Welcome to LINEA, the online journal of the Art Students League of New York. LINEA is a platform mainly for the instructor’s voice at the Art Students League that captures some of the diverse intellectual currents within its studios. The journal’s posts address practical matters of artmaking—the craft—and also consider the bigger intellectual questions—the concept—that artists face throughout their careers. It is a journal for artists anywhere, at any stage of development.

Steve Walker

I’ve always harbored a certain disdain for articles that begin with a dictionary definition. But when I was asked to write about a masterpiece in a New York collection, I found myself running home like a scared rabbit to consult my tattered old Webster’s. It said something about a work of great mastery, or the single greatest work of an artist. We all have come to think of a masterpiece in this way. But I was vaguely dissatisfied, because for years I’ve heard, albeit second- or third-hand, that the term had to do with the guild system in old Europe. Although the criteria for defining a masterpiece were, for the purposes of this article, entirely up to me, I still couldn’t reconcile these disparate meanings of the word. Unable to decide what a masterpiece was, I was completely at a loss to choose one to write about. Besides, it was summertime. I had no air conditioning; my finances were shaky; and I was in a funk. And so I put off writing even as much as one word, and was on the verge of asking whether I might bow out of the assignment altogether, when suddenly and inexplicably, deliverance swooped in to save me. But more on that in a moment.

The first works from New York collections that came to mind were Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait (1660) at the Metropolitan Museum and Edward Hopper’s Early Sunday Morning at the Whitney. But really, how is one to decide on which of Rembrandt’s paintings is a masterpiece? It seems to me that in the Met alone there are four or five Rembrandts of equal greatness. Is there a single masterpiece by Ingres, Degas, Constable, Monet, or Whistler? Can modern work be assessed in the same way as the Old Masters? Can we put a Brillo box next to a Vermeer and compare them with a straight face? And after all, who am I, a stoop-ball-playing lad from Long Island, to presume to make anachronistic pronouncements on the history of art?

And so it was, as I lay abed in utter fatigue on a hundred-degree afternoon, that my dull gaze happened to fall upon a long-forgotten volume at the bottom of my bookshelf, titled The Encyclopedia of the Arts. This thick, musty tome, published in 1946 and inscribed on the inside cover with the name of my ex-girlfriend’s maternal grandmother, contained a fairly sizable entry on the term by a certain “C.T.,” who turned out to be Carl Thurston of Pasadena. A masterpiece, he says, is “a term which can be traced back to the medieval custom of requiring a craftsman who applied to his guild for the title of ‘master’ to present a specific piece of work as evidence of his skill. The word was later applied to anything that seemed worthy of a master-craftsman.” Still later, due to increasing competition among workmen, “the term was reserved for the finest item in any given group, instead of being used merely to indicate the attainment of a certain level of excellence.” He cited the Sistine Madonna as Raphael’s masterpiece.

The word then evolved to reflect the overall scope or underlying principle of the work being considered. Thurston sees a tendency at this point to apply the term “great masterpieces” to various lists of fine works, ranging from art and architecture to literature and music. “It was beyond human power to select a single unquestioned masterpiece from such vast fields,” he says, noting that the word’s users tended to avoid controversies sure to arise from its too specific application. “‘Great’ involves innumerable problems of absolute aesthetic value, or lends coloring and rhetorical force to a sentence.” The learned and amusing Mr. Thurston concludes that, as of 1946, ‘masterpiece’ “is still a permissible word, and even a respectable one, but under the pressure of the exacting modern standards for the study of art it is losing a little of its former glamour.” And so thank you, C.T., for letting me off the hook. With the weight of all this hanging over me, no wonder I couldn’t get very far in choosing a single masterpiece to write about.

----------------------

What Makes a Masterpiece?

Pure perception realized.

