Hidden Van Gogh portrait identified by X-ray

The analysis of the painting 'Patch of Grass' by Vincent Van Gogh by means of an advanced form of non-destructive X-ray analysis allowed to reveal in unprecedented detail the original portrait, also by Van Gogh, over which the landscape was painted. This development will greatly facilitate the study of other 'over painted' works of art in the future. Credit: DESY Hamburg

A new technique allows pictures which were later painted over to be revealed once more. An international research team, including members from Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) and the University of Antwerp (Belgium), has successfully applied this technique for the first time to the painting entitled Patch of Grass by Vincent van Gogh. Behind this painting is a portrait of a woman.

It is well-known that Vincent van Gogh often painted over his older works. Experts estimate that about one third of his early paintings conceal other compositions under them. A new technique, based on synchrotron radiation induced X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, reveals this type of hidden painting. The techniques usually used to reveal concealed layers of paintings, such as conventional X-ray radiography, have their limitations.

Together with experts from the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in Hamburg and the Kröller-Müller Museum, TU Delft materials expert and art historian Dr Joris Dik, and University of Antwerp chemistry professor Koen Janssens therefore chose to adopt a different approach. The painting is subjected to an X-ray bundle from a synchrotron radiation source, and the fluorescence of the layers of paint is measured.

This technique has the major advantage that the measured fluorescence is specific to each chemical element. Each type of atom (e.g. lead or mercury) and also individual paint pigments can therefore be charted individually. The benefit of using synchrotron radiation is that the upper layers of paint distort the measurements to a lesser degree. Moreover, the speed of measurement is high, which allows relatively large areas to be visualised.

Patch of grass

This method was applied to a painting by Vincent van Gogh. The work in question, Patch of Grass, was painted by Van Gogh in Paris in 1887 and is owned by the Kröller-Müller Museum. Previous research had already discovered the vague outline of a head behind the painting. It was scanned at the synchrotron radiation source DORIS at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY in Hamburg using an intense but very small X-ray bundle. Over the course of two days, the area covering the image of a woman's head was scanned, measuring 17.5 x 17.5 cm.

The measurements enabled researchers to reconstruct the concealed painting in unparalleled detail. In particular the combination of the distribution of the elements mercury and antimony (from specific paint pigments) provided a 'colour photo' of the portrait which had been painted over.

The reconstruction enables art historians to understand the evolution of Van Gogh's work better. The applied technique is expected to pave the way for research into many other concealed paintings.

The scientific article can be found here.

The Silvermine Guild, 75 Years Later

June 28, 1998
By BESS LIEBENSON
The New York Times

A TRIO of exhibitions will celebrate Solon Borglum and the Silvermine Guild that he founded 75 years ago. Altogether they offer a feast of art and nature. ''Solon Borglum: Silvermine Visionary,'' on display through Sept. 6 at the Viewing Room of Silvermine Galleries in New Canaan, will highlight the bronze portrait sculptures of Borglum, a rancher in Nebraska and sculptor of Western themes: horses, cowboys and Indians. The younger brother of Gutzon Borglum (who carved the four heads on Mount Rushmore), Solon taught at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design in New York, established his own School of American Sculpture in Manhattan, wrote a book on sculpturing called ''Sound Construction,'' and won awards for his sculpture in Paris as well as in the United States. Solon Borglum's sculpture ''Lassoing Wild Horses'' received a place of honor at the Salon Exhibition of the Academie Julian in Paris (where he studied in 1897 and 1898), then a silver medal at the Exhibicion Internacional de las Artes in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

While living in New York he became captivated by the Silvermine area, dotted with farms, mills, woodlands, waterfalls and historic houses. In 1906 he purchased a farm on what is today known as Borglum Road in the Silvermine section of Wilton. His enthusiasm drew a colony of artists and sculptors and led to the formation of the Knockers Club, a Sunday morning gathering at his studio-barn where artists exchanged ideas and critiqued each other's work. In 1922, the group, having outgrown their space, incorporated as the Silvermine Guild of Artists. ''If it wasn't for Solon Borglum, we would not have a Silvermine Guild today,'' said Vincent Baldassano, Silvermine's gallery director who curated the current show. ''He was a visionary who started things percolating in the Silvermine area, impacting the community as well as the artists who migrated here because of him. He was a magnet drawing many New York artists to Silvermine, first to visit, then to settle.''

Borglum's two-story wood barn and studio still stands on a 3.5-acre (formerly 45-acre) parcel surrounded by gardens. Gwynneth Kelley, his granddaughter, and her family live in the studio-home, handed down through three generations. Although he died in 1922 at the age of 54, before she was born, Ms. Kelley, a potter and sculptor, said she felt spiritually connected to him. ''He was a man unusually close to nature,'' she said. ''He was a sheriff out West and owned a ranch, which influenced his thinking. He made drawings of horses, cows and other cattle, now in the Smithsonian. When he moved here, he farmed, grew potatoes and had an apple orchard. But he always had horses and called his farm 'Rocky Ranch.' '' Nine bronze sculptures will be displayed at Silvermine Galleries along with photographs of Solon and of other works.

