Off to HNS

This weekend I'm heading to the Historical Novel Society conference up in Schaumburg, IL. It's my first writers' conference -- yeah, I wrote a book then went to a conference, how backwards is that? -- and I'm really looking forward to meeting other authors and readers. Some I've already met online in the blogosphere, and it will be fun to put faces to names. It's going to be a fun gathering, generally: some of the authors attending are Sharon Kay Penman, Diana Gabaldon, Michelle Moran, Catherine Delors, and Laurel Corona. It's also going to be chilly, from my Florida POV, with highs only in the low 70s and lows in the 50s. Considering it's over 90 here today, I'd better excavate a sweater and rethink my wardrobe!

I'm curious to see how different a conference like this is from the academic conferences I'm accustomed to. The 'big' conferences of the professional organizations (I belong to College Art Association and Archaeological Institute of America) can be daunting, especially to a newbie. I only go to those when I'm presenting a paper, because I don't find them much 'fun.' It's nice when they're held in cool cities, but otherwise it's a lot to take in and more than a little hectic. Smaller, themed symposia and conferences to me are much more enjoyable; I've been lucky to present at a few of those in the past few years. Since I'm not presenting anything at HNS (or interviewing for a job, another aspect of the big academic conferences), I'm free to relax and have fun. Mix, mingle, network. And get free stuff, evidently! Organizer Sarah Johnson (who blogs on Reading the Past) has promised tote bags of goodies. Yippee!! Am leaving room in the suitcase...

I'll report back on my HNS experience next week. Here's hoping it's a fabulous weekend!

Happy Birthday, Monsieur Courbet

June 10 is the birthday of Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), easily one of art history's most groundbreaking and controversial painters. Audiences in his time either loved his work or loathed it, and now, of course, he enjoys a special place in textbooks as the founder of the French Realist movement in art. "Show me an angel and I'll paint one" is one of his famous quotes, making the point that painting should celebrate all that is real and modern. In the textbook I use for art history survey, "The Burial at Ornans" (1848) and "The Stonebreakers" (1849) are featured; it takes some explaining to demonstrate why those particular examples were so scandalous back at the Salon of 1850, but they were. Requiring no explanation -- and maintaining their shock value -- are other of Courbet's canvases, most notably "L'origine du monde" ("The Origin of the World"), an up-close-and-WAY-too-personal painting of a woman's hoo-ha. (I don't show that one in class!) Today "L'origine du monde" hangs in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and it's one of those artworks where it is really, really fun to watch people come around the corner and encounter it.

Van Gogh was a great admirer of Courbet and mentions him several times in the letters to Theo. In December 1888, van Gogh and Gauguin traveled from Arles to Montpellier to see the Bruyas collection housed in the Musée Fabre (still there), including the pictured painting, "Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet" (1854--click image to enlarge). Courbet stands at the right with walking-stick; he's come to the south of France on a painting expedition. Collector Alfred Bruyas is the redhead in the center (van Gogh muses in his letter to Theo that he somewhat resembles Bruyas). Perhaps the most tame and least controversial of all Courbet's paintings, "Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet" was one of the most famous canvases of its day.

Meet My Bookcover!

At last, I have a jpeg of the final cover art for "Sunflowers" to post and share -- and here it is! (click image to enlarge)

At the risk of sounding like I've been drinking the kool-aid in the graphic design department (as it happens, I'm the chair of that program...boy, is that a long story), here's a little discourse on my cover. First of all, I didn't realize how important book covers actually were until we got into the drafts and discussions: with my Cambridge Univ Press scholarly book, it was important, but not quite in the same way. This one needs to appeal to not only readers but the 'gatekeepers'...the folks representing bookstore chains, the independent booksellers, etc, etc. It needs to grab attention and make everyone want to pick up the book--because people DO judge a book by its cover. I really wanted a van Gogh original image, and said so from the beginning. The design team had other things to consider, too, namely the "Sunflowers" title, which automatically limits the image somewhat. (As in, people would expect to see a flower or two.) I also suspect the one-word title vs five-word subtitle vs fifteen-character author name came into play when it came time to do actual typographic layout. Everything needed to fit nicely and look good.

I wish I could post the two previous drafts and share details about the discussions, but I bet that wouldn't be very diplomatic. Sufficient to say, there *were* discussions, and this is the final result. I'm pleased myself! Not only is a van Gogh original being used -- this is a detail from the August 1888 Sunflowers now in Munich -- but I particularly like the typeface for the subtitle and my name, which looks rather 19th-century. Choosing this particular detail of the painting lends a certain turbulence that hints at the emotional turbulence present in the story itself -- the crowding of the flowers, the lines of the petals. And a 'zoom-in' like this reveals the texture of van Gogh's brushstrokes, which is always hard to convey in a photograph.

Hope everyone likes! Feel free to share your thoughts...

Another Ear Theory

Two German art historians are proposing another possibility for Vincent's mutilated ear: that Gauguin did it (see the Guardian article). The book "Van Gogh's Ear and the Pact of Silence" suggests that Gauguin injured Vincent with one of his fencing swords during a fight, either accidentally or intentionally. The two artists, according to this hypothesis, agreed to keep the incident a secret. Now, I am not a big fan of Gauguin and think Vincent's life would have been very different had he not come to Arles, but I am not persuaded. First of all, given that Vincent's ear was sliced only partially, that would have been quite a feat with a fencing sword. Especially 'by accident.'

