Undefined crowds: Non-finito in Spanish Art from Goya to Saura (via Munch)

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Undefined crowds:Non-finito in Spanish Art

from Goya to Saura (via Munch)

Finito/Non-Finito: Intentionality and the Modern Fragment

Oslo, 14th November 2014

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“Faces, always faces”Arnulf Rainer

“Faces, always faces” is the beggining of an essay on the work of Antonio Saura by Arnulf Rainer.

Of course, what else can we say about Saura? Faces, always faces.

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“Faces, always faces”Arnulf Rainer

Or heads, always heads. But, in fact, it’s the same thing. Because... what is a head depicted looking at the viewer? A face. So, when Saura talk about heads, and more heads in his work, what we see are faces, and more faces... and eyes (but that’s another point).

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“Certainly, in 1956 the head appears first, and that head determines all my work”.

Antonio Saura, 1991.

So, Antonio Saura begins to paint faces in 1956:

“Certainly, in 1956 the head appears first, and that head determines all my work”.Antonio Saura, 1991.

That head appears under a structure that Saura works once and again and again throughout his life. This structure is the basis of his work. And all the work of Saura can be included in only one theme the face, the portrait, and further, the selfportrait. He agrees with the statement of Rembrandt: “all is selfportrait”.

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Foule, 1959

Multitudes series

And then, if Saura only paints faces... what is a crowd rather than an accumulation of faces? But not a face in particular but undefined faces.

I show here the multitudes series (crowds series) on canvas. Saura worked on paper for a long time, but the crowds on paper are very numerous and dispersed.

Saura painted eleven crowds on canvas,

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Foule, 1959-60

with different colours, different layouts, but the same idea: unfinished faces.

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La grande foule, 1963

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Foule-paysage, 1985

Why?Why does Saura depicts crowds as an accumulation of undefined faces?

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Karl Johan Strasse, 1985

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Karl Johan Strasse II, 1997

The answer is twofold:

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Crowds as accumulation of undefined faces

Non-finito Goya, Munch and Ensor

The first is the form he paints: the Non-finito.The second, the names he was influenced by: Goya, Munch and Ensor.

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“Goya, Munch y Ensor son, quizás, los pintores que mejor han percibido el pavoroso y fantástico rumor de las masas”.

“Goya, Munch and Ensor are the painters who most poignantly felt the frightening and unrealistic din of the crowds”.

Antonio Saura, 1992.

“Goya, Munch and Ensor are the painters who most poignantly felt the frightening and unrealistic din of the crowds”.Saura, 1992.

Well, at this point I have to say I had problems with the translation of this statement, because Saura, as all artists, used to write in a figurative and poetic way.And the adjetive “fantástico” is here difficult to translate.But the point is Goya, Munch and Ensor were the artists who show Saura the way to paint crowds.

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El Greco, The vision of Saint John, 1608-14

So, let’s go with the first step: the non-finito.

The Venetian model in painting and its non-finito was introduced in Spain by El Greco after learning with Titian. The main feature of this school of painters is what their detractors called the “lack of definition in the forms of the painting (senza far disegno – without drawing)”. They painted directly on canvas with undefined lines and areas of colour, with blots or stains, or with

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“He (Hofmann) is certainly one of the most uncom-promising representatives of what some people call the spatter-and-daub school of painting, and I, more politely, have christened Abstract Expressionism”.

Robert Coates, 1946

“spatter and daub”, that wrote Robert Coates more than four hundred years later.

“He (Hofmann) is certainly one of the most uncompromising representatives of what some people call the spatter-and-daub school of painting, and I, more politely, have christened Abstract Expressionism”.Robert Coates, 1946

Some contemporary Spanish critics and painters as Vicente Carducho or Francisco Pacheco talked about “spatter-and-daub”, referring to El Greco’s paintings. They also said that he didn’t finish his works, and mentioning an italian word: sprezzatura. The Spanish intellectuals of the late XIXth century called El Greco “a painter of the soul”.

