My brother, mother, and I went to the Picasso exhibit at the Chicago Art Institute for Mother’s Day. What a trip. What a pleasure.
Beyond the 250 piece Picasso exhibit, the Chicago Art Institute has an astonishing number of Master works – Cezanne, Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, and countless others. So much struck me. I will have to return to this museum over and over again.
I saw a lot of portraits. The evolution of the portrait, displayed at the Chicago Art Institute, made quite impression on me. Seeing this evolution portrait-by-portrait, side-by-side, solidified a life lesson that guides my work and my life. Below are three portraits: one by Van Gogh, and one by Picasso, and one by Renoir.
Van Gogh’s work arguably represents the beginning of abstract expressionism. During this period, we to see representations not just of the subject at hand but also existential commentary on society and how it distorts the inner and out form of the individual. No longer are we looking at more straightforward subjects but also a host of judgments about our reality and how we live. In the Van Gogh painting The Drinkers (1881), the artist contorts the rural laborers, their bodies becoming almost like caricatures. Undoubtedly the artist is saying something about the labor and the forced lifestyle that disfigures these drinking men. In the painting, one feels the absurdity of the limited horizon of their lives – their only recourse is to drink and laugh through their disfigurement.
Picasso goes many steps further in his more abstract portraits. He disfigures his subjects by offering the viewer multiply planes through which to view them. Picasso breaks apart unified form in the same quantum physics does. He also expresses the profound subjectivity and discord through which we live our lives. This, in turn, disfigures how we perceive each other. In his Portrait of Sylvette David (1954), he portrays his lover with distorted, flattened shapes, multiple views of her face in skewed planes, and all plopped together into a discordant whole. And yet, Picasso uses these shapes and colors to make an aesthetically pleasing design as if to say that despite all of our contradictions, we still form beautiful patterns.
I am so grateful for the deepening of content and commentary that these artists undertook. They are representing what our choices are doing to us as well as anticipating and expressing shifts in our consciousness. I am also grateful that one of the last paintings I saw was Renoir’s Two Sisters (1881). For very different reasons, this painting is absolutely incredible to sit in front of. So sweet so gentle, so kind, it was intoxicating, a respite of beauty and clarity. I am not saying that I prefer Renoir’s portrait to the others, because I do not. I am saying that, after entering the mouth of the tunnel with Van Gogh’s piece and then traveling through the darkness in Picasso’s portraits, I was grateful the for gentle hand.
This finally brings me to the reason for writing this blog. I left the Chicago Art Institute with an insight that will guide the rest of my life: Treat your subject kindly. Be aware of everything, of the darkness, of our skewed views into reality, and of the disfigurement created by modern living. Do not shy away from the truth expressed by Van Gogh or unsettling abstractions of Picasso. But still, after all is said and done, treat the subject kindly. I do not only mean the people around you. I mean, whatever you are doing, however you are encountering it. That is what I attempt to do with my non-profit Mind Body Solutions. I know firsthand the horror and difficulty presented by trauma, loss, and disability. By not shying away for it, by helping people reconnect to their bodies, I work to treat the subject kindly.
Of course, late at night, when the solitary lamp sits aglow amidst the surrounding darkness, I must acknowledge that I too am a subject.