[MUSIC]
This course is about the kinds of uses that artists make of art history.
So each week, we will be visiting with a different artist to
learn about a work of art that has been important to their thinking.
This week, we met with Thomas Lawson, Dean
of the School of
Art, and Jill and Peter Kraus
Distinguished Chair in Art, at Calarts.
There's more biographical information on
Tom at the end of this video.
Now, let's turn our attention to the work that he chose: Diego
Velázquez's <i>Las Meninas,</i> from 1656.
So, Tom, maybe you'll tell us a little bit about how you think the painting works.
>> Right.
>> And why it interests you.
>> Sure.
Almost everyone who's invested in painting, in one way or another, has
to think about this work at some point in their lives.
But every now and again, a painter makes something that
is something of a summation of his or her thoughts,
and <i>Las Meninas</i> is that kind of painting.
So that's why it's such a
significant one.
Because it's comes at the end of his life
and career, so in some way it is a
summation of what he'd been thinking, or
what he'd learned.
I mean, his entire career he was working for the King of Spain.
I mean, that was his place-- a lot
of it, making portraits
of the Royal Family.
But he was a painter, and he was a thinker
and an intellectual.
And so, as he was doing his job, he was also thinking about what it meant
to do that, and what it meant to
make representations of the world that he lived in.
So one of the things about this painting,
the <i>Las Meninas--</i> well, it's a very large painting.
And it depicts an interior space in a way that both opens into,
kind of, infinity, but also is very sort of self-enclosed.
There's sort of the implication of there being a window on one
side, with the light coming in, and
there's a kind of cold light.
On the other side of the canvas from where the light is coming in, there's
this weird blockage to our view, which is
the painted rendition of the back of a painting.
Already, you get a sense of this sort of extreme self-consciousness--
that this is a painting that refers to
painting.
The subject of the painting is the
infanta, a
young little girl who's a princess, and her entourage.
It seems like she's being prepared to be looked at.
The ladies in waiting are kind of fixing up the last details of her costuming
and everybody is kind of looking out of the
picture at us-- the people who are looking at it.
Slightly behind them, there's a kind a of cavalier-looking
figure, with his mustache and beard, peering out from
behind this canvas. And as you look at him,
you realize he's holding a palette and a brush.
I mean, he's the artist, and so he's
looking--
in the way that an artist might be
looking--
at us. You know, he's sort of looking seriously out
of the picture-- again, sort of
at us.
On the back wall of the room, there are these dark paintings. And then
there's this one that seems to have a
kind of slightly interior light-- it kind
of glows.
In that little rectangle, there are these
sort of shadowy representations of two people.
You can infer, from the whole rest of the
situation, that it's probably the parents of this little girl.
It's the King and Queen of Spain.
The disquieting part of that is that
that circuit of, sort of,
gazes and representations short-circuits the reality of
the person standing in front of the
painting.
Because if you're standing there, looking into this view, you would expect--
and there's a mirror in the back-- you would expect to see yourself.
The power relation of the monarchy eliminates you.
Your [LAUGH]
>> You can't be the king or queen, so you can't be there.
>> You cannot, you certainly
cannot be the king and queen.
And of course,
after all these centuries, you can't even be there, so there's
another kind of layer
of temporality that becomes quite
interesting.
For me, this painting manages to do all these terrific
mind games about what you're looking at as you're looking at a painting.
And, as a painter, that is a tremendously invigorating
sort of notion, that you could build into your work at that level
of self-conscious examination of
the process in which you're engaged.
Which makes it, in many ways, one
of the earliest Modern paintings, because the Modern
period, which I'm sure we'll get to
plenty, is all about that kind of
self-consciousness.
And I think, even more than circuitive gazes, that vast blank canvas--
>> Mm-hm.
>> is such a weird barrier to entry.
This canvas, right in our faces here,
is telling us that we cannot access
everything.
That there's a kind of a limit to what can be seen and understood,
that there's something between you and a full comprehension of what's going on.
>> There's the strangeness
of spending so
much time, as a painter, rendering the back of the canvas.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And how we're to understand the kind of investment of that,
in relationship to the investment in
rendering the garments of the infanta.
>> Painters like Velázquez, and like Titian and
others developed these techniques to
represent satin and
silk and different kinds of
materialities-- and fur.
So then, as you said, to devote so
much time and care on representing untouched linen
[LAUGH] that is dirty and a little dusty because
that's what happens to the back of a painting.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And the raw wood of the stretchers-- I mean,
these are base materials.
These are not the fine materials of the painted world.
>> And it's why, in fact, even though we're kind
of looking at a reproduction now, to crib while we're talking,
>> Yeah.
>> it's just so important to go
to see works of art in person.
And it actually doesn't matter if
they're masterpieces or not,
it's having an understanding of the
materiality of making.
