Art Masters

Solving Mysteries with Science Geeks in the Museum Basement

When I was a child, one of my favorite books was The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E.L. Konigsburg. If you’ve never heard of it, it is about two children who run away from home and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While staying there, they try to solve the mystery of whether a sculpture in the museum is really by Michelangelo. This book led me to desperately wish to one day live in the museum and solve an art mystery.

As a result, I am still quite enamored with the behind-the-scenes aspects of museums. So many potential riddles to solve, all tucked away in basements. The part that particularly fascinates me is the conservation lab. You probably had no idea that as you look at that Monet, beneath your feet is a lab with fume hoods and huge scary equipment like scanning electron microscopes. This is where the very technical work of analyzing, restoring and repairing the artworks takes place.

The scanning electron miscroscope at the Getty’s Conservation Institute. See, it is so complicated looking! I am having bad chem lab flashbacks already!

It always makes me a little sad that I will never get to be a conservator. Not to discount my ability to be anything I want to be in life, but conservators are a rare breed. They must be part science-geek and part art historian, while also being an accomplished artist in their own right. Not only that, they had to have known from the beginning of their academic careers what they hoped to do. After all, how many people just happen to double major in chemistry and art history?

As an intern at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, I often would follow the lab coats hoping to catch a glimpse of what they did behind those heavy doors in the basement. So as a master’s student I felt lucky to be required to take a course in conservation. Like most people who end up in the humanities, chemistry has never been my strong suit. It was a bit intimidating to be forced to understand all that sciencey stuff (yeah, that’s a technical term). The final project for the course required me to work with a conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was supposed to look at an artwork from the collection and use science to understand how it was made.

I was assigned a piece of Islamic ceramics known as minai ware, which are from medieval Persia (modern Iran) from 1179-1219. When I say a piece, I mean literally, a piece of a bowl, which is probably why I was left alone with it – I mean, how much damage could I do to something that was already broken? But at the time, I couldn’t believe that anyone would let me touch something from the 13th century, let alone leave me to my own devices with it. It was the first time I felt like I was really an art history professional, not someone who just liked pretty pictures.

Minai bowl from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

So with this new responsibility, I worked on figuring out its secrets. It was amazing what the science could tell me. The conservator at the Met helped me use the X-Ray Fluorescence machine, which uses x-rays to determine the elemental makeup of an object. This machine allowed us to identify the minerals used in the different pigments, such as cobalt for blue and hematite for red.

My bowl sort of looked like this one, but you know, broken

He gave me a study that a previous Met conservator had done on this type of ceramics, which used four methods to analyze them: surface examination under magnification, reflected light microscopy of mounted glaze cross sections, open architecture X-ray diffraction analysis for the identification of crystalline phases, and scanning electron microscopy–energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry for elemental analysis.

Huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought too.

Basically, they used those big crazy machines to magnify down to the teeniest layers of the surface of the bowls. As a result, they found out that some of the colors were put onto the unfired base glaze (inglazing) and some were put on over the fired base glaze (overglazing).  This means that each piece is fired three times: once to form the bowl itself; twice with a base glaze and certain colors (usually blue and sometimes black); and thrice with the rest of the colors applied as enamels. If you know anything about ceramics (don’t worry, I didn’t either), each time a vessel is fired, it is a risk. It is easy for things to go wrong in the process, in which case you will have to start over. So each of these vessels would have faced that risk three times before completion.

While this all seemed interesting to know, it wasn’t until two years later that I realized the significance. At the time, I didn’t know anything about Islamic art or all that much about ceramics really. But after that semester my interests changed and most of my coursework in graduate school focused on Islamic and Indian art.

This year I am a TA for a course on Islamic Art. The professor for the class showed one of these bowls in lecture and told the class that they were expensive because of the materials used and because they had to be fired twice. This sparked something in my memory. I raised my hand tentatively, and told him, “I worked on this with a conservator at the Met.”

“Oh no, don’t tell me it is a fake!” he groaned. (Fakes are a constant problem for museums, but that is another story.)