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Goya, Fire at night, 1793-94

The legacy of El Greco fell on Velázquez first, and then on Goya. Painting with undefined and imprecise lines, with loose brushstrokes and without drawing and even without finishing, became in Goya’s special treatment on faces. No one before had come that far. And even after him, we have to wait to the masks by Ensor, and the faces by Munch.

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Goya, The pilgrimage of San Isidro, 1819-23

But, again, why? Why depict crowds with undefined faces? Because if we don’t finish the face, if we don’t define the features in a face, we are removing its personality, and creating anonymous characters. This lack of individuality is what Goya, and then Munch and Saura, are interested in. The crowd is now a whole thing. It’s a closed set of persons, of faces, of lines and brushstrokes that creates some kind of a face: an undefined face. Let’s take a closer look.

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Courbet, A Burial in Ornans, 1849-50

Goya, Witches’ Sabbath, 1819-23

We see here two crowds. Above: “A Burial in Ornans” by Gustave Courbet.Below: “El aquelarre” by Goya, one of the Black Paintings.And we can see here, two very different crowds. Above: defined faces. Below: undefined faces.

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Above: eyes, noses, mouths, ears, hair, even facial hair...Below: eyes as well, but then, lines, some unfinished nose, areas of colour, lack of definition, blots, spatter-and-daub.Above: not a mass, but a set of different personalities, individual and separate moods. We can see sadness and tears, dignity and solemnity, reflexion, contemplation and even curiosity.Below: we see a mass, a crowd acting as a whole, as a closed group that moves and thinks altogether. We can see submission, ecstasy, fear and anxiety, but as one body and one mind.

And this is the way (Goya’s way) Munch will follow to depict the crowds.

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I won’t talk about Ensor, ‘cause my research is more about Goya, Munch and Saura.

Let’s go with Munch.

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Munch, like Goya and El Greco, is a painter of the soul. Goya starts to paint his inner and tormented world after becoming deaf in Cádiz, in the south of Spain.

Munch and Saura, in the same way, starts to paint after a close contact with illness, but at the beggining of their careers.

Probably Munch first knew about Goya’s etchings

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Goya, Disparate n. 7, 1815-24

in Paris, in 1885 or... maybe later, from 1889 to 1891. The Caprichos series was published in France from 1825, and it was appreciated by Baudelaire in 1857 and after. Then, the Disparates series was published also in France in 1877. Its influence on symbolism in the late XIXth century is remarkable. Also its influence on impressionism is strong, because of the leadership of Édouard Manet and his preferences for Spanish Art.

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Munch, Evening on Karl Johan, 1892-94

Therefore, the crowds Munch starts to paint in the nineties are, almost certainly, under the influence of Goya’s crowds and its expressionism. The best examples are Evening on Karl Johan Street (1892)

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Munch, Anxiety, 1894

Anxiety (1894)

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Munch, The Death bed, 1895

The Death bed (1895)

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Munch, Golgotha, 1900

and Golgotha (1900)

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undefined faces moving towards the viewer, a closed group that moves and thinks altogether, a crowd acting as a whole thing. And the most disturbing features in all those faces are the eyes, just like in Goya’s crowds.

Goya’s influences in Munch are even stronger in the two following woodcuts

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Munch, Panic, 1915

Panic, 1915

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“A crowd of figures with anxious and grimacing faces move towards the viewer”.

Lasse Jacobsen

Munch, Panic in Oslo, 1917

and Panic in Oslo, 1917. Again, “a crowd of figures with anxious and grimacing faces move towards the viewer” as Lasse Jacobsen says.

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“(...) the crowds by Goya, in the Quinta del sordo’s paintings. And Munch’s paintings. For example, that in which appears those frightened characters moving along a bridge.”

Antonio Saura

Returning to Anxiety (1894): Saura referred to this painting in this statement: “(...) the crowds by Goya, in the Quinta del sordo’s paintings. And Munch’s paintings. For example, that in which appears those frightened characters moving along a bridge”. And, of course, moving towards the viewer.

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Karl Johan Strasse, 1985

The screaming crowds by Saura complete the circle of undefined crowds.