>> Yes, it's important,
I think, to-- absolutely-- to see
paintings.
And, you know, to go back to <i>Las Meninas--</i> again, it is a very large thing.
I mean, it's a significant...
>> A machine. [LAUGH]
>> Yes.
I mean, it's intended to really
take up your attention.
I mean, you're not supposed to just walk past it.
You are supposed to come and stand
and look and consider all these various elements
that are being presented.
>> Almost immediately, this painting began
to be written about and obsessed
over, as you said, by legions
of art historians, critics, artists,
philosophers--
including Michel Foucault-- and over the
centuries, too, artists have interrogated it, and
taken it apart, and taken their measure in relationship to it, in various ways.
>> I actually think that the,
the <i>Demoiselles d'Avignon</i>
>> That's interesting, yeah.
>> Has a relationship to this that's
not explicit, but just that it's
using the conventions of a certain kind of figurative painting,
that was prevalent when he was a student, to deconstruct
the entire idea of representation and push painting into
a whole new kind of realm.
>> I agree with you.
I do think there's a strong relation
to the<i> Demoiselles d'Avignon,</i> by
Picasso-- that Picasso obviously had
this multifigure, complicated
spatial composition
in mind. But as an art historian, I
couldn't really make that argument
very well without being able to trace a kind of documented lineage of it.
And as artists, we can say,
'I can see the conversation.'
>> Right.
Part of the job of being an artist is
looking at other art.
And when you're confronting older art, you're-- I mean, you're really looking
at it in a contemporary point of view. You're not a historian.
What's interesting to artists are
particular problems that
are confronted and solved, or not solved, or--
you know, things that succeed and things that fail. I mean, because we
all like to look at failure as much as
success, actually-- maybe, in some cases,
>> Even more.
>> More.
Right.
The Demoiselles d'Avignon thing is-- you know,
it's a group of women who are looking
at their viewer in different degrees of agression--
but there's absolutely no verifiable, historical connection to that.
[LAUGH] Yeah.
>> There's just the long chain of
conversations--
>> A long chain of conversations and, actually, the knowledge that
Velázquez was in the conversation in the
latter part of the 19th century.
Manet was a big fan.
>> Oh, a huge Velázquez fan.
>> Picasso looked at Manet,
so we know that there's some kind of chain of custody of thought,
[LAUGH] but it's not point-by-point.
>> Right.
>> Right.
[MUSIC].
This course is about the kinds of uses that artists make of art history.
So each week, we will be visiting with a different artist to
learn about a work of art that has been important to their thinking.
This week, we met with Thomas Lawson, Dean
of the School of
Art, and Jill and Peter Kraus
Distinguished Chair in Art, at Calarts.
There's more biographical information on
Tom at the end of this video.
Now, let's turn our attention to the work that he chose: Diego
Velázquez's <i>Las Meninas,</i> from 1656.
So, Tom, maybe you'll tell us a little bit about how you think the painting works.
>> Right.
>> And why it interests you.
>> Sure.
Almost everyone who's invested in painting, in one way or another, has
to think about this work at some point in their lives.
But every now and again, a painter makes something that
is something of a summation of his or her thoughts,
and <i>Las Meninas</i> is that kind of painting.
So that's why it's such a
significant one.
Because it's comes at the end of his life
and career, so in some way it is a
summation of what he'd been thinking, or
what he'd learned.
I mean, his entire career he was working for the King of Spain.
I mean, that was his place-- a lot
of it, making portraits
of the Royal Family.
But he was a painter, and he was a thinker
and an intellectual.
And so, as he was doing his job, he was also thinking about what it meant
to do that, and what it meant to
make representations of the world that he lived in.
So one of the things about this painting,
the <i>Las Meninas--</i> well, it's a very large painting.
And it depicts an interior space in a way that both opens into,
kind of, infinity, but also is very sort of self-enclosed.
There's sort of the implication of there being a window on one
side, with the light coming in, and
there's a kind of cold light.
On the other side of the canvas from where the light is coming in, there's
this weird blockage to our view, which is
the painted rendition of the back of a painting.
Already, you get a sense of this sort of extreme self-consciousness--
that this is a painting that refers to
painting.
The subject of the painting is the
infanta, a
young little girl who's a princess, and her entourage.
It seems like she's being prepared to be looked at.
The ladies in waiting are kind of fixing up the last details of her costuming
and everybody is kind of looking out of the
picture at us-- the people who are looking at it.
Slightly behind them, there's a kind a of cavalier-looking
figure, with his mustache and beard, peering out from
behind this canvas. And as you look at him,
you realize he's holding a palette and a brush.
I mean, he's the artist, and so he's
looking--
in the way that an artist might be
looking--
at us. You know, he's sort of looking seriously out
of the picture-- again, sort of
at us.
