FORMS OF REALISM

By Paul Henrickson, © 2006 tm. © 2007

Hyman Bloom: Wood Odd Nerdrum: Self Portrait

Ivan de Lorraine Albright

Nick Abdalla: Leopard Girl Andrew Wyeth :

Andrew Wyeth

Paul Cadmus: Male Nude Albrecht Durer: Rabbit

Hyman Bloom: Beggar

Hefferman: Self Portrait as a Great Scout Leader Suydam Levi

Hefferman: Hyman Bloom: Candelabra
Caravaggio:Rest on the Flight Into Egypt

So often, often indeed, to the point that it is inevitable that when discussing aspects
of art styles all of us tend to generalize to the extent that only gross generalizations
appear and the opposite happens as well, that in searching out the multiplicity of
characteristics that are part of a general style we tend to obliterate the edges and no
longer are sure of where we are. I do not promise that the following will be any
different for while I have purposefully limited the discussion to forms of reality I
find that that concept doesn’t stay put for long but generates into fractels. The
process is not unlike breathing, or cells dividing.

The above selection of illustrations does not exhaust the supply by any means but
might serve to immediately suggest to the reader that that one word “reality”, even
in the limited discussion of its application in art criticism opens up tremendous
opportunities for, as it is often said, “ it broadens the mind”. Even that expression
has its problems for it silently suggests that a person who is considered
broadminded has not standards of behavior. In this best of all possible worlds one
must be careful how one uses words…they have such power.

The idea for this essay first came to und when upon surfing the web I came across
the site for the Columbia, South Carolina, Museum which was proudly featuring the
work of one Julie Hefferman, someone about whom I had previously heard nothing.

I found her work absolutely delightful, highly imaginative, provocative and

challenging, but her work also raised some questions as to whether it was in
actuality “creative”. It also immediately reminded me of the work of the Norwegian
Odd Nerdrum, that “dirty old man from the north” who may have, I suspect,
adopted the name as a pseudonym for public relations purposes since in Norwegian
the word sounds like “nerd” or “nurd” which in Norwegian refers to what in Jewish
we know as “putz” or in Yiddish “ecke”, or in common English we know as “prick”.
This is without a doubt a “nomen omen” (name signifying character or fate) if I have
ever known one.

Now, the question is: wherein does reality lie if we chose as our universe these two
“realistic” painters?

If we check out Hefferman we find that, for all practical purposes, there is hardly a
detail she hadn’t observed (birds’ feathers, wings, articulating claws and plaster ceiling
decorations and the flames of mysterious fire) and, one might certainly say that that is
an aspect of reality…isn’t it? Well, maybe it isn’t so very real after all in the sense
that such a combination of realities is hardly an everyday event.

Ug unh!, what will one do with that statement?

In order to be real something has to occur everyday? In that event a good portion
of the world has been living an unreal social existence for more than 2000 years and
another good percentage living a different one for nearly 1,500 years. How many
times does a someone have to rise to Heaven before the event becomes real? From
these examples we would suppose , at least twice, oh yes then there was Elijah!

Paul of Tarsus, known to some as Saint Paul, says somewhere that he visited the
third Heaven, and how many teen age boys after their first date express themselves
by saying “I was in seventh Heaven”? Some what older, but still young adults
sometimes refer to “being on cloud #nine.”Then, of course, we have the problem of
knowing just exactly where Heaven is.

If what one of those who rose tells us is true that the “kingdom of heaven is within
you” then the enigma is not quite solved for we have eye-witness testimony to the
effect that he rose into the air and disappeared into the clouds. The whole subject
gets very confusing.

Such metaphysical problems are beyond my abilities to solve. I find it complicated

enough to deal with Hefferman and that northern nerd ( oh, yes, that is also right,
there is yet another meaning, in America a “nerd” seems to be an individual who is
incurably “unhep”, that is, commonplace and conventional…wherein, of course,
being unconventional automatically becomes a hep convention. Just who was that
troublemaker who invented language..ah, yes, it was God, for “in the beginning
there was the word”. Well, there we have it, blame it on God!