Ira Goldberg

The definition of what makes a masterpiece is often considered an idea completely open to interpretation, a purely subjective and personal act. If one is so moved by a Norman Rockwell illustration to call it a masterpiece (which is not uncommon), who is anyone to say otherwise? Conversely, if one cannot be moved by a great Titian or Cézanne, should that person be considered somehow deficient? We must, however, bring an objective as well as personal eye to any work of art. This is the responsibility of the artist, who must have the ability to distinguish between artistic knowledge and understanding and personal taste. The more one understands about art, the better one can ascertain confidently why something “works,” and recognize the qualities it possesses that raise it to the level of a masterpiece.

It is not my wish to write on a work of art that I feel is a masterpiece by describing its formal elements or the particular technique by which it was executed. A more intuitive way for me to express what makes a particular work a masterpiece is to describe my experience of seeing it.

In the nineteenth-century rooms of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, there is an impressive collection of paintings by the greatest Impressionist masters. In a beautiful oval room hanging alongside great, late-period Cézannes and the large and well-known Pierre-August Renoir’s The Large Bathers (1884–87) is Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1888/89). This work continues to so overwhelm me that each time I see it, I have no desire to give attention to any other work hanging in the room, which is saying a great deal given the caliber of those paintings. Therefore, to describe what makes this work a masterpiece is not to say what makes this Sunflowers better than the Cézanne or the Renoir. That kind of comparison does not apply. In fact, there are no comparisons applicable in determining the painting’s status as a masterpiece. It is self-evident.

On its surface, the painting is a vase of sunflowers. Simple in its conception, it is an arrangement of complementary colors, yellows on an aqua blue background, one of many van Gogh painted of this subject. But as many times as I have contemplated it, I’ve come to understand it as an expression of pure perception—van Gogh saw his subject through unveiled eyes, without any preconceptions of how to express what he saw. This, combined with the artist’s great skill, yielded a work that possesses a life of its own, endowed not with the spirit of the artist, but with the spirit of art itself. The painting ages with us, allowing us to see more in it the more we are able to see. Over the years, its colors have coalesced and continued to give strength to the great metaphor of nature. It is timeless and yet speaks of its time as it embodies the ideals of the artist’s world.

Ultimately, a masterpiece is, almost paradoxically, a selfless act. In order to strongly convey one’s perception, the artist must not let his or her ego, nor any preconception, get in the way. I have not seen a picture that more thoroughly demonstrates the result of pure perception than this particular Sunflowers. It is a work that is without an author, an act of love, a masterpiece.

Ira Goldberg is the executive director of the Art Students League of New York. T

--------------------------

What Makes a Masterpiece?

How a small painting can engulf you.

Vermeer’s Young Woman with a Water Jug (c. 1662) is a painting that continues to fascinate me. As a beginning art student on the West Coast, I would dwell on reproductions of it as I flipped madly through art books. Something about it entranced me. It seemed somehow perfectly realized. Its technique and balance in the composition amazed me, but I was struck, too, by some ineffable quality that goes way beyond this: the ability to raise the commonplace to the divine, of finding the transcendent within the everyday.

Not until I moved to New York City to train at the Art Students League was I able to see the original painting firsthand. My first reaction was shock by its small size. I knew that Vermeer was a painter of small pieces, but still I wasn’t prepared for such sublime power to be emanating from a canvas of only 18 x 16 inches. Yet, it was just this small size of Young Woman with a Water Jug that serves to amplify its effect. Where a large canvas can consume a viewer by engulfing that person into the world inside the frame, there remains a more intimate and contemplative quality with a small painting. As meditators choose small objects like roses and candle flames to focus on, the smallness of the piece allows a viewer to remember oneself while slowly merging with it. Neither overwhelmed nor overtaken by the painting, we are first calmed, our attention focused, and then we’re put into accord with it.

In Vermeer’s painting, the Dutch woman possesses an essence, which, I believe, begins to cultivate a quality of meditation in the viewer. She embodies such a palpable balance of calm and composure that you can feel these qualities being awakened as you reflect on the small work. This seventeenth-century woman seems so completely connected with her surroundings and the present moment that a very ordinary scene begins to be elevated to a whole new level.

Aside from her serene expression, the way in which Vermeer painted her features reinforces this effect. She appears generalized and non-specified. Instead of becoming distracted by personality and uniqueness, we are aware only of a larger undercurrent of human presence and connectedness given full attention.

