Zaporozhian Cossacks, by Ilya Repin

Ilya Repin famously portrayed the Cossacks as lusty brigands with sharp wits and even fouler tongues in his masterpiece, Zaporozhian Cossacks writing a letter to the Turkish Sultan.  The subject of the painting is the Cossacks refusal of the demand by the Turkish Sultan for their submission to his authority, and is a masterfully realized study in character.

It's easy to get lost in the theatricality of Repin's characters and forget that this painting was based on historical events and very real tensions between Russia and Turkey (which accounted for some of the popularity of the painting too). At the end of this post I reproduced the hilariously vulgar text of the actual letter. It reads like the whole "your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries" sketch from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.


Ilya Repin (Best Of), was published to great reviews by Parkstone Press in 2011 and was initially offered for less than $20 but has since shot up to well over $200 on Amazon. I did some digging and found that Deepdiscount still has a few copies for the initial price ($15.97 with free shipping) so go grab yourself one, now!

Image source www.masterart.com

Image source www.masterart.com

"In the drawing above, Study for ‘Zaporozhian Cossacks Writing a Letter to the Turkish Sultan’, the bald headed Zaporozhian warrior sits to the left, in a similar pose to that in the final work. It is interesting to note that in the present pencil study, and other oil studies of the final painting¹, he is fully clothed. Repin’s decision to depict him bare-backed in the final painting was no doubt a way of accentuating his boorishness, and also a way of adding a further dimension to his character, by presenting him as a gambler - without his shirt on he could not hide any cards up his sleeves. This character was modelled on a schoolteacher, Konstantin Belonovskaya, who was a friend of both Repin and Professor Yavornytsky.

The figure with the fringed hairstyle in the present study is turned around to face us in the final painting, and becomes the scribe. The model for this particular Cossack was the aforementioned Professor Yavornytsky himself, the hairstyle giving him a suitably studious air. It is reputed that Professor Yavornytsky was in a very glum mood when he arrived at Repin’s studio to pose. In order to coax a wry smile out of him, as seen in the final painting, Repin gave him a magazine with cartoons in it to read during the sitting." [source]

"Repin began the painting in the late 1870s but did not finish it until 1891. When completed, it was bought by Tsar Alexander III (1845-1894) for a record price of 35,000 roubles. The painting depicts the Zaporozhian Cossacks composing their legendary reply of 1675 to Sultan Mohammed IV’s (1642-1693) request that they surrender.

The final work was painted at a time when Turkey was still implacably opposed to Russia, and thus tapped into contemporary public sentiment. Repin sought to recreate the scene with great historical accuracy, and meticulously researched this moment in history with numerous historians, including the renowned expert, Professor Dmytro Yavornytsky (1855-1940). 

"In the final painting, each of the Cossacks jostles around the central table desperate to contribute their own soubriquet for the Sultan, responding to and mocking his boasts. From the present study one already has a clear sense of how the final painting would shape up, with Repin experimenting with the positioning of a few of the key characters in order to achieve the maximum impact. The viewer can revel in the vigorous, animated interaction of the group, as one of the Cossacks, his head shaven and back bare, adds his own comments, gesticulating with his hand.

The group’s leader, Ivan Sirko (c.1610-1680), listens in intently, whilst puffing from his pipe, as the scribe jots down his every word, a wry smile escaping from his lips. The raucous laughter ripples through the group and is so tangible that it is little surprise to know that Repin had reputedly begun the painting as a study of laughter."

If you can't see the video below, then you can check out Andrew Graham Dixon's fascinating documentary on Russian Art, (including Repin and the Wanderers in this episode) here.

Sultan's requirements:

"As The Sultan, son of Muhammad, brother of the Sun and Moon, grandson and viceroy of God, ruler of the king sentencing of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, Upper and Lower Egypt; emperor of emperors; sovereign of sovereigns; extraordinary knight, never defeated ; stead permanent guardian of the tomb of Jesus Christ; trustee Chosen by God himself, the hope and comfort of Muslims; confounder and great defender of Christians-I command you, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, to submit to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to desist from troubling me with your attacks."

—Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV

Cossack's written reply:

" Thou art a turkish imp, the damned devil's brother and friend, and a secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight art thou that cannot slay a hedgehog with your naked ass? The devil shits, and your army eats. Thou son of a bitch wilt not ever make subjects of Christian sons; we have no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck thy mother. 

Thou art the Babylonian Scullion, Macedonian wheel wright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-fucker of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, Armenian pig, Podolian villain, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, a fool before our God, a grandson of the Serpent, and the cricket in our dick. Pig's snout, mare's arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw thine own mother! 

So the Zaporozhians declare, you Lowlife. Thou wilt not even be herding Christian pigs.  Now we Shall conclude, for we do not know the date and do not have a calendar, the moon's in the sky, the Year in the book, the day's the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our ass !"

Andrea Pozzo in Super High Definition

Image source Halta Definizione

See that little SpongeBob Squarepants in the fresco? No? Look again, bottom right. To give you an idea of just how close you can zoom into this image from Halta Definizione , here he is again in all his glory...

Image source Halta Definizione

Digital photography is taken to extraordinary levels of detail on this Italian site, with paintings from Da Vinci, Bronzino and Botticelli among others.

Here are a couple more details from one of my favorites, Andrea Pozzo's illusionistic masterpiece of perspective in fresco painting; the ceiling of the church at San Ignazio.

Image source Halta Definizione

Image source Halta Definizione

Image source Halta Definizione

Pietro Annigoni: Portrait Masterclass

Pietro Annigoni (1956) Pen and China Ink portrait of Mrs. J. L. Vernon

You'd be forgiven for thinking that this was a portrait of Betty Draper from Mad Men. It's from the same time period alright, but there's something about the line-work that is truly timeless. Pietro Annigoni's portrait of Mrs. Vernon clearly demonstrates his virtuoso draughtsmanship and is a testament to his deserved popularity.

There are three distinct techniques here that blend seamlessly: The clothing is treated so roughly it looks more like a bark rubbing than a drawing, and is combined with loose calligraphic lines that define the folds in the broadest of strokes. The hair is tighter, yet still loosely hatched and defined with lines that resemble a woodcut. His third and most refined technique is reserved for the main area of focus, and demands our attention with the most subtle shifts in value. You can see the same techniques applied to his paintings too.

Ever since I came across a dusty old book of Pietro Annigoni's paintings and drawings I've been hooked. He had some killer soundbites too, so without further ado here are some of my favorite portraits along with quotes from the maestro himself.

 "Ineptitude has today, it seems, acquired full rights of citizenship

in the realm of art."

"Truly, contemporary society is at once the slave and victim of the boundless liberty it has drawn upon itself.

As far as Art is concerned, the image comes to mind

of a great raft drifting in a sea,

without a landing place and without a course."

"Impulse alone does not make a work of art."

 "I had recourse to a dictionary of synonyms,

and there I found "deformed" in the company with such terms as 

"ugly, foul, loathsome, obscene," 

and read moreover that 

"to deform is to make something ugly in form."

l'Art des Chinois: Sir William Chambers and Chinoiserie

Sir William Chambers, Yale University Press

With a whopping resumé of English and Irish stately buildings to his credit, William "Knuckles" Chambers (1723-1796) was definitely up there with the heavyweights of Neo-Classical Architecture in the Eighteenth Century. By 'heavyweights' I'm really referring to Robert Adam, who (though a rival) considered him "a Prodigy for Genius, for Sense & good taste."

Take a look for yourself, and download his book Desseins des edifices, meubles, habits, machines, et ustenciles des Chinois (1757)

As an impressionable young teenager he travelled by sea to Canton where he made the sketches that served as the basis for his book Designs for Chinese Buildings (1757). He will always be second fiddle to Robert Adam in terms of architecture, but he was almost single-handedly responsible for popularizing Chinoiserie. This, to my mind, is his greatest legacy.

After this voyage he "quitted the sea" and took up architecture in earnest, making a considerable name for himself working for King George III who paid him the princely annual sum of $500 and for whom he designed (among other works) "twenty classical and exotic temples" at Kew Gardens including the pagoda and orangery.

The Victoria and Albert has a great collection of his drawings online.

