ResearchPaper3_Fall2011_BPLonginotti (1)

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Pettinati-Longinotti

Betti Pettinati-Longinotti

Advisor, Ben Sloat

Group 3, Research Paper III

24 October 2011

Continued Comparative Analysis of Gerhard Richter and Kiki Smith

In Regards to the Work of Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse

Clearly, I am wholly infatuated with Gerhard Richter and Kiki Smith for finally

providing legitimate resources to provide a foundation for my work in flat glass as a

medium. To have these contemporary references assist in uniting the aesthetic,

conceptual and the technical aspects of my work is a godsend. One cannot understand

the paradigm of Smith or Richters work in architectural glass without first looking at

artist predecessors like Henri Matisse or Marc Chagall. I have previously written on

lesser known artists and painters who found a passion for working with stained glass as a

medium and these artists similarly follow a paradigm similar to that one taken by Matisse

and Chagall.

This discussion precipitates to some discussion points to some problems within

contemporary art, as it views architectural stained glass, or stained glass as an art form

for its own sake. I had the pleasure of meeting and having an educated discussion with

Professor Karen Mulder of the University of Virginia, at the American Glass Guild

Conference this summer. She points to some key issues with glass as a medium and

some of the controversies I have been experiencing for a good part of my professional

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life as an artist. On the Humanities and Social Sciences Discussion Network, Mulder

responds within a thread:

Jon Callan's question points up a very important issue. I

recently heard art critic Janet Koplos lecture at the GAS (Glass Art

Society) conference in June about the fact that glass lacks critics (and

theorists, by implication) that 'know the vocabulary' of glass well

enough to write intelligently about it. She admitted, as the craft expert

at Art in America, that she did not have it. (And she was of course

referring to sculptural glass, mainly.) There are, in fact, hardly any

sources that even begin to go beyond descriptive pieces. Brian Clarke's

Architectural Stained Glass, from 1979, attempted to foist a term he

called "new constructivism" on the new platform for window design

that came out of Germany, and Robert Sowers certainly understood the

architectonic connectivity developing between windows and their

architectural setting. This threw glass studies, concerning installations,

out of the craft field and into applied arts, but in the US, we don't have

the same strong applied arts platform that German art education

maintained since the early 20th century. Consequently, I feel fairly

confident saying that there is no theoretical analysis of glass,

particularly since art historians have generally treated glass as a

subsidiary and marginal decorative art that more or less ends with

Tiffany in the US, or if we're lucky, perhaps with Chagall, Matisse,

and Rouault windows. But the problem with this is that these examples

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are painterly; glass designers feel they are working with light as their

main material, filtered through various types of glass to affect the

spatial ambience--they are not just transferring paintings into glass as a

new type of canvas (Mulder).

I both agree and disagree with Mulder. I agree that stained glass in the United

States is somewhere lodged between craft and allied arts and that within the American

culture; we do not have a clear understanding of allied arts as in Europe. I agree that

most studios fit into the category of the media being an allied art, and that the glass

designer utilizes light and color as a primary material. I disagree that a connection to

painting is not a primary connection for my art and for the art of Marc Chagall, Henri

Matisse, Kiki Smith, and Gerhard Richter. That is to say, we are using glass as a

canvas. One of the biggest differences between my work, and the work of the artists

cited above, beyond their reputations, is that I fabricate my own work versus working

with a glazier or an outside studio to bring my art into fruition.

For example, Chagall worked closely with the glaziers, Charles and Brigitte Marq

to produce windows for which he deemed acceptable. At the St. Juste glassworks, in the

Loire Valley, glass sheets of about fifty colors, of varying intensities, were made

available to Chagall (e.g. see fig.1). To prepare for the task, the master made numerous

pen and ink drawings, gouaches and collages to approximate his intentions. Then, at the

Atelier of Jacques Simon in Reims, the glass cut into patterns that followed Chagall's

maquettes. Chagall was glad to give much credit for the success of his windows to both

the Marqs and the Simons. What they had done with the greatest finesse to execute, from

the designs handed over by the master, is so well described by Meir Ronnen, art critic of

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The Jerusalem Post, that excerpts from his article are reproduced below. In particular,

Ronnen emphasizes the clever way in which Charles Marq ingeniously used the leaden

strips to accentuate the painter's intentions:

Some of the leads are almost geometric as in 'Levi';

others more open or swirling as in 'Shimon.' It is worthwhile to

go up to the roof of the synagogue to look at the mat back of

the windows, in order to study the construction of the lead

forms as designs in themselves (Werner 231).

The leads serve many purposes; they not only enclose various colors, but are used

by Marq to accent the main lines of the design. But in other cases the drawing or area of

color is allowed to pass across or under the leads, thus creating an interesting

counterpoint. This helps unify not only the line with the color, but the various parts of the

composition (Werner 232). The lead line finds a controversial context within

contemporary glass installations, but an aesthetic that I employ and for which I have a

passion. For me the lead line is the drawing. The weights of the lead are integral to the

integrity of the piece both structurally and aesthetically. Both Richter and Smith have

used the contemporary use of lamination by using a silicon epoxy to glue their pieces

together versus the traditional fabrication of lead.