This seventeenth-century woman seems so completely connected with her surroundings and the present moment that a very ordinary scene begins to be elevated to a whole new level.

This effect is amplified throughout the rest of the painting. Every part serves the larger whole. With one hand at the window and the other to the pitcher, the woman becomes, both compositionally and metaphysically, a set of scales in equilibrium. There is no tension to infer any next movement or preference of direction. The eternity of the moment prevails. Her gesture combines with the other elements in the painting to create a harmonious flow. Everything is connected. A series of horizontals and perpendiculars merge beautifully with flowing diagonal transitions. Feel the flow of movement as your eye travels along the rod at the bottom of the map to her right arm, up the edge of the window, and then note how even the edge of light on the back wall brings the flow back down to her head and through to her left arm and downward toward the pitcher. Shapes are joined and echoed wonderfully. Imagine how less effective the picture would be without the diagonal of the fabric on the back of the chair to create rhythm with the diagonal of her right arm and the tablecloth moving down on the left side.

The way in which Vermeer paints light (for which he is famous) imbues this entire scene with a feeling of the extraordinary. Every part of the painting merges within this one light to become a whole. Each glowing portion of the composition is possessed of this effect of the one light as much as of any separate object that is illuminated by it.

Vermeer lived during a time when deviation from church doctrine could run one the risk of personal danger. Speaking too openly about a path to any sort of enlightenment without strict church convention could be dangerous. So I cannot help but wonder if the map, window, pitcher, and lion’s head finial on the chair might be referencing the four elements of earth, air, water, and fire for further exposition on the connection between the lofty and the worldly. And although the woman’s dress is described as of the seventeenth-century Dutch upper class, it also looks very much like a sort of nun’s habit and again blends the pursuit of the fruits of religion with one’s private and independent ritual. Also, instead of wondering whether the woman in the painting is just about to water a plant on the other side of the window, or has just done so, I find myself contemplating the mystical allusion to filling a vessel with divine light. This eclipses the anecdotal and returns us to the eternal moment and interior we are contemplating.

Formal pictorial and compositional elements are brought to such a level of perfection in Vermeer’s Young Woman with a Water Jug. But how those technical qualities embody an experiential essence makes this painting truly great. More than just a great work of art, this piece become a vehicle for the ascension of consciousness.

Geoff Farnsworth is painter who teaches at Niagra College Canada. 

What Makes a Masterpiece?

Unexpected pleasures.

By  Dana B. Parlier

As a result of traveling in Europe for four and a half months, I learned some things.

First, hunting for art in Italy is one of the most satisfying activities an art lover can indulge in. The art is great, everywhere, and highly accessible. Second, where and how we see art affects the quality of our experience. When we see art in a church that has been prayed in for centuries, something magical occurs, as if the art is spiritually alive. Third, no matter how prepared we are for our art search, unexpected surprises can occur.

Such was the case when I stumbled upon Gianlorenzo Bernini’s St. Jerome and Mary Magdalen sculptures in the Chigi Chapel, Siena Duomo. These sculptures are easy to miss because they are located in a small, out-of-the-way chapel that is reserved for prayer. If upon entering you don’t turn around to look back toward the threshold you’ve just crossed, you won’t see the Bernini sculptures because they flank the doorway. Then, once inside, you must turn around to study the St. Jerome, since the seating and the sculptures face the altar. As you do, you are perceived as a trespasser by the congregants, and unless you convey respect, you will be asked to leave. To look at this sculpture for any length of time, you are made to feel that you are committing a sin, but once you do find it, you know you are in the presence of something extraordinary that you must pay attention to despite the difficulty.

For many reasons Bernini’s St. Jerome is one of my favorite sculptures. The work is larger than life-sized, made of marble, carved in traditional techniques, and designed to fit inside a chapel niche. Each of its elements—the flesh of St. Jerome, his hair, his crucifix, the drapery, and the lion—is sculpted differently from one another. St. Jerome’s stance forms the underlying design, which is based on an “x.” The drapery acts like a frame, exposing certain parts of the body while hiding others. It adds both complex texture that contrasts with his body and a swirling movement so indicative of the Baroque era. The x design, and swirling pattern allows Bernini to arrange the piece’s major elements in order to lead the viewer visually from one area to another.

