And also, I'm allergic to dogs.

How can one be expected to think effectively when one's entire head is full of sinuses? It's impossible. Every time I have a cheerful thought it gets swamped in bile. Which might be why I like this article on drawing that was in the New York Times. It's gloomy too. But it's good, and I feel it's medicinal. Plus it's illustrated with dog drawings.



(image from Caroline Hunt Rimmer’s 1895 manual “Animal Drawing,” on view at the Grolier Club.)

Caroline Hunt Rimmer donated William Rimmer's Art Anatomy, a fascinating looking book, to the Boston MFA. I'm not sure what relation she is to William, but he's an interesting guy. Art Anatomy is full of drawings that draw relations between ape and human faces. (There's a good article about the book here.) I wish I could find bigger images of these online, but the tiny images are pretty evocative.



There's a creepy phrenological bent here, but Rimmer seems to have been obsessed, like Hunt, with combining animals and humans. His combinations, though, are less about finding the animal part of humans and more about physical combinations. (Didn't Bush say something about Manimals?) Here's Rimmer's The Fall of Night.



The Met has a dying minotaur sculpture and this nice attempt to figure out the similarities between horse and panther heads.



There's also this goofy lion: look at the person/cat faces on the right.



I really like his "Fighting Lions", even though it's not a combination. It's an apt metaphor for my head and my snot. Locked in battle for my soul.

Peace out, comrades.

The Bear in William Holbrook Beard

I just discovered the work of William Holbrook Beard (American, 1824-1900). You may know him from this painting, which is commonly mistitled as The Teddy Bear's Picnic. It's actually called Wall Street Jubilee, or The Bears of Wall Street Celebrating a Drop in the Stock Market.



The painting hung for a long time in The Strangers Club * in New York City.

Holbrook Beard painted animals his whole life. He liked bears and monkeys, and I can't decide if the monkeys are racist creepy monkeys or if he, like Donald Roller Wilson, has just thought long and hard about how humanity stacks up against our furry cousins. It's interesting to think of the two of them working a century apart from each other. Here's a great Donald Roller Wilson painting.



The title is no less than this, capitals and all: COOKIE AT SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE, HOLDING JANE, (TOO TENSE TO TAKE THE BOTTLE), ALONG WITH NAUGHTY BETTY AT FOUR YEARS OF AGE, (TORMENTING JANE), WITH JANE JUST HAVING COME FROM A REGRETTABLE SITUATION IN A TRAILER PARK OUTSIDE THE CITY LIMITS OF PONCA CITY, OKLAHOMA. WITH ALL THREE GIRLS TOGETHER, NOW, IN THE VERY CENTER OF BRENDA'S NUT FARM CLOSE TO LITTLE ROCK, (NEAR ENOUGH THE FATHER'S HOUSE SO THAT HE COULD SEE THEM FROM HIS ROOM IN THE TOWER).

But back to Holbrook Beard. He's fascinating. And it's interesting to bear in mind that this is how he pictured himself.



Self Portrait in the 10th Street Studio

There's all this evocative stuff in his work: there's mythology, mortality, Darwinism, comedy, cuteness, nobility, classicism- it's a huge, weird range. There is an irritating picture of a noble stag and a great picture of death with a tiger. His body of work is so odd and varied that I think it's best to just show the paintings. I've added dates when I have them.

Susannah and the Elders 1865.



So You Wanna Get Married, Eh'? 1886



The Runaway Match , 1877



Divorce




The Bulls and Bears in the Market



Fox Hunters Dream 1859



The Disputed Way, 1889



Bears in the Watermelon Patch 1871



The Witches Convention 1876



Discovery of Adam , 1891



Scientists at Work, 1894



For What was I Created, 1886



Bear and Cubs 1864



Begging for Apples 1898



School Rules



Monk's Soliloquy (!?!?!)



Pigs is So Greedy



The Lost Balloon (This cracks me up. It's like he decided those boring Hudson River School painters needed a little spicing up.)



This is my favorite. The Power of Death.



And because it's good to know that bad art happens to the best of us, The Majestic Stag



This is William Holbrook Beard's grave, at Greenwood Cemetery. Please, somebody, if I die tomorrow, I want one of these.

