Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (except *)
Note- Robert Frank has been mentioned in many of my pieces over the past 3 years of my “deep-dive” into Modern & Contemporary Photography, a realm that he had a seminal role in creating with the publication of The Americans. When the sad news came that he had passed away at 94 on September 9th, I was finishing yet another piece that he is a part of- one that summarizes some of my thoughts on Painting & Photography these past three years, and also marks the 60th anniversary of the American publication of The Americans. Too far along to change, I’ve left it as it was, and added this as my “R.I.P.” That Robert Frank was, and remains, one of the most influential figures in Art of our time was already testified to within.
Subtitle- “On Rembrandt’s 350th, and Robert Frank’s 60th”
Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1660. The Artist is seen here in the last decade of his life. Seen on March 26, 2015 in The Met’s former European Paintings galleries.
When I look at Art, sooner or later, my thoughts involve Rembrandt for any one of a myriad of reasons. I do my best, however, to keep my thoughts about his death to a minimum, so this is going to be purposely short. Rembrandt was pretty poor the last decade of his life. His prior fame had deserted him as if he were a fad, or a “mania,” like tulips were in 1637 when he was 30, and combined with an extravagant lifestyle that he could no longer maintain, he lived in housing for the poor at the end. When he died, at just 63, he was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave. 20 years later, his bones were destroyed, as was the custom with the remains of such unfortunates. The church, where his unmarked grave was, finally got around to erecting a plaque, inside, in 1909. It redeemed itself some 30 years later when a young Jewish girl who was in hiding nearby from the Nazis took solace in the sound of the church’s bells. Today, there’s a statue of Anne Frank outside the church. His Art largely fell into eclipse, except for a few artists he influenced, for about 100 years, as hard as that is for us to imagine today. October 4, 2019, happens to be the 350th anniversary of his death.
Seen in situ. One of the glories of New York. Five of The Met’s Rembrandts seen in the European Paintings Galleries on June 10, 2017, before the current skylight renovations caused their relocation to the Robert Lehman Collection galleries. When I think of “home,” this gallery comes to mind.
I’ve remained passionate about the work of Rembrandt van Rijn since I was in my early teens and he is one of very very few Artists I can say that about. Almost no where else have I found the humanity, and the depth and range of humanity, I find in Rembrandt. Because of this, I find his Self-Portraits particularly fascinating. In the end, they show me that the Artist, himself, was every bit as human as anyone he ever depicted.
Rembrandt after Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, ca.1634-5, Red chalk, 14 x 18 inches, From The Met’s Lehman Collection. Seen in 2016.
Few other Artists I’ve seen have the power to say as much with just a few strokes as can be seen time and time again in his Drawings- like this one, in which Rembrandt manages to capture the entirety of Leonardo’s masterpiece (and add some additional elements that may have come from a print of the Painting he saw- Rembrandt never left Holland) in so few strokes, you can almost count them.
Self-Portrait in a Soft Hat, 1631, Etching completed with black chalk. The Artist was about 25 at this point at the beginning of his career. Seen at the Morgan Library in September, 2016.
Today, he’s honored as Holland’s favorite son. Public places have been renamed in his honor. (“Rembrandt Square,” etc., etc.). In 2015, the country paid a record price for 2 portraits by the Master, 180 million dollars, splitting the cost with France (for the Louvre and the Rijksmuseum), partially (largely?) because of their value to tourism, (i.e. so they can continue to cash in on him). Pretty ironic given how he was treated near and at the end of his life.
The most Rembrandt Self-Portraits in one place I’ve yet been in were these five etchings seen at Rembrandt’s First Masterpiece at the Morgan Library in September, 2016. I was shocked to see them when I walked in. I had no idea they were included.
So, to me, his end is one of the most unfortunate, and saddest, chapters in Art history. I’m not so sure it’s a cause for all that much celebrating. The world of Art seems to agree. There’s only one museum (as far as I know) anywhere in the world mounting a show of Rembrandt’s work that might be construed as honoring/memorializing it anytime close to that date, with that one actually opening on October 4th.
