Where Weinergate Stands in a Long (and Strange) Visual Tradition

New York Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner’s misadventures with his digital camera, Twitter account, and boxers have given us yet another “-gate”— Weinergate. But Weiner’s not the first male figure in power to make some display of his nether regions in a confusion of sexual and political power. Long before tweeting and sexting, kings secular (and sacred) made a point with their genitalia that contributed to a tradition that Weiner’s just the latest, strangest, and saddest to join. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Where Weinergate Stands in a Long (and Strange) Visual Tradition."

[Image: Hans Holbein the Younger. Portrait of Henry VIII (detail). 1536.]

Women and Children First: Thomas Lawrence’s Portraits

“Nobody has ever painted eyes, women’s eyes particularly, so well as Lawrence,” Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix wrote after visiting British painter Thomas Lawrence in 1825 and finding himself bowled over by his portraits. “And those parted lips which are completely charming. He is inimitable.” In the exhibition Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power and Brilliance, which runs at the Yale Center for British Art through June 5, 2011, Lawrence once again bowls over viewers with the ravishing beauty of his painted ladies, the subtly erotic attraction of his youthful subjects, and the powerful, peacock-like men hailing from the halls of power. Men ruled the day when Lawrence painted, yet today it seems as if it is the women and children who come first—not in the classic chivalric call of high seas lifesaving, but rather in a resurfacing and reevaluation of Lawrence’s art that may mark the salvation of the heyday of British portraiture. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Women and Children First."

[Image: Thomas Lawrence. Frances Hawkins and her Son, John James Hamilton, 1805–6. Oil on canvas. Abercorn Heirlooms Settlement Trustees.]

[Many thanks to the Yale Center for British Art and Yale University Press for the image above from and a review copy of the catalog to the exhibition Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power and Brilliance, which runs through June 5, 2011.]

Crowded Out

Along with Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens helped make the Antwerp school famous during its day. Born May 19, 1593, Jordaens was younger than Rubens and slightly older than van Dyck, who sandwich him in the minds of art historians today to the point of being crowded out, much as he crowded himself out in his Self-Portrait with Parents, Brothers, and Sisters (above, from 1615). Jordaens forces us to play some Dutch version of Where’s Waldo? to find him among the familial fray, and even squeezes in a pair of cherubs over his head to fill out the last empty space. The individuality of the portraits in this group recalls the touch and technique of van Dyck, whose portrait style took England by storm and continued to influence British artists centuries later. At the same time, the comedy of the crowded room, which reminds me of the “stateroom scene” from The Marx Brothers’ movie A Night at the Opera, follows the line of conventional Dutch genre painting illustrating daily life with all its ups and downs. Rubens and van Dyck walked with royalty, but Jordaens never lost his common touch, which may be why he’s become the Zeppo of the Antwerp School.

Rubens actually hired Jordaens to create larger-scale versions of some of his original designs—a common practice in the apprenticeship world of guilds. This outsourcing proves that Rubens recognized Jordaens’ talent as well as his Rubenesque style. Jordaens’ Prometheus (above, from 1640) reinterprets Rubens’ famous Prometheus Bound of 1611. First, Jordaens flips the composition of Prometheus Bound and the vulture, creating a mirror image. Next, he concentrates more on showing Prometheus’ anguish facially rather than through the contortion of his body, thus inserting a van Dyck style portrait into a Rubens. Finally, whereas Rubens left Prometheus alone on the crag to fight the vulture forever, Jordaens shows the moment at which Hermes comes to the rescue. It is almost as if Rubens was comfortable with the idea of eternal torment (perhaps reflecting an idea of man’s inherent sinfulness), whereas Jordaens couldn’t allow the story to not have a happy ending. Jordaens desire to save Prometheus falls in line with his happier view of humanity, flaws and all.

Of course, not everything is sunny in Jordaens’ world. The shadow of Caravaggio falls heavily on some of Jordaens more mysterious work, particularly the enigmatic Apparition by Night (above, undated). A young man tosses and turns in his sleep as a ghostly nude female figure walks across the room. Two women open the door to look in on the youth and their candle lights the room just enough for us to see the spectral seductress. Whereas Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro sharpened his scenes with the stark dark and light drama, Jordaens’ brand of chiaroscuro forces us to look as through a glass darkly. The nude ghost seems to walk not only in darkness but also underwater, making her murkier and more apparitional. I can’t help contrast Apparition by Night with Henry Fuseli’s Nightmare and Silence, which also muddy the visual waters to conjure ghosts in the night. Jordaens’ Apparition by Night seems almost Romantic by that association with Fuseli even though he paints a full two centuries before the “Romantic” age. Like the apparition, we see Jordaens only fleetingly in the shadows of his bigger countrymen, but wish we could see him in a stronger, more revealing light.