Zeuxis' centauress

An excerpt from Tummers, J.C. (2009):

There was already disagreement on the matter back in antiquity. On the one hand, craftsmanship was considered very important – witness an anecdote about the ancient painter Zeuxis, to which both the art theorists Franciscus Junius and Samuel van Hoogstraten refer. According to the ancient writer Lucian, Zeuxis had painted a picture of a female centaur suckling two baby centaurs, which he thought would be greatly praised for its craftsmanship such as the connection between the human skin of the upper part of the centaurs’ bodies and their furry lower bodies and legs. However, when Zeuxis displayed the work to a general audience:

'All of them praised most … the unusual aspect of the subject, and the novelty of its ‘message’, which was unknown to earlier artists. Thus when Zeuxis realized that the curiosity of the painting rather than his technique was capturing their attention and was putting the refinement of the work to one side, he said to his pupil: ‘Micion, cover it up and take it back home. These people are praising the raw mud of our art, but as for the lighting, how well it looks and how carefully done, they have nothing to say. The novelty of the subject surpasses the discipline of the execution’.

Zeuxis apparently did not agree with the preferences of his audience, and both Junius and Samuel van Hoogstraten use his comment about the audience focusing on the ‘mud of the art’ (droesem van de kunst) to stress the importance of knowing what aspects to praise in a painting.

I really really wish that particular picture had survived to this day, but alas it's lost like most ancient Greek-Roman paintings.

The anecdote is interesting though, whether real or fictional. Anthropomorphic beings feature often in Greek-Roman mythology and there are several instances of nonhuman creatures fostering and nursing heroes and even gods: in some version of the Greek cosmogony myth Zeus himself had been nursed for a period by the goat Amalthea. So the idea had to be quite familiar to the ancient Greek public and the nursing of Zeus had certainly been a recurring subject of art. Why were they so surprised by the subject of Zeuxis' artwork then?

The fact is the centauress was not nursing a human or a god, but her own children. This was quite the conceptual leap from the "mainstream" myth which played upon the contrasting natures of the foster mother and the infant and was ultimately focused on the human(like) nature of the latter. But it was also a conceptual leap from the typical epic depictions of mythical creatures. Those centaurs were engaged in a very mundane activity which didn't have any obvious reference to mythology.

I can imagine how puzzled the audience had to be, and it is not surprising at all that the skillful execution was overshadowed by discussion of the subject matter. Why did he choose that over the top subject? What was the point, the meaning of it? Cryptic symbolism or a mere gimmick? Did it have any artistic value at all?

Those are pretty much the same questions that furry art faces today when exposed to outsiders, and in fact a painting like that could very well be furry art created nowadays. The appeal is obvious to us furries. The intimacy and daily life of almost-human creatures is what furry is all about.

It sounds like Zeuxis' goals with that painting were exactly the same of many realist furry artists, down to the desire of being appreciated for skillful handling of anatomical difficulties... and the audience didn't understand his goals and focused on all the wrong things, just like it often happens with furry art.

The subject of nursing centaurs still appeared here and there in Western art, but it certainly wasn't as remarkable as it had been in a culture which had centaurs as part of its religious canon - or as it would be much later in the eyes of furry fans.

Of monsters and animals

The Hooded Utilitarian is a comics blog that often discusses other media which have been traditionally considered "lowbrow", such as superhero movies, horror movies, space opera and TV serials. I don't like the smug tone that much of the articles and threads seem to have and I'm wary of the heavy political bias of many of the contributors, but I keep an eye on it anyway for the occasional piece about furries and other interesting insights which occasionally pop up. One of the latest articles is in fact insightful and close to the topics of my blog:
http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2016/07/die-shark-die/

I've rambled before about humanity vs. nature being an outdated and misleading story archetype, and such contemporary iterations of the story just keep proving how dishonest it is as a premise. You simply can't have a story about murderous giant sharks or pythons or whatever without fake science to justify it, because in the real world very few animals actually attack humans and such attacks happen in circumstances that are either too unlucky and odd to turn into a compelling story or stuff that movies don't want to deal with. The note about the mosquito is spot on as that's actually the most deadly animal for humans by a huge margin. (I recommend the first thirty or so episodes of the podcast This Week in Parasitism for extensive coverage of that and other related issues.)