Nonetheless, the chance to put a big round number on the front of a marketing campaign seems to be all that’s required for Taschen to leap into the breach with three new volumes in their XL (aka “HUGE!”) series of books. Well? In 87 years, for the 400th anniversary of his birth in 2106, actual physical paper books may be a thing of the past Whether they arrive as physical books, ebooks, or whatever form books will take in 87 years, I won’t be here to see them. As I write this, the first of Taschen’s “trilogy,” Rembrandt: The Self-Portraits (R:TSPs, henceforth) is out and in wide distribution. It’s a handsome volume, with a nifty cover image that displays one of 6 different Rembrandt Self-Portraits depending on the angle you look at it. I picked it up in a store and passed, even though nothing Rembrandt did has held me more spellbound for so long as his Self-Portraits have. So, why did I pass on this complete collection of them? I was extremely disappointed that the great Rembrandt scholar Gary Schwartz wasn’t involved in it, and from what I understand isn’t involved in the other two volumes either. That statement will serve as my protest since I subsequently bought R:TSPs. With all due respect to the scholars chosen, no one will replace Gary Schwartz for me when it comes to Rembrandt- or any other Artist he turns his unique skillset to (Dear Mr. Schwartz, If you happen to see this? Jan van Eyck, Please?). Suffice it to say that the renowned Professor, Simon Schama, host of the PBS series, The Power of Art, dedicated his own Rembrandt biography, Rembrandt’s eyes, to Gary Schwartz.
“I regard Rembrandt’s self-portraits less as assertions of a strong personal identity than as a means to help the artist, like Saint Paul, become more like other people. Behind them lies a man who depended on his art to offset imbalances in his life and his relations with others.” Gary Schwartz.
Focusing on what we do get, the book itself is large, oversized as they say in the trade, a full 10 x 13.5 inches and weighs about 4 1/2 pounds, very light for a true Taschen XL which generally weigh in around 20 pounds. Its 176 pages contain a succinct essay and the rest of the book is Rembrandt, in my view, at his best. The reproductions are very good, with many being reproduced in actual size.
A publicity shot by Taschen. Rest assured the copies sold in the USA are in English.*
Rembrandt was the first Artist to create a body of Self-Portraits. Yes, the cheap headline is “Rembrandt Invented The Selfie,” which, without looking, I’m sure has already been used to death. That’s not true. He was not the first to do a Self-Portrait, just to create a body of them among Artists known to us today. And what a body of work they are! We don’t have his diary, but, though it’s dangerous to read too much into the SPs (unless you want to), they are not really “pure” autobiography beyond the fact that yes, they do indeed depict the Artist, and we get to see his famous visage evolve as the years and decades go by. Exactly what is going on in each of them has been the subject of much conjecture, and I suspect will continue to be for as long as people look at them. He created them in oil, in ink, and with an etching needle (in Paintings, Drawings and Etchings). Though I love everything the man did, for me, they have been THE supreme body of Art since I saw my first one, shown up top, at The Met way back when. If I had to live the rest of my days only being allowed to look at one work of Art (oh jeez), it would be a Rembrandt Self-Portrait. But, please don’t ask me which one. Right now, I would select his Self-Portrait with Two Circles in England, but that choice is often a factor of which one I’ve looked at last. I’d take any of them- Painted, Drawn or Etched. And in R:TSPs, we get to see every one of them (they say).
Two pre-release copies of Rembrandt: The Complete Paintings, left, flank a copy of Rembrandt: The Complete Drawings & Etching, which complete Taschen’s “trilogy.” As close as I’ve gotten- so far.
While I am very much looking forward to seeing Rembrandt: The Complete Paintings (TCP, henceforth), it should be mentioned that though The Rembrandt Research Project issued its latest volume of what it calls the “Corpus” of the Master’s Paintings in 2016, the controversy around what that body “should” consist of shows no signs of ending, and so? Buyer beware! What’s agreed upon as his complete Paintings will, very possibly, change in the near future. So, even 350 years after his sad demise, this will most likely not be the “final word” on the subject.
Still, there’s so much of what RvR has accomplished in his other work that can be seen in his Self-Portraits. You can trace a good deal of his development as an Artist in this work. And then? There is the incredible Painting! No matter how much Painting I’ve seen in the 40 year (next year I’ve been going to shows, my mind always comes back, for a variety of reasons, to “how Rembrandt Painted it.”
