diary of a filmmaker

It’s next time again.

Like many worthwhile things, it has taken some time to pull together the short film I told you about a few months ago on Jackson Pollock.

You may already know Smithsonian ran an article in December about Henry Adams’ book, Tom & Jack and the accompanying web story got over a million hits on the weekend it appeared! We can only hope this short little film gives the book an additional bounce.

This blog is supposed to be a diary. So what can I tell you about making this film? The big lesson for me is that content and story telling are the core of any decent cinema project. The production elements here are very simple. The charm is in the way the story is revealed.

This is the first video I have embedded into the blog and I hope it plays seamlessly for you. The full screen button is located right next to the word “Vimeo” on the video controls.

The Jackson Pollock Code from Thomas Ball on Vimeo.

Henry Adams has a marvelous way of telling a story with fascinating and amusing side trips. Like the great British travel writers of the 1930s, the destination of his plots seems only the excuse for the hugely entertaining ancillary excursions. Henry’s blithe transitions from topic to topic take you into totally unplanned territory sort of like a wandering day trip on a sunny spring day in Italy. This time you find yourself mesmerized by the work of Abbot Thayer who Henry tells us made important contributions to the development of camouflage. Then Andy Warhol appears, as if out of a dream, and by the time its all over, you are not sure what it all means but you know you had a great time.

This version of the now famous Google logo is an astonishing example of how ideas transmute themselves seemingly with a mind of their own. See the posting at the New York Times T Blog for the details.

Imagine my amazement when Marianne Berardi sent me an email about Google jumping on the Pollock band wagon. This is from The T Magazine Blog of the New York Times from February of this year – a couple of months after the Smithsonian article appeared.

So what do you think? Many in my office felt the letters in the painting could be anything. Some claimed they could find their own names in the Pollock painting. I was charmed by the whole idea and felt that anything which caused you to spend more time looking at a great work of art was a good thing. The interview with the beguiling Marianne Berardi, however, changed my mind. Her point about “reading the painting” with the rhythmic spacing similar to letters is a very compelling argument.

This painting by Jackson Pollock was painted in 1943 and is now worth a staggering amount of money. The painting was given by Peggy Guggenheim to the University of Iowa. University of Iowa Museum of Art, Gift of Peggy Guggenheim 1959.6 / © 2009 Pollock-Krasner Foundation / ARS, NY

There is more collateral evidence. A recent acquisition of a Pollock by the Butler museum shows the letter forms as well. Henry also points out (after having fun with his 10 year old as they tried to paint their own Jackson Pollock) if you just drip and throw paint around it looks repetitive and boring. Making letters in the air gives your drips more personality and variety. All of this we hope to include in another short film as well as (if we can find the money) a full blown one hour documentary of Tom & Jack.

Henry gives a lecture about the book at the University of Iowa next week. I am hoping he will post a comment here on their reaction to his discoveries.

Until next time with much love, I remain your,

Tommaso

It’s next time again.

One of the most satisfying aspects of doing this Blog is getting great comments from extremely bright people who get turned on by the topic. This month, I’m delighted to say, the articulate Art Historian, Henry Adams, has discovered the under-appreciated  bounty in his own book collection! He took the time to share his renewed enthusiasm for the covers of these books with the rest of us.

Henry writes: I’ve often buy books simply for their covers.  Somewhat perversely, I suppose to justify the expense, I often then sit down and read what’s between the covers, but very often the cover is the thing that spurs me to make the purchase.  In part this is a result of my art historical interests.  For example,  I can’t afford a painting by Thomas Hart Benton or Grant Wood, but it’s fun to collect books for which they made cover designs.

One of my favorites is Benton’s paper cover for Thomas A. Edison: A Modern Olympian by Mary Childs Nierney, 1934.  I have a copy with a cover that’s completely untorn, although I suspect that the color that now reads a gray was one a rich indigo blue.   The design show’s Edison’s first generator, the “long-waisted Mary Ann,” next to a modern generator, and his first cylinder phonograph next to a “modern” disk phonograph.  The jazzy design closely relates to Benton’s famous mural of America Today and Benton clearly worked hard on it.