The article mostly analyzes the power dynamics displayed in that story archetype and how they relate to racism. Racism in movies is a valid concern of course, yet the parallel feels a bit contrived to me. That's the typical humanistic approach of boiling everything down to internal conflicts of the human species and considering such conflicts the only problems that matter. But the culturally enforced conflict between humans and "the rest of nature" is a huge philosophical problem with its own dignity and it is very distinct from racism, even thought some of the dynamics are similar. I long for the day media critics will realize that a racist movie and a movie portraying sharks as worthless monsters are both flat out wrong.

As an artist I see this as an ethical issue which is especially pressing for fantasy/imaginative artists of all flavors. Making monsters out of creatures which are known not to be so is unethical. When you have to make up lies in order to paint some creature or individual as the bad guy, chances are you are being an irresponsible storyteller communicating a factually wrong message about the world to your audience.

If you really have to, at least use eldritch horrors which actually evoke the shapeless inner demons we can't control. I have my issues with Lovecraft but that's the one thing he got right: sadness, despair and hardship are closer to the indescribable Great Old Ones than to a CG shark. I don't see how defeating the ridiculously fake version of animal could give anyone a real feeling of empowerment.

Matt Lindley, Azathoth, 2012

On outdated myths and metaphors

An interesting reflection by artist Petar Meseldzija on the value of myths:
http://petarmeseldzija.blogspot.it/2016/04/symbols-archetypes-metaphors_16.html
I love Meseldzija's style and ideas, but I think he's a bit off the mark in this case.

The fact is the metaphors on which most classic myths were built are outdated. They were already outdated before the modern era and they are twice as outdated by now. They come from a time in which mankind considered itself at odds with the forces of nature and with its own animal nature, threatened by every insinuation he wasn't the center of everything and engaged in an eternal war against anything he didn't understand. The only desirable outcome, the only hopeful vision of the future, was the triumph of personal will which would put man in charge of everything in the universe. This kind of vision, empowering but out of touch with reality, survived well into the modern era and reached its climax in early science fiction and superhero comics, in which men or manlike entities were literally able to harness every force in the universe.

Not all mythology is like this, but most Western mythology from pre-modern times is. The tale of St.George killing the dragon, which Meseldzija chose to illustrate the article, most certainly is. It is said sometimes that the modern era has failed to replace the older Western myths with newer myths of similar stature, but I would argue that that's untrue. Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Edmond Dantès, Long John Silver, Dr. Gulliver, Don Quixote, Ikari Shinji, Harry Potter... there are plenty of modern/contemporary archetypical heroes and antiheroes whose antics are more relevant to the cultures of 2016 than any of the ancient heroes', even though modern characters don't lend themselves as easily to reinterpretation.

Now, I understand what metaphors are for, and I understand that there are some rules to the structure of compelling tales because we want tales to stimulate our mind in certain ways. It goes without saying that many myths have superb narrative value. Yet in the contemporary cultural context I fail to see the educational value of myths about courage at a spear point and monster hunting. Of course this could be a personal limitation of mine stemming from the fact I don't trust psychoanalytical theories of art. But it seems to me that most people don't find any educational value in such metaphors either, even though most people would praise them if questioned. We praise them but in practice we consider them good only for entertainment. And rightfully so, because such metaphors don't make for good mental tools to deal with the contemporary world. If you are a teenager going through troublesome times at school or in your family, or dealing with serious inner demons such as suicidal tendencies or dangerous urges, reframing your situation as that of a hero fighting the unknown will likely do more harm than good.

Needless to say my favorite interpretation of Don Quixote - a very modern myth - is that of a warning against outdated human values. Old myths are compelling, but taking their teachings seriously leads to disaster.

There is one kind of heroic figure which the messy contemporary world needs though, and it's also the least represented in Western legends: the smart, self-inquiring, nurturing culture hero. We need to develop an admiration for creative figures such as Chiron or Johnny Appleseed much more than we need to celebrate battlefield heroes such as Odysseus or St.George. We are done fearing the wilderness, demons and vengeful gods. Living in the world of 2016 is akin to stepping carefully in a desert trying to figure out first and foremost how to not run out of water and how to not get hallucinations from the stress.

