Michael Newberry, Ascension Day, 1990, oil on linen, 84 x 60 inches
Note: It is an honor to have someone of Ted Keer’s intelligence take the time not only to look thoroughly at one of my works, but also carefully analyze his impression. Thank you Ted.
Michael
Ascension Day Reviewed by Ted Keer
Michael Newberry’s “Ascension Day” is one of my favorite of his non-traditional paintings. I believe that the essence of my enjoyment is the fully worked out form which simultaneously presents both symmetry and asymmetry, beauty and tension, action and self-centeredness.
When I visited his studio, Michael and I discussed his axiomatic concepts of figurative painting which he designates as form, space and light. I don’t wish to comment at length on his theory, but those who wish to know what he has to say should visit his website and read his statements. I did not discuss this specific painting with Michael, and have intentionally not sought his remarks on it, so that I might comment without bias.
All living organisms exhibit body forms suitable to their way of life. Sessile forms such as plants, fungi and coral are usually modular and fractal in their design. Since these vegetative organisms do not move actively through their environments, but rather grow toward their resources, they are composed not of a determinate growth form as are such active animals as horses, butterflies and boas, but as indeterminate fractal forms with repeating modules that sprout and spread – such as the shoots and runners of kelp; the branches, stalks and roots of rose bushes; or the chambers and plumbing of sponges. Since these vegetative life-forms do not move, they do not need to have fusiform or streamlined and symmetrical bodies which can act in co-ordinated animated behaviors. Rather, they add on new modules, new branches or buds as the resources and seasons permit. Unable to move actively, vegetative organisms grow into opportunities. If a gap opens up in the canopy, a dwarfed tree or a tiny coral or a runner of ivy may suddenly go into a growth spurt aimed at filling area rather than moving through space to some further destination.
Mobile animals, however (and also seeds) normally have set and symmetrical body shapes which follow a determinate developmental plan toward a mature shape. They may perhaps grow some in girth, but do not sprout side braches which will make them more cumbersome and less co-ordinated in their movements. Animals and seeds are about motion. They are about getting to the resources and away from the threats. Some animals and many seeds are radially symmetrical like sunflowers and starfish. These organisms are usually not worried about motion in more than one direction. But most animals, including man, are bilaterally symmetrical with a head-to-tail axis and mirror image left and right hand sides. The body axis parallels the usual direction of motion, and the mirror-image right and left halves allow precisely choreographed motions such as flapping flight and galloping runs. One doesn’t normally see such non-bilateral organisms like trees or bread molds running down the street. The image of their tangled branches loping gracefully is an absurdity reserved for fantasy and horror movies, as is appropriate, given the monstrous image that such an alien concept evokes.
The bilateral human form is, of course special, given our intimate concern with all things human. And symmetry of form in humans is not only practical for such things as motion, it is also a sign of good health and genetic endowment, and thus of sexual attractiveness. Humps and mangled limbs and twisted faces are not, all other things being equal, particularly appealing. Yet even in humans, perfect symmetry is neither found nor desirable. Humans exhibit handedness, or what chemists and biologists express using the Greek term, chirality. Chirality is the possession of a right or left handed twist. In chemistry, slightly complicated molecules with what would otherwise be exactly the same shape except for being mirror images of each other can have very different properties. Some right or left handed versions of substances smell different or can or cannot be digested, and many medically active chemicals like thalidomide are benign in one form and toxic in another.
Humans are a bit more complicated than molecules. But we show handedness in our internal organs (liver on one side, heart on the other) and, importantly, in our brain structure. True ambidextry is a very rare phenomenon, and while most people are right handed for manual tasks, almost all those who aren’t right handed show a strong left handed preference. The reasons for hand and brain chirality in humans are still being worked out. But two strongly supported theories regarding handedness are that it allows for mental and physical specialization. One argument obvious to the layman is that by focusing on a dominant hand for tool use (and in our civilization, writing) we do not need to waste twice the time practicing and developing the neural circuitry which allows the exquisitely fine-tuned motions of the hand and digits that allow us to write and carve, paint and sew, pitch a ball and pluck a guitar. Given that even apes show a dominant hand, it is likely that the ability to throw rocks with accuracy was one of the earliest benefits to our ancestors of chirality.