“No,” I told him, “But they are actually fired three times, because some of the colors are done with inglazing.”

I was shocked to hear that he had never heard this. But when I found the article the conservator had given me, I saw that it was only published in the Met’s conservation center newsletter. This is hardly a well-read journal – it is all of 12 pages long and not widely distributed. (“I must have missed that issue,” my professor quipped.) Therefore, these vessels were even more expensive to produce than scholars have realized and hardly anyone even knows about it.

This helps to explain why these beautiful ceramics were only produced for about 40 years. After that, the technique was abruptly abandoned, which is usually attributed to the Mongol invasion in the subsequent years. Other ceramics traditions however, continue on after this momentous turning point in Islamic art history. This scientific discovery sheds light on the technological developments of medieval Islamic ceramics. Minai wares are the first that use inglazing and overglazing techniques on the same vessels, which is, again, something most scholars don’t realize. It is surprising that the people who can find out the chemical makeup of artworks are not really connecting with those who study how they were made and the social conditions of their creation.

So, I didn’t exactly figure this secret out myself. But by taking the time to understand the scientific findings, I was able to make the connection that others had been missing and teach a professor something he didn’t know. Hopefully as art historians learn to not fear the sciencey stuff, we will be able to jointly make new discoveries that combine technology and aesthetics. Until then, I’m going to keep hunting for mysteries. And picking out the period room I’ll be sleeping in at the Met.

Probably this one!

Bedroom from the Sagredo Palace, Venice, c. 1718

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This was again in answer to the question, What do people like us do? If you have questions, let us know here and we’ll try to answer them in our blog.

Can You Dig It?

Our loyal reader Verbal Remedy asked just what exactly people like us do all day. Our parents would like to know the same thing. If you have a specific art question or favorite piece you’d like us to talk about, please let us know. We will answer them here in our blog. [Small plug: If you live near New York City, you can check us out in person at one of our tours. See www.artmasterstours.com for a schedule.]

I think that as Art Historians we are likely perceived as occupying the penthouse of the academic ivory tower, but there are many of us who are seriously down to earth (and in some cases, below sea level)!

What do we DO every day?  Sit in libraries and research mostly.  Go to class, write papers…it’s like college on steroids, and admittedly boring.  Trawling around in the basement of a museum is novel; seeing things we are accustomed to seeing on pedestals and behind glass plunked unceremoniously on dark, dusty shelves.  The sort of work you’re doing will dictate how long it will take for the novelty to wear off.  It’s been my experience that it dissipates rather quickly.

I am not a museum person.  That isn’t to say that I don’t LOVE museums and spend every spare moment I can in one.  I do.  But I didn’t go to graduate school so that I could work in a museum. I’m more of a “field” art historian than a “desk” variety.  I went to school to be an archaeologist and a teacher.  If you think it would be a thrill to see a sculpture in a basement, imagine seeing it half in the ground, right where it fell; knowing that yours are the first eyes to see it in a thousand years!

As for my favorite pieces, there are…millions!  I’ll elaborate on specific, famous ones later (I’m am seriously hot for Roman portrait sculpture and wall-painting though).  The one nearest and dearest to my heart however is a humble piece of architectural sculpture from a 1st century CE arcade in Aphrodisias, Turkey.  I found it.

Aphro (as we call it) was one of the most important cities in the Roman east in that period for several reasons, chief among them: its spectacular white marble.  While most cities in the region were built of stone, Aphro is built of marble.  A booming trade grew up around the resource, including a workshop of sculptors respected the (Roman) world over.  In a culture that did not afford any status to artist, Aphrodisian sculptors proudly signed their distinctive, baroque work and proclaimed their provenance.  One such piece famously adorned the Villa of Hadrian at Tivoli…they were THAT good!

Map of the Site of Aphrodisias, Turkey

It follows that the city itself was highly decorated with sculptural adornments.  One such flourish was the sculpted pilaster capitals, which adorned the arcade along the main civic avenue (Main St., Aphrodisias).  The street was excavated in front of the sanctuary of Aphrodite in the 80s, and some twenty of these capitals were discovered and are now on display in the on-site museum.  Almost all of them show bucolic scenes of erotes (aka puti or cupids), which is in keeping with the symbolism of the city’s patron deity, Aphrodite.