Karl Johan Strasse I

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Karl Johan Strasse II, 1997

Karl Johan Strasse II

These two paintings are based on Anxiety and dedicated to Munch.

Dr Heller asked me about the title, and why it’s in German. I still have no answer. But it’s surely related to the relationship of Munch with German Expressionism, as seen from Spain.

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MunchGoya Saura(1746-1828) (1863-1944) (1930-1998)

travel to Italy

starts to paintstarts to paint starts to paint

gets married with Josefa Bayeugets married with Madeleine Augot

Josefa Bayeu diesrelationship with Leocadia Weiss

in Madrid

travel to Paris

meets Tulla Larsen

numerous exhibitions include with Goya

in Parisin Paris

exhibitions in NYin Berlin

St. Cloud manifesto

member of Academy

king’s paintercourt painter

his mother dies (tuberculosis)

his sister Sophie dies (tuberculosis)

his father dies

breakdown, Dr. Jacobsen’s clinic

Tulla shoots him

gets ill (tuberculosis)gets ill (tuberculosis)

gets ill and dies (leukemia)

gets ill (cataract)

hip surgery

his daughter Elena dies

his daughter Ana dies

director of AcademyCaprichos

La grande foule

Karl Johan Strasse

Frieze of Life exhibition

Sonderbund exhibition, KölnArmory Show, NYPanic, woodcutPanic in Oslo, woodcut

burst blood vessel in eye

Desastres

Black paintingsDisparates

representative works death and illness

Finally I want to show you a schematic view of the lives of the 3 artists in parallel. They share the same way to depict masses, and sometimes they share the same context: death and illness, important political events and philosophical and cultural context.

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MunchGoya Saura(1746-1828) (1863-1944) (1930-1998)

travel to Italy

in Madrid

travel to Paris

meets Tulla Larsen

in Parisin Paris

St. Cloud manifesto

member of Academy

his father dies

Tulla shoots him

gets ill (cataract)

hip surgery

La grande foule

Karl Johan Strasse

Desastres

First, the presence of tuberculosis in the early years of Munch and Saura’s lives.

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MunchGoya Saura(1746-1828) (1863-1944) (1930-1998)

travel to Italy

in Madrid

travel to Paris

meets Tulla Larsen

in Parisin Paris

St. Cloud manifesto

member of Academy

his father dies

Tulla shoots him

gets ill (cataract)

hip surgery

La grande foule

Karl Johan Strasse

Desastres

Second, Munch and Saura belong to prominent artistic and cultural groups in their begginings.

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MunchGoya Saura(1746-1828) (1863-1944) (1930-1998)

travel to Italy

in Madrid

travel to Paris

meets Tulla Larsen

in Parisin Paris

St. Cloud manifesto

member of Academy

his father dies

Tulla shoots him

gets ill (cataract)

hip surgery

La grande foule

Karl Johan Strasse

Desastres

Third, Goya and Munch become ill at almost the same point in their lives. And that illness changes their concept of life.

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MunchGoya Saura(1746-1828) (1863-1944) (1930-1998)

travel to Italy

in Madrid

travel to Paris

meets Tulla Larsen

in Parisin Paris

St. Cloud manifesto

member of Academy

his father dies

Tulla shoots him

gets ill (cataract)

hip surgery

La grande foule

Karl Johan Strasse

Desastres

Finally, the end of their lives was politically turbulent.

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MunchGoya Saura(1746-1828) (1863-1944) (1930-1998)

travel to Italy

in Madrid

travel to Paris

meets Tulla Larsen

in Parisin Paris

St. Cloud manifesto

member of Academy

his father dies

Tulla shoots him

gets ill (cataract)

hip surgery

La grande foule

Karl Johan Strasse

Desastres

All that configure the visual representation of anxiety, fear, identity and the masses in the three artists.

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GraciasThanks

Finito/Non-Finito: Intentionality and the Modern Fragment

Oslo, 14th November 2014

Thank you very much.

Undefined crowds: Non-finito in Spanish Art from Goya to Saura (via Munch)

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