In many, the cowboy is portrayed dismounted from the horse. In ''Pioneer in a Storm'' he shows a man crouching, sheltered by the horse in a windstorm. ''He expressed man and nature as equals working together, not man dominating nature,'' Ms. Kelley pointed out. ''He was humble.'' ''On the Trail,'' another sculpture, captures a cowboy, his horse and a rattlesnake, the cowboy reining his horse in tight like a spring that is wound tight. ''My grandfather was known as the 'poet of the West,' '' Ms. Kelley said. The second chance to view his sculptures occurs in ''The Knockers Club at Silvermine 1907-1922,'' an exhibition at the New Canaan Historical Society, where Mr. Borglum's studio is recreated among other vignettes including a grand finale first Silvermine Guild exhibition in 1922 with 21 paintings by original members. The last part of the round robin of exhibitions appropriately takes place at the Norwalk Museum (repository of the largest public collection of Silvermine works in the area) in its new home, the renovated former City Hall in SoNo. Their inaugural exhibition ''The Silvermine Guild -- Art in Our Community,'' on view through Oct. 18, illustrates through landscapes, portraits and commissioned work the development of the Silvermine Guild over the last 75 years.

Silvermine Guild Galleries, 1037 Silvermine Road in New Canaan, is open Tuesday through Saturday 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. and Sunday from 1 to 5 P.M.; the New Canaan Historical Society, 13 Oenoke Ridge in New Canaan Tuesday through Saturday 10 A.M. to noon and 2 to 4 P.M., and the Norwalk Museum, 41 North Main Street in Norwalk Tuesday through Sunday 1 to 5 P.M.

Morning Coffee, Charles Webster Hawthorne (1918) Private Collection

The Family, Charles Webster Hawthorne (1911), Albright-Knox Art Gallery

The Boat Steerer, Charles Webster Hawthorne (1925), Private Collection

The Bowl, Charles Webster Hawthorne (1899), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Refining oil, Charles Webster Hawthorne, Detroit Institute of Art

Giorgio Morandi

Giorgio de Chirico

David Bates, The Storm

Left Panel
Center Panel
Right Panel

Exhibit captures anguish of Katrina victims with a dose of social commentary

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

By MICHAEL GRANBERRY / The Dallas Morning News
mgranberry@dallasnews.com

When it comes to social activism, artist David Bates is the first to admit: "It's not usually my deal." But when Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast and tore asunder the New Orleans levee system in 2005, he found himself mesmerized, unable to turn away from the anguish of the faces on television. "I was fascinated by the emotion and strength of the people you saw in those pictures," he says. So he did something he'd never done before – formulate paintings of a sea of haunted faces, in this case the victims of Katrina.

Nearly three years later, the result is a fine and powerful exhibition of original art now being showcased at the Dallas gallery Dunn and Brown Contemporary. A Dallas native and graduate of Southern Methodist University, Mr. Bates, 55, has done extraordinarily well as a professional artist. But on a recent morning, when asked about the cost of the paintings in "The Storm," he reacts with a wince. "This is so not about that," he says. What it is about is best summed up in the reaction of a displaced New Orleans couple who showed up at the gallery to meet the artist at the opening-night reception. They had heard about the show and vowed to be there, having been among the many who lost their homes.

"They never got any help, and you hear that quite often," says Mr. Bates. "The woman told me the expressions here cover the realm of experience she and her husband suffered through – loss at seeing their home destroyed, anger in realizing the insurance company was not going to cover them and feelings of bewilderment and dismay for having been forgotten, seemingly by everybody." There's another element: He can't escape the fact that "The Storm" is being displayed in the midst of a volatile election campaign and that the work itself is inherently political. Not that he's pointing a finger. "I don't think very many people dispute the fact that this wasn't handled efficiently by anyone in government," he says. "This is not a call for the demise of any particular regime, it's just telling a story. But if you look at this and say, 'Well, that all worked out great,' that's your decision, I suppose." He admits being horrified by recent statistics. One published study estimates the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars at $12 billion a month (rounding up to a total of $2.5 trillion by 2017), whereas rebuilding the entire New Orleans levee system, strong enough to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, would cost $40 billion. Compared with the war, he sees the levees as a bargain. "There are not big anti-Bush signs on the wall here, but it's pretty obvious when you see all this and you remember what went on," he says, "well, in that regard, it's definitely a statement." Noah Simblist, an assistant professor of art at SMU, does not know Mr. Bates but is familiar with his work and applauds him for the new direction. "David Bates is an artist within our community who is living off his work," says Mr. Simblist, whose own art deals with social-justice issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "He's selling his paintings for decent prices and usually sells out a show. "So, I think the idea of him taking on an issue that is political and has to do with issues of social justice is actually quite brave in a lot of ways, because he doesn't have to. He's in no position where he needs to."

