Research on The Harbor of Dieppe

One of the first things I learned about JMW Turner is that he was not principally an oil painter; his medium of preference was watercolors, of which he produced over two thousand works, whereas he created all of five hundred and fifty oil paintings in his lifetime (“Turner Society Homepage”. Retrieved 16 February 2013). The painting itself was derived from a sketch made by Turner on a trip to France in 1821, and was a work in progress until its initial exhibition in 1825.

As i’d suspected, the colors used to paint Dieppe were, usually, recent inventions; cobalt blue, which was available as a pigment from 1802 onwards, was first found in oils by Turner as early as 1806-7. Chrome yellow, which was available in 1814, was adopted by Turner in 1814. Other pigments he used included pale lemon chrome, chrome orange, and white lead (Townsend, 41) All of these pigments, with the exception of white lead, were initially viewed with suspicion by more traditionalist painters at the Royal Academy in Britain, as there were doubts that these pigments could stand up to the effects of time and associated oxidation (Townsend, 35).

More importantly, though, Turner’s initial exhibit of The Harbor of Dieppe received mixed praise and criticism. The Literary Magnet, a popular outlet for art criticism at the time, called it “Mr. Turner’s brilliant experiment upon colours, which displays all the magic of skill at the expense of all the magic of nature (Butlin, 127).”  The New Monthly Magazine (15, 1825, p. 300) called it “...perhaps the most splendid piece of falsehood that ever proceeded from the pencil of its author” and continued:

it should be seen from the colouring of the picture, as if, after the artist had finished it according to the best lights that Nature had chosen to furnish him with, he had felt totally dissatisfied with his work, and had determined to heighten it up to his own ideas of what Nature might have done for it if she had chosen!

(Butlin, 127)

Both pieces of criticism are essentially correct; the colors used in Dieppe are unnaturally bright, and do not accurately reflect the type of sunlight that would shine on a port town in northern France. However, these critics are missing the forest for the trees; the light is the subject matter of the painting! This is not an objective rendering of the port, rather, it is Turner’s objective experience of Dieppe, which was colored by his earlier trips to Italy (esp. Venice) and other sun-bathed parts of the mediterranean.

I, who have feasted on a steady diet of dramatic television shows and thriller movies, believed that this painting had a hidden message or story to tell, hiding perhaps in the face of one of the characters. My leading question in this research was; “What is the subject?” What I didn’t realize, though it was in front of me the whole time, was that Turner’s subject was sunlight. The town and its inhabitants are merely the supporting cast of Turner’s long-running study on the effects of light and the elements on civilization.

Works Cited:

Butlin, Martin, J. M. W. Turner, and Evelyn Joll. The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner. pp. 126-7. New Haven: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the Tate Gallery by Yale UP, 1977. Print.

Townsend, Joyce, and J. M. W. Turner. "Turner The Colourist." Turner's Painting Techniques. London: Tate Gallery, 1993. N. pag. Print.

Pt. 2

The first thrust of my research was a multi-pronged question; why was Dieppe painted in its peculiar way, and what techniques did Turner use to render it that way? At first I thought the answer would lay in biographical information, as any artist has presumably suffered some drama in his life, so I pored over multiple biographies at Bobst. What I found, though, was no starving artist; the man came from a middle-class family in London, and by the time he died, the proceeds from his paintings had netted him the modern equivalent of £14,000,000. The only noted ‘tragedies’ in his life were that his mother died in a mental asylum when he was in his mid-twenties, and that he never married (though he fathered two children by a long-term mistress). He was a noted recluse for much of his life, and his only true friend was his father, who served as his studio assistant for thirty years. This information, though interesting, explained nothing.

What helped more was the discovery that Turner had mastered traditional forms of painting (historical and mythological scenes) by emulating the 17th-century masters by the time he was twenty, and that during his mid-to-late career, “He anticipated the French Impressionists in breaking down conventional formulas of representation; but, unlike them, he believed that his works should always express significant historical, mythological, literary, or other narrative themes.” (from Britannica online) In other words, he felt like his paintings should mean something, both to himself and to his audience.

I did find a few snippets of information about Turner’s trip to Dieppe, which showed that he did not spend much time or effort in sketching the town. However, other than looking at biographies, scanning assorted The life and works of.... -type books did not help me glean any information about my painting in question; there was no mention of the piece except in the two books listed above. Much more attention was paid to works such as Dido Building Carthage, which uses a similar light-scheme, and Dordrecht the Dort Packet-boat From Rotterdam Becalmed, the sketch for which was created in the same era of his life. From these, I had to conclude that any further research on the topic would have to be indirect.

The little book titled “Turner the Colourist”, wedged between much larger tomes, yielded the exact sort of information I needed; details about the pigments the artist used! With this, I came to see Turner as something of an innovator - an early adaptor, so to speak, in the art world of his time. This also helped to explain why contemporary art critics were so harsh about his color scheme in Dieppe and in his watercolor paintings; they had never seen canvases that bright before.

