussinian play between surface and illusional depth relations.  

18 An analysis of the drawings for the painting shows that Poussin gradually changes the figures so that the one on the left, who in Raphael’s paintings is usually the True mother, gives only a superficial appearance of being the True mother. Even the facial expressions are far from conclusive. The difficulty of deciding by appearances is increased. It has not been noticed that the women have exactly the same facial profile, mirroring one another, one in light one in shadow.  

19 Experience shows that this painting commonly leads to an animated debate, not unlike the contestation in a courtroom. All the possible factors in the appearance the women are to be considered, and none of them, is conclusive. The essay ends with an observation that has not been made before and which may to settle the matter. To say more would be a ‘spoiler’.  

20 REBECCA AT THE WELL   This, like the ‘Judgement of Solomon’, was painted for Jean Pointel. It too should engage the judgement and intelligence of the reader. How is Eliezer to choose a bride from among the beautiful girls drawing water from a well at Nahor?

21 There is one very strange detail that commonly baffles all but the most attentive readers. This has not been discussed in the literature. Nonetheless it requires a practical judgement of exactly what is represented that is of a kind rarely given proper attention. Furthermore, while the painting has been praised as a presentation of beautiful women, it is seldom pointed out that their beauty is only a beauty of appearances. They appear on closer regard to be idle or clumsy.  

22 Famously discussed in the Academy, the camels of Eliezer are not visible in the painting. They are not even ‘hidden’ in the landscape, as in puzzle pictures. That is not surprising, since Poussin in his landscape paintings rarely gives a hint of an anthropomorphic reading of landscape features.

23 In addition to the figures, there is one item that is in all probability derived from the Renaissance interest in ancient hieroglyphs. There is a sphere on a pillar, which, in all probability is a sign that the one God presides over the conjunction of  Rebecca and Isaac. The sphere on a column recurs in two of Poussin’s pictures referring to divinely ordained marriages: the second version of Marriage of the Sacraments, and the impending marriage of Moses and Zipporah in the engraving of Moses and the daughters of Jethro.   

24 Though the painting is concerned with a plausible presentation of he biblical story, it is also a challenge to the reader’s judgement of what is actually there to be seen. There is not only a tempting possible confusion about the drawing of one of the women at the well, there is also the temptation offered by Eliezer’s sword-hilt at his waist. Given the encounter between the man and these beautiful women, a lewd-minded reader might perhaps misinterpret it.    

25 ADDITIONAL NOTES   There are also brief notes on the peculiarities of figuration in Narcissus & Echo Louvre), The Rape of the Sabines (Metropolitan Museum, New York), The Feast of Pan and the small Adoration of the Shepherds (National Gallery, London). The first three of these are in the form of  Philostratus-like descriptions, which point to the artifoce of the paintings, but without exensive interpretative commentary. The fourth takes the form of a series of questions requiring attentive observation of the painting of the picture.      

26 ET IN ARCADIA EGO     Once more, writing about the morality of a picture would be incomplete without writing about the play of its signifying material. Taking all of that in makes for a full reading.  

27 The problem of the date of the Louvre version is not easily resolved. The argument is maintained that it is as enigmatic as any and all allegories. The reading of the painting through conspiracy-theory suspicion of European religion and politics is particularly unsubstantiated.  

28 Lawrence Steefel Jr’s attended to the shadow of a shepherd on the tomb and Louis Marin concluded it was the image of a scythe. Both authors were looking for further symbolic images within the picture to incorporate in moralising interpretation. But neither considered the fundamental issues of visibility in shadows and lights in painting, sticking rather with legibility.   

29 Erwin Panofsky’s reading of the meaning of the inscription, accepted, but his view of the change in moral sentimental between the two versions of the subject, rejected. Interpretations of the actions of the figures are inconclusive. Félibien ‘s description compared with Bellori’s: the change in moral sentiment between the two versions attributed to Félibien’s misreading, rather than to Poussin.  

30 A material reading (visibility) could begin with the inscription on the tomb. It is painted to make it visible, as shadow and light rendering of letters cut into the stone of the tomb. The inscription is incomplete and part of it barely visible, because of interruptions by the figures and by the shadow of the shepherd cast on the tomb. The shepherd reading the inscription, spelling it out, touching each letter in turn, leads to ain interpretation of the figures as having varying degrees of literacy and varying abilities in relation to understanding the meaning of the inscription.    

31 SELF-PORTRAITS   Interpretation of painters’ self-portraits is usually wrongly based on biographical evidence (writings) & sentiment, excluding the painterly construction.  Poussin’s have been elaborately discussed in terms of the isolatable symbolic items. There has also been attention recently by Bätschmann and by Cropper and Dempsey to the thematics of absence-presence in the paintings. The question asked now is what is the relation of the image to truthful actuality?  