As for Nerdrum we have amply evidence that he admires Rembrandt. I am

certainly unconvinced that the admiration would be mutual. Rembrandt, of course,
did not have qualms about showing the female nude, nor does Nerdrum come to
think of it, but it is not possible for me to imagine that Rembrandt would have
shown any male, least of all himself, sporting a prideful erection. And I thought
there were laws all over the world against exhibitionism. There is, of course, except
in places like New York for people like Madonna or in Washington, D.C. with that
Jewish girl, Monica Wollenski, now famous on the lecture circuit for having sucked
Clinton’s cock. Can one imagine the mental images members of her audiences are
having when she opens her mouth to give a talk? Well Nerdum keeps interesting
company and there are all kinds of ways of making a buck!.

Technically, Nerdrum’s canvasses are impressive , but for me, at least, they lack the
lasting and awesome aesthetic surprise of recognizing Rembrandt in a film by the
Dane, Carl Theodore Dryer made from the play of Arthur Miller entitled “The
Crucible”. In mentioning surprises we are reminded that recently there has been a
renewal of interesting Dryer’s films since the discovering in an Oslo mental hospital;
of an early 1927 film. Now, after nearly a half century after Dryer’s death we
recognize the multilayered characteristics of his filmic vision. This is just another
example of fractal reality. It is important to remember at this point that the artist
involved may not have been fully aware of his very fluid flow of images and that,
perhaps, in some sense the mental state the creator is in at the moment of creation
may be compared to something dream-like. Time and space whilst in a dream may
not be the same experience at all as it is in what we call a waking state.

Reality subdivides before our very eyes before we have a chance to know what it is
we were looking at. Reality is such an illusive faerie…just like some of the
inhabitants of Hefferman’s paintings. I keep looking at her “Self Portrait as a Great
Scout Leader”and my mind keeps returning the image that Danilo Donati, the art
director for Federico Fellini gave us in “Satyricon” with the scene involving the
death of the hermaphrodite. I wonder how one would judge that reality to the
similar one in 19th century Connecticut when a fellow by the name of Suydam Levi
caused a row when he applied for permission to vote in another political party and
some red-neck voyeur pointed out that the he was more of a she and shouldn’t be
voting at all. This is just another example of not only are things not what they seem,
but the contours of reality are always getting blurred which George Seurat made
into an art form.

Three drawings by George Seurat

Even with all of his somewhat astigmatic focus Hyman Bloom’s departures from
realism are less frightening than either Hefferman or Nerdrum, and this makes him
appear rather down-to-earth and conventional. Yet, all this convention is so
compiled that his results are jewels of visually sensual experience even when he
paints unappealing subjects like bloated corpses and severed legs.

Hyman Bloom: Corpse

Even while his countryman and contemporary (They both came from Latvia and are
both Jewish) Mark Rothko is also concerned about the sensual yet the total offering
is considerably less rich than Bloom’s and the absence of richness can not be
explained by the absence of a subject matter as any close look at the blouse in
Rembrandt’s ”Lucretia:” will show us.
Mark Rothko

Rembrandt: Lucretzia

The most I am able to do in this format lacking, as I do, details of the blouse which
reveal a color, texture and surface treatment of the medium that is as exciting as
some work by Willem de Kooning, is to point out that it exists.
Willem deKooning

The chandeliers as painted by Hefferman and Bloom also point up important

differences in perception. Where Hefferman painstakingly reveals all the essential
structural aspects of the chandelier and it would be possible for a glass blower to use
her work as a model for a reconstruction project, this would not be true of Bloom
who shows, or attempts to show us, the brilliance created by a chandelier and not
the chandelier itself. Which reality shall we choose, that of the structure or that of
the brilliance, and we must choose because another reality, the reality of vision itself,
human vision forbids us to see both at the same time. Try studying the structure of
a fully lighted chandelier to find out what I mean.

The Caravaggio, unfortunately is not clear enough an image to show us the

fascinating detail that he, at the age of 23, shows us on the ground by the feet of
Joseph and Mary. Not only does he practically give us an encyclopedic graphic
notation of the plants available in the area, but he, near Joseph, details the numbers
and sizes of stones that are found and the quality of the dust. This difference by the
way, that is, the lushness at the feet of the virgin, and the barrenness at Joseph’s feet
seems to be Caravaggio’s adaptation of the doctrinal idea of the virgin birth
and the belief that Joseph was not the father of the child. Between the angel’s head
and Joseph’s head the detail of the cluster of oak leaves seems to illustrate his
delight in both the intricate details of nature and his own abilities to reproduce it in
paint. This, not so by the way, is an important fact to remember in light of the fact
that in later work Caravaggio has eliminated that sort of detail and most effectively
concentrates on the more massive and dramatic distribution of forms. Changes of
this order are evidences of creative minds at work.