Symbolist art and the longing for anthropocentrism

This week I had a chance to visit an excellent exhibit about Symbolist artists being held in Milan. News of the exhibit had caught my interest because I didn’t have a clear overall view of the movement and I feel that fantastic artwork from that time period (late XIX century) is important for understanding how the representation of nature and anthropomorphism in art has evolved during the XX century. Here are my notes and reflections on the exhibit.

Representation of sexuality

The Symbolist movement was kickstarted by the works of Charles Baudelaire and other poets of the "accursed poets" group, who described modern life as gloomy and degenerate, dominated by greed, lust and the death of humanistic ideals. Symbolist artists in turn searched mythology and ancient iconography for visual metaphors they deemed appropriate to express their contempt for modern society. The supposedly dangerous nature of sexuality is a common theme in art of that age and is often dealt with by means of animal metaphors. Confident women in particular were often depicted as icons of lust, ready to prey upon men like snakes or sphinxes.

Baudelaire’s work can easily be interpreted as social critique because of its antagonistic nature and due to the fact it caused knee-jerk outrage when it was first published, leading to censorship and legal troubles for the artist. This is the classic interpretation suggested by the exhibit too: Baudelaire as a scathing critic of the ugly modern metropolis, longing for an ethically superior past and persecuted for that.

This interpretation never made a lot of sense to me though. Baudelaire was beyond any doubt an artistic genius, but his attitude towards society wasn't really that new. What he did was modernizing old tenets of conservative philosophy such as nostalgia for a supposedly more heroic past and the conflation of sensual love (as opposed to spiritual love) with death. But he clearly wallowed in the decadence he described as much as he castigated it.

The lasting success of gloomy Symbolist art after the initial outrage about its subject matter had settled down is a testament to the inconsistency of the critique it brought forward. Turns out people of the industrial age actually like decadence and self deprecation a lot: they want consuming lust and the other contemporary "evils" to be portrayed in detail on huge canvases.

Victor Prouvé, The voluptuous, 1889

Similar contradictions still runs strong today, with much of what passes for socio-critical art having no effect whatsoever on the real issues it addresses. Sometimes when I look at contemporary art of that kind it feels like passionate, consistent social critique as found in the works of Otto Dix or George Grosz never existed. If the Symbolists thought rampant degeneracy was threatening society maybe they shouldn't have contributed even more erotic artwork to art scene. (Of course they were wrong and they produced some great erotic artwork, but that's beside the consistency issue.)

Félicien Rops, Pornokratès, 1878

What does the constant philosophical bashing of sexuality, femalehood and instinct have to do with lamenting the death of humanism? If the nightmares and moral indignation of Baudelaire and the Symbolists were supposed to invoke a lost humanistic ideal then the death of humanism was probably a good riddance, because the world they longed for feels even more shallow than the “dirty” modern world.

If anything I would say they missed the absolute anthropocentrism of past ages (sometimes even theocentrism) rather than the more nuanced humanism which had led to the Age of Enlightenment.

Representation of nature

I’m also perplexed by how that longing for anthropocentrism is mistaken for a longing for “nature” or a “return to nature”. What kind of “nature” were the Symbolists longing for?

Félicien Rops, The Sphinx, 1882. Don’t you dare embrace your animal nature, the Devil will get you!

“Throughout your works I found again the solemnity of the grand sounds of Nature in her grandest aspects, as well as the solemnity of the grand passions of man” wrote Baudelaire in his famous letter to Wagner. Yet the core of Wagner’s art philosophy was the Gesamtkunstwerk, the “total work of art”, the aspiration to an all-encompassing artistic experience of reality tailored by humans for humans. This sounds at odds with any supposed aspiration to reconcile with nature.

I understand the awe of course. Great art can make us feel grand spaces and fleeting sensations we can only otherwise find in the wilderness. Many of the best works of art are, in the word of landscape painter Stapleton Kearns, “design installed upon nature”, and anthro art is possibly the most glaring example of redesigning aspects of nature to fit the artist’s whims. But anthro art, landscape art and wildlife art alike are almost always positive towards their sources, whereas the Symbolists were very negative in their portrayal of actual untamed nature.