Popularized for decades in such titles as Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain, it has long been known that the right and left hemispheres of the brain are in some ways radically different. While a stroke on one side of the brain will leave a patient profoundly aphasic but still conscious of emotions and body states, a stroke in an identical location on the other side will leave language intact, but destroy body-awareness or the ability to feel or to make value-judgments. The work of neuropsychologist Antonio Damasio, who fully disavows the brain/body, value/reason, and mind/brain dichotomies has shown that cerebral handedness is fundamental to our natures as thinking, feeling and speaking rational agents. The late Julian Jaynes, in his Origin of Consciousness, argues that modern self-conscious deliberation is the product of cultural innovations of late antiquity. Jaynes argued that cultural crises caused men who used to listen to their own thoughts as if they were the voices of gods to develop a theory of mind. Humans literally learned that the voices they heard in their heads were not spirits, but the thoughts of the self. According to Jaynes’ theory, the neurophysiological presence of a bicameral mind allows humans literally to think hemisphere-to-hemisphere within the brain. While the exact anatomical and psycho-epistemological details are yet to be worked out, it is uncontested that cerebral chirality, “brain-handedness,” is central to our human natures as speaking, thinking, and valuing rational agents.
What does this have to do with Newberry’s “Ascension Day”? Newberry’s chiral figure expresses concretely the human being as a self-made incarnation of spirit.
Note the perfect symmetry of Newberry’s subject, yet her volitional and actively asymmetrical pose as she ascends through an abstracted space. His subject is not a limp body, passively lifted through the heavens by an external force. She is a fully actualized, self-directed and self-aware heroine existing in her own mental space, in effect, her own private heaven. If we note the arch of her back, and the presentation of her breasts, and her freely flowing hair we cannot escape the raw sexuality of the image. It is not a passive sexuality. Her legs are not spread for a dominant partner, they are scissored as if she has just leapt from a precipice. Yet given the bright canvas from which her feet are launched and the glow above her toward which she is ascends there is no sense of falling, but only of rising. By being neither parallel or limp, her legs show us that she is moving upward of her own will, and under her own intentional control.
Notice that her arms and hands are also in a natural yet asymmetrically twisted chiral pose, again indicating neither passivity nor fear but full and conscious intention. She neither clutches for support nor leans to support herself but is in an open embrace to that towards which she moves. Each finger is fully individuated, under full control. This is not the strained, self-conscious control of someone who is attempting to master herself, but the easy control of a helmsman steering her own familiar vessel. Her mouth is open, her neck extended, every muscle in her body is taut, not as in a death struggle, but as in a dance.
Complimenting the figure, the composition of this painting is in one way abstract, in that while she is a fully three-dimensional, our heroine is not presented in relation to any outside object. This is not a flaw, however, but a dramatic effect. It forces us to view her in relation to nothing but her most precious possession, her self. If less skillfully rendered in this abstract space her form might have appeared flat. But if one imagines that the plane of the canvass bisects her midline, the dramatic lighting of her left hand and the opacity of her right hand show that neither hand is in the plane of her torso. Indeed, her left hand is so vivid that it seems to include us in her embrace. In one sense she is entirely private, within the world of her own spirit, oblivious to our presence, yet in another sense she embraces us intimately. Another dramatic effect which heightens the dynamic of this picture is the fact that her center of gravity does not lie stable, but serves as a point about which she might pivot with the slightest touch. Her position is inherently unstable, and hence necessarily in motion. We see her as fully solid, and can imagine rotating her in any dimension, but we cannot imagine that any other position but this one is the right one.
“Ascension Day” is an incredible work in theme and presentation. With no backdrop except herself, Newberry’s subject is not just a body in space, but a soul in mind. Neither passive nor struggling, she is taut yet at ease. She is entirely alone, yet eerily intimate. One might have been tempted to entitle the painting Psyche, or even in Hebrew, Ruach, Spirit. Yet there is no disembodiment. Rather, as her left hand reaches for us, slightly askew, her fully incarnated self twists open like a rose in bloom.
Ted Keer
Radicals for Happiness Blog
Detecting Value Judgments in Painting By Michael Newberry
December 15, 2009 — Michael NewberryDetecting Value Judgments in Painting
By
Michael Newberry
(This online presentation was developed from my article On Metaphysical Value-JudgmentsThe Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, in Volume 2, No. 2 – Spring 2001, and from the lecture I gave at The Objectivist Center’s Summer Seminar at the University of Pittsburgh in Johnstown in July, 2001.)
A few years ago I read the book What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand by Torres and Kamhi. I was disquieted to read their take on Rand’s definition of art, specifically about the meaning of metaphysical value-judgments. Perhaps the thing that was the most surprising to me was that their perspective on this issue is so much not the way that I experience art; either as a creator or as in appreciation, or how I understand Rand’s meaning. In a sense their book has been the catalyst for this lecture. I hope to answer them by showing how you can detect metaphysical value-judgments in painting. But, more importantly, I hope to show you how to find and, perhaps, share the artist’s incredible passion that lies just beneath the surface of the paint.