Mr. Simblist notes that Katrina inspired a bold theatrical project by visual artist Paul Chan, who restaged and set Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. And in Austin, a group working at the Blanton Museum of Art has recently targeted Katrina. Thursday night there will be a panel discussion titled "In Katrina's Wake: A discussion for the Austin arts community on art as a form of social engagement." After 9/11, the art world and Americans in general seemed to respond, says Mr. Simblist, "as though shopping and spending were ways of dealing with the trauma. Now, with the economy less stable, artists are veering toward the more introspective." Tall and lean, the dark-haired Mr. Bates wears bookish glasses and a neatly cropped Van Dyke that make him look younger than he is and a lot like the college professor he never became. This is a new kind of show for him, one undertaken, he says, from a sense of feeling driven, as though he had to do this. He's surprised and pleased by the reactions. "People never came up to me in the past and thanked me," he says with a laugh, "for painting a magnolia." He has painted both magnolias and people for a very long time, but faces like this are new to his repertoire. He has gone on pleasure trips to the Gulf Coast for more than a quarter-century and has eaten and fished with those who live there. He has laughed with them, and now, of course, suffered alongside them.

After Katrina, he was unable to visit New Orleans until December 2005, but when he arrived he was even more blown away by "the enormity of it, the expansiveness of the devastation." Seeing it, he felt compelled to fix the faces in his mind and commit them to canvas as soon as possible. Again, his motives were partly political. "I knew it wouldn't be long before people would tire of this and go back to Britney and what's happening with Paris Hilton," he says. "You could tell that was going to happen. But this can simply not be forgotten." In his painting The Flood, a pair of displaced victims stare back from beneath a muddy sky, a tower of water rising behind them. The husband clutches the wife, who covers her eyes. The faces, like so many in "The Storm," are black. In another, The Deluge III, a man paddling a canoe meanders down the river that was once his street. Like all the other faces, he's an actual victim. "He got up on his bed, because the floor was covered with water," says Mr. Bates. "There were no lights. Pretty soon, the bed was covered in water. He beat his way through the ceiling and found his way to the top of the house. He saw this canoe that had washed up against the side of the house, just beating against the walls. So, he picked up a plank and canoed his way out of there." Such stories "just cement it for me," says Mr. Bates. "Somebody tells you a story, and you remember it. And you remember the face who told it to you."

The artist grew up an only child in Garland, son of a clothing salesman and a mom who longed to be an artist. He and his parents loved traveling to Galveston. But on one trip, he heard about the 1900 hurricane that killed at least 8,000 people and, even in a boy's mind, Galveston was never the same. He sees a parallel in his experience with New Orleans, which for years has been a place he retreated for gumbo, Mardi Gras, jazz and happier faces in happier times. Life itself, he says, is a lot like gumbo. "The longer you go, the more baggage you get. So, the gumbo becomes more interesting." His work on Katrina even parallels his own tragedies, which include the recent deaths of both his parents, not to mention the passing of the beloved family dog. "Life is like gumbo," he says, "where you're putting stuff in and putting stuff in, and hopefully," he says, "in the end, the gumbo becomes more interesting."

Mad Max: Max Beckmann at the Museum of Modern Art, Queens, New York from June 26 to September 19, 2003

By Joseph Phelan

Upon finishing Witness, the memoirs of Whittaker Chambers, the former Communist who became an enemy of Stalinism, André Malraux complimented the author: You have not come back from hell empty handed.

Visitors may want to say something similar after viewing the 133 works in the Max Beckmann retrospective currently at the Museum of Modern Art Queens. If Beckmann (1884-1950) is the German painter of the catastrophic first half of the twentieth century, he earned his title the hard way. He painted from the center of the inferno.

While Beckmann was a man of his time, he did not fit his time, either in the largeness of his artistic ambition or in the variety and complexity of his approach. As exhibition curator Robert Storr observes, Beckmann "painted the enigmas and the contradictions of the twentieth century in ways that resonate profoundly in the unsettled reality of the twenty-first century. He painted pictures about human passions and predicaments which are impossible to ignore".

Beckmann's astonishing talent for the representation of beauty was manifest early on in his Young Men by the Sea (1905). This classical composition of naked youths, deep in meditation while one plays the flute, could be a rendition of the Greek gods. With its "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur" it is a brilliant expression of the Germanic vision of Classical Greece, made famous by Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Wolfgang Goethe in the late eighteenth century. The painting brought him gold and glory and a winter's study in Florence.