32 Both paintings are discussed as illusions of presence or actuality, life as opposed to death, material paint on canvas as opposed to illusion of presence. The analysis of the Louvre painting begins with the representation of a nail-hole in the wall. Then the frames and the canvases behind the figure are discussed. The peculiar presence of the inscription on a blank canvas, with the shadow cast over it by, presumably the figure of the painter, is taken as an indication that in thee illusional construction the figure of the painter is in front of the canvas to which it should belong, as if it were therefore to be seen as a real presence instead of a mere painted one. This is seen as a characteristically seventeenth century device for claiming actual presence in a portrait.     

33 ECSTASY OF ST PAUL   Is it possible to imagine the painting not only as a fine religious image, fine especially in its illusionistic construction, but also as possibly to be read by those who knew about Scarron’s licentious behaviour as a satirical portrait of him, as St Paul seated on thee laps of beautiful androgynous angels? This is not asserted as a ‘correct’ reading, but as a possibility for Poussin’s circle, who are offered opportunity for  misreadings of details in construction in several other paintings, as previously argued.    

34  MARTYRDOM OF ST ERASMUS  This revises the dossier in two ways. First, the legend of the original reception of the painting is misleading. The argument is that the e4vidence from Sandrart’s account of the reception of the picture has been misread; and that the probable source of the legend of its lack of success is due to Guido Reni and his friends.   

35 Second, the peculiar perspective structure and the extreme asymmetry of the picture have not been noticed or discussed since Bellori published his Life of Poussin in 1672. Properly taken into account, this answers the question raised by Anthony Blunt and Sir Denis Mahon’s dispute of the 1960s: is Poussin a baroque or classical painter in his early years. The relation of   the altarpiece to paintings by Titian and Caravaggio is discussed, especially to an engrving by Cornelis Cort after Titian’s St Lawrence in the Gesuati  and to Caravaggio’s paintings in the Cerasi Chapel.         

36  FECIT OR FACIEBAT?   A note on Nicolas Poussin’s signature and inscriptions on his paintings, explaining the antique usage ‘faciebat’.        

37 ANTHONY BLUNT WRITES ABOUT POUSSIN’S DRAWINGS   The virtues of Blunt’s work on Poussin are those of the thorough museum professional maker of dossiers. His approach to stylistics is, however, lacking in articulation. Poussin’s known method of preparation for paintings centres on his wax model figures on his model stage and his larger, draped modelled figures. There are no clearly identifiable detailed drawings of large figures. Do the larger figures take their place? Whether this is the case or not, there had also to be a process of reckoning how the model theatre and the larger figures are turned into painting rather than sculpture. Blunt does not account of that process. His only approach to style is through supposed appropriate style for subject, a crude expressionist approach. So violent subjects need ‘vigorous’ – his favourite term of praise – treatment in a drawing? He regards the drawings in terms of verisimilitude to something already seen, but not the making of something that can be seen only when the drawing has been done.                           

 

Poussin website

I have added a link to this blog to the website pages for my new book:

Poussin's Humour, to be published November 2009 - for summaries & details see http://www.nicolaspoussin.co.uk/index.html

& the theme song:  http://xrl.us/bfmpr4

Michio Ihara's "Wind Tree"

Michio Ihara's 'Wind Tree" -- commissioned in 1970 for the International Sculpture Symposium -- in its original design was intended for a site in the Domain, Auckland. The revised design was erected in Q E II Square Auckland, but has been dismantled & has disappeared from public view --- photo - 1980 - by Sophie Ganley -- thanks to Jonathan Ganley for the link

http://bit.ly/2QPye 

Poussin's Humour - dustjacket

'Poussin's Humour' the book will look like this - to be published 22 October

Poussin's Humour - the book

Poussin's Humour, the book, a hardback, is in the press -- typesetting finished, proof-reading under way, jacket design about to be completed -- hoping for publication in late October ...

It will come out under the same Paravail imprint as Nicolas Poussin paints the Seven Sacraments twice, published in 2000. There are a few copies of that remaining, in a big box in my flat.

I will be posting summaries of the contents of Poussin's Humour in the near future both on this blog and on a new website. The website will be set up specifically to handle sales. 

So   watch  this  space . . . . 

picture it

[C-K note-book 1983]

   

    Even the clouds seem almost devoid of life.

    Part of a windmill and a tall tree on the
extreme left stop the eye from sliding out of
the picture.

   

with long cattle prod

acrylic & ball-point pen on recycled paper - text: 'with long cattle prod' a phrase used a few times by Hunter S Thompson