The way Bernini sculpted St. Jerome’s body reveals much about the kind of life such a man must have lived; he is old and thin, but fit and not emaciated. Equally important to the overall message and composition is the friendship evident between St. Jerome and the lion. The lion enjoys the affectionate foot caressing to such an extent that you can almost hear him purr.

The focal point of this sculpture is the connection between St. Jerome and the crucifix. Everything from the ground up, including the post and the drapery, leads to this connection. Its details combine to create a sense of love and devotion that we can believe and feel; note St. Jerome’s euphoric expression, his hair wrapping around the crucifix, the heads pressing into and leaning on each other as if peacefully sleeping, and St. Jerome delicately holding the cross as if playing a violin.

One of the most striking things I felt seeing this piece was how prophetic it is. Bernini’s St. Jerome tells us that human beings can love God, be in balance with ourselves, and cultivate a capacity to live harmoniously with all other living beings on earth. Incredible beauty, accomplished by a unity of concept and form, created by a Baroque master.

--------------------

What Makes a Masterpiece?

Truth in art.

By  James Harrington

When Velázquez exhibited his portrait of Juan de Pareja at the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon in 1650, the picture “gained such universal applause that in the opinion of all the painters of different nations, everything else seemed like painting, but this alone like truth.” I love Velázquez for this rare quality: the ability to transcend his medium, even while using it so sublimely. One doesn’t often encounter this ability, but we are fortunate in New York to have several examples of it. Among my very favorites is Repin’s portrait of the short story writer Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin.

To a viewer who is unfamiliar with the work of the great Russian painter Ilia Repin (1844–1930), this probing portrait of Garshin may appear photographic, especially in a small black and white reproduction. I assure you, it is wonderfully painted. It is the rare type of canvas that loses its self-consciousness as a painting, while retaining the sensuality of the paint. Repin’s painterly technique does not obtrude upon the subject; the artist’s hand is evident, but not distracting. He is like a musician who allows you to experience the music first, though you are quite aware that the music cannot exist exclusive of the musician, or his notes. He tastefully does not draw attention to his technique, as Giovanni Boldini so often did to his detriment. The brush is used in service of the subject, beautifully descriptive and probing, capturing what is essential to the subject with an economy of means. Repin is not merely a mirror that reflects; he is an artist before nature, selecting and distilling the very essence of his subject. Garshin’s intense gaze, so compelling and so alive, is more than paint on canvas; it is the visual perception of another living soul. This is not the mindless visual description of a man. This painting retains the integrity of the individual. It is far beyond description; it is art.

There are many paintings that painstakingly record the details of their subject, missing nothing except what is most important, the life, the truth about the subject. To do this an artist needs to be able to select, to perceive what is important and what is not, and to record it accordingly—beautifully. Art is a thing of the mind, not of the hand. This is why I love this portrait so very much; it reflects the painter’s mind while embodying the soul of its subject.

Repin is a painter’s painter as well. Observe the play of brushstrokes that make up the books, papers, and desk. Repin loves his brush strokes, but he knows their place in a painting. When one sees a Repin, one sees a visual feast of strokes, texture, color, and design. This particular painting has a very straightforward design that is appropriate for its subject. Anyone familiar with Repin’s Zaporozhye Cossacks Writing a Mocking Letter to the Turkish Sultan (1880–81) is aware of the scale of Repin’s tremendous compositional abilities. Unfortunately, there are precious few paintings of his in this country. We are fortunate enough to have this remarkable portrait at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the gallery where it hangs, you will see many paintings, but in Repin alone will you see truth.

--------------------------

What Makes a Masterpiece?

An elegant unrest.

