LESLIE PETERSON SAPP
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Travelogue: Artistic inspiration in Santa Fe

11/17/2022

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I have just returned from spending a week in Santa Fe, New Mexico with my best artist buddy, Bridget Benton Carwyn.

Traveling is always an inspiration, but it is especially so when it is with another artist in an "art town" like Santa Fe.

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Me an Bri at Bandelier
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It seems fitting that this being Native American Heritage Month, I found myself immersed in an area of the country that is saturated with, if not authentically Southwest Native American culture, then at least the culturally appropriated version of it.
From the adobe-style buildings, to the textiles, to the silver and turquoise jewelry, regional Native American peoples have created the basis of the “Southwest” style.

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From Venus to the Pin-Up: A History of "Boudoir" Paintings

5/7/2022

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Warning: this post has pictures of bare-naked ladies.


My newest piece, Boudoir II, may be called something of a "boudoir painting"- a bit of campy fun for me. I find myself drawn to appropriating and playing with traditional forms of displaying the female form. ⁠
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©lesliepetersonsapp Boudoir II 40x48 Acrylic, charcoal, and collage on panel

What is a boudoir painting?⁠
It is a painting of an object of desire, for the purposes of private viewing, rather that public display. In other words, for the bedroom, not the drawing room.

However prurient the motivations creating and owning such art may have been, boudoir painting has an august history, and are often considered to be some of the worlds greatest works of art.

The examples of boudoir paintings shown below differ from Boudoir II in one important way: my lady has got clothes on. But what it does have in common with them are: a prominent female figure, who usually addresses the viewer directly, in an intimate setting, that includes props that infer meaning. ⁠The trappings and props create a narrative, and often, the artworks raison d'etre.
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Titian, "Danae" 1554
In this example, Titian depicts a reclining nude woman. Very erotic, but you may notice the odd "golden shower" descending upon her from above. It depicts the Greek myth of Danae, who is visited by Zeus in the form of a golden rain. Accoutrements such as these legitimized the painting of erotic subjects.

In this Titian, there is a similar pose, but this time he ditches the mythology. Yet, there is still some allegory- or is there? Debates are ongoing. Why are her servants looking in a clothes chest in the background? Does the little dog signify fidelity?
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Titian "Venus Of Urbino" (1538)⁠
At any rate, the inclusion of "Venus" in the title provides the necessary bona fides that made this an acceptable work to own. 

"Orientalism" is another way that western painters could legitimize depicting the female nude. Imperialism and colonialism created a blank canvas upon which a European artist could depict sensuality not permitted by polite society in Europe.

Grand Odalisque by Ingres ⁠is one of the most famous examples of this.
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Ingres "Grand Odalisque" (1814)⁠
Interesting fact: the word "Odalisque" means an enslaved woman, or a concubine in a harem. It's French, derived from the Turkish word, odalık, which derived from the word oda, meaning "room". As in, you can't leave your room.

Then things started to get really interesting.

In 1865, Edward Manet painted "Olympia". It was transparently referring to The Venus of Urbino, shown above, but with oppositional elements. It was shocking to society at the time, not because she was naked, but because of her frank, direct gaze, and accoutrements that indicated she was a prostitute, not a goddess or an exotic "other". She is depicted as a woman in charge of her sexuality, not a receptive, docile plaything. (An interesting and related subject is the difference between "nude" and "naked" in traditional art- but that is for another blog post!)
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Manet "Olympia" 1865
Though the veil may have been ripped off the pretense of female nudity, the racist depiction of her black maid, who literally disappears into the background, was entirely conventional.

For some interesting background about both of the models in this painting, go to these articles: Victorine Meurent and Laure.

Just to give you an idea of what was "acceptable" female nudity during that time, check out this painting by Alexandre Cabanel in 1863. Venus is born, complete with tiny cherubs! (A far cry from the original, formidable Eros!)
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Alexandre Cabanel, "Birth of Venus" 1863

As time went on, the ability to mass produce imagery developed, so the  boudoir picture moved from the salons of the privileged few to the Everyman. Depictions of nudity, and specifically female nudity, became more and more acceptable in fine art and in popular culture.
Most everyone is familiar with the pin-up girl. This is a classic example done by the quintessential pin-up artist Alberto Vargas in 1945.

The pin-up had a particular combination of innocence and sexual knowingness that makes this genre particularly unique, and makes it popular even to this day. The aesthetic of the pin-up girl has been co-opted by women as a form of creative self expression and, ironically, healthy body image. The stagey pretense and the playfulness makes it a popular medium for female expression.
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For a great example of this, check out Vixen Pin Up Photography, whose tag-line is "Be the Girl of Your Dreams"

In 1975, Laura Mulvey, feminist film and culture critic coined the phrase "The Male Gaze" to unpack the phenomena of the preponderance of female nudes in visual culture.