Eros capitol excavated in 1980 from in front of the Precinct of Aphrodite, Aphrodisias, Turkey.  Photo: Author

When we began excavation of the area to the south of the sanctuary this summer, we expected to find more.  Excavation was slow due to heavy Ottoman and Byzantine occupation in the area, but in the final weeks I managed to reach Roman levels, and indeed, discovered one such capitol.  The photos show the slow process of excavation, it took over 5 hours to extract the artifact using wooden skewers and dental tools (lest we scratch or otherwise mar the piece).

The “Goat Grabber” commeth!  As he first appeared in the ground. Photo: Author

Further excavated.  Photo: Author

Me, workin’ it! Photo: I. Lockey

At first I though, milking, but there’s no bucket.  That’s when we dubbed him the “Aphrodisian goat grabber!”  I shared photos with my family as well as our quandary.

During conservation, he’s still really dirty, but you get the idea. Photo: Author

My aunt, an accomplished and very proper rider of horses wrote me back:
“Evidently, you are without anyone around with “vet” experience; about the only reason your fellow would have his hand inside the goat would be checking for a baby, delivering said baby or pushing back a prolapsed uterus; don’t think there are any “jollies” involved with a goat hand job, for either party involved!”

I’ve since developed a theory; the bucolic scenes of erotes from outside the sacred precinct all carry a theme of spring, as does our peasant-farmer.  Birthing of animals takes place in the spring, and the area 50 meters to the south of the sanctuary is adorned with a secular representation of the season.  Only time will tell if I am correct, years of excavation may bring to light other seasons or ever-more secular representations along the 300 or more yards of avenue yet to be excavated.

God I love archaeology!

Leslie

Jackson Pollock: WTF?

From time to time, we will be answering your questions or comments.  If you have something you would like answered, please leave it in the comments. The first one we received was from Verbal Remedy, who asks simply: “Jackson Pollock, WTF?” We both are taking a stab at this one.

Leslie:

WTF indeed!  I mean…you could probably do the same.  In fact, take a moment to try: www.jacksonpollock.org.

A classical archaeologist myself, I probably seem like the least qualified species of art historian to broach such a query, but the truth is, I might be the most.  I am not in the business of looking at art made for art’s sake, but rather that made as a tool for the dissemination and propagation of political and religious propaganda. It is necessary therefore, to look at the socio-historical circumstances in which the piece was made with the same scrutiny as the aesthetics.

That’s not to say that modern art is not imbued with socio-political messages, but generally the betterment of the artist’s career is as much a concern.  Artists had little to no status in ancient classical society therefore self-promotion was pointless.  

Was Pollock in the business of self-promotion?  Hell yes.  

As is the case with so many “great” people, Pollock had good timing and even better PR.  Until the 1940’s, the center of the known art universe had been Paris, but an outspoken and well-connected group of Harvard-educated art critics, led by Clement Greenberg, brought new focus and authority to contemporary American Art.

Greenberg’s most influential essay written in 1939 for The Partisan Review is entitled: “Avant-Garde and Kitsch.”  In the essay he defines Soviet state art as “kitsch” (a word he is oft credited with coining) versus American art, or the “Avant-Garde,” in which there is a freedom of expression.  Greenberg was a champion of Pollock and his band of abstract expressionists.  

The global political climate was ripe for just that kind of sensationalism, which brought a great deal of attention to this group of misfit artists.  In 1949, Life magazine featured a story on Pollock, the not so subtle tongue-in-cheek sub-title of which read: “Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?”

“Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?” 1949, Courtesy Life Magazine

America answered that question with a resounding “Yes!”  Pollock’s work served as a background for Cecil Benton’s March, 1951 fashion photo shoot for American Vogue.  Pollock reached an unprecedented level of popular recognition for a fine artist; not even Picasso made it into the mailboxes of middle America.

