Remember Anton Mauve?
I thought of Anton Mauve recently because of a student in my
Pastel Figure class at the League. This woman, untrained as she is, is the best
artist in the class, indeed one of the best I have taught. I can take little or
no credit- she came to me that way. She says I helped her loosen up and be
freer. Perhaps I did—loosening up is a
mantra I chant in all my classes.
I give a demo of whatever method or material we are covering,
then the students work on their own art. On this particular day, Crow X was our
model and we talked about how to achieve realistic tones of dark-skinned folk.
I did my usual quick and easy capture of Crow’s head, showing how to layer the
various underhues (see pic). Demo over, the students worked at their boards and
I worked on my piece for a while.
Then I got up and
walked around to check everyone’s work-in-progress. What this woman had done in
a brief few minutes knocked my socks off. With a few deft, free strokes of
vivid color she had knocked down the very essence of Crow and his skin tones.
She paid little homage to the layering or blending I so assiduously teach but slapped the colors on in broad strokes.
If truth be told, she worked in a way I have always coveted
to obtain, and only seldom achieved. I work in a technically skillful way with
a great deal of speed, and no doubt my work is capable, competent. But her work
soars while mine sits. Her art is
fluid, dynamic, lyrical. And yet she thinks that I, the teacher, am better and she
judges her own work to be inept and weak. I try to disabuse her of that notion,
praising her art and pointing out to her those treasures that flow through her
fingertips.
Anton Mauve was a competent, very good painter in his day
and one of the founders of a school art in the Hague. He made a very good
living at his art—it was highly sought after—and was considered a fine colorist.
However, outside of Museum staffs and the Netherlands, who speaks of Anton Mauve
today? If he is cited at all, it is not for his artwork, but the fact that he
was Van Gogh’s cousin by marriage and that, for a brief few months, he taught
Van Gogh the rudiments and fundamentals of oil painting. Van Gogh considered
Mauve a major influence on his art, second only to Millet. Indeed, the one of the few paintings Van Gogh inscribed/dedicated to someone besides his brother Theo was
to Mauve.
Did Mauve know how good Van Gogh was, or at least, did he
recognize that his young cousin eclipsed (or would one day eclipse) him in creative
wherewithal and artistic power? Did he wonder, as I did when confronted with my
student’s art, how almost pedestrian his capable work was next to an artist of
force and power?
I’m not fishing for compliments. I am confident enough in my
own art and abilities. Yet I cannot help yearn for a bit more power, a bit more
oomph, a bit more pizazz in my work. And isn’t that the creative drive calling?
You will pardon me, but I need to get to my easel.