But it was two other German thinkers of the nineteenth century who more profoundly influenced Beckmann's thinking about the purpose of art. As an art student he read Arthur Schopenhauer, who is best known as the philosopher of pessimism. Carl Jung explained the widespread appeal of this resolutely non-academic thinker to so many nineteenth century artists:

He was the first to speak of the suffering of the world, which visibly and glaringly surrounds us, and of confusion, passion, evil -- all those things which the [other philosophers] hardly seemed to notice and always tried to resolve into all-embracing harmony and comprehensibility. Here at last was a philosopher who had the courage to see that all was not for the best in the fundaments of the universe.

[Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Vintage Books, 1961, p. 69]

Schopenhauer inevitably left him open to an even greater philosophical influence: Frederic Nietzsche. Nietzsche's first book, The Birth of Tragedy, caused a sensation throughout Europe by sweeping away the old formula about the Greeks of Goethe and Winckelmann. Nietzsche went about "explaining" the suffering, confusion, passion and evil of Greek tragedy for a contemporary audience. He did so by uncovering the source of the tragic world view in the clash between the "Apollonian" drive for reason, law and logical order, and the wild, instinctual, amoral forces in life which were symbolized for the Greeks by the Dionysus � the god of intoxication.

Myriads of artists in pre-World War I Europe went around calling themselves Nietszchians largely on the basis of this celebration of the Dionysian. Beckmann's concerns went deeper. He was irresistibly drawn to the tragedy of human life and looked to become a master of the large scale history painting which traditionally could capture it. When his early works like The Earthquake in Messina (1909) and The Sinking of the Titanic (1912) failed to win the approval of critics, he was baffled. He faced the problem of all history painters since the invention of the photography. How could the painter, in the cool of the study, compete with the immediacy and authenticity of the camera?

So Beckmann went in search of what only a painter could do. He found advice in several quarters. On a visit to Paris he met Edvard Munch (who illustrated an edition of Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra), who encouraged the younger man to follow the fantastic style of his own famous vision of subjective horror - The Scream. On a trip to Geneva he encountered Ferdinand Hodler, who showed him how to do historical and mythological themes in firmly choreographed murals.

But it was at Colmar that he saw something truly awesome: the fantastic Isenheim Altarpiece of Matthias Grünewald, designed for the Hospital Order of St. Anthony. Intended to be seen daily by the sick, the altarpiece shows the demonic temptation of St. Anthony and the gruesome wounds of the crucified Christ in the most graphic detail. The expressive intensity of the work and its complex enfolding format fascinated Beckmann. He now had the technique and the template to capture human suffering in a way no photographer could... All he needed was the right contemporary subject.

Beckmann's service as a medical orderly in World War I supplied the necessary horrific subject matter. His service as a medical corpsman in the trenches of Flanders nearly drove him mad, and he was invalided out of the army in 1915, suffering from fits of hallucination and unbearable depression. As the famous Self-Portrait with Red Scarf of 1917 shows, he was ferociously concentrated, willfully intense, and deeply unhappy.

At this time Beckmann began to speak of "the infinite space" whose foreground has always got to be "filled with some rubbish or other, so as to disguise its dreadful depth." This element in his own theory of art was but a reflection of the fact that Beckmann himself was now prone to a keen feeling of total abandonment and desolation. He was in a constant struggle to overcome his own personal horror vacui. With a view to winning this struggle he decided to become a recorder of the unofficial history � the nightmare of history, so to speak - of a Europe gone mad with cruelty, ideological murder, and deprivation, as in Family Picture (1920) and in his masterpiece of the period, The Night (1918-19).

"The sole justifications of our existence as artists, superfluous and egotistic though we are, are to confront people with the image of their destiny." This is Beckmann but it also sounds like Adolf Hitler, the would-be art student rejected by the schools in Vienna who, as a result, lived within the shadow of the label "failed artist." At a later stage, this would-be artist's government held the infamous "Entartete Kunst" ("Degenerate Art") show which opened in Munich on June 26, 1937. Among the 730 controversial works gathered there by the Nazi curators were ten paintings by Beckmann, including his 1917 self-portrait. There were more works by Beckmann in the show than by any other living artist.

Shortly after the exhibit opened, Beckmann left Germany for Amsterdam. He quickly painted Hell of the Birds (1938), which depicts him being flayed alive by his Nazi critics. After the war he moved to the United States to teach and paint. Like many exiles and émigrés to America, he must have felt like The Acrobat on the Trapeze who might slip at any time and become the Falling Man. Yet in The Argonauts (1950), he returns to his great themes of aspiration and ambition, tragedy and transcendence with masterful assurance and command. Here he was finally able to fulfill his greatest wish:

Really I only wanted to paint beautiful pictures.