1951, Courtesy Vogue

To top the whole thing off, Pollock achieved the ultimate publicity stunt; he died at the height of his fame and popularity in 1956 at the age of 44.  His death was a virtual suicide; Pollock drunkenly crashed his car a mile form his home, one of his two young female passengers, Ruth Kligman, the girlfriend he shared with Willem DeKooning, survived.  

None of this is to say that Pollock’s work is without aesthetic merit.  I, for one, really like his paintings.  But why did he do them?  Here’s the short version:  In the 1930’s, Pollock studied under Thomas Benton at the Art Students League of New York.  The influence of Benton’s regionalism is apparent in Pollock’s early work.

Jackson Pollock, Going West, 1934-35 

The important thing to understand about his early work is its figurative nature, because it was this that he sought to eradicate with his “action” technique.  He felt that line ultimately delineated figures; when a figure began to emerge in one of his paintings, Pollock erased it or painted it over.  When he felt that he had sufficiently eliminated any references to the figure in his monumental works of the 1940’s, Pollock set out on a new mission; to use his technique and reintroduce the figure, but to do so without the use of line.  Instead, he used cut-outs.  This was the direction Pollock was going at the time of his death.

Jackson Pollock, Untitled (Cut Out), 1951 

Pollock was the first to paint the way he did, and he did it in an environment starved for a culture to call its own. He was lucky in a lot of ways, but also, he had a process, he was working out his own artistic demons on the canvas:

“My painting does not come from the easel. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the paintings.”- Jackson Pollock, 1949

Karla:

“Why is this in a museum? I could do that! My kid could do that!”

This is perhaps the most universally expressed sentiment about Jackson Pollock’s paintings. I hear some variation of this nearly any time I am near one of his works. People actually seem to find the fact that they feel capable of producing something like it to be extremely aggravating.

What I think is important to understand is that Abstract Expressionism — a name given to the works of extremely varied painters working in the 1940-50s, of which Pollock is most famous – is all about the creation. The process was more important than the product. It was subconscious and spontaneous – Pollock poured paints from buckets as he moved across huge canvases unfurled on the floor.

Jackson Pollock, One: Number 31, 1950, Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York

The key to appreciating these works is to experience them, not think about them. First of all, if you haven’t seen Jackson Pollock’s works in person, you haven’t seen them. Much like a Van Gogh, the materiality of the paint, the thick splotches and splatters, completely change the way the work is viewed. There are often bits of detritus from his workspace thrown in, both purposely and through happy accident. Close inspection of the surface reveals nails, washers, cigarette butts fallen absentmindedly from lips.

The more massive works such as One: Number 31, 1950 at MoMA or Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, are the best examples to understand what I mean by “experience.” One friend of mine compared Autumn Rhythm to a roller coaster ride, and I think that describes the power of them far better than anything I have read on Jackson Pollock. Next time you see one of his paintings, take the ride. Stare at the painting – don’t over think it, don’t write it off with a sarcastic one-liner. Just let your eyes fall somewhere and follow the swirls.

Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950, Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Lines in paintings often lead your eyes exactly where the painter intends for them to go. Pollock’s lines are no different. He often said that his paintings weren’t accidents and he kept dancing across those canvases dribbling paint until it looked exactly how he pictured it in his head. The splattered lines pull you across the surface, flip around and dive down to the edge. Your eyes are tossed over the top and shot out the other side and you start to feel the movement of his vision, the process of the painting.

As Leslie discussed above, Pollock was also quite adept at selling himself and by extension his paintings, which were a record of his creative impulse. And yes, you could do that — so why didn’t you?

Meet Leslie

“Twenty percent of you are going to fail, and if you don’t like those odds, get out!”

And so began my career in art history. It was Western Art History 1, ancient through Medieval, at the University of Vermont, I was in an auditorium with 150 other students and a fair number did, indeed, walk out.  I was already a declared art history major, with a thing for the expressionists and didn’t expect to get anything other than a requirement out of the survey class.  Who knew that the intimidating professor would ultimately change the course of my career?  That those lectures of Greece and Rome would give me goose bumps?  I was fascinated by the integration of socio-political and art history, so I changed my minor from studio art to archaeology and the rest, as we say, is art history.