Sutton Place, New York City, in Architectural Digest

This is an old one I did that appeared in the pages of Architectural Digest (July 1997). It was one of my very favorite jobs for a number of reasons. The designer I worked with, Chic Wilson, was amazing and one of the nicest people I've ever met, the client was a real gentleman, and of course the property ... well, you'll just have to take a look.

The paint finishes were all traditional oil stipples and striés to complement the classical theme of the residence. Balancing my way out on a plank perched four floors above the main spiral staircase was a toe-curler, but it was nice to be working with friends and we all had a great time.

Besides glazing a bunch of rooms, I also designed and hand-painted the headboards in the bedrooms with French arabesque ornament in subtle blues and yellows.

Why Robert Adam used Stucco and Paint

There was a very simple reason why the great British architect Robert Adam used Stucco and Paint instead of tapestries and upholstery when designing Dining Rooms such as this one in Lansdowne House: So the smell of roast suckling pig wouldn't hang in the room.

"The eating rooms are considered as the apartments of conversation, in which we are to pass a great part of our time. This renders it desirable to have them fitted up with elegance and splendor, but in a style different from that of other apartments. Instead of being hung with damask, tapestry & c. they are always finished with stucco, and adorned with statues and paintings, that they may not retain the smell of the victuals."

Fear: The Enemy of Creativity?

 

A strange thing happened once during the Roman Empire, writes Kenneth Clark in "Civilization." Rome was in its crazed expansionist phase, with hoards of soldiers pouring across the globe and usurping everything in their path. Nothing could stop them.

But word had gotten out that the Germanic forest-dwelling tribes north of the Danube were fearsome and not to be trifled with. Physically larger and more intimidating than their Southern counterparts, they inspired fear among the Roman troops. So the Romans devised a plan to turn the tables; they brought lions along. Lions? Everyone's scared of lions, right? They'd release the lions at the outset of battle and surely their foe would turn tail and flee.

 "Are you gonna release the Hounds? or the Bees?

Or the hounds with bees in their mouths so every time they bark they shoot bees at you?"

- Homer Simpson

The only problem was that the tribes north of the Danube had never seen a lion before so they didn't know that they were supposed to be scared. When the lions came roaring at them they just shrugged their shoulders and killed what they thought were a bunch of huge dogs.

I love this story because it illustrates the extent to which fear inhibits success, or rather; absence of fear can be the key to success. To put it another way:

Ignorance is the Mother of Adventure

Vikings were said to be afraid of only one thing: being burned alive. Life was simpler then. Sometimes I wake up with a horrible dread that seems to bury everything in a grey fog that won't lift, and I'm not even a particularly anxious person. "I'm not  original, I'm a fraud," and all that. Fear of success is just as destructive as fear of failure. Henry Rollins expresses this existential angst better than most:

"How many times have you sat alone in a coffee house and stared into the liquid black abyss of your coffee cup to see the blasted reflection of your own mortal futility staring back at you as you sit still while being jettisoned towards the end of your life?"

I find a strange comfort knowing that even great artists have been subject to the darkness. Monet once wrote to a friend, saying; "I know well enough in advance that you'll find my paintings perfect. I know that if they are exhibited they'll be a great success, but I couldn't be more indifferent to it since I know they are bad, I'm certain of it."

"Sometimes life seems dark and without hope. 

At times like these, it's important to remember that it's just a perfectly natural consequence of being realistic."

- The Onion

What to do? Authors on the connection between Fear and Creativity:

So, what is Creativity? Amy Tan maintains that Creativity is the inability to repress associations. That feels like a definition to me so I'm going to put it in bold:

Creativity is the inability to repress associations.

I like this because it demystifies the creative process and suggests that it's like cell division; it's just something that goes on out there despite us, and that we simply have to open our eyes and tap into it in order to take advantage.

"Eat, Pray, Love" author Elizabeth Gilbert did a warm and personal TED talk where she spoke about the potentially crippling self-doubt that can arise, and suggested ways of getting around it. For Gilbert, creating distance between the work of her hand and the ego/person that created it is the key to quieting the anxious voices in her head. She cites the Ancient Greeks, who believed that Creativity was a gift from a "divine attendant spirit" - or daemon - "from some distant and unknowable source." It's a psychological construct that protects the artist from the results of their own work. If our work sucks, we can blame the daemons.