When he was done he commented that he would rather cover fifty feet of wall space than work again within book-jacket dimensions.

Grant Wood also did several  designs specifically to serve as book-covers.  My two favorites are Plowing on Sunday by Sterling North of 1934, with a farmer swigging from a jug; and O, Chautauqua by Thomas Duncan of 1935 by Sterling North, with a aerial view of a circus tent which is remarkably modern and reminiscent of the photographs of Moholy-Nagy.

Around the turn-of-the-century it was common to produce very beautiful cloth book covers, which are often wonderful works of art in their own right.

The tradition goes back at least to the work of the great English designer William Morris, who made a magnificently decorative cover for an edition of the Vollsunga Saga that he translated from the Icelandic in 1870.  As it happens, the birds and foliage on the cover have nothing whatsoever to do with the contents of the book, but they a certainly beautiful in their own right. One of the most prolific cover designers of the 1920s was Margaret Armstrong, who did several striking designs for books by Henry Van Dyke, such as The Golden Key of 1926.  While her work was produced mostly in the ‘twenties, it’s basically art nouveau in character.

Perhaps the greatest master of this sort of design was Aubrey Beardsley, the great master of art nouveau, who made a number of remarkable covers.  My favorites are his wonderful creepy design of what I take to be poppies for Oscar Wilde’s Salome (first published, I believe in 1892, although my copy was printed in 1927; and possibly even better, his cover for the last book he illustrated, Ben Jonson’s Volpone of 1898.  The Volpone design I find particularly fascinating since it’s a wonderful example of art nouveau and yet at the same time, its free-form scattering of elements is strangely similar to the paintings of Jackson Pollock.  This is surely one of the great 19^th century designs, in any medium.

Some other enjoyable covers:

A book cover by the great English architect Charles Rennie MacIntosh for A Book of Sundials, by Launcelot Cross, published in Edinburgh in 1914.

An anonymous book cover for Robert Louis Stevenon’s Island Nights’ Entertainments, 1893, which is modeled on a Polynesian tapa cloth and next to it wonderful multi-colored  design of a knight in armor by the noted illustrator J. C. Leydenecker,  created for a boy’s adventure book of 1926, The Crimson Conquest by Charles Bradford Hudson.

Finally, let me propose a candidate for the title of the greatest cover design ever.  It’s Matisse’s drawing of a ballerina for the cover of a book by Boris Kochno, Le Ballet, published by Hachette in 1954.  Kochno was the secretary and lover of Serge Diaghilev, the founder of the Ballets Russes; and he also had an affair with Cole Porter.  His text (in French, of course) provides an excellent survey of the history of the ballet, with an emphasis on the extraordinary achievement of Diaghilev and his troupe.  But what’s most marvelous about the book is the extraordinary photographs of dancers, and the wonderful costume and set designs by figures such as Picasso and Matisse.  It even has an original Picasso lithograph as a frontispiece.

Somehow my parents picked up a copy of this book during one of their trips to France in the 1950s, and it was a major influence on me: the book that introduced me to modern art.  I was particularly fascinated by the line drawings of Matisse and the idea of trying to make a completely satisfying work of art with the most minimal possible means.  The cover demonstrates Matisse’s mastery in accomplishing this.  While the drawing is not precisely accurate in a photographic sense,  it perfectly captures the physique and movement of a ballerina.  People often say that Matisse’s drawings are flat, but what’s interesting is that the effect is far from flat.  It captures the physicality of the figure; it nicely evokes a sense of movement; and of course it’s beautifully placed on the page—or perhaps I should say, on the cover.  As I’ve said, it’s my personal candidate for the greatest cover design ever.  In its way it’s a perfect work of art.