By  Ellen Eagle

Long before I became aware that artists think about principles like selection and unity, I was captivated by seemingly simple paintings of people. My eyes fixed on a quiet tilt of a head, a tension at the corner of a mouth, a posture that implied an emotional state. A watchful artist’s straightforward depiction of a small, undramatic moment made me trust that the painting was a truthful record of the artist’s honest involvement.

I am in love with Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Woman (ca. 1632). The volumes in space, the almost invisible transitions of darks into the light, the color, the air. The varieties of texture. Areas of calm punctuated by activity elsewhere. All woven together with restraint, in harmony: the beauty of each detail intensified.

For me, though, it is the marriage of these perfections with a kind of awkwardness that Rembrandt captures, which makes the painting achingly beautiful and which speaks of real life. The poor woman looks so uncomfortable, wrapped in her impossibly ornate and bloated dress. The incredible millstone collar against her sublimely straightforward face; a face without a touch of glamour, and so breathtaking in its simplicity. The formality of the pose gives way to an almost imperceptible imbalance. There is something about her hand holding the ostrich fan—she doesn’t appear committed to it. And her other arm is straining, just a bit, to hold on to the edge of the table. It all looks slightly out of kilter, somehow, as though she is a soul ill-at-ease. Yet she stands with such fine posture. How dignified she is in her quiet perseverance.

My interpretations are conjecture, of course, and personal. But it is Rembrandt’s empathy that stimulates my feelings. Portrait of a Woman appears to have been initiated as a commission. But because Rembrandt was exquisitely sensitive to an inner life and responded to small moments which hint of that life, he transcended the potential artificiality of a commissioned portrait and tells of a rich human presence that resonates.

Great paintings stimulate thoughts and feelings that take us beyond the four corners of the canvas and then they bring us back; we crave to see the image again and again, our responses only deepening with time. And although a painting is a complete statement, an artist’s own words can, at once, widen and crystalize our meditations, illuminating and heightening our sensations as we stand before the paintings we love.

At the Metropolitan Museum’s Thomas Eakins exhibition in 2002, I took notice of the artist’s quotations that appeared on several gallery walls. When I came upon “I hate affectation,” I laughed, delighted by the defiant bluntness in proximity to Eakins’s other, more scholarly sounding quotes. But this quote is a serious statement.

Some of Eakins’s detractors impeached his portraits as being cold and cruel, or worse, dull. But I think the opposite is true. I think Eakins’s meticulous description is fired by his longing to grasp the heart of his subject. He never turns away.

This desire drives his portrait The Artist’s Wife and His Setter Dog (1884–89). He probes the cool colors of Mrs. Eakins’s skin, the shifts from hard bone to soft flesh, the warm recesses of her eye sockets, the strength of her hands, the pull of her satiny dress form her hips to her knees. His love for what he observes is evident, and his expression, so sensual.

The content of this painting is personal. Susan McDowell was an artist, too, and had been a star student of Mr. Eakins. When they married, she put aside her painting and devoted herself to his care. Respectfully, he places her at the center of his own study: her luminous figure is pivotal to his work and well-being. Her head, tilted toward her book of paintings, turns to Mr. Eakins. Her eyes and hand are open to her husband. He is the beneficiary of her strength. The artist’s presence is deeply felt. This is a portrait of complex and intimate connection. But The Artist’s Wife and His Setter Dog is a double portrait. Thomas Eakins has painted a fully realized portrait of his dog, Harry. No mere accoutrement to Mrs. Eakins, Harry is an essential member of the household, the weight and warmth of his presence unsentimentally conveyed.

Brush in hand, a portrait painter stands before his or her model and embarks on a solitary voyage. The desire to connect is fundamental and powerful, and there are moments when the possibility feels beyond reach. When I look at these two paintings, so full of emotion, I feel the artist striving to connect and to give shape, on his canvas, to his compassion.

Rembrandt and Thomas Eakins are artists of enormous scope who were absorbed in sincere and penetrating contemplation. For all their mastery of their tools and their understanding of the natural world, they never hand us grandiose performances. Instead, they employ their understanding in pursuit of an ever-deepening insight.

Their paintings are records of watchful artists at work, striving to touch upon something true in their subjects. For me, that is their greatest beauty.