"Everything Is a Remix", a (free) great short film about Creativity by Kirby Ferguson, makes the case for the intrinsic association between all good ideas, implying that the act of artistic creation begins when we embrace those pre-existing associations. Creativity is simply a word we use to describe when we transform and combine those connections into a new hybrid. Steve Jobs would probably agree.

The idea that, as artists, we are simply placing a small pebble on top of a mountain created by others may be the first step towards putting our fear in it's place. It takes some of the pressure off.

“I used to make original snowmen, but it was time consuming, hard work. So I said, heck, this is crazy! Now I crank out crude imitations of what's already popular! It takes no time or thought, and most people don't care about the difference, anyway! And what good is originality if you can't crank it out?” says Calvin and Hobbes author Bill Waterson.

He's joking, but he makes a good point. If it's all been done before, then what are we so afraid of?

Ferguson illustrates that creativity is not as mysterious as we might think.

In "Art and Fear" authors David Bayles and Ted Orland  reassure us that "art is rarely made by Mozart-like people; essentially—statistically speaking—there aren't any people like that. Geniuses get made once-a-century or so, yet good art gets made all the time, so to equate the making of art with the workings of genius removes this intimately human activity to a strangely unreachable and unknowable place."

"In the artist, fears not only continue to exist, they exist side by side with the desires that complement them, perhaps drive them, certainly feed them. Naive passion, which promotes work done in ignorance of obstacles, becomes — with courage — informed passion, which promotes work done in full acceptance of those obstacles.” 

Let's get a little perspective here...

In "The War of Art", Steven Pressfield takes it a step further and suggests that Fear is actually an essential part of the process of creation, and that it has much to teach us.

"Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates the strength of Resistance. Therefore, the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul.”

Twyla Tharp puts it a little more succintly in "The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use It for Life", saying that "there’s nothing wrong with fear; the only mistake is to let it stop you in your tracks.”

We've all got our excuses for not doing stuff...

"My specialty is Autumn landscapes, but unfortunately I only feel the urge to create in Spring".

And no, Ethan never said that. I Just made it it up because I wanted to make a point about insecurity disguised as pretension. In the end it all amounts to the same thing: ego getting in the way again.

McNiff's "Trust The Process: An Artist's Guide to Letting Go"  teaches us how to surrender our egos to the creative process. "There is a magic to this process that cannot be controlled by the ego. Somehow it always finds the way to the place where you need to be, and a destination you never could have known in advance."

"The empty space is the great horror and stimulant of creation. But there is also something predictable in the way the fear and apathy encountered at the beginning are accountable for feelings of elation at the end. These intensities of the creative process can stimulate desires of consistency and control, but history affirms that few transformative experiences are generated by regularity.”

When asked for advice on painting, Claude Monet told people not to fear mistakes. The discipline of art requires constant experimentation, wherein errors are harbingers of original ideas because they introduce new directions for expression. The mistake is outside the intended course of action, and it may present something that we never saw before, something unexpected and contradictory, something that may be put to use.”

Jonah Lehrer's best-selling book, "Imagine: How Creativity Works", also speaks about the conflict between the inhibiting/motivating power of fear.

Some people need a stress-free, relaxing environment in order for insight to arise, and some others need its opposite, plunging themselves into stressful energetic environments. Either way, there's a strange tension between surrendering to an unknowable outcome while at the same time constraining ourselves within an artistic form (a sonnet, haiku, or the four sides of a blank canvas) that gives rise to innovation.

He goes into a fascinating story about Bob Dylan writing "Like a Rolling Stone," and what a pivotal moment it was in Rock and Roll as well as for Dylan's career. In a 1966 interview with Playboy magazine, Dylan reflected on the sudden impact of this breakthrough on his music: "Last Spring, I guess I was going to quit singing," he said. "The way things were going, it was a very draggy situation... But "Like a Rolling Stone" changed it all. I mean, here was something that I myself could dig."

Sometimes I think all we need to do is to throw open the windows and take a deep breath, or just roll down a hill. Anyway, I hope I've given some food for thought, or maybe a book or two for your reading list.