Pettinati-Longinotti 1 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

Pettinati-Longinotti 2 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

Pettinati-Longinotti 3 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

Pettinati-Longinotti 4 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).

Pettinati-Longinotti 5 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, Lodestar at 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

Pettinati-Longinotti 6 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 her Lodestar exhibition at the Pace Gallery. My assembly of color composition is like Richters within his Colour Chart paintings, but

Pettinati-Longinotti 7 with a much more limited palette of repeated colored rectangles of reamy 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.

Pettinati-Longinotti 9 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. <http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=hstainedglass&month=0608&week=b&msg=wvM/WFEAZwZe3zZ6pMwDDw&user=& pw=> Prest, Terry. Idle Speculations. 05 Sept. 2007. Web- Image for Gerhard Richter. 15 Oct. 2011. <http://idlespeculationsterryprest.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html>. Raguin, Virginia Cheiffo. Pilgrimage. Catalogue Essay for Kiki Smith: Lodestar. Pace Gallery, New York. May 2010. Print. Werner, Alfred. Chagalls Jerusalem Windows. Art Journal 21. 4 (Summer 1962): 224232. JSTOR. Web. 15 Oct. 2011.