Ok. So, you’re wondering- What does all of this have to do with Robert Frank?
Robert Frank: The Americans, my copy of Steidl’s 50th Anniversary edition, 2008.
Questionable timing aside, for me, the real value of RvR:TSPs coming out now has been the bath of the icy cold water of “reality” it’s thrown on my deep dive into Modern & Contemporary Photography, by which I mean post-Robert Frank’s The Americans, the most seminal PhotoBook of our time. 2019 marks the 60th Anniversary of American publication of The Americans (and there’s been almost no fanfare about that- as far as I’ve seen thus far). This fall/winter marks 3 years of my “deep dive” into this realm of M&C Photography that I consider The Americans the first bookmark in, a beginning of, in a sense. I started from the place of believing that Photography had not, as yet, earned its place with Painting, Drawing and Sculpture. Looking at R:TSPs? I realized that after everything I’ve seen, I can’t say my mind has been changed all that much. For one thing, though, it’s still a very young medium- particularly when compared to thousands of years of Painting. After all, they’re marketing the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt’s passing, and he’s thousands of years after Artists started Painting. Jan van Eyck was one of the first to use oil paint in the early 1400’s. Photography (with chemicals) has been around since Sir John F.W. Herschel coined the word in his paper “On the Art of Photography; or the Application of the Chemical Rays of Light to the Purpose of Pictorial Presentation,” on March 14, 1839– 180 years. But, the more I look at both, there’s one thing that strikes me as a major difference between Painting and Photographs-
Time.
It takes time to create a Painting. Even if the Artist does one quickly. In most Paintings, it takes longer to apply one brushstroke than it does to create most Photographs.
I think I can see that. And, I think it’s telling.
I’m not the only one.
David Hockney, Don & Christopher, Los Angeles, 1982, Polaroid collage “Joiner.” Seen at David Hockney, The Met, January, 2018.
Earlier this year, while I was formulating my thoughts on this subject, before I saw R:TSPs, I came across 2 books by David Hockney, Cameraworks, 1984, and Hockney on ‘Art,’ conversations with Paul Joyce, published in 1999. In both of them, Mr. Hockney , a man who has created both Paintings and Photographs (since 1967), and innovated in both realms, put into words much of what I was thinking- uncannily. “During the last several months I’ve come to realize that it has something to do with the amount of time that’s been put into the image. I mean, Rembrandt spent days, weeks, painting a portrait. You can go to a museum and look at a Rembrandt for hours and you’re not going to spend as much time looking as he spent panitng- observing, layering his observations, layering the time.” “My main argument was that a photograph could not be looked at for a long time. Have you noticed that?,” David Hockney, Cameraworks, P.9. There. He just said it for me.
Recently, in these very pages, without any question from me or the knowledge that I was working on this piece, the Photographer Fred Cray said– “One of the concerns I’ve always had with photography is the way it holds up on the wall with paintings and other media. Photography often seems thin and quick compared to painting.”
Anytime I see a Photographic portrait, my mind (at times, unconsciously) always turns to Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits (though, much of what I’m saying here could also be said for almost all of his portraits, as Mr. Hockney inferred). Not as a way of qualitatively comparing them. As a means of gauging the impact. They are the benchmark for me. Most of the time, the impact of the Photography in question isn’t the same. I wondered why for most of the first two years of this dive. Early in 2019, it hit me. Time. Time is a key element in Painting. In so many ways. From the time each stroke takes to apply, to how long it takes to complete the work to the rendering of time, itself, in the work. These are not questions most Photographers have to face. They deal with questions of light and setting before the fact, then they’re finished- unless they modify it later in printing, or digitally.
Unknown Artist seen Painting on 7th Avenue, NYC, September, 2019. Yes, he got a parking ticket. Many Street Photographers would have been done long before this gentleman got set up.
Of course, Painters have ways of dealing with this question to ensure whatever level of consistency in the lighting they want. They can work in their studio, or they can work from a live subject, a still life, a Photograph, a Drawing, or what have you. Even au plain air, as the Artist above, is doing. Time is effecting the result in other ways. My feeling is it’s this passing of time, in this multiplicity of ways, that it takes the Artist to create the work that is manifesting itself in the work in subtle ways, maybe some of them are so subtle as to be subconscious, but that are nonetheless part of what the viewer experiences. With each brush stroke, time is passing, and in a real way, time is being layered on to the canvas. Time is absolute in a Photograph- it’s the same time at the top as it is at the bottom, unless you’re shooting with a time lapse, like Stephen Wilkes.