On the back wall of the room, there are these dark paintings. And then
there's this one that seems to have a
kind of slightly interior light-- it kind
of glows.
In that little rectangle, there are these
sort of shadowy representations of two people.
You can infer, from the whole rest of the
situation, that it's probably the parents of this little girl.
It's the King and Queen of Spain.
The disquieting part of that is that
that circuit of, sort of,
gazes and representations short-circuits the reality of
the person standing in front of the
painting.
Because if you're standing there, looking into this view, you would expect--
and there's a mirror in the back-- you would expect to see yourself.
The power relation of the monarchy eliminates you.
Your [LAUGH]
>> You can't be the king or queen, so you can't be there.
>> You cannot, you certainly
cannot be the king and queen.
And of course,
after all these centuries, you can't even be there, so there's
another kind of layer
of temporality that becomes quite
interesting.
For me, this painting manages to do all these terrific
mind games about what you're looking at as you're looking at a painting.
And, as a painter, that is a tremendously invigorating
sort of notion, that you could build into your work at that level
of self-conscious examination of
the process in which you're engaged.
Which makes it, in many ways, one
of the earliest Modern paintings, because the Modern
period, which I'm sure we'll get to
plenty, is all about that kind of
self-consciousness.
And I think, even more than circuitive gazes, that vast blank canvas--
>> Mm-hm.
>> is such a weird barrier to entry.
This canvas, right in our faces here,
is telling us that we cannot access
everything.
That there's a kind of a limit to what can be seen and understood,
that there's something between you and a full comprehension of what's going on.
>> There's the strangeness
of spending so
much time, as a painter, rendering the back of the canvas.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And how we're to understand the kind of investment of that,
in relationship to the investment in
rendering the garments of the infanta.
>> Painters like Velázquez, and like Titian and
others developed these techniques to
represent satin and
silk and different kinds of
materialities-- and fur.
So then, as you said, to devote so
much time and care on representing untouched linen
[LAUGH] that is dirty and a little dusty because
that's what happens to the back of a painting.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And the raw wood of the stretchers-- I mean,
these are base materials.
These are not the fine materials of the painted world.
>> And it's why, in fact, even though we're kind
of looking at a reproduction now, to crib while we're talking,
>> Yeah.
>> it's just so important to go
to see works of art in person.
And it actually doesn't matter if
they're masterpieces or not,
it's having an understanding of the
materiality of making.
>> Yes, it's important,
I think, to-- absolutely-- to see
paintings.
And, you know, to go back to <i>Las Meninas--</i> again, it is a very large thing.
I mean, it's a significant...
>> A machine. [LAUGH]
>> Yes.
I mean, it's intended to really
take up your attention.
I mean, you're not supposed to just walk past it.
You are supposed to come and stand
and look and consider all these various elements
that are being presented.
>> Almost immediately, this painting began
to be written about and obsessed
over, as you said, by legions
of art historians, critics, artists,
philosophers--
including Michel Foucault-- and over the
centuries, too, artists have interrogated it, and
taken it apart, and taken their measure in relationship to it, in various ways.
>> I actually think that the,
the <i>Demoiselles d'Avignon</i>
>> That's interesting, yeah.
>> Has a relationship to this that's
not explicit, but just that it's
using the conventions of a certain kind of figurative painting,
that was prevalent when he was a student, to deconstruct
the entire idea of representation and push painting into
a whole new kind of realm.
>> I agree with you.
I do think there's a strong relation
to the<i> Demoiselles d'Avignon,</i> by
Picasso-- that Picasso obviously had
this multifigure, complicated
spatial composition
in mind. But as an art historian, I
couldn't really make that argument
very well without being able to trace a kind of documented lineage of it.
And as artists, we can say,
'I can see the conversation.'
>> Right.
Part of the job of being an artist is
looking at other art.
And when you're confronting older art, you're-- I mean, you're really looking
at it in a contemporary point of view. You're not a historian.
What's interesting to artists are
particular problems that
are confronted and solved, or not solved, or--
you know, things that succeed and things that fail. I mean, because we
all like to look at failure as much as
success, actually-- maybe, in some cases,
>> Even more.
>> More.
Right.
The Demoiselles d'Avignon thing is-- you know,
it's a group of women who are looking
at their viewer in different degrees of agression--
but there's absolutely no verifiable, historical connection to that.
[LAUGH] Yeah.
>> There's just the long chain of
conversations--
>> A long chain of conversations and, actually, the knowledge that
Velázquez was in the conversation in the
latter part of the 19th century.
Manet was a big fan.
>> Oh, a huge Velázquez fan.
>> Picasso looked at Manet,
so we know that there's some kind of chain of custody of thought,
[LAUGH] but it's not point-by-point.
>> Right.
>> Right.
[MUSIC].