Henry Adams

The brilliant art directors at Penguin hired propaganda specialist and graphic wizard Shephard Fairey to illustrate the newly reissued editions of Orwell’s classics

It’s next time again
So what is it like for you? Do you buy books or CD’s based on the cover? I do. Probably you do too. I think of it like a code. Of course, the best is when you already know what you want and have heard a good recommendation. But when you’re just browsing, do you get sucked in the way I do with good graphics? One designer I really like, Hans Müller, called the book he edited about ECM’s cover art, Sleeves of Desire. Isn’t that perfect? I really enjoy the creative decisions that have gone into really great cover art and more often than not, I feel as though I truly can judge a book by it’s cover.

ECM Records (headquartered in Munich) brings out the very coolest jazz and compliments the music with gorgeous covers. Manfred Eicher founded the compamy in 1969. He is a genius at pairing visuals and music and he often features the graphic work of Barbara Wojirsh and Deiter Rehm. They define the most sophisticated of Europeaon graphic design.

I love it when a book just jumps out from the display and screams, “Buy me! You’ll love me!”  It is one of the things I miss about all the reading I’m doing on the Kindle. But you and I have been through all this before. Even if you are too young to have bought vinyl you must love those big graphic covers on LP’s. There was so much to like. First the big square format. Already a timeless symbol – the circle in the square. Just like the paving stones in front of the Pantheon in Rome. The large format gave the designer so much real estate to fill with good decisions and meaningfully coded content.

The Pantheon in Rome is based on the geometry of the circle and the square. You find this motif on the floors both inside and out.

One of my first jobs was in a record store. I discovered, almost without fail, if I really loved the cover – there was a pretty good chance I liked the music inside as well. I remember we all held our breath when the Beatles brought out a new album. In the wake of the uproar that happened after the dismembered babies on the British version of the Yesterday and Today album, we were certain their next album was going to be a shocker. It was. In a defiant gesture of zen bravado we laughed our asses off when we unpacked The White Album. It was designed by an artist friend of Paul McCartney’s, Richard Hamilton, who had curated exhibitions on Marcel Duchamp.

The Beatles butchering baby dolls was too contraversial and the album art was pulled. It is now worth a fortune. The White Album was designed by Richard Hamilton a collage artist and specialist on Marcel Duchamp.

CD’s shrank the LP graphic experience, and now with digital downloads cover art has become even less fun. I am so obsessed with CD’s and good cover art I spend a huge amount of time making sure all my iTunes albums have good cover art to go along with. If I hate the original cover I sometimes make my own. But how is the package a code for what lies within?

Two more of my favorite covers art directed by ECM’s Manfred Eicher. These were most likely designed by Barbara Wojirsch and Dieter Rehm. The black and white photo is by master photographer André Kertész (1894 – 1985).

These days I look at almost all art as the product of a series of decisions. Perhaps this not profound and completely self evident but I find the concept both restful and intriguing. As a filmmaker, I know a project breaks down into thousands of decisions. This is what a Director does – make decisions. “Not that way, it should be this way.” A great project is when there are more good decisions than mediocre ones. I think one of the ways to best appreciate a great painting, a great building, a beautiful couture dress, or a fabulous meal is to break the final product down into its component parts and look at the decision process that went into every detail. The process is endlessly fascinating and often frustrating. I love Woody Allen’s take on it. He says, “I conceive the film–I sit home and write it–and, when I conceive it, it’s brilliant. Everything is true Chekhov or Shakespeare: it’s great! And then, you start work, and the truck with fresh compromises drives up every day.”

A great book cover connects with the subject matter. This new series of Ian Flemming’s James Bond novels, by Penguin, not only evokes the sexy sophistication of the plots but also the times in which they were written.The paintings were done by Michael Gillette.

This is why the cover of a book matters to me. I see it as an extension of the artist’s decision making process. When well done, the cover is a talisman for the project. If the book is good the author hopefully found his or her way to a quality publisher. They decided to work together. Hopefully the publisher decided to hire a good designer and so on. In the design, I love to see intelligence connecting the major themes of the book.

Great graphic design signals quality. It doesn’t happen by accident. It costs money. It requires sophistication and judgement. It is a great joy in my life. I’d love to see some of your favorites. In your comments, if you send me a link or email a photo of something you really love I’ll get it posted on the blog. I can’t wait to see what you select. I bet this turns into a really rich experience.