In Richters window at the Cologne Cathedral, he is referencing his series of

paintings, 4900 Colors within the design of this installation (e.g. see fig.2). Chagall and

Matisse had procured a studio to fabricate his design. Similarly to Matisses reference to

his series of Cut-outs, Richter uses his painting as a maquette to provide the inspiration

of the design (e.g. see fig.3).

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Beyond the recent architectural glass installation at the Eldridge Street

Synagogue, Kiki Smith has been painting on glass. As with Mulders assertion found at

the beginning of this discussion, I find it interesting that Dr. Virginia Raguin, professor at

the College of the Holy Cross, wrote the catalog essay for Smiths 2010 exhibition,

Lodestarat the Pace Gallery, New York. In her essay Raguin connects to Mulders

commentary, remarking that whoever understands the vocabulary is able to discuss the

work beyond basic description. In her essay, I also find Raguin a visionary, in that she

both understands the history, technique, conceptual ideas, and aesthetics of Smiths work,

and of stained glass at-large, as exemplified within the exhibition.

Smith is painting on full sheets of antique glass, in her works in this Lodestar

exhibit. This is something out of the ordinary within the spectrum and tradition of

painting on glass with vitreous paints. Smith is explicably using the glass sheets as a

canvas and decisively excluding the lead line for her paintings on glass (e.g. see fig.4).

Painting on glass, rarer today, has a long tradition. In

the millennium since its origins, the process of making window

glass and painting its surface has altered little. Indeed, the

German term for the medium more accurately describes its

nature: Glasmalerei (glass painting). In the early twelfth

century, a monk using the pseudonym Theophilus described

the use of a drawn pattern (called a cartoon), the composition

of glass paint, and methods of draftsmanship all represented in

Smiths panels. Her glass sheet is placed on a light table

resting on small paper cushions to avoid friction between the

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two surfaces. She is using a cartoon drawn on paper, which

became standard only in the Renaissance with the availability

of the medium. Similar to her sculpted work, such as St.

Genevieve, Smith will often cut and reassemble the same

cartoon to vary positions of limbs or the head.

She begins with the contours of the drawing, usually

constructed of thin lines, and prefers to work with multiple

firings. Her paint consists of a glass-flux and opaque metallic

oxides, generally iron or copper. This powder is mixed with a

liquid, such as water and gum arabic allowing the artist to

easily vary the opacity of the paint. The glass sheet is then fired

in a kiln to approximately 1250 F. As the glass-flux softens

and the surface of the glass sheet becomes tacky, they fuse to

create a permanent bond. The artist can then rework the piece,

adding wash and line, without damaging the integrity of the

already fixed image. Smiths painting on glass is a remarkable

continuation of the late-medieval emphasis on drawing on a

translucent surface (Raguin 2)

In conclusion, I find that Gerhard Richter and Kiki Smith are providing an

overlapping intersection of references and inspiration for my current work. My most

recent glassworks take vitreous painting on glass out of the ecclesiastical into the gallery

setting, as Smith has done within herLodestarexhibition at the Pace Gallery. My

assembly of color composition is like Richters within his Colour Chart paintings, but

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with a much more limited palette of repeated colored rectangles ofreamy antique glass.

Conceptually and compositionally, my archive is inspired by Richters 1972 archive of

48 Portraits of important men.

(Fig.1)Marc Chagall, Painting on glass with vitreous paints,

Jerusalem windows, Life Magazine, 1960

(Fig. 2)

Gerhard Richter with his stained glass installation,

Cologne Cathedral, 2007.

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(Fig. 3)

Henri Matisse with his Vence Chapel installation,

Life Magazine, 1951.

(Fig. 4)

Kiki Smith, Painting on glass with vitreous paints,for Lodestar exhibition at Pace Gallery, 2010.

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Bibliography:

Harshav, Benjamin, and Marc Chagall. Marc Chagall and His Times: A Documentary

Narrative. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2004. Print.

Krepico, Tom. Vitreosity. 11May 2009. Web-Images for Matisse and Chagall

15 Oct. 2011. < www.krepcio.com/vitreosity/archives/001747.html>Mulder, Karen. Humanities and Social Sciences Discussion Network. Sat, 12 Aug 2006.

Web. 15 Oct. 2011.

Prest, Terry. Idle Speculations. 05 Sept. 2007. Web- Image for Gerhard Richter. 15 Oct.

2011. .

Raguin, Virginia Cheiffo. Pilgrimage. Catalogue Essay for Kiki Smith: Lodestar. PaceGallery, New York. May 2010. Print.

Werner, Alfred. Chagalls Jerusalem Windows.Art Journal21. 4 (Summer 1962): 224-232. JSTOR. Web. 15 Oct. 2011.

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