William Sartain in Algiers

Looking at the two paintings yesterday, I was drawn to Arabian Village showing the solitary figure on a roadway. Much like the Aqueduct it has a haunting feeling for me -- a glimpse at a undiscovered world. In The Aqueduct the woman is looking out into a vast open area. I see the figure in Arabian Village looking past me into the same vast openness. Algeria was where William Sartain had gone in November 1874 with his friend Charles Pearce who frequently wintered there. Wanting to be prepared for his Oriental experience, Sartain began studying Arabic on the boat from Marseilles. Once in Algiers he used those language skills to explore the Arab quarter leaving his room in a house near the Kasbah almost daily. In a letter, he wrote:

“I walked over the Arab quarter the other night, winding about all the intricate streets without fear. The effects are wonderfully fine, much more so than by daylight. Some of the cafes that appear by daylight mere black holes now appear long vaulted room with most mysterious effects in all the little angles and corners ... Part of these rainy days, I spend on my grammar ... I have had finally a genuine Arab pose all day for me, & pose very well too. He is going to bring another one whom he says is very good. So I feel after all that I am not going to be confined to interiors & street scenes only ... I bought myself a pair of Arab trousers. Also a woman’s gold thread scarf. ... I am going to get a cap. Some worn out jacket and vest, a belt -- also the toga -- burnous it is called. That will make a complete outfit ... There is one little word pronounced ph’ta which is the worst feature of the place. It means winter and also (the same word) rain. For ten days we've scarcely seen the sun and the sun is the life of everything here. My compagnon [Charles Pearce] was in despair out at Mustapha .. So he has come into town & is my neighbor -- using my success by employing the models I have found.”

Here is a view of a cafe from one of Sartain's walks. He wrote that he sat in Arab cafes absorbing everything Arabic, sketching, writing listening. He wrote of story-tellers who had rapt audiences. He continued to practice his Arabic and found that it got him closer to where “the curious things are.” The curious continued to fascinate him so much so that in a letter dated January 11, 1875 he wrote “I have had my beard and head shaved -- and have to go about with a silk handkerchief on. Among such a shaved population I thought it a favorable opportunity to invigorate.” In addition to learning the language and shaving, Sartain adopted Arab dress assimilating to the point that he witnessed at least one funeral and was invited to festivals. George Demirgian who spoke fluent Arabic joined Sartain and Pearce in Algiers. Sartain spent more and more time with Demirgian and in another letter Sartain wrote: “Demirgian & I have given up French cooking and get our meals at an Arab restaurant ... Some of the dishes are full of peppers some perfumed -- all are very good ...”

Sartain reluctantly left Algiers when his friends Pearce and Demirgian booked passage back to Paris. Even though he was no longer in the exotic land he had grown to love, he had his memories and sketches. He was able to use those to paint canvases later in Paris and New York. Today we have paintings such as The Aqueduct, Arabian Village and Algerian Cafe to travel back in time and experience a few of those exotic moments.

Other Sartain Pieces

To get a scope of the man, take a look at his work. I am going upstairs now to write a poem inspired by him. When I get back I won't have this computer, or this desk any longer. Somehow it seems fitting that after the Aquaduct experience my whole world will be different.

The Aqueduct - William Sartain

William Sartain (1843 -1924) left for Paris after the Civil War to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He joined any number of other young artists from the United States who were quite tired of the conservative and provincial practices of the established art world here in America. But Paris didn't provide enough interest for Sartain's taste in landscape, so he sought adventure in Algiers, sketching both the countryside and sights of the towns.

The Aqueduct was inspired by that trip and clearly shows the fascination that many nineteenth century artists had for the exotic. This is a moody piece and one we chose for the week here and in the April Poetry Challenge. We can only guess where this woman was going and what she was thinking, just as we can only guess where the week will take us. However, unlike the enigma of the painting. the outcome of the week will be known in six more days.

Artist Talk, April 9th, Next Thursday

The theme for the week of the Japanese Screen and Michael Knutson was a way to remind everyone to come to the artist talk. The talk will consist of two pieces, the second piece, Mercury and Herse, seen here, is from the same time, around 1650. Mark your calendars to draw comparisons and meet the man- and LaValle and I.

Japanese Screens and Aerial Photography

If the screens of The Shrines of Itsukushima and Wakanoura can be thought of as a bird's eye view of that part of Japan, I decided to take a look at what the aerial photography of Japan looks like today. Yann Arthus-Bertrand's website is full of aerial photographs from all over the world, including Japan. All of the images are stunning. However this one of landscape filled with Japan's new agriculture caught my eye for a number of reasons. I could easily see, patterns moving across the frame with each having its own textural qualities. Arthus-Bertrand has this to say about these Greenhouses between Nara and Osaka.