In the 1970's, Sylvia Sleigh turned it all on its head by painting men, nude, in vaguely "orientialist" settings, to evoke traditional odalisque paintings. ⁠
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Sylvia Sleigh "Phillip Golub Reclining" (1971)⁠
In 1985, an anonymous group of female artists called The Guerrilla Girls formed to fight sexism and racism within the art world.
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I remember seeing their posters around Manhattan when I was in college, of course, not understanding or appreciating what it really meant, or how it applied to me.
I did a bit of appropriating myself in 2017, using the  Grand Odalisque to depict the goddess Circe in my Man of Many Wiles show at Gallery 114. Back to the good old goddess days, only this time, she uses her powers to turn men into pigs.
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©lesliepetersonsapp Circe of the Lovely Braids 10x18

So, what does this all mean? I don't pretend to be particularly enlightened when it comes to feminism and art. I am still very beholden to The Male Gaze myself. But part of being an artist is following where our inspiration leads us. My relationship to sexualized images of women is an inexorable part of who I am. The question is, what do I do with it? How does it reflect my individuality? Does it resonate with others, and if so, how?
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In light of this, I recently purchased Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture by Maria Elena Buszek.


Stay Tuned.

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True Confession: I Love Archeology!

3/15/2022

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Yes, I love archeology and ancient history.
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Whenever I want to relax, I turn on the Science Channel to watch Unearthed, or Mysteries of the Abandoned.
 
I have two magazine subscriptions (Archaeological Institute of America, and Current World Archeology) and look forward to them like a kid waiting for his Captain Midnight Secret Decoder Ring to arrive in the mail.

On my last vacation, I brought books to read and some drawing materials. One book in particular grabbed me and wouldn't let go; The Sutton Hoo Story by Martin Carver. I felt moved to produce drawings inspired by what I learned and saw.

I find myself so fascinated by archeology that, at some point, I may create an entirely new body of work. It's all very speculative, but it is very exciting for me, and I wanted to share it with you now.


What is Sutton Hoo? ⁠

It's a burial site in England, with many types of burials, from royal barrows to gallows graveyard, dating from the 6th to 7th centuries.⁠ They appear as mounds on a flat landscape, next to the River Deben.
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There is a really great movie based on a novel, both called The Dig that dramatizes the excavation of Mound 1, where some of the most impressive and beautiful artifacts ever found in Britain were discovered.

But while I like jewels and treasures, it is the dirt and bones that really intrigue me.

My first endeavor was a pencil sketch of the remains in burial Mound 17.

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Mound 17 was an un-looted burial mound whose inhabitant was buried in a tree trunk coffin (how COOL is that?) sometime between 560-650 AD.
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Among other things, there were caldrons, weapons, a comb, and the remains of a bridle. In another mound close by, his horse was interred, along with a bucket of oats.

My next sketch was of another, very different type of grave.
After the region had converted to Christianity, this sacred ground, populated with rich burial mounds for esteemed community leaders, was used as a place to execute convicted criminals. A gallows was erected on one of the mounds, and the site is littered with shallow graves of the disgraced and condemned.
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But the thing that makes it all the more more fascinating, is that there is actually no body there at all. The acidic soil of the area consumes organic material.

But the body that was once there changes the make-up of the soil, making it dark and crusty. When someone excavates it, they can carefully remove the soil around where the body once was, leaving a fragile "sand man".
It's sad, it's haunting and it's beautiful.

The last piece I produced is a pencil sketch of an idea I have brewing in the back of my brain. My impulse is to layer, somehow, images and inspirations from digs. I would like to create drawings of the finds, and layer them with schematic diagrams and maps, along with my imagined scenarios of the people and objects when they were alive and in use. I may need to learn a new medium, such as encaustic, to gain the effect I want.
This is a rough idea of what I might do. It is a composite image of things from the famous Mound 1. Below the sketch are images from the book that I have woven into the sketch.
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Mound 1 was covering a large ship. Within the hull of the ship there was a wooden burial chamber, containing a coffin and body, and many stunningly valuable grave goods. It is one of the most famous archeological finds in history.
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But, like the "sand men", the actual ship, chamber, and body have long since dissolved. But the wood of the ships hull, again, changed the make up of the sand, and what was left was a ghostly impression of a ship, along with the corroded iron rivets, in long, graceful, curving lines.


This is a photograph of Basil Brown, standing in the middle of the ship. He was the self-taught archeologist who excavated the un-looted grave in 1938.




The second image here is a schematic drawing archeologists have made, depicting what they believe the original burial chamber within the ship contained.

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The third image here is a schematic map of the area, with black dots depicting the location of various burial mounds, and the three hypothetical routes by which the mourners transported the ship from the River Deben, up the bank, to the burial site, to inter the deceased.

I'm really not sure where this is headed. It's very exciting and a little scary.
 
I will continue with my current series of art based on film noir until it feels right to commence on this new path.
 
Maybe I never will get to it, or maybe I will start next week.
 
Stay tuned.

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