Rand defines art as “the selective re-creation of reality based on an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments.” She states that metaphysical value-judgments are the answers to these types of questions: “Is the universe intelligible to man, or unintelligible and unknowable? Can man find happiness on earth, or is he doomed to frustration and despair? Does he have the power…to choose his goals and achieve them…or is he a helpless plaything of forces beyond his control? Is man, by nature, to be valued as good, or to be despised as evil?” The connection between these questions and painting is anything but self-evident as the authors of What Art Is admit “it is difficult to understand how [these] specific questions Rand poses would pertain to any art form but literature…”
Let’s see if I can show you some paintings that answer those very questions.
Parenthetically, Rand claims that in art criticism one should analyze the artwork without outside considerations (1975, 42). This means that the theme of a painting, for instance, should make its message clear without any prior knowledge of what the painting is about. We have to be like detectives and look for clues within the painting itself. I think it is important that I give some guidelines on how to look for these values in art as they underlie the observations that I will make about the paintings.
Here are some of the guidelines for detecting metaphysical value-judgments in painting.
1. Describe what you see.
2. The canvas is the Universe. Approach each and every artwork as if it is a universe in itself. Simply substitute “universe” for “canvas” and a whole new outlook will become apparent.
a. Look for the size of humanity in relationship to the canvas. This is symbolic of humanity’s importance in the universe: is humanity larger than life or tiny and insignificant?
b. How is humanity placed within this universe? At the top, bottom or center?
c. What is the most prominent feature within the canvas/universe and what is the main focus?
d. For non-figurative work, what are the outstanding things and how are they placed in the canvas?
3. What is the relationship of subject or person to their environment? This will tell us how important humanity is in relationship to society or nature.
a. Is there a significant difference of sizes between the setting and the subject?
b. Look for the possible symbolism of the objects and/or their relationships. For example, a barrier to freedom symbolized by a chain-link fence. Or, the state buildings are all-powerful above and humanity is crushed below.
c. Is there more emphasis placed on one thing more than another? For example, is there a disregard for the setting and is all the focus on the main figure?
4. Body language.
a. What are people doing? Are they bent, awkward or upright and elegant?
b. Think about the symbolic implications of their posture: are they approaching life as a servant, a thug, or a hero?
c. What are the most notable facial features?
5. Use adjectives to describe the style, color, and light. This is not a substitute for the facts that are represented in the painting, but using adjectives first to describe a general impression helps you find the facts. We are not analyzing whether the means of the painting are good or not, merely trying to get at the mood of the piece, just as how you might describe the weather outside as cheerful or crystal-clear.
a. Is the painting distorted, smeared, vague or is it orderly, in focus, complex?
b. Are the colors murky, dull or vibrant, bold? Are they in harmony or do they clash?
c. Is the light in the painting subdued or brilliant?
d. The symbolism of light and shadow cannot be missed: are the objects or persons dim and the unenlightened? Or are they enlightened by a radiant universe?
1.Vermeer, The Milkmaid, 1658-60.
“Is the universe intelligible to man, or unintelligible and unknowable?”
In this Vermeer painting we can clearly see that it is an interior scene with a woman going about the daily chore of pouring milk into a bowl. This scene is loaded with many refined details: the weave of the wicker baskets, the shine of a metal pot (behind her on the wall), the folds of her clothes, and the decorative images painted on the tiles that line the wall. We can even see the spiral of the flow of the milk. The woman is realistically presented with natural anatomy. She is prominent both in size and location. Notice the natural depth within the painting, she feels quite right in-between the table in the foreground and the wall behind her. The colors of things are clean and there are clear differences between the color of her arms and the colors of her clothes. An interesting element is the prominence of the light on the wall behind her, it takes up a third of the painting and it makes its brilliance felt.
Within the borders of this canvas Vermeer projects a realistic view of people, of things, and he projects the true to life environment of space and light. This painting projects a markedly intelligible view of humanity and its environment.
2. Kandinsky, Black Spot I, 1912.
The universe of this Kandinsky is essentially different from the Vermeer. Here we have abstract objects in fanciful shapes. They may or may not be based on real things, such as mushrooms, birds, bugs, or dolls. But taken literally we cannot know with any certainty what these objects are; we are safer to assume that they aren’t things from reality but are simply abstractions. The colors of green, gold, blue, black, light pink are pure and there are clean distinctions between them. There is very little depth in the painting and though the colors are bright we have no sense that there is any light. The relationship of these abstract objects to one another seems to be arbitrary in the sense that there is a squiggle there, a blob here and we have the idea that they just popped up.