My research was very methodical, in that I pored through a few dozen books, scanned through JSTOR hits for “JMW Turner” and “The Harbor of Dieppe”, but any mention of Dieppe was in relation to the WWII battle fought over that town - not about the iconic painting. I believe that I was researching the wrong question; it should not have been a simple “Why was Dieppe painted?” Instead, I should have been asking “What themes and elements was Turner trying to paint at that point (1821-6) in his career?”

Although I’ve realized this only after conducting my initial research, Goulish’s essay on criticism applies to this endeavor in that it advocates taking one singular approach to the painting. I cannot hope to understand everything about it, therefore I must focus on one aspect of the painting in order to better appreciate the whole. My focus, then, will be on examining this piece as part of Turner’s transition from romanticism to proto-impressionism, and perhaps looking post-mortem to see if his works had any influence on the likes of Monet and Gaugin.

New Hobby: Captioning Designer Ads & Runway Shows

Now, I'm not really trying to be mean-spirited towards the designers or the models, but some of these photos are just priceless. If I could mine comedy gold, like these pictures below, I'd be front-row at every fashion week from now on. GIVE ME MORE, PUCCI!

 

 

"No... I'm fine, really... but I think there's something in your nose."

 "Guess which animal I've draped around my neck. C'mon, just take a guess."

 It's casual friday at fashion week. Problem is, this model looks scared someone's about to tell her she's TOO casual.

Emilio Pucci was having a... moment when he came up with this.

Happy Valentine's day to you, too!

"I am the hero Gotham deserves."

What would you do if someone walked into the same elevator you were taking, wearing this? Stare? Look away? WHAT DOES SOCIAL ETIQUETTE DICTATE YOU DO WHEN SOMEONE LOOKS LIKE THE SUN??

Opportunity Never Knocks Twice

Yesterday I got a call from Donna Watts, Manager of the Child Study Center's summer program, asking me to come in for an interview next friday. If I am selected, I will become a camp counselor this summer for children with behavioral disorders such as ADHD, depression, and bipolar syndrome. I am nervous; I do not know what the credentials are of the other kids applying for this job, and I don't know how my resume and college transcript compare to theirs. What I do know is, I have a shot at this.

I have been praying for an opportunity like this for weeks, now. After so many attempts to make it somewhere in the world - from competing in the math Olympics in 6th grade to spelling bees and writing contests for B'nai B'rith, I've always received a "runner-up" or "honorable mention." This interview is like one of those competitions, except it takes place in the real world. If I make it, a letter of recc from this job will put me one step closer to medical school. If I don't, it's back to the drawing board.

There's plenty of other jobs out there, available at NYU's career placement website - Wasserman - and elsewhere, but here I feel like I could do the most good. Here I could actually help kids with pressing, persistent problems in their lives, and push them to rise above their circumstances.

It seems as if every time I apply for a job, the sum of myself - what makes me valuable to society - is being appraised. That's what makes it so stressful; the question of "Am I good enough?" always lurks in the background. 

We press on. Even of I don't get this job, there's school to focus on, and summer jobs come second-place on my to-do list.

UPDATE: I GOT THE JOB!

I can only hope that what I learn, and what I do with that knowledge, will help the kids I work with socialize better with their peers and navigate more effectively in a world that does not run on the same track they do. It's not about the money, and it has never been about the money. It's about the chance to make a difference in the lives of kids who are at high risk of addiction, delinquency, and suicide.

Now that I've got the job, I must prepare myself for the challenge of actually DOING it.

The Harbor of Dieppe

To love a work of art, you must also love the place where you first experienced the work. The Frick Collection, a private art gallery inside a sumptuous mansion, is a place that encourages you to fall in love with everything you see in its rooms.Gilt clocks and porcelains, marble fixtures and velvet-cushioned armchairs, and paintings from wall to wall are interrupted only by a grand staircase that houses a grand organ fit for Westminster Cathedral. Enter the west gallery, by far the largest room in the mansion, and your eyes are drawn to the left wall, where, sandwiched between two portraits of bygone dignitaries, sits a majestic, brightly-colored oil painting, “The Harbor of Dieppe”, created in 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner, clothed by a massive frame gilt with gold leaf.

The scene that unfolds is of a bustling port town at midday, where you, the viewer, are on a ship entering the harbor, surrounded by dozens of ships, some carrying passengers, most of them carrying cargo from faraway lands. In the background, the bell tower of a cathedral looms over the city, challenged only by the dome that crowns city hall. Surrounding these structures are banks, warehouses, stock exchanges and mansions with balconies and silk drapes covering the windows. Everywhere there are people moving to and fro - some unloading the ships, some embarking or disembarking from vessels, some driving down the streets in carriages - and on the right side of the painting, two men and two women watch the activity from their ship, as if they are fellow spectators.