Odilon Redon, Larvae So Bloodless and So Hideous, 1896

There is no better example of this attitude than the works of Odilon Redon. The exhibit hosted among other works his series of prints titled The origins (of the world). Taking inspiration from Darwin’s theories and from pioneering naturalistic artwork Redon was no backwards thinker and was well acquainted with contemporary science, yet a crippling sense of fear and disgust for the facts of nature seems to pervade his works. What did he imagine at the origins of the world? “Hideous” crawling larvae, “impotent” deformed animals, insane cyclops staring at the heavens as if disgusted by dirty old earth. It is a cosmogony of fear. Even his earlier and more lighthearted paintings never let go of the fear.

Arnold Böcklin was apparently more at ease with the forces of nature which he used to represent through classical mythical creatures such as satyrs and sirens. I quite like his portraits of those creatures. They look charming, funny, even goofy, sporting a touch of Rubens-esque liveliness.

But they are still disquieting creatures you would not want to deal with. Humans in his paintings are usually more blurry and undefined than the mythical creatures, as if they existed on a whole different level. In his work there are still subtle statements that humanity eventually triumphs over nature like a maiden turning the proud Unicorn into a blank-stared nag.

 Arnold Böcklin, Unicorn, 1885

All the various versions of his Isle of the Dead image feature man-made structures, suggesting that either the afterlife is a concept fabricated by humans for humans or a place reserved just for humans.

The late XIX century was a time of fast paced scientific advances like the Western world had never seen before. It's understandable that being confronted for the first time with the fact that nature was infinitely more complex than previously thought turned unsettled many people. But I can't help thinking that artists of the time missed a great opportunity to reexamine the attitude towards nature in art in the light of new scientific knowledge.

Among all the Symbolist currents only Les Nabis, a group of painters brought together by Paul Sérusier and inspired by the most optimistic works of Paul Gauguin and the Impressionist, attempted to moved on to a more wholesome depiction of nature. In their works the human element is often small and fleeting like a shadow. It is an integral part of nature, never in open conflict with it.

Georges Lacombe, The Yellow Sea, 1893

Representation of humanity

"Free man, you will always cherish the sea!

The sea is your mirror; you contemplate your soul

In the infinite unrolling of its billows;

Your mind is an abyss that is no less bitter." 

Charles Baudelaire, Man and the Sea, in Flowers of Evil

I cannot stand this kind of hyperbole about human nature.

Unfathomable, infinitely deep, absolutely free, cherishing the wonders of nature… humans aren’t really like that. Most of the time we are simple minded and confused and not too difficult to understand either. There is nothing soul crushing in admitting that. The world is big and complicated, there is plenty of interesting stuff to do to keep the human mind away from fear of meaninglessness even if we finally admit we aren’t the pinnacle of the universe.

It’s understandable that people would still cling to absolute anthropocentrism in the age of the Symbolists, but it’s baffling how much of an appeal it still has on people today. Such an outdated way of thinking about humanity can only lead to silliness such as art denouncing the evil powers of women and the supposed monstrosity of snakes. For an up to date mind in the world of 2016 snakes should mean beauty and complexity rather than danger.

Franz von Stuck, Sin, 1893

On a final note, the less known artist Galileo Martini stuck me as somebody who was able to see clearly beyond the smoke curtain of anthropocentric absolutism. It's hard for me to explain where such impression stems from. His works on display were mostly high contrast black and white prints depicing tales of violence and surreal figures. His Self portrait shows the artist himself as a surreal figure spawning ghosts through his hands and writings.

His subject matter is similar to that of other Symbolists, but in my opinion his handling of the subjects leaves no doubt as to what he considered the origin of human woes: our own hybris. We think of ourselves as omnipotent wizards but we are really just skilled illusionists. We cannot trascend our basic human flaws and we should not lie to ourselves about them.

Galileo Martini, Self portrait, 1911

The more I learn about Symbolists the more I feel torn between admiration for their creativity and aesthetics and annoyance for the backward worldview they convey. I feel similarly towards most of contemporary fantasy art, which is not surprising considering that it is in many ways a continuation of the Symbolist aesthetics and mindset.