I got my maters in art history and archaeology last year from NYU where I focused on the cultures and traditions of Ancient Greece and Rome.  I’ve spent the last two summers in Turkey excavating at the ancient Roman city of Aphrodisias, and have taught that very class that got me started so long ago.   Nothing tops a good discussion about an object in my book. The provenance, finish, function…these are the clues history has left for us to solve the mysteries of ancient culture, and it’s an approach I take to the study of all art, not only ancient.  I look forward to bringing some of that discussion here and welcome questions, thoughts and comments.

Leslie

If you have a specific art question or favorite piece you’d like us to talk about, please let us know. We will answer them here in our blog.

She Sees Her Lover See Her

My focus in graduate school has been on Indian art and people often ask what drew me to that field. The exoticism of India initially attracted my attention in high school and I enjoyed looking at the intriguing artworks in museums because they fascinated and mystified me. But my interest was more on the level of a hobby, not the scholarly attention that I devoted to the canon of European Art.

I didn’t actually study Indian art with any seriousness until I took a class on Couples in Art for graduate school. My research for that presentation introduced me to the subtlety and humor that make Indian paintings so rich and wonderful. There are often multiple levels of meaning, sly puns and beautifully executed details.

One of my favorite paintings is referred to as “A Glimpse of the Loved One,” or at times, “She Sees Her Lover See Her.” It is part of the collection at the San Diego Museum of Art and has a slightly fuzzy provenance. It is most likely from Rajasthan in Northern India and was painted in the mid-18th century. In the painting, a young woman sits in a courtyard getting ready after a bath and a maid holds a mirror in front of her. A gust of wind has suddenly pulled aside a curtain, revealing a man who is spying on the scene.

Lovers are a major theme of Rajasthani paintings. These works were painted for the rajas (kings) and their courtiers and often depict scenes of pleasure and opulence. But few things in Indian art exist on merely one level of interpretation. Lovers often serve as a metaphor for religious devotion – the desire for the worshipper to become one with the divine is likened to the human experience of sexual union. The act of “seeing” also has religious significance, since part of the Hindu rituals of worship involve looking upon the god to become closer to him.

The brilliance of the painting is in the interplay of gazes. The woman looks into the mirror expecting her own face, but we can see that the mirror holds the man’s face. She blushes and pulls her knees over her bare breasts as she sees him seeing her. In turn, the man can see that he has been caught out and recognizes a flush in the woman’s reflection that is at once embarrassment and pleasure. The maid too is involved – she is facing the man and has perhaps turned the mirror to quietly alert her mistress to his presence.

This work is to be considered on both the human level and on a metaphorically divine level. While this could just be a voyeur’s delight, it also can be seen as the curtain of mystery being lifted away from the face of the divinity. In a moment of religious clarity, the woman is united with her god. But these moments are rare and fleeting. The gust of wind passes, the curtain falls back into place, the mirror is tilted back toward the woman’s own face. But in that one moment, she sees him seeing her.

Karla

By way of introduction

When I was nine years old, I came to New York for the first time with my family. One of my clearest memories from the trip was going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That may have to do with the fact that in my excitement I got too close to the Arms and Armor displays and set off an alarm that brought the guards running in my direction. But I also remember being completely captivated by the treasures there – so much so that I begged my baseball-loving dad to forgo the Yankee game so that I could spend a bit more time.

My love for both art and New York has stuck with me ever since. After staying in sunny San Diego as an undergraduate, when it came time for graduate school, I knew that New York was the place for me. So I traded in my flip-flops for rain boots and my burritos for bagels. Now I dodge tourists on the sidewalk like a pro, have been known to wear all black and know most of the city’s museums well enough to navigate blindfolded. I feel that I am now irrevocably a New Yorker.

I started Art Masters Tours with my friend Leslie and we are now bringing our love of art to others. In light of our February tour of the month, “Sex, Love, and Symbolism: Couples in Art History,” I’ll be blogging about my favorite pieces on the theme. Check back for more soon.

Karla