(Art Digital by Francisco Bravo Cabrera/All Rights Reserved)
Why do I say that? I mean, why do I say that art is the search. The search for what? And ultimately, what is art? If you study art history you discover that centuries ago it was quite easy to define what art was. As a matter of fact, many of the famous Renaissance artists that we think of as the Masters these days did not even call themselves artists. They considered themselves as artisans. It wasn’t until artists started choosing and deciding what they were going to paint or sculpt that the idea, the concept of being an artist was developed. Before that, artists like Michelangelo and Bernini did not choose what they were going to paint, it was commissioned to the. They painted what the Church or what a rich noble wanted, or what the King or Queen desired.
So, when artists were free to choose their subject matter, art evolved rather quickly and that is when art became the search. As an artist you must possess certain qualities, and these are: Education, Preparation, skill, insight and good taste. Without any one of these you may not succeed as an artist. (Unless you get yourself someone with lots and lots of money to sponsor you, promote your work and place you at the pinnacle of the art world. It is being done with many no-talent artists doing no good art).
In any event, that is why I say that art is the search. In the search you filter out the mundane, the ordinary, the uglier aspects of life and you keep that which can transmit a message, enhance someone’s life and enrich your own creative spirit. As an artist you must have the spirit of the times, live in the moment and search through history to conclude with a work that reflects the times and speaks to the future.
Algunos dirán que no, que el mejor es Leonardo da Vinci, y yo les respeto la opinión, pero a mi no me caben dudas que el verdadero maestro de la pintura renacentista fue Botticelli. Y cuando veáis el vídeo lo notarás.
Some would say no, it was Leonardo da Vinci. And I will respect that opinion but for me, no doubt, the real Master of Renaissance painting was Botticelli.And when you watch the video you will see why.
Seraphine was born in 1864 in Arsy, Oise, France. Her family was poor and she started life as a shepherdess, though little is known of her young years only that she was a devout Catholic who attended Mass daily. In 1881 she began to work as a domestic at the convent of the Sisters of Providence in Clermont, Oise. Although she was not a nun, her life was very similar to the sisters. She was practically cloistered in the convent for twenty years. Then in 1901, she gained employment as a housekeeper for middle-class families in the town of Senlis.
It is interesting to note that years later Seraphine told a doctor at the hospice that at the convent she had seen terrible things. She had witnessed horrific and violent fights, a murder and the pregnancy of one of the nuns. She described hearing voices that spoke of conspiracies against her and thought of herself a secret police agent. Her medical and psychiatric records allowed doctor M.A. Ortas-Peretti to create her doctoral thesis titled Seraphine an Alianated Painter.
When Seraphine was 42 years old, and while praying at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Senlis, she heard the voice of the Virgin Mary say to her «You must start to paint.» As she considered this a divine revelation and a command, she began to paint. She would spend entire nights painting on the floor while sipping wine. She never showed her work to anyone. She had no friends. While she worked on her paintings she sang religious hymns.
Then in 1912 something extraordinary occurred that changed her life. SHe met Wilhelm Uhde. This art critic and galerist had promoted Picasso and Braque; discovered Henir Rousseau and Marie Laurencin, and was fascinated with Art Naiif. He had moved to Senlis to write and being that he needed a housekeeper he hired Seraphine.
One day while shopping Uhde saw a painting that moved him. He was told that it had been painted by a domestic servant, Seraphine. He bought the painting and made Seraphine sign it. When he visited her and saw so many magnificent paintings, he wrote in his memoirs, that an extraordinary passion, and a most sacred, medieval fervor had taken shape in Seraphine’s still life paintings.
She began to create large paintings under Uhde’s patronage and she became known as an artist. In 1929 an exhibition titled «Painters of the Sacred Heart» was organised by Uhde. Seraphine gained much recognition and much money, something she really did not know how to manage. However, it all came tumbling down with the Great Depression of 1930 which ended the patronage due to the loss of their finances.
By 1932, Seraphine’s mental health had seriously deteriorated and she was admitted at Clermont’s lunatic asylum for chronic psychosis. Not even her artwork offered her any comfort. It is possible that Louis died in 1934 as Uhde reported, or that she lived until 1942 interned in a hospital annex at Villers-sous-Erquery. Being as that she was alone and friendless, she was placed in a common grave.
