Halfway through the Art Alphabet now & - arguably - all the trickiest letters are still to come. The thing I noticed about M however is that there could have been several choices for each category so it could be regarded as one of the least tricky in the art world at least. I don’t know what this tells us about the sound, although it is common to many languages across the planet. Its shape is said to derive from early symbols for water, in BSL it’s denoted by three fingers placed in the palm & ASL by curling three fingers over the thumb in a fist. It’s the name of a film, it’s sound that babies can make & although it’s the thirteenth letter of the English alphabet, it’s the fourteenth most commonly used letter. Mmm.
M
1. An Animal (monkey): Monkey by Peter Paillou (active c. 1745-c. 1806)
There are lots of monkeys in art, but many of them are bit parts in a painting, often to show someone else’s status or travels & often trapped or chained up. How else could you keep a monkey? They’ve had a mixed time of it in the art world. Pre-Darwin, they were seen as being enough like humans in intelligence to be afforded a higher rank than mere animals & were associated (as were humans) with angels. Then again, they’re also enough like humans to represent less desirable qualities & characteristics possessed of people.
2. A Body Part (mouth): Study for the Nurse in the film “Battleship Potemkin” by Francis Bacon (1909-1992)
We might have used Munch’s scream, Vermeer’s pearl earring girl with her sensuously highlighted lips or even Dali’s Mae West sofa lips, but no. The master of the mouth is the perma-creepy Bacon. With terrible teeth & terrifying tongues, Bacon’s mouths agape represent the abyss in miniature & they suck you in. But everyone is influenced by something & in the case of this work, it’s an image from the “Battleship Potemkin” film which inspired this hellish vision. The still of an injured nurse’s face mid-scream is said to have instigated many Bacon mouths…
3. An Artwork (Mona Lisa): Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Of every painting in the world, it would seem churlish to eschew the most valuable, most famous, most celebrated of them all. Whether or not we agree about its greatness or lack thereof is completely irrelevant. Somehow this has happened to it & this is where we are, where she is.
4. An Artist (Morandi): Still Life by Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964)
In the world of art we have a Monet, Manet, Mondrian, Munch & Magritte but in penance for Mona Lisa, I have taken a diversion to the less well-known Morandi.
5. A Genre (Magic Realism): The Painter’s Family by Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978)
Made from artist mannequins, the family is so amusingly self-referential, it might have been a Surrealist work. But Magic Realism distorts the line between imagination & reality. In literature, the ordinary setting is infused with a magical or supernatural element & we have to suspend our disbelief & go along with it. It’s much the same in visual art although some artists preferred to work with something innately mysterious rather than juxtaposing reality with explicitly bizarre features.
6. A Medium (Mail Art): Opened By Customs by Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948)
From the Tate website:
Mail art began in the 1960s when artists sent postcards inscribed with poems or drawings through the post rather than exhibiting or selling them through conventional commercial channels.
Not even trying to put it better.
7. A Gallery (Mudec): Museo delle Culture (MUDEC) designed by David Chipperfield
This incredible building in Milan covers two floors & contains seven thousand exhibits. Its structure is a work of art in itself. It has capacity for restoration of artefacts, holds conferences & has its own library.
8. An Organisation (Market Photo Workshop): Man Sleeping. Joubert Park, Johannesburg by David Goldblatt (1930-2018)
During apartheid, this school of photography was founded by Goldblatt himself so that black artists could access instruction in photography. It now aims to provide training & exhibition space to the disenfranchised areas of South African society.
9. An Emotion (melancholy): Melancholy by Lucrina Fetti (1590-1673)
The subject of melancholy in art deserves a blog of its own & it might yet get one. The trouble with melancholy in pictures is that it’s a bit subjective. Some figures may indeed look melancholic, some slightly peevish or bad-tempered. I feel that Fetti gets it right but with an added migraine.
10. A Country (Mexico): Echo of a Scream by David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974)
Siqueiros was profoundly influenced by the horrors of Franco’s fascist regime & the devastation in the aftermath of war. This is an incredibly powerful & human response, using dark colours & the child’s palpable despair, coupled with the title reflects the misery caused by all major conflicts.
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