William Sartain Thomas Eakins and Alfred Maurer - Ramblings

Yesterday Amy mentioned the shoes in the painting, The Aqueduct. I checked the image here on the website and on the postcard I had purchased from the museum. Feet, I could barely see the figure let alone the feet. Being able to see the details is a good reason to go to the museum. Not only did I get to see those feet, I was also able to study the figure a bit closer. The shoes looked like they had been in the dust and dirt around Algiers for some time, perhaps the person's favorite shoes. Or maybe his only pair – for me the person is male. Talking with one of the Security officers she and I vacillated but then decided at least for the day the figure was a man. After coming to that conclusion we spent quite a bit of time looking at the sky. Sartain has a fine combination of green and blue surrounding those arches. The painting is as much about the sky as it is the arches of the aqueduct. (On the left is Sartain's self portrait.)

Alfred Maurer appeared on my right, tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me of a couple of things as I talked with the Security officer. "Willy and Tom Eakins were good friends. They went to grammar and high school together as well as Paris. Tom also dated Emily Sartain, Willy's sister, but that's an anecdote for another day." Maurer feels a bond with Sartain since they both had poor relationships with their fathers. Wanting to change the subject, Maurer insisted that we go look at his portrait of George Washington and his wall mate, Annette Kaufman. They both hang in the gallery next to the The Aqueduct. Maurer enjoys the beauty of Annette Kaufman everyday. She is certainly luminous in the painting by Milton Avery. The sparkle in her eyes lets you know she's a force to reckon with. Maurer nudged me and I told the Security officer that of all of the painters and portraits in the room where we were standing, Kaufman is the only person still alive. At 95, she still lectures, discussing the music of her husband Louis Kaufman. Maurer grinned when he thought about the beautiful Annette Kaufman and the red shoes he imagines her wearing. Of the four he asked me to publish only the last pair would probably be appropriate for walks on the roads outside of Algiers. These photos were all taken last summer in Manhattan on some of the same streets that the Kaufmans, Eakins, Maurer, and Sartain all have walked.

Red Shoes

I was standing with the Aquaduct, fairly close to it, writing about it, when I began a line about the figure's bare feet. So I got closer and saw that the feet aren't bare at all, they have tiny red shoes on, red like dried blood. Almost black. Why, I wondered, did I think the person would be barefoot? I suppose I assumed it was a made up place, a made up person, a made up wall. In made up places I go barefoot. But this is a real person and probably a real wall. Nothing really all that mysterious about it.
The realization of the red shoes excited me, like a secret. I suddenly knew something I didn't know a moment before and that I felt fairly confident a lot of other people who have looked at this piece didn't know.
This speaks to the sense of ownership we feel about art after we spend a length of time with it. When we see it change when the light changes. When our mood directs us to understand things about it that we didn't see when we were in a different head space. The art keeps opening to us and we feel more and more like it belongs to us, not just as an object of some value monetarily, but as a kindred spirit.
It acts as a placeholder in our memories. A painting that hung on my bedroom wall as a child now hangs on the wall of my niece. It marks a period of time in my life, like a box of letters would.
The docent art show at the church across from the museum opened yesterday. The range of mediums, subject matter and style is impressive. It is the first time I have been surrounded by artwork of people I know so that I am not guessing what the artist is like, I am interpreting the art through the person I already know, and thereby deepening both the bond I feel with them as well as a deeper appreciation of the work.

William Sartain and Alfred Maurer -- Alike in So Many Ways

William Sartain and Alfred Maurer were both painters. They also both had fathers involved in the printing business. Alfred Maurer's father Louis had been a Currier and Ives lithographer and ran a lithography venture, Maurer and Heppenheimer. Alfred apprenticed there before moving on to his painting career. Recall from our Maurer week, Louis Maurer never approved of his son's painting and withheld his approval during the seventeen years they lived together after Alfred returned from Europe. Alfred committed suicide in the doorway to his father's room two weeks after his father's death at one hundred years of age.

William Sartain followed his father into the engraving world. His father, John Sartain, was known as the most accomplished engraver in America. William or Willy as his friends called him trained as an engraver with his father, apprenticed to his brother Samuel, fought in the Civil War and subsequently helped his father on commissions without recompense. His work was picked up by one publisher. Being a smart business person, Willy invested that money in government bonds. From those proceeds and continued revenue from royalties, he was able to achieve his dream of becoming a painter, spending eight years in Europe.

However, much like Alfred Maurer, he sought his father's approval. And much like Maurer that approval was denied to him. So you'll have a better appreciation of how bad their relationship was, keep in mind Sartain was back in the United States in time for the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. His father who was in charge of the American painting section made certain his son's work was not accepted. At some point as a result of this type of rejection, Sartain destroyed much of his early work. Fortunately for Sartain and for us, his father died in 1897 and was not able to continue such unbridled rejection of his son.

The mezzotint shown in today's posts is what John Sartain wanted his son to continue to create. William Sartain was driven to create more and ventured forth to paint beautiful tonal landscapes, Oriental paintings and many portraits before his death in 1924.

In his letter William Sartain says "the sun is the life of everything here." Yesterday my husband and I hiked Coyote Wall and the Labyrinth, a gorge trail just east of Bingen, Washington. It was one of the best days I have had in a long time. The sun was shining, all the spring grass was that vibrant green and tiny wildflowers were blooming all over the cliff faces. The streams were trickling off the rock walls and the forest was damp and cool but not cold. It was where "the curious things are" as Sartain would say. I could have, like Sartain in Algeria, sat and sketched and listened for weeks in the new exotic place where I found myself. In the forest the birds were chirping and I felt like the "rapt audience" Sartainmentions in his letter.

Algeria’s history, something I know nothing about and had to google, goes back farther than many surviving cultures. The first inhabitants go back to the Neolithic period. 8000 years ago the nomadic population there began making rock paintings on the walls of caves, as in the picture seen here. Today, cave art is the most famous example of Algerian painting, and caves are the most visited tourist attractions for art in the country, acting as museums.

I recently attended a lecture at PNCA given by W.J.T. Mitchell http://http://www.pnca.edu/exposure/pncafive/600/pncafive-idea-studio-lecture-on-visual-studies, he talked about the future of the image by relating it to the past. One theme he stated was the use of animals in art, that what we will do to the animal we will do to the human. That by looking at the image of the past we see where the future of the image is going.

It was a fascinating lecture, slides of Lascaux cave paintings juxtaposed to images from the movie Jurrasic Park where the dinosaur gets caught in the beam of a light projector that plasters text against his scales.....anyway, the fact that the Aquaduct is related to Algeria and that it is a wall not unlike the inside of a cave and that these people were some of the original cave painters and that at least according to Mitchell the future of the image can only be understood through the study of the past of the image places Sartain somewhere along that time line. And I guess the place I would like to do my deep thinking about it is in the Gorge atop Coyote Wall on a sunny spring day.

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.