All of this also serves to remind me, again, of possibly why great Contemporary Painters, like Richard Estes, John Salt, Rod Penner, and David Hockney as well, among many others, use their own Photographs as part of their working process, but the reason they are Painters and not Photographers is because of what they find lacking in Photography- what it can’t present of their vision that Painting can. They’re not alone. The list of great Painters who also took Photographs at some point is long- ranging from Thomas Eakins, Edgar Degas and Edvard Munch, through Ralston Crawford and Robert Rauschenberg, and even Picasso. I find it telling that not a single one of them identified himself as a “Photographer.” Only Charles Sheeler was dually identified and that might be because his Photography earned him money to support his Painting.
Then, in the midst of all of these thoughts, a terrific new book was released by Steidl, Dave Heath: Dialogues With Solitude, the catalog for a show at LE BAL, Paris in 2018. It gave me pause for thought.
My copy of Dave Heath: Dialogues With Solitude, Steidl, 2019.
WHO is Dave Heath?
From Dave Heath: Dialogues With Solitude, Steidl, 2019. *Photo courtesy of Steidl.
It turns out that Mr. Heath was, not is, unfortunately, but his work struck me every bit as hard as any I’ve seen in this 3 year deep dive. Particularly, his portraits, and specifically his portraits of one subject not looking at the camera.
Dave Heath’s earliest body of work are Photographs he took while serving in Korea in 1953-4, including this one. From Dave Heath: Dialogues With Solitude, Steidl, 2019. *Photo courtesy of Steidl.
It turns out that he was not only a master with a camera- a master of the Portrait, he was, also, a master printer. To the point that no less than the aforementioned, esteemed, Robert Frank paid Mr. Heath to print his work for what I believe was his first solo show at no less than the Art Institute of Chicago in April, 1961, a byproduct of The Americans’ release here two years earlier. That says it all.
My copy of Dave Heath’s A Dialogue With Solitude in the 2000 Lumiere Press edition. The books is on the right. The print is in the sleeve to the left.
Captivated by what I’d seen in the Steidl book, which is very well printed, in my opinion, though, unfortunately, Mr. Heath, who passed away in June, 2016, was not involved in it, I learned that Dave Heath’s “masterpiece” is the PhotoBook, A Dialogue With Solitude, 1965, a subject I am quite familiar with. I hunted down a “reasonably” priced copy of the 2000 Lumiere Press limited edition reprint with a signed & numbered print. The reprinted edition includes a letter from Robert Frank. The print in my set is “Washington Square, New York City, 1958.”
Washington Square, New York City, 1958. A Photograph that leaves me speechless, and turns my thoughts to Rembrandt.
It’s one of the very greatest accomplishments in PhotoBooks I’ve yet seen. Given what I said about his printing, the inclusion of a signed & numbered print in the Lumiere Press edition is a key. When I saw it for the first time I had a feeling that was closest of any Photograph I can think of to that I get while looking at a Rembrandt Portrait. Of course, as always, your results may differ.
For some reason that I can’t fathom, the word is that “Mr. Heath’s work went out of style.” Well? Rembrandt, too, “went out of style,” for well over a century, as hard as that might seem to believe to us now. Now, with Steidl’s Dave Heath: Dialogues With Solitude, it seems to me that a show or a book that returns a great, overlooked or forgotten Artist to the world has done that world a great cultural service. I can’t think of a higher purpose for either.
David Hockney, Perspective Is Tunnel Vision, Outside It Opens Up, 2017, Acrylic on two canvases. David Hockney shows how the camera sees in “tunnel vision,” single point perspective,” versus how humans see with what he calls “reverse perspective,” with infinite vanishing points, born of driving through a 10 mile long tunnel in Europe then suddenly coming into the great outdoors in 1985.