The Guardian also published a rebuttal blogpost by art and design critic Jonathan Jones.

UPDATE: The Daily Mail also has an article about the new book (thanks for the link, Julianne!) and reveals more of the theory: that the alleged fight between Gauguin and van Gogh was about Rachel. I still am not persuaded Gauguin wounded Vincent with a sword, but otherwise the connection with my novel is really fun...and that's all I'm saying...

UPDATE 2: Wow, this story is being picked up by a lot of news outlets. It's not every day Vincent winds up on TMZ. Martin Gayford, author of the book "The Yellow House," has a rebuttal at Bloomberg.com that I think is spot on (although I think he favors Gauguin more than I do...).

Opening in Basel...

Opening Monday 27 April is "the most important European art event in 2009" (according to the website)...the exhibition "Vincent van Gogh Between Earth and Heaven: The Landscapes" at the Kunstmuseum Basel. Focusing on Vincent's approach to landscape through his artistic career, the exhibition brings together 70 (!!) of his paintings with 40 by his contemporaries. Among those pictures included in the show: the Saint-Remy Cypresses from the Metropolitan, one of the Saint-Remy olive groves (MoMA, so yes, the Olive Grove and the Starry Night are both in absentia from MoMA right now), some of the Arles harvest landscapes, and early landscapes from Vincent's time in Holland. It promises to be quite a show, and I for one am sorry to be missing it. The exhibition runs until 27 September.

For Americans who would like to purchase the catalogue but won't be making it to Basel, the English-language volume will be available via Amazon.com in September.

ps. If that exhibition logo isn't classic Swiss graphic design, I don't know what is!

"Sunflowers" in Romania

I am delighted to announce that "Sunflowers" will be translated into Romanian and published by the Humanitas publishing house, based in Bucharest. At right is the Humanitas logo (courtesy of Wikipedia). In looking up Humanitas online, I learned that the house was founded in 1990 by the philosopher Gabriel Liiceanu, after the Romanian Revolution. At first Humanitas focused on Romanian authors, in particular those whose works had been censored under the former Communist regime; now the house translates and publishes works from around the world.

I am proud that "Sunflowers" will be published by a firm with such an interesting history, created as a forum of freedom for writers.

Lamentation

On this Easter weekend, as Christians the world over ponder the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection, it seems appropriate to post perhaps the most famous image of the Lamentation in the history of art: Giotto di Bondone's Lamentation from the Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni) in Padua, Italy, dating to the beginning of the fourteenth century. This image (click to enlarge) comes in a series of panels presenting the life of Christ, and this particular panel is the one that appears in all the art history survey books. I teach it every year, and every year we discuss the emotion Giotto created in the scene, the way he draws the viewer into the story. John the Evangelist flings back his arms in despair, Mary Magdalene cradles Jesus' feet, his mother cradles his head. It is a moving and powerful image.

I first studied the scenes of the Arena Chapel nearly twenty years ago in an undergraduate Italian Renaissance Art class at Emory University. My professor was Dr. John Howett, a kindly, gentle man who in his calm and quiet way unveiled the stories behind Renaissance art and inspired many a student during his 35 years of teaching, myself included. We spent two lectures on the Arena Chapel, as I recall, and in discussing the Lamentation, he told us something that to a college sophomore was rather shocking: that our textbook author was *wrong.* (Whether he put it that bluntly I honestly don't remember, but in my class notes, which I still have, it says "Hartt is wrong.") The textbook said that the tree standing in the background was dead, thus reflecting the death of Christ. That's not right, Dr. Howett told us: if you look closely, at the top of the tree especially, there are small green buds. The tree only looks dead. It is waiting for spring, and it will become green again, just as Christ will be resurrected. Giotto has put a note of hope in the otherwise sad scene. I have not forgotten Dr. Howett's lecture, and every year when I teach my survey students, I tell them that their textbook -- a different one, but one which still says the tree is dead -- is wrong. "My professor at Emory, Dr. Howett, always said..." I tell them, and I show them a blown-up image of the tree so they can make out the buds. The students nod their heads, and if I'm lucky, some of them remember and mention it on the test. If I'm really lucky, they'll remember it twenty years from now.

I learned last night that Dr. Howett passed away a few days ago, unexpectedly at the age of 82. My heart is heavy today, as I'm sure everyone who knew and loved him must feel sad too. He was the soul and spirit of the Emory art history department -- quite literally, since he was one of its founders. He retired while I was in graduate school there, but he came to the department for lectures and receptions, to the library to do research, and sometimes he'd stop by just to say hello, always with a friendly word and smile. He won several teaching awards during his career, and he was about to be awarded the 2009 Woolford Baker Award for lifetime achievement in the arts from Emory's Michael C. Carlos Museum, another place where his longtime influence is still felt. He will be missed by all whose lives he touched. But his ideas will live on.