The universe in this painting, though clean and clear and whimsical, is unknowable to us in the normal meaning of the word. Kandinsky projects, quite literally, floating abstractions; abstractions disconnected from an intelligible universe.
3. Rina, Landscape, c. 2000.
“Can man find happiness on earth, or is he doomed to frustration and despair?”
In this lecture I have included two landscapes to show how we can detect value-judgments even in paintings without people.
In Rina’s painting we have a view of a dirt road receding in perspective to a pinkish gray sky on the horizon. On the left there is a chain link fence which encloses some dark trees. On the right there are empty lots. Behind there are some telegraph and electricity poles. Notice the blurring of the images, we don’t have here the crystal-like clarity of either Vermeer or Kandinsky. Notice the colors, mostly variations on gray-browns that convey a luke-warm atmosphere even though it appears to be winter, the trees on the right don’t have leaves, or are they dead? Note the that the fence blocks us off from the relatively vital looking trees on the left. This is symbolic, the beauty of nature is off limits.
Imagine that you are really in this place do you think that this road leads to happiness on earth? I think not. Everything in this painting leads to a murky despair.
4. Bierstadt, Sunrise, Yosemite Valley, c. 1868.
This landscape by Bierstadt is very different from the previous one. Notice the glowing golden light right-center and how it is flowing along the valley towards us. In contrast to the oppressive warmth of the Rina painting, here we can almost feel the last of the night chill and we can anticipate the heat of the sun’s rays just about to land on our faces. Notice the height of the purple shadowed mountains, the reflections on the clean water, and the dewy waves of grasses in the meadow.
This is a spectacular view of the start of a new day, obviously a place that holds the promise of happiness.
5. Munch, The Scream, 1893.
We are keeping to the same question “can man find happiness on earth, or is he doomed to frustration and despair?” The Scream by Munch is one of my favorite paintings because of its emotive power and how once you see this image it never leaves your memory. But uplifting it is not. Notice how the main figure is at the bottom of the painting/universe and how the bridge is tilting downwards–these both convey the unmistakable feeling of sinking. The background swirls in such a way as to give us the feeling that we are hallucinating, it gives me the sense of vertigo. Again we have these oppressive warm gray colors throughout most of the painting and a toxic looking orange that dominates the sky. Notice that the main character is sexless and has a non-real structure as if its bones were made of rubber. This aspect adds to our unease. This figure seems to be not evil itself but a witness to some unspeakable horror and it unfortunately is being drawn downward towards this vision. It is curious to note that the two figures on the bridge appear fairly normal, it is clear that one is a man the other a woman, and they are walking away from the scene.
This person is not doomed to frustration and despair but, worse, it is simply doomed.
6. M. De La Tour, Self-portrait Wearing a Jabot, 1751.
This pastel is a self-portrait and it shows a “man about town” with his powered wig, velvet coat, and his breezy air. Notice the clarity of the eyes and the genuinely good-natured expression of his smile. Incidentally, in the history of art it is really hard to find good smiling portraits; most feel as if the person is grimacing.
This man looks like he is at the height of his powers, he looks at ease, and I think happily content.
7. Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830.
“Does he have the power…to choose his goals and achieve them…or is he a helpless plaything of forces beyond his control?”
In Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix notice the woman charging forward with her out thrust arm raising the French flag aloft. Notice her location at the top of the canvas. She is inspiring a rabble of soldiers, dandies, and regular people to carry on even over the obstacles of death, which lie literally at her feet. Though we don’t know whether she and they will achieve their goals, it is startlingly clear that they are not the playthings of destiny, they are acting to fulfill their aims.
8. Goya, The Shootings of May 3rd 1808, 1814.
On the other side of this volitional issue we have Goya’s painting of an execution, in which the these poor men have been lead like sheep to their slaughter. Notice that in the background that the State buildings are above the scene, the implication is that the state dictates to the humans below. There is a line of faceless universal soldiers, heads bowed, carrying out their orders. The main victim thrusts his arms out in the gesture of “why”. Notice how the light box is turned towards the victims, they are bathed in its sympathetic glow while the soldiers are in the shadow. Also notice that the color of the light box and the main character is identical gold and white, the implication being that he is the light.
Goya paints an empathic portrait of these victims plight but victims they are; hopeless playthings of the mysterious State lurking in the background.