Reading David Hockney further, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in Photography, he speaks time and again that cameras, while being great at reproducing two dimensional objects, do not see the way humans do. He has devoted much of his subsequent Painting career (as seen in his fascinating recent shows) to challenging traditional perspective and exploring the innovations of both Renaissance masters and the masters of Cubism.
David Hockney, Grand Canyon I, 2017, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 96″ hexagonal, seen in April, 2018. Outside, it, indeeds, “opens up.” The Artist has also begun cutting the corners off his canvases to reinforce his ideas.
In 1999, Mr. Hockney asked, “How many truly memorable pictures are there? Considering the millions of photographs taken, there are few memorable images in this medium, which should tell us something. There have been far more images made this way than the sum of all previous images put together.” (Paul Joyce, Hockney on ‘Art’, P.43.) One thing that’s changed since Mr. Hockney said those words is that there are now more cameras in the world then there are people. It seems to me that that’s going to be a factor in this. The sheer number of Photographers versus Painters is, and is likely to remain indefinitely, skewed incredibly. Incalculably. It makes the odds of a “great” Photograph out of the billions being taken incrementally greater. “Quality only comes with quantity,” legendary Photographer Daido Moriyama said explaining why he takes so many Photos, in How I Take Photographs, page 73.
I’ve noticed that the rise of Photography has coincided with a relatively ”quiet period” in Painting, in some ways. While this has lasted a few decades, more recently, I don’t have to look any further than my own 200+ piece Archive. I’ve said a number of times that one of the reasons I decided to focus on Photography the past three years was the lack of Painting shows that spoke to me sufficiently to undertake the work these pieces require. I wonder how much longer this will last- Is this an anomaly, or is this the beginning of the way things are going to be? Will we see the number of painters going forward that we’ve seen for the past 500 years? Of course, sheer numbers, or the lack of them, don’t guarantee masterpieces or geniuses. Greater numbers only serve to increase the odds.
At the three year mark, I’m still not convinced that Photography will come to be seen as Art in hundreds of years when that question is decided, IF anyone still cares about Art then. But? If they do, my bets are that Rembrandt’s will still be among the work most highly appreciated.
A work like Dave Heath’s Washington Square, New York City, 1958, gives me hope that Photography may still get there. Is it, as Mr. Hockney said, an image in a billion? Or is it an indication of what might be possible in the medium? I will continue to look…
Meanwhile, on October 4th? I’ll just light a candle. To go with the one in memory of Robert Frank. While I continue my dialogue with Davids Hockney and Heath…
*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Grace,” written by Jeff Buckley and Gary Lucas from Jeff’s immortal album, Grace. I worked with Mr. Lucas, and I booked Music into the now legendary NYC Music Club/Cafe, Sin-E in 1993, shortly after Jeff had played and recorded there. And then? He was suddenly…gone. I never met him or heard him perform in person. One of the great regrets of my life.
BookMarks–
My copy of The Rembrandt Book, (THE Rembrandt Book, or TRB, as I call it), by Gary Schwartz. In my opinion, it’s a model of everything a truly great Art monograph should be.
In addition to the books I referred to above, if someone were to ask me to pick one book on Rembrandt? I would choose The Rembrandt Book, by the aforementioned Gary Schwartz. It’s a book designed for readers both new to Rembrandt or expert on the Dutch Master, and so, it’s a book for a lifetime of enjoyment and research. Published in 2006 by Harry N. Abrams, it’s the SECOND full length monograph on Rembrandt by Gary Schwartz, and they couldn’t be more different (In a world where ANYone else would be thrilled to write one magnificent book on Rembrandt? HOW incredible is that?) or compliment each other better. TRB is oversized at 10 x 13 and weighs 6 pounds, but it is my bible on Rembrandt, and if I can’t find what I’m looking for there? I go to his prior monograph, the equally highly regarded, Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings, 380 pages and 3.6 pounds, published by Viking in 1985 (and I believe this book has been reissued at least once). Both books can be found very reasonably (for less than they were originally published for) in very good condition. Along with my Sister Wendy books, they are the foundations of my Art library.
Another book that’s very relevant to this discussion, and has been essential for me- one I don’t see recommended nearly often enough, is Believing Is Seeing (Observations on the Mysteries of Photography) by the renowned Errol Morris.
My prior pieces on PhotoBooks are here.
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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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