Since the 1960s, Japan has undergone important changes in agriculture, including the development of dairy farming and fruit production, and the increase in industrial production of meat. These changes are reshaping the rural Japanese landscape. Vinyl greenhouses for the intensive farming of fruit and early vegetables have multiplied in the suburban areas of the main cities such as Tokyo and Osaka. They have even extended into such traditional rice-growing areas as the plain of Nara, the island of Honshu, and even Okoyama, to the point of supplanting rice altogether. Traditional crops such as blackberries, tea, wheat, and barley are diminishing to such an extent that Japan must import large quantities of wheat, barley, and silk. Just 30 years ago, Japan was the largest silk exporter in the world.

Japan's dietary changes are affecting not only the people but also the landscape. How would a screen painter paint these scenes? It's easier for me to see an abstractionist take on that project than a painter from the 17th century.

Japanese Screens FYI

Seriously? No one has anything to say about Rilke? I didn't know much about him other than his name, then I started reading his letters and whoosh, he floored me. I certainly didn't know his mother used to dress him as a little girl and tried to make him act like one. She had lost an infant daughter before him. This has little to do with our screens or Michael Knutson, but Rilke: if you have any opinion on the guy whatsoever- I'd like to know what it is.

Now, back to the point. The folding Japanese screen originated in China and was adopted by Japan in the Eighth Century. By the Momoyama era (say this out loud, it's fun to move your lips that way) (1568-1615) with some design changes, screens became the focal point of the home. Traditionally the dwelling consisted of open rooms with little or no furniture (because as I alluded to in the poem, the chair was invented -and should take at least 30 percent of the blame for the incredible statistic regarding our addiction to pain killers- much later.) Anyway, the rooms could be divided by opening or closing painted sliding doors fusuma, and screens. (I could use a set of those for the one room studio I live in with my husband.)

Screens softened the space. They were often used as a backdrop behind an important person (I think we're all important) or to create another area for eating or sleeping. The gold and silver had another function -and that was to reflect the light of the oil lamps. (This must have made for an ethereal atmosphere for those cloud filled stories.)

Some screens are inspired by Chinese designs and others by Japanese stories and ideas. One trick to finding out where your object is from, is to count the number of claws on a dragon; four for Chinese, three for Japanese and five for Korean.

Our screens are a pair, that's often how they were created, as sets. They have even sets of panels, from two to eight. Originally I read the screen backwards, from left to right, and had to read it right to left to understand it. I found out it is also helpful to view the screen from a low position looking slightly up. This gives you the best chance to see the screen as the artist intended.

Japanese Screens and Enfolding Fields

Thinking about the shapes and colors in The Shrines of Itsukushima and Wakanoura, I decided to take a look at Michael Knutson's paintings. This video shows his art from the recent show Enfolding Fields at Blackfish Gallery here in Portland. Knutson is currently drawing and painting spirals that to some look like colliding universes. Watching the video, I could see how at some point Knutson could have been attracted to the scenes in Japanese screens such as The Shrines of Itsukushima and Wakanoura. The screens treat us to a bird's eye view of a moment in time, much as a aerial photograph would today. The elements of the scene do become shapes that interconnect with each other.

The old saying "curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought him back" drove me to do a google search on Michael Knutson.  Sure enough I found Knutson and screen linked at an interview with Geoform. The interview comprises two parts that not only give a peek into how Knutson constructs his work but also a retrospective of how it developed over the years. Deep into the article (on the second page), I found the following reference to Japanese screens...

Nambam Diptych began with a 17th century Japanese screen in mind. The screen represents a bird’s eye view of a port city, and the buildings, visible through breaks in stylized, low-lying clouds, are set on parallel diagonals. The structures in my version are, of course, eccentric and non-parallel, but I thought of the space in the painting as seen from a high and hovering point of view. Like in Nighttown, its solid colored shapes are grouped in zig-zags of three planes. Some of the shapes seemed comical and animate—a reemergence of the figural impulse.

From the article I gather that it has taken Knutson many years to get to the point of seeing what the interviewer described in the statement: "Spiraling lattices of tightly interlocked forms seem to be a perfect vehicle to achieve your goal of creating what you've (Knutson) called an "all-over enmeshed space."  The interview is an excellent read. For those of us visually oriented it is also filled with images of Knutson's art from his early years in school through the present. And you can see more of  his current work in the video  above "Enfolding Fields", narrated by Carol Benson, Knutson's wife. Click here to read the interview.