this week in outsider art: a spirit codex, an absolute stunner from bill traylor and is this haitian the best ballpoint pen artist ever + more
plus, a deep dive into gustav klimt and "folk art" and a unique sister gertrude morgan
THIS WEEK IN OUTSIDER ART
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OH WORD?
Now that the school year has officially started, I'm excited to be teaching my second year of art history to a group of thirty-five high school students. While most of my time is dedicated to reading and researching outsider and folk art, I owe it to my students to learn more than the Bill Traylor and Judith Scott's of the world. That said, any time I can relate ancient or modern artwork to folk art, you bet I sure will.
That brings us to Gustav Klimt. He is known worldwide for his vibrant and sometimes erotic works full experimental techniques including the use of gold leaf. A leader in the Vienna Secession movement, Klimt is now loved by most but at the time hated by many. Shockingly, the one man whom you might expect to be leading the charge of that hatred, the curator of the "Degenerate Art" show in 1937, Adolf Hitler, was a big fan. Artwork by modern artists like Pablo Picasso, Otto Dix, Marc Chagall, and Egon Schiele, to name a few, was dismissed by the failed watercolorist and included in the "Degenerate Art" show. But avant-garde artist Gustav Klimt was left out, his work was celebrated by Nazi Germany and even received a solo retrospective in 1943.
Suppose you look at the works Hitler loved. Klimt's work would stick out like a sore thumb. These works were traditional, realistic, and, more often than not, nationalistic. In fact, to go a step further, there's nothing about the artist Gustav Klimt that Hitler or the Nazis could have related to. Everyone knew this, especially Hilter. So, how did they get around this? Call his Klimt’s art "folk art." I should probably state that over time I feel that the term “folk art” has taken on a life of it’s own, and even possibly due to people like myself, has lost it’s meaning and gotten away from its true traditional definition.
This great video by art historian James Payne details exactly how and why the Nazis washed away the modern art ties of Gusav Klimt and his artwork to "fit in" better with the more traditional work deemed appropriate at the time. One way included changing the title of the famous "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer" to a more simple title like "A Lady With a Gold Background."
At the end of the day, it was, per Open Culture, the fact that Klimt “celebrates the triumph of idealism over materialism” that seemed to have represented enough of a philosophical overlap to be useful to the Third Reich.
Yet there is little in Gustav Klimt's life or worldview the Nazis would have otherwise agreed with. His work was in part not meant for the masses, and he knew full well the dangers of popular appeal as told by this quote from philosopher Friedrich Schiller incorporated into Klimt’s 1899 painting Nuda Veritas, “If you cannot please everyone with your actions and art, you should satisfy a few. To please many is dangerous.”
MUST-WATCH
Watch this 1981 interview with self-taught artist Clementine Hunter, as she makes artwork and reminisces about her life and work at Melrose Plantation.
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