9. T. Rousseau, The Village of Becquigny, c. 1860.
Is man, by nature, to be valued as good, or to be despised as evil?”
Because of the complexity of and controversy over metaphysical value-judgments in painting I have used the most obvious examples I could find that would illustrate clearly how Rand’s questions relate to paintings. This example of Rosseau’s landscape, though, is not obvious. The most prominent feature here is the road, it is placed front and center and it leads into a picturesque old-world village, which is a cluster of very neat cottages with thatched roofs that extends the width of the canvas. Notice the elaborate detail that is showered on the vegetation and the trees and how light plays upon them. The blue sky is aglow. In the center of the road is a curious figure, very small, which I think is a young girl. Notice that she appears to be waiting and she is in the shadow of the tree.
The symbolism here is very interesting. Humanity is significant in the sense that it is in the center of the universe but humanity is very small. And that small humanity is not bathed in light but finds itself passively standing in the shadow while nature and community are bathed in light. This painting does not convey that man is to be valued as good or bad but merely small and unenlightened.
10. Bacon, Pope Innocent X, 1953.
This painting by Bacon is a free interpretation of a famous Velazquez portrait of Pope Innocent X. Central to the painting is the Pope screaming in blind terror as he sits in a neon yellow colored chair. Notice his claw-like hands; in both in size and shape they resemble the paws of a monkey. The paint looks like it as been stripped in acid. He looks like he is being executed in an electric chair. Notice how his screaming mouth has bared teeth.
This figure does not inspire our sympathy as do the victims in the Goya painting, the empty eye sockets and the teeth bared in a howl are the clues that tell us that this man is filled with hatred. The painting conveys that humanity is central to the universe but it is evil.
11. Saville, Branded, Self-portrait, 1992.
When shown this image on a ten foot screen at my lecture, the whole audience groaned. The next day, four people told me that they had nightmares about this painting. Saville’s painting, Branded, is a self-portrait. The oversized woman overwhelms the space of the painting. Her flesh has the rotten coloring of chicken meat that has been left out too long. Incised on her flesh are the words “decorative” and “delicate”. Her head is thrown back in a defensive gesture and her hand thrusts out a fistful of flesh in an angry statement. Notice how small her head is compared to the rest of her.
Humanity, here, is glutinous, stupid, self-mutilating and is deserving of being despised as evil.
12. Raphael, School of Athens, 1510.
The School of Athens is one of the landmark works of the Italian high Renaissance. Raphael played off the idea of portraying some of the most famous ancient Greek philosophers, scientists, and artists by his own contemporaries, such as Michelangelo and Da Vinci. It is a masterpiece of visual perspective both in how the buildings are shaped and how the figures get bigger as they are closer to us. Some of the people are loners while others are in small groups. Everyone is either communicating, reading, drawing, or learning. It is an ode to the nature of creativity. Notice the light atmosphere and the harmony of the colors. In the center of the work are two men, one is Plato with his finger pointing upwards towards the heavens and the other is Aristotle gesturing towards earth. The main figure in the forefront leaning on a block of marble is reportedly, Michelangelo, he is in a pose of deep concentration.
This painting is an epic depiction of humanity as creators, thinkers, doers, and students. It gives the optimistic view that our horizons are unlimited and that wonderful things await us in the future–that, in essence, the nature of humanity is glorious.
To close I would like to show you one more work but this time I would like for you to come up with the answers to how this painting answers this metaphysical question: “Can man find happiness on earth, or is he doomed to frustration and despair?”
13. Newberry, Denouement, 1987.
What is the position of the people in relation to the canvas? What is the main focus of the painting? What is their relationship to their surroundings? Does the light have any symbolic meaning? How would you describe their body language? What adjectives would you use to describe the mood in the painting?
Michael Newberry
October 2002
List of paintings:
1.Vermeer, The Milkmaid, 1658-60.
2. Kandinsky, Black Spot I, 1912.
3. Rina, Landscape, c. 2000.
4. Bierstadt, Sunrise, Yosemite Valley, c. 1868.
5. Munch, The Scream, 1893.
6. M. De La Tour, Self-portrait Wearing a Jabot, 1751.
7. Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830.
8. Goya, The Shootings of May 3rd 1808, 1814.
9. T. Rousseau, The Village of Becquigny, c. 1860.
10. Bacon, Pope Innocent X, 1953.
11. Saville, Branded, Self-portrait, 1992.
12. Raphael, School of Athens, 1510.
13. Newberry, Denouement, 1987.
Images 1,2,4,5,7,8,9,10, and 12 have been downloaded from www.artchive.com. The others were scanned by M. Newberry.