My post on Andrew Wyeth below got me thinking about the whole business of realism in painting. And that reminded me of a story I read, years back.
A pastor I worked for occasionally got long letters (more like manifestos) from a friend who was an artist. I got to look at the letters too, if I cared to. From looking at them, I concluded that this artist was a) not as talented as he thought he was, and b) a little nuts. However, he told a story—or rather related an added sidelight to a well-known story—that I’ve never forgotten, and am inclined to believe.
The story of Diego Rivera’s mural, “Man At the Crossroads,” is pretty well known. John D. Rockefeller commissioned Rivera to paint the mural for Rockefeller Center in 1933. Rivera deviated from his original plan by adding the figure of Lenin to it, and refused to change it at Rockefeller’s request. So Rockefeller paid him for it, then covered it up and later had it demolished.
Now here’s the sidelight my pastor’s artist-friend added. He said that, because of the embarrassment of this experience, Rockefeller made a vow. “Never again,” he said, “will I allow an artist to play this kind of trick on me. This new Abstract Art is all about shapes and colors. You can’t tell what it’s saying. It would be impossible for an Abstract artist to do to me what Rivera did. Therefore, from now on I will commission only Abstract works.”
And because of Rockefeller’s stature (this artist claimed), Abstract Art became tremendously fashionable with wealthy art patrons everywhere. Thus Abstract became the dominant artistic style of the 20th Century—not because it actually gave artists greater scope to explore new frontiers of creativity, but simply because that was where the money was.
I like the story because I’ve always disliked Abstract. When I was a kid who thought he’d grow up to be (some kind of) an artist someday, I took pride in being able to draw things that actually looked like things, and resented all the excitement about cubes and smears.
But I’m asking here—is the story true? Does anybody know? Is it possible to know?
I’m sure it’s possible to verify this story with Rockefeller biographers, if only to look through the list of his commissioned artwork.
I’m with you, Lars.(re: abstract art) Except…several years ago, there was a Picasso exhibit at the Atlanta/High Musuem; I fell in love with a fairly-large floor piece he did of a goat. He used material that were throw aways…from the kitchen and the local dump. Art is (supposedly) birthed to envoke emotions and passion. Finally after all the Picasso offerings; I fell in love with a goat. 🙂
But I’m asking here—is the story true? Does anybody know? Is it possible to know?
I’ll ask some of my weird crazy artist friends to see what they know.
I tried to research this a bit, and I found an old book with reprinted newspaper articles. One was from the NYTimes, I believe, saying certain art world leaders were shocked that Rivera’s mural was destroyed in the dead of night, especially when Rockefeller’s people apparently said the mural wouldn’t be damaged. I don’t know the context of that statement, but one leader of a city art coalition said it was “art murder” and artists should boycott the Rockefeller Center.
This was on the same page in the book as an article on Goering removing all non-German art from Nazi Germany.