I find her life and her work extremely interesting and I regret never knowing about this extraordinary painter. I hope you are interested enough to continue the search, not only about the life and work of Seraphine Louis but of the many other women painters forgotten (intentionally?) by art history.
Back in the time of the great Renaissance masters, painters like Michelangelo, Botticelli, Leonardo and the rest of the gang, did not call themselves artists. They thought of themselves as trained artisans. Highly skilled craftsmen that had studied and mastered the craft of painting. And paintings also were not regarded as art. During those times artists did not walk into their studios, picked up a canvas and thought of what they were going to paint on it. In those times painters painted what was commissioned from them. Their greatest patrons were the Church and the nobility, along with some rich merchants as well. They did not choose their topics, they were told what to paint.
Of course that sounds quite unlike our modern concept of art. We think of an artist as someone who creates. And his creations come from so deep within his knowledge, his creativity, his innermost mind that some might even believe it came from his very profound, immortal soul. I call bollocks on that one…
Art is still a business. Paintings are mostly for decorative purposes. And artists should still be trained, skilled and dedicated professionals with good taste and a rounded off and complete education. Art does not necessarily have to be that esoteric, mystical form of expression that rises from the spirit to convey a transcendental message of intense and extraordinary beauty and importance. Art is the result of the work of a craftsman who paints/sculpts (etcetera) in his quest to make a living. In other words a painter/artist works for money, just like Michelangelo and Leonardo did.
There is nothing mystical or phenomenal in the work of the artist. Art has many functions and they are all in need of art and the artist is in need of making a living. Art is not done for the love of art. An artist is not a romantic dreamer standing in front of a muse who directs him to paint an extraordinary work called a masterpiece. No, an artist gets up, and using only his well-learned disciplinary habits, enters his studio and begins to work. He does not have to be original as there is nothing original under the sun. An artist only has to be true to himself in the knowledge that he is creating something using his learned abilities and guided by his good taste.
Stay tuned for part 3 coming soon and I will continue with these chapters if you let me know, in the comments below, that you are interested and want to participate in this dialogue.
(2012/Please do not forget to «like» and thank you)
Venga, a que no sabías que Miles Davis, sí, el gran trompetista del bebop, del cool, del funk y del jazz psicodélico, progresivo, jazz-fusion, etcétera, era también un artista plástico fenomenal, sí, un pintor. Pues como no lo sabías, yo te lo voy a decir…
Miles Davis, (Miles Dewey Davis), nació en Illinois en 1926 y era un pijo… Se crió en East St. Louis y comenzó a tocar la trompeta a temprana edad. Luego ingresó en Julliard School of Music, pero se fugó de la institución en 1944 para tocar con banda de Billy Eckstine y tocó con Charlie Parker y Dizzy Gillespie, donde aprendió todo lo que habia de aprender del estilo bebop.
En 1948 se reunió con Bill Evans y comenzó su etapa del «Birth of the Cool», o sea, el nacimiento del «cool», un jazz más suave, más sutil y más parecido a la música del llamado «West Coast», la de los jazzistas de California… Tuvo grandes éxitos y grandes grupos, especialmente con otros grandes como John Coltrane, y así paso los años cincuenta y sesenta… Luego, hacia el final de su carrera (y su vida), en los años 80, penetra el «Jazz-Fusion» y gana varios Grammy Awards haciendo el repertorio de Michael Jackson y Cindi Lauper.
Entonces en 1991, en el Festival de Jazz de Montreux en 1991, Davis se unió al grupo de Quincy Jones e interpretó arreglos clásicos de Gil Evans de finales de la década de 1950.
Miles Davis murió en 1991 en Santa Monica, California, donde vivía. Nunca quiso volver a tocar sus grandes éxitos como Birth of the Cool o Kind of Blue. Siempre se reinventó durante su larga carrera…
Y también pintaba… En 1972 Davis sufrió un accidente automovilístico y de ahí surge su etapa de pintor. Se inmersó de lleno en la pintura, dándole la misma importancia que a su música, y dijo que “la pintura es terapia para mí y me mantiene la mente ocupada con algo positivo cuando no estoy haciendo música.” Le gustaba mucho pintar caras y sus referencias fueron Kandinsky, Picasso y las máscaras africanas, entre otros.