Shepard Ferry, whose work you know from the famous Obama poster (and the subsequent legal troubles with the Assoc. Press) had a recent show at the wonderful new  ICA in Boston. He is a new Andy Warhol. Penguin recently hired him to do special edition covers for George Orwell’s classics (seen above) and he did minor masterpieces which evoke the paranoid oppression of Russian propaganda posters. Shepard Ferry is a genius at this totalitarian control freak world view. The decision to hire him for this project was inspired.

Two books I’m going to buy and read only because of the great covers!

In Filmmaking, and in Opera (and in most complex artistic endeavors of any sort), the number of decisions can be very overwhelming. I know I’ve hit the wall when I can’t make one more decision. This is why David Lynch (the guy who directed Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet) jokes that he orders the same thing for lunch every day. One less decision to make.
One of my favorite quotes is from the great film director Luchino Visconti. In his retirement, a journalist once asked him if he still went to the movies and what he liked? Visconti said something like, “I don’t go to the movies much any more. When I get in there and see all the decisions up there on the screen – it is just too exhausting.”

In the Woods is highly recommended. How would you like the assignment to design the cover art for a new edition of Harry Potter? I think, M.S. Corley did a damn good job!

What a triumph when the project is finally done and the creator still has a bit of strength left to decide upon (or at least approve) the perfect cover.

Until next time with much love,
Tommaso

For and easy to print version click: The Defeat of Time PDF

This beguiling hyper-realistic portrait of a cat must have been even more amazing when Cornelia Saftleven painted it in 1607. It would be two centuries before anyone could see a photograph.

It’s next time again.

What a profound joy it is to be provoked by Art. A new exhibition, in Florence, at the Palazzo Strozzi has me jazzed. It’s got everything I like; great craftsmanship, the sexy combo of old & new, a sense of humor, and huge ideas. In a burst of museum-quality genius the very smart curators at the Palazzo Strozzi decided to combine a painting show of Trompe l’Oeil, with a photography show of digital images. The exhibition titles connect the dots: Art And Illusions – Masterpieces of Trompe l’Oeil from Antiquity to the Present Day, and Manipulating Reality – How Images Redefine the World.

Tromp l’Oeil is one of those maddening, impossible to pronounce French phrases. As you undoubtedly know, it means “trick the eye” and as a genre of painting it is sort of like a Golden Retriever; completely adorable and hard to dislike. The show is about technical skill and clever painting effects but it is also about perception and well-intentioned deceit. It has the entertainment value of a really good magic show. It features not only the technically adept from past and present but also genuine Renaissance superstars including works by Titian, Veronese, Tiepolo and Tintoretto.

Renaissance master Titian shows off his skill painting translucent drapery in this portrait of Archbishop Filippo Archinto painted in 1558. Many believe this portrait influenced Francis Bacon’s “Screaming Pope” series.

There are many still lifes in the show. Most go beyond photo realism into more expressive realms. It is hard to remember many of them were painted before photography even existed.

Click the photo to go to a higher quality link for this gorgeously detailed still life representing the stock market crash of 1929. It was painted by Otis Kaye in 1937.

Art and Illusions took a good idea and made it great through the hard work of a talented curator, Annamaria Giusti, and a museum management determined to reach out to the public in highly creative ways. You were encouraged to find guards with special “Ask Me” buttons who acted as docents when you had a question. There was an acoustic guide for adults and another one for kids. The labels were in Italian and in English, and (this is the really hard part) all the people were friendly and seemed like they wanted you to have a great time! The curators cherry picked great paintings, sculpture and displays from all over the globe and combined them (not in chronological order) with wit and skill. The show was a delight. Be sure to check out the wonderfully done website.

This image feels uncomfortably strange because it was shot with “G. I. Joes” in Paolo Ventura’s New York studio instead of Iraq. Title: Iraq 2008, C-Prints 120 x 100 cm Courtesy of the artist © Paolo Ventura

It was, however, the companion, more contemporary exhibition on Digital Photography that put me on a fast train to Florence. I love the spanking new tech of it. What put the great in Manipulating Reality was the taste and reach of the curator, Franziska Nori (and her International team) combined with the big ideas of the top notch artists.