Although Turner’s palette is bright, it is also so bold as to make every other painting in the room appear drab. It is the universally bright colors of the Harbor, the bronze of the wooden trading ships and their weightless, golden sails, the shining white paint on the impressive banks, the packed stock exchanges and the bustling warehouses, and the copper-red roofs that make the painting so happy and full of life, such that it almost appears to laugh with joy and declare “Here am I, the handiwork of man.” Whether or not one is a purveyor of history, one appreciates the sheer business of the scene, with the only sections of canvas not occupied by humans are the blue-and-white sky and the channel of water that leads in and out of the harbor.

Why does it look so happy?

If you look closer at the painting; leaning in as far as you can without upsetting the guards, you will notice that almost none of the characters in this painting are smiling. Not the workers, not the traders nor the travellers coming and going from the harbor; most of them don’t have faces, and those that do bear either a frown, or a grimace, or a look of surprise. The ‘happiest’ faces are the spectators on the boat to your right, who appear alternately serene and pensive. Beyond their boat lies a number of docks in severe disrepair, and the land adjoining them is dotted with shacks and grimy-looking apartment buildings - all of which is easy to miss, because the sun’s light is cast entirely on the left side of the canvas. The right side of the canvas is opaque, obscured by a thick mist that also casts itself over the background, including the cathedral and city hall.

What, or who, is the focus of the scene? Is it the spectators to your right, or is it the women unloading a boat laden with baskets of food, bottles of wine, paintings, velvet-covered armchairs and stools - a rich man’s household furnishings?  Is it the woman sitting by herself on a rowboat, with her legs in the water, watching a group of ducks swim past with a forlorn expression on her face? You, the viewer, can’t be sure with one look; you must either examine the painting with a Gestalt sensibility, or examine each sub-scene to find the subject.

More importantly, what is Turner trying to tell his viewers?

"Why I Write" Exercise

I write out of habit. I write because, if I don’t, eventually the urge to express myself on paper consumes me to the point of ‘ink-lust.’ It is a form of narcissism, I suppose, to assume that people will read your creation, but not when one writes with the intent to help someone, to improve their knowledge, or to challenge their beliefs. I write because I am often tongue-tied, and scared to say out loud what I say on paper. I write to improve my writing; like any skill, it is a muscle that must either be flexed and built, or let wither from disuse.

I write when I am unhappy. When one is happy, when one is perfectly content with the state of their world, they are often in no mood to write. Why reflect on the past, why contemplate the present or predict the future, when one has a full belly, a wallet full of cash, and a girlfriend on the arm? There is no point in writing then. One writes in search of hope, in anticipation that maybe, just maybe, one’s suffering may be alleviated, if not permanently then at least through the opportunity to share their feelings with others. I write because it’s the cheapest, most effective form of therapy I have ever undergone, next to running and other forms of physical exercise. I write in hopes of connecting with others, of seeing my own experiences reflected in theirs, and finding common ground to talk about, to laugh about, to commiserate about.

I write to reflect on what I have learned, to explore a subject, and to share that knowledge with others. Whether that knowledge is academic or general, layman’s information, If it is interesting or useful I desire to write about it. I write to acknowledge when I have attained a goal I set for myself. I write to chastise myself for my failures, and to plan my next course of action.

I write to protest against the injustices in society, to communicate to as many people as possible that there is, in fact, a better way of doing things. That there is a solution to a given problem, and to announce that, even if I don’t have the solution, I am working on one - to invite others to join my quest. I write to clarify, and to make permanent, my thoughts. I write so that future generations - or perhaps only future me - can look upon my mistakes and avoid them. I write so that my children, and my children’s children, will have something of a guidebook to help them through this thing we call ‘life.’

I write to justify that that my life has meaning, so that there are records of my existence long after my body has decomposed. I write in hopes of making the Beaudreault family proud. I write so that when I finally say something to them, I mean what I say, and so that I don’t say anything out of malice. I write to acknowledge that I have limits, but that those limits can be challenged, reshaped, or pushed back several paces If I invest the time and energy necessary. That’s what university is for, anyhow. I write to prove to myself that I’m not crazy, or that at least - If I am - that it’s a benign form of crazy.

Every act of writing I perform is an attempt, a ‘try’, to uncover some meaning from the trillions of terabytes of information that exist in our world. I write to sift through the data, to find order in what appears to be chaos. I write in order to marry the worlds of science and art, to show the artist that science, too, is beautiful, and to show the scientist that art is not trivial. I write in an effort to make things less ambiguous - the show people that there are, in fact, more certain things besides death and taxes. I write because I am an optimist, and I think that everyone has potential, no matter their current state.

I write because I am still recovering from addiction.