On the subject of detail and as detail relates to “reality” the Nerdrum, the Bloom
drawing of the “wood” or that of the “Beggar”, Durer’s drawing of a rabbit, Paul
Cadmus’ drawing of a male nude reclining and Ivan Le Lorraine Albright’s self
portrait all contain illustrative detailing that might encourage us to label all these
works as realistic…and they all are, but with very significant differences where the
idea of detailing has been pushed, shoved, shaped, molded or subtly blended into an
orchestration so that what we get is a very different message in each case. So, once
again, we find our vocabulary insufficient to adequately describe those aspects of
“realistic” art about which we become more and more aware. In point of fact it does
appear as though the functioning realism is not in the subject of the work, but in the
attitude if the artist. Considering that shift in our analysis how might an artist
answer the question, so often asked, “are you a realist painter?” The questioner more
than likely does not understand that his question can make no sense to the artist
who must, if he is honest, always answer “yes”…quite certain that the questioner
will not understand the answer, especially since he doesn’t understand the question,
unless, of course, as an alternative, the artist is willing to begin a lecture on the
subject.

Sometimes comparing works by different artists is helpful, not at all to decide which
I the better one, but simply to clarify existing characteristics by seeing additional
alternatives. This person did that and another person did something else. In this
regard my mind turned to Arthur Rackham , an English illustrator of children’s
books who delicacy and sophistication in draughtsmanship reminded me somewhat
of Hefferman. While I have some questions about the appropriateness of some of
Rackham’s subject matter in terms of their employment as illustrations in children’s
book, yet I must remind myself that both he and the books he illustrated came out
of the Victorian era and they, without doubt, had some rather odd ideas about what
might be appropriate for children. But there seemed to be something more that
Rackham and Hefferman had in common and I think it may be that little
something that appears to be just somewhat off color which turns innocence into the
scalpel of seduction.

Arthur Rackham illustrations for children’s books

And, as a matter of fact, just a little step more, or maybe just a slip in one direction
or another and we find ourselves in the neighborhood of Odilon Redon.
Odilon Redon

The committed realist will observe that there is little reality in a weeping, ten-legged
spider.

It would seem after all if the above us that the only conclusion one can legitimately
arrive at is that reality is a matter of a personal point of view. How trite this
conclusion is! It seems to have no more significant a value than its constant
repetition by a busy and partially aware housewife attending a PTA meeting forcing
herself to be polite while listening to the half truths of not fully formed professional
teachers when she knows her children much better than anyone else having carried
and nursed them for one intensive year , or more. What academic degree can take
the place of that?

Yet, the illusion that there is an identifiable reality persists and decade after decade
art critics and historians persist and arrogantly insisting that they know what they
are talking about. Well, in that limited definition of reality of course they are right,
as right as some horse wearing blinders is correct in believing that if walks only in
the direction in which can clearly see he will be safe. I do not know, or course,
whether the horse has any “belief” in this regard or not/ The blinders were out there
by the man so that should any sideways sudden activity occur the horse would not
bolt. My, how conventional…a convention imposed upon the horse by humans, and
how un horse-like! They, generally, without blinders are looking every which way.
Now the question remains what would our reality be like if, in our academic single
file progress, we took the blinders off?

Is it sufficient for us to realize that reality can exist only when there is change, that
is, development, and that when that ceases, there is no more reality? In other words,
perhaps, we do not recognize a reality until we have left it?

As for the creativity of Hefferman and Nerdrum. It obviously doesn’t exist in their
technical abilities, impressive as those are, for there are thousands of other artists
who have perfected techniques. Is it possible that their creativeness resides only in
their effort to restructure who they are, to find the kernels of their beings
somewhere in the middle or a corner of all the dross that masses itself about them.
What they both seem to have in common in addition to their technical abilities is an
egocentricity that seems to deter the growth they seek. He who would save his life
shall lose it. Change seems to be a requirement for life. The rather self-conscious
gothic-tale like presence of Hefferman gets a little worn after awhile and Nerdrum
egocentric erotic self-pride is certainly an aesthetic bore. The fascination that may
exist in an erect penis is limited, I think, to the one with it and to the second person,
if there is one, who may be the stimulus for it. In terms of the formal qualities that
go into the production of a work of art I think both these characteristics,
outstanding as they are ( pun intended) can not play a significant role in aesthetic
considerations. They are beside the point.