The curators seductively tossed out some intellectual catnip when they credited the French Philosopher, Roland Barthes (1915-1980) and his famous book Camera Lucida in the introductions to the exhibition. Those of you who know me and are familiar with Roland Barthes are probably saying to yourself, “It’s about time . . . “ and so it is. The Defeat of Time is a quote from Mr. Barthes and the rest of this essay expresses my delight in just three of his amazing ideas.

French critic and philosopher Roland Barthes circa 1960. His controversial and provocative book on Photography, Camera Lucida, was published in 1980 shortly before he was killed in a car accident.

Roland Barthes wrote about still photography in a philosophical and experiential way. It strikes me that he, and many others before him who wrote about Photography in the twentieth century, were caught up in the fresh fascination of a new medium. Photography, for them, was a new art form exploring issues and ideas contemporary with their lives. Professor Harvey Buchanan (who posts here now and then when I’m lucky) often talks about contemporary artists (for him it was Jasper Johns) having special resonance with young people who are growing up at that particular time. This connection reminds me of nostalgic rush you get when you hear the music that was playing on the radio when you got your first car.

For the 21st century, Digital Media and the related arts is surely the new wave. Maybe it is not so new. The Victoria & Albert Museum in London is currently doing an exhibition Decode which examines Digital Art from the 60’s and 70’s. In a similar way, Photography was not really a new technology for Barthes and his contemporaries but, what was being done with it and the effect it was having on our world, was new.

Promotional still from James Cameron’s, 3D digital masterpiece: Avatar.

There is no doubt that Digital Art is now. Look no further than James Cameron’s new 3D blockbuster Avatar or the disturbing Chinese “news” animations of the Tiger Woods scandal which combine animated fabrications with real news footage. (Their creators defend these as trendy journalism because “young people don’t take the time to read.”)

What I find fascinating about the Strozzi show are the conceptual hooks – the curator’s connection to Trompe l’Oeil, the artistic manipulation of reality, the experiential nature of these art forms and the provocative ideas outlined so brilliantly through the (not new but new to me) ideas of Roland Barthes.

I need your help here. Barthes first idea is called studium. It is a Latin word and the translation of his French is so convoluted and confusing perhaps those of you who better know his work or know Latin can help us out. Barthes, in horribly stilted translation, explains:

“I believe this word exists in Latin: it is studium, which doesn’t mean, at least not immediately, “study,” but application to a thing, taste for someone, a kind of general, enthusiastic commitment, of course, but without special acuity.”

Used in this way, Barthes seems to be saying studium is sort of like “field of study.” It is the ground on which the more interesting parts of his theory take place. His next idea, which he calls punctum, is much easier to understand and he describes it vividly.

“The second element will break (or punctuate) the studium. . . it is this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me. A Latin word exists to designate this wound, this prick, this mark made by a pointed instrument: the word suits me all the better in that it also refers to the notion of punctuation, . . . for punctum is also: sting, speck, cut, little hole – and also a cast of the dice. A photograph’s punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me).”

Lucio Fontana’s sensuous and violent slash paintings make Roland Barthes theories tangible for me. Lucio Fontana – Concetto spaziale. Attese, 1959, private collection.

Both these ideas remind me of Lucio Fontana’s sexy and somehow violent slash paintings where he takes a canvas (perhaps the studium) and cuts through it or pierces it (which might be the punctum). Barthes is pointing to something that takes Photography beyond the documentary or reportage stage and propels into the realm of Art. Photography, in the 20th century, took over the burden of representation from painting. It then grew into something more mysterious.

This photo taken of would be assassin Lewis Payne by Alexander Gardner in 1865 haunted Roland Barthes.