*The Stranger's Club. How great is that? I've been researching it a little online and it turns out that there were also Stranger's Clubs in the Panama Canal and in Buenos Aires. Edgar Wallace mentions it in a book called The Shadow Man, which provides a neat description of the club. "That building, sir? Oh, that's the Strangers Club. It used to be the Banbury Club, for hunting people, but it didn't pay, and then a foreign gentleman opened it as a club of some kind. I don't know what they are, but they have scientific lectures every week--they've got a wonderful hall downstairs, and I believe the cooking's very good." Later in the book, a Deputy Chief Constable says this: "I happen to know all about the Strangers Club. It is extraordinarily well conducted and every Thursday there is a series of lectures in the basement lecture hall; they have been given by some of the greatest scientists in this country. Dr. Jansen has an international reputation--" There's also this: "Evidently the servants at the Strangers Club, though they might be hand-picked for some qualities, were not chosen either or their good manners or their finesse."

New Drawings: Blue Jay, Reason & Skeletons

There are a few new drawings on the site. More skeletons and lots more text.



When I made Blue Jay I was thinking about stress. I was wondering if the whole idea that stress causes medical ailments was a translation of the Victorian idea of the body's responsiveness to emotional states. Victorian ladies were always dying of shock, or grief, or fear. There's something consoling about the idea that the body cares what you think, but I'm not sure it does. I tend to think that ones' body acts more like one's car. Breaks down when it wants to, don't forget to check the oil.

But what do I know? I made another drawing with the words "The Plague of Reason" written across the top.



I don't know that you can see much at this size, but there's a larger version here. This piece is called Reason, and it, too deals with a tendency to rationalize random events.



Clearly this has been on my mind recently. But that's what happens when you're drawing a lot of skeletons.



Skeleton Dance.

Blistering Barnacles!

Tintin and I is on tonight on PBS. I can't wait. My brother and I grew up on Tintin books- we both liked them, but he was the real fan: every time he got any money he'd race down to the bookstore to buy another one. They didn't get them in all at once, so we'd search through the piles to see if there was one we hadn't seen. I didn't know about publishing and ordering, of course so I thought Herge was drawing them for us, which explained why a couple months would pass before we'd find a new one. We studied each of the covers of the Tintin books carefully- each one was a cause for celebration. We were really excited to see the Castafiore Emerald because we liked the irritating opera singer Madame Castafiore. She was loud. Explorers on the Moon sent us around the bend- our dad was studying astrophysics, which we knew had something to do with space. I had to be reassured at great length that we should NOT go around avoiding windows when it rained because of the ball lightning that featured prominently in The Seven Crystal Balls. We read them over and over, and we could have been, back then, Tintinologists, had we known they existed. Tintin books are like James Bond for kids. Once you grow up, though, you can't enjoy them unless you put a whole lot of your psyche on hold. Tintin doesn't use sexy women as human shields, but these books are offensive to just about everyone except blonde guys with Pee Wee hair. I wish they weren't, because they're great stories and they're so much fun to read. I'm interested to see the special because I think Herge is a genius artist, but I'm not sure I want adult examination: I want to foil the Thompson Twins and imagine that I am Snowy and memorize Capn' Haddock's swears, which are surely some of the greatest literature ever written. People who are lucky enough to know my Thom well know that he follows the great literary tradition of Captain Haddock, particularly in moments of anger. There's a great Tintin Flash site here. You can make Cap'n Haddock itch if you click "characters". Snowy was my favorite, though. He always came along for the ride. Tintin was too smart and weirdly hairdoed for a kid to identify with him. It was easier to put myself into the place of Snowy, who was often confused about the plot and liable to wander off and get lost, but who was loyal and good in a tight spot. ( Translation: "Hi, hi, hi! I will never return! Hi, hi, hi! There's nothing left for me to do but die on his tomb!) Herge was such a great artist that he's a legend. Especially to cartoonists. He made a huge number of books and every frame he drew was great. His work is deceptively simple and humblingly complicated at the same time. The compositions, the flatness, and the color are incredible. There are tons of beautiful, casual moments of greatness. (Click the image for a larger picture.) His influence can't be calculated. Even by professor Calculus. A Tintin design was almost on the Euro: PBS has put together a really great site in connection with the Herge special- I'm stunned by how great this site is: it's been put together by someone who really knows alternative comics. There are extensive interviews with comic book artists talking about Herge: they've got Phoebe Gloekner, Seth, Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware and more. There are even links to their own art online. It's amazing. Seth and Chris Ware, especially, owe a huge debt to Herge... And hey Ben! There's one we haven't read! Coming up next time: more personified animals.