July 26, 2009

Rivalries

Yesterday I put my old Moroccan travel skills to the test by taking a day trip to Boston. Yes, that would be four to four and a half hours both ways for a total of about nine hours on a bus. Don't feel sorry for me though; it was a very fancy bus with leather seats, wireless internet and lots of leg room (not that I need that). Those things, along with my awesome ability to sleep anywhere and the company of my friend Nicole, made for a pleasant trip. No chickens or sheep were on the bus and no one called out for a mika bag.

Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice, a special exhibition at the Museum of Fine Art, was what had drawn us to the city. Matthew, who biked in from Cambridge, joined us. At first, I bought the whole call and response premise that the curators had carefully constructed. Titian paints a sacre conversazione, then Tintoretto (his younger rival) paints a more dynamic (some might even say "extreme") one. Some of the more compelling visual arguments involved a room full of nudes (appropriately hidden behind red velvet curtains), the Supper at Emmaus, and Saints Anthony and Jerome (in a separate room of course, though the Temptation of Saint Anthony could have been worked into the room of nudes, I'm sure). The argument began to lose steam for me, however, when the wall-texts/curators started making tenuous connections amongst the size and shape of rivals' canvases and their choice of extremely common subjects. I have a hard time believing that Tintoretto was hunting down Titian's canvases in private collections so that he could compete with the older man. Also, some of those objects were sent to Spain, where Titian had an important patron in the King, but Tintoretto did not. The need for competition isn't immediately apparent, but the power of the male ego may be a factor here, too.

One theme that kept popping up throughout the exhibition was the influence of Michelangelo on the Venetian painters. Michelangelo's reach is something that I haven't studied at all. Though it makes sense that his studio assistants would go on to have workshops of their own, and for his works to be seen by his contemporaries, I've always studied him in such a vacuum that I have no conception of him as a best amongst many, only as a singular star that outshone all. Now that I think about that I'm remembering that the younger Raphael was a rising star whose tranquil, orderly style, threatened the older, more tempestuous master. This, of course, may be a Hollywood construction. And by "Hollywood" I mean "art historical." Rivalries create drama which in turn brings in crowds and/or sells books. Wonderful. Maybe in three hundred years there will be an exhibition called Duchamp/Picasso/Pollock: Modern Master Catfight. I, of course, will write an MA thesis entitled, Hannah Höch: I Will Cut You. (Sorry, I might be the only one who thinks that's funny. It really is, you know.)

And now I'm very tired. Noon is a bit early to consider a nap, but you can only study so much German on four hours of sleep. Also, even though I only spent a a few hours in Boston, I accomplished a lot - I met a fellow writer; I doled out love advice; I walked from Copley Square to Cambridge; I doled out living-in-Brooklyn advice; and I reviewed weak masculine nouns. Every weekend should be so productive.

2 comments:

Katharine said...

I also find your proposed thesis title funny.

Anonymous said...

You have your whole life to be a jerk....so why dont you take a day off so.. leave me a message for when I get back!!!!