Barthes then drives home his philosophical nail quite close to my heart as he describes his reaction to a photograph of a jailed young assassin. “I now know that there exists another punctum (another “stigmatum”) than the “detail.” This new punctum, which is no longer of form but of intensity, is Time, the lacerating emphasis of the noeme (“that-has-been”), its pure representation. In 1865, young Lewis Payne tried to assassinate Secretary of State W. H. Seward. Alexander Gardner photographed him in his cell, where he was waiting to be hanged. The photograph is handsome, as is the boy: that is the studium. But the punctum is: he is going to die.”

If you love photography you will love his next part. “Whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is this catastrophe. This punctum, more or less blurred beneath the abundance and the disparity of contemporary photographs, is vividly legible in historical photographs: there is always a defeat of Time in them . . .” How gorgeous is that? All this stuff slays me.

In the Strozzi show time bends, breaks and stands still. Waking becomes dream. Reality gets twisted. Amazement turns to wonder and then blooms, first into a smile and then a thrill.

See now the carpeted forest of Rosemary Laing (Australia, 1959). Click the photo to go to a higher quality version.

Groundspeed (Red Piazza) #05, 2001, C-Print, 106 x 163 cm, Courtesy the artist: DZ Bank Kunstsammlung © Rosemary Laing: Galerie CONRADS, Düsseldorf.

I can’t be completely sure, but I think from reading the catalog perhaps this carpet is actually installed in the forest and then photographed. I suppose it is crazy to even care, digital or physical is not the issue – it is the graceful impact she creates. I don’t think this was her intent. Considering the work more thoughtfully, it is more of an environmental statement about Colonialism in Australia but I find the image restful. I could so easily live with this image and I would smile at it every day.

Mamma, Maura e Claudia – “20. 12. 53 – 10. 08. 04“, 2004-2009 Lambda Print, Aluminum, Courtesy of the artist; Galleria Alessandro De March, Milano, © Moira Ricci

The images in the show that really pierced me, however, were the poignant photographs of Moira Ricci (Italy, 1977). Moira (seen above in the green T shirt) decided to insert herself into her mother’s early life and she does so with the skill of one of the painstaking Trompe l’Oeil still life painters in the companion show. Her series is titled 20. 12. 53 – 10. 08. 04 ; the dates of her mother’s birth and premature death. Moira’s body language in all of the insertions has the expressive and haunting quality of certain figures in mannerist paintings; the ones who stare at you and make you uncomfortably aware of your observation.

Mamma sulla moto da nonna - “20. 12. 53 – 10. 08. 04“, 2004-2009 Lambda Print, Aluminum, Courtesy of the artist; Galleria Alessandro De March, Milano, © Moira Ricci

Fidanzati – “20. 12. 53 – 10. 08. 04“, 2004-2009 Lambda Print, Aluminum, Courtesy of the artist; Galleria Alessandro De March, Milano, © Moira Ricci

What started as an homage to her mother from a grieving and talented daughter turned into, for me, the talisman of the show. I found myself getting goose bumps as I felt the inherent loss in these photographs. As I marveled at her craftsmanship and thought about her core idea I could not help but think both her Mom and Roland Barthes would have been so proud.

Until next time with much love,

Tommaso

Jackson Pollock trickles house paint for a legend-making story as it appeared in LIFE magazine in the summer of 1949. Time magazine would later call him “Jack the Dripper” © Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images, Photographer Martha Holmes, Image Courtesy: Peggy Guggenheim Collection

It’s next time again.

True to the title of this Blog I am beginning a new project and I can’t wait to tell you about it. In an exciting collaboration with the Art Historian, Henry Adams, we are about to produce some films to promote his new book on Jackson Pollock and Thomas Hart Benton. The book is called: Tom & Jack – the Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock. This project, I am happy to say, is headed for greatness and you, dear reader, are about to get an exclusive preview.

The cover of Tom & Jack to be published in November by London’s Bloomsbury Press (who also published Harry Potter).

This project has it all. It is filled with provocative ideas and I can’t wait to hear your reactions and insights. Let me give you some background.