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I will bet you didn’t know that Miles Davis, yes, the great «Jazz Man», trumpet master of bebop, cool, funk, psychedelic jazz, progressive, jazz-fusion, etc., was also a phenomenal visual artist, yes, a painter. Well, since you didn’t know, I’m going to tell you…
Miles Davis (Miles Dewey Davis) hailed from Illinois. He was born in 1926 of an upper middle class family, and grew up in East St. Louis. Miles started playing the trumpet early in life. Later he attended Julliard School of Music but left it to play in Billy Eckstine’s band. With Eckstine’s band he played alongside Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. I reckon that there he learned all he needed to know of bebop.
In 1948, he met with Bill Evans and began the phase that led him to create the «Birth of the Cool,» that is, the birth of «cool jazz,» a smoother, subtler sound that resembled the music of «West Coast Jazz,» mostly played by musicians from California. He had great successes and collaborated with many influential artists, especially with other legends like John Coltrane. And thus he spent the fifties and sixties. Later, towards the end of his career (and his life), in the 1980s, he delved into «Jazz-Fusion» and won several Grammy Awards performing the repertoire of Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper.
In 1991, at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Davis joined Quincy Jones’ group and performed classic arrangements by Gil Evans from the late 1950s.
Miles Davis died from a cerebral haemorrhage in 1991 in Santa Monica, California, where he lived. He never wanted to play his greatest hits like «Birth of the Cool» or «Kind of Blue» again. He always reinvented himself throughout his long career…
And he also painted. And how did this start? Well, in 1972, Davis was in a car accident and that marked the beginning of his painting phase. He became fully immersed in painting, giving it the same importance as his music. He once said that «painting is therapy for me and keeps my mind engaged with something positive when I’m not making music.» He particularly enjoyed painting faces, and his references included Kandinsky, Picasso, and African masks, among others.
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(Este es el ultimo cuadro que pinto ya estando en sus ultimos dias en 1991/This is the last painting he did, already quite ill and in his last days in 1991) (Foto/Photo The Last Miles)
(Photo from The Independent Redding on stage at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival/Rex)
«(Sittin’On) The Dock of the Bay«
What can I say about a song that I heard when I was just a wee lad and that I have loved all my life. Well, one thing I can say is that I really miss soul music! During my childhood that was one of the great genres of music and, lamentably, now it does not exist. But I am so glad that in those years Black musicians, and whites too, made some phenomenal soul to last forever.
«(Sittin’On) The Dock of the Bay» was co-written by Otis Redding and guitarist Steve Cropper (guitarist for Booker T and the MG’s). As it turned out Redding recorded the song just three days before his death. He died in a plane crash on the 10th of December of 1967. Stax Records’ Volt label released the tune in 1968, and it became the first posthumous #1 single in the US. It also reached #3 in the UK… Otis Redding began writing the tune on a rented houseboat in Sausalito, California, and finished it in Memphis, at Stax Records where he went to record it.
In an interview with Terry Gross (Fresh Air/NPR), Cropper, said:
Otis was one of those [guys] who had 100 ideas. […] He had been in San Francisco doing The Fillmore. And the story that I got, he was renting a boathouse, or stayed at a boathouse or something, and that’s where he got the idea of the ships coming in the bay there. And that’s about all he had: «I watch the ships come in and I watch them roll away again.» I just took that… and I finished the lyrics. If you listen to the songs I collaborated on with Otis, most of the lyrics are about him. […] Otis didn’t really write about himself but I did. Songs like «Mr. Pitiful,» «Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)»; they were about Otis and Otis’ life. «Dock of the Bay» was exactly that: «I left my home in Georgia, headed for the Frisco Bay» was all about him going out to San Francisco to perform.
For sure «(Sittin’On) The Dock of the Bay» is one of the most performed songs in history. It has been covered by so many artists, including Glenn Campbell and Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66. It is a phenomenal song that I love and that I think you do too. I am including a cover by The Reddings (1982) a soul/funk group with two of Otis Redding’s sons. What do you think?