A couple interesting readings:
- Full text of Baudelaire's letter to Wagner: http://www.thebluegrassspecial.com/archive/2012/april2012/pleasures-of-music-baudelaire-wagner.html
- Commentary about Odilon Redon’s sources of inspiration: http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring03/76-spring03/spring03article/220-evolution-and-degeneration-in-the-early-work-of-odilon-redon

The Nayika as the lovers of all creature

Anonymous, The Nayika as the lovers of all creatures, 18th century

I couldn't find any precise information about this intriguing Indian picture. I like erotic Indian art a lot for its portrayals of joyous sensuality and this picture is no exception, it looks like a tongue-in-cheek celebration of lust as a basic animal instinct which drives all of nature. The anatomical correctness of most genitals and mating positions only adds to the good-natured humor of the scene.

I have to wonder why all the humans are women though (there is even a lesbian couple on the left) and why they are juxtaposed to images of animals couples. Nayika can be roughly translated as "heroine" or "woman archetype". I'm not familiar with critical readings of Indian art, but I would especially like to know whether it was meant to be just an enticing piece or some sort of satyrical picture denouncing women's lust. If this were Western art from the same time period the latter would certainly be the most likely reading since even the most sexually explicit art hasn't been safe from moralism or cultural propaganda in past Western history.

In the absence of specific information I'd rather think this image isn't meant to debase women though. Celebrations of fertility and female sexuality hold an important role in Indian culture (although unfortunately real life sexual freedom is another matter), and so do animals and oddities of nature, so it's not surprising that it would produce artistic depictions of lust crossing all barriers and cast in a positive light such as this one.

Book notes: “Naked. The nude in America” by Bram Dijkstra

I’m very interested in some theoretical aspects of art, especially concerning representation of sexuality and imaginary creatures, so I try to collect any book on such topics which seems interesting. This one was a great read and even though I don’t fully agree with the author’s reading of some of the artwork it has given me a lot of things to reflect upon, so I expect I’ll be referring to it in future posts. But first an overview.

“Naked” describes how nudity has been dealt with in North American visual arts from the XVIII century down to our days. I bought it mostly because of its extensive coverage of XIX and XX century nude art, which is often dismissed by the art critics still hellbent on selling modernism and conceptual art as the only worthwhile products of that period. As stated on the front flap of the book though Djikstra is a cultural historian rather than an art critic, and it shows in a positive way in his rational, sequential, analytical approach. Many of the artists and works mentioned in the book are new to me and it helped me fill knowledge gaps between more famous names, as well as actually explaining some of the contempt for XIX century art and XX century figurative art.

The main thesis of the book is that much Western nude art was (and in some cases still is) built on symbolism which stemmed from oppressive, sexist, racist, or even outright insane sociopolitical theories about sexuality. Such theories were popular at the time the paintings were created and most of them have been discredited or forgotten, but contemporary figurative art and illustration still happens to draw upon the old symbolism, sometimes willingly, sometimes out of ignorance of the original meaning of certain symbols and clichès. There is fairly convincing evidence for this thesis coming both from visual analysis of the artwork and from explicit statements by artists, writers, critics and censors of the past.

Franz von Stuck, Il peccato (Die Sünde), 1893

An example of outdated symbolism is the predatory sorceress/temptress/amazon clichè which is still relatively common in fantasy art but used to be common in highbrow art too up to the early XX century. This is a concept I’m especially interested in given the half-human half-animal nature of my subjects. It is very ancient symbolism going all the way back to sirens, harpies, the sphynx of Oedipus and other mythological figures. The depiction of naked, sexually intimidating women with animal traits or accompanied by dangerous animals such as snakes used to be a commentary on how women’s wild, beastly sexual urges were supposedly dangerous and destructive.

Keeping all due differences in mind, erotic furry/anthro art is at its core a subversion of that symbolism. Being part wild animal is not a liability but as an asset - something humorous and even appealing.

BHawk, Her Own Personal Space Heater, 2013

Only time will tell whether this is just an aesthetic preference of few people or a symptom of deeper cultural changes in the perceived relationship of humans with nature. We are animals after all and I believe we need to seriously come to terms with the "uncivilized" parts of our mind, so to speak, if we want to keep our sanity in an increasingly complex, manufactured world. But regardless of personal philosophy I think erotic furry art is a very logical progress in the historical process described in the book. I'm fairly sure one day it will deserve its own chapter (or at least a mention) in a similar essay.