Jackson Pollock needs no introduction. He is such a larger than life American icon. In fact, one of the reasons he became larger than life is because of LIFE – the magazine. In 1949 there was a big spread on JP and this pop culture exposure coupled with his unique slapdash style and his tragic drunken high-speed death made him an American icon. We know why Jackson Pollock crashed and burned but I’d like to know what the hell ever happened to LIFE magazine? It was great! Some of the world’s best photographers. Stories told largely through pictures. Why do you think it is not on your coffee table any more? What changed?

“Cut the Line”painted for the U.S. Navy in 1944 by Thomas Hart Benton. Henry explains that although Benton was the son of a U.S. Congressman he liked to present himself as a “crude, uneducated hillbilly.”

Thomas Hart Benton you know as well. You know his style and his work but he remains sort of like one of those great character actors whom you love but you can never remember his name. This is a great example of a picture being worth a thousand words. What you might not know, I sure didn’t, is that Benton was Pollock’s teacher. Henry’s story of their relationship reads like a thriller. Without giving too much away here is Henry’s description of the plot:

“The drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, trailblazing Abstract Expressionist, appear to be the polar opposite of Thomas Hart Benton’s highly figurative Americana. Yet the two men had a close and charged relationship dating from Pollock’s days as a student under Benton. Pollock’s first and only formal training came from Benton, and the older man soon became a surrogate father to Pollock. In true Oepidal fashion, Pollock even fell in love with Benton’s wife. Pollock later broke away artistically, rocketing to superstardom behind his stunning drip compositions. But he never lost touch with Benton or his ideas—in fact, his breakthrough abstractions reveal a strong debt to Benton’s teachings.”

Henry Adams, the Art Historian and provocateur is caught here probably girl watching somewhere in Italy.

Henry Adams, shown here, looking young handsome and frisky on an Italian street someplace, is one of the foremost Benton scholars in the world. In fact, he appears in a wonderful Ken Burns movie about Benton. I am really excited to work with Henry. His book on the American painter Thomas Eakins, Eakins Revealed got rave reviews. Andrew Wyeth called this book “The most extraordinary biography I have ever read on an artist.” Booklist called it, “Cogent, Exhaustive, Incendiary and Daring.” Henry and I collaborated on the film about the artist Christopher Pekoc, with the great title conceived by Henry, The Beauty of Damage and we are working together on the Extreme Visions documentary – a film about architecture, patronage and creativity at Princeton.

Click on the above picture to play with an interactive slide show brilliantly executed by the talented art directors at Smithsonsian.

This past week both Art News and Smithsonian did stories about Tom & Jack on the web. Check out the Smithsonian article – Decoding Jackson Pollock. This may be the spark that ignites a national news story. The enthusiastic comments there (some pro and some con) indicate Henry has touched a raw nerve. Many of the opinions there are not new but it is great to read people thinking and feeling so passionately about art. These articles do great job of explaining “the name in the painting controversy.” Henry’s Smithsonian article tells the story of how his beguilingly beautiful wife Marianne Berardi (who is also a distinguished Art Historian) discovered hidden treasure in a fifty year old 140 million dollar masterpiece. As if that weren’t enough, consider this provocation that directly relates to the discussions here on music.

Old Art = Literature? New Art = Music?

Henry’s brilliant book shines fresh perspective on some classic arguments. One of these was put forth by the journalistic art historian Clement Greenburg in a breakout essay published in 1940. Henry explains,
“Greenburg’s idea was that certain art forms become particularly popular in a period and then set the pattern for other arts. For example, he felt that nineteenth century painting and sculpture imitated literature because it told a story. Greenburg was interested in the idea that modern art had moved away from literature and instead was working in abstract terms more similar to music. He proposed that shifts of this sort were due to the imperatives of history, that in the modern age it was impossible to make representational art without making a “surrender to images from a stale past.” With abstract art, “there is nothing to identify, connect, or think about, but everything to feel.”

The analogy is fascinating. The spectrum of old and new literature and old and new music fits in here as well. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on all of this. The short films we are about to create will explore many of these topics and, as always, your insights will help enormously. Stay tuned.

Until next time with much love I remain your,
Tommaso