Giuseppina Brambilla Barcilon, mejor conocida como Pinin Brambilla, restauradora de grandes obras de arte, nacida en Monza en 1925, murió a los 95 años en 2020. Fue la restauradora de La Última Cena de Leonardo da Vinci. Obra en la cual trabajo veinte años… Brambilla, italiana, es considerada una de las restauradoras más importantes del Siglo XX. Obras de Piero della Francesca, Caravaggio, entre otras han sido restauradas por su mano experta. Pinin ha sido también consultora para grandes museos, como el Louvre de París y el Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña… Su gran obra fue, sin dudas la restauración de La Última Cena de Leonardo da Vinci. La comenzó en 1978 y no la terminó hasta 1999. Dado a que la obra estaba en tan mal estado, esta labor de Pinin fue considerada la «restauración del siglo»… Sin duda una gran artista y mujer muy importante en la historia del arte que debemos conocer.
Giuseppina Brambilla Barcilon, better known as Pinin Brambilla, conservationist and restorer of great works of art, was born in Monza in 1925 and passed away at the age of 95 in 2020. She was the restorer of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, a project she worked on for twenty years… Brambilla, an Italian, is considered one of the most important art restorers of the XXth Century. Works by Piero della Francesca, Caravaggio, among others, have been restored by her expert hand. Pinin has also been a consultant for major museums, such as the Louvre in Paris and the National Art Museum of Catalunya… Her greatest work was undoubtedly the restoration of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, which she began in 1978 and didn’t finish until 1999. Given that the piece was in such poor condition, Pinin’s work was considered the «restoration of the century»… Without a doubt, she was a great artist and a very important woman in the history of art that we should know, recognise and remember.
(«Luna No.11″/Francisco Bravo Cabrera/All Rights Reserved)
THE MOON YOUR MIRROR
Your reflection on the moon, your mirror, adorns heaven You lie between the green of the mountains Your touch makes the earth vibrate softly Skin to skin magnificent You sooth my thirst with the morning dew, and lift the fragrance of the cold from my hands
The soft silver light, of four bright stars, illuminates your face from where brilliant rays of beauty flow
You shelter me, caress me and comfort me in this valley of endless dreams
The breeze sings ancient melodies as it wonders through the forests
And I search for you at nightfall Is that a shadow that I see? Or is it your silhouette against the light of the moon?
A pirouette in outer space A voice proposing love eternal No promises No plans
The fire in the valley burns when love is absent to extinguish it Fire burns unstoppable in the land of endless dreams.
C.2025 – Francisco Bravo Cabrera – 03 MAY 2025 = Valencia, España
Giuseppina Brambilla Barcilon, mejor conocida como Pinin Brambilla, restauradora de grandes obras de arte, nacida en Monza en 1925, murió a los 95 años en 2020. Fue la restauradora de La Última Cena de Leonardo da Vinci. Obra en la cual trabajo veinte años… Brambilla, italiana, es considerada una de las restauradoras más importantes del Siglo XX. Obras de Piero della Francesca, Caravaggio, entre otras han sido restauradas por su mano experta. Pinin ha sido también consultora para grandes museos, como el Louvre de París y el Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña… Su gran obra fue, sin dudas la restauración de La Última Cena de Leonardo da Vinci. La comenzó en 1978 y no la terminó hasta 1999. Dado a que la obra estaba en tan mal estado, esta labor de Pinin fue considerada la «restauración del siglo»… Sin duda una gran artista y mujer muy importante en la historia del arte que debemos conocer.
Giuseppina Brambilla Barcilon, better known as Pinin Brambilla, conservationist and restorer of great works of art, was born in Monza in 1925 and passed away at the age of 95 in 2020. She was the restorer of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, a project she worked on for twenty years… Brambilla, an Italian, is considered one of the most important art restorers of the XXth Century. Works by Piero della Francesca, Caravaggio, among others, have been restored by her expert hand. Pinin has also been a consultant for major museums, such as the Louvre in Paris and the National Art Museum of Catalunya… Her greatest work was undoubtedly the restoration of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, which she began in 1978 and didn’t finish until 1999. Given that the piece was in such poor condition, Pinin’s work was considered the «restoration of the century»… Without a doubt, she was a great artist and a very important woman in the history of art that we should know, recognise and remember.
JaZzArt en València 