Thoughts on “Raphael: Sublime Poetry”

When there is a blockbuster exhibition, it is hard to avoid it even at a distance. On March 29, “Raphael: Sublime Poetry” opened at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Without seeing the show, I would not presume to review it, but the very fact that it is taking place gives much to think about since, after Leonardo and Michelangelo, there is no other Renaissance painter with more renown.

Blockbuster shows have been around for a long time, and museums love creating them because they bring in the crowds, acclaim, and, of course, revenue. On the other hand, they cost a bloody fortune and take a great deal of time and work on the part of the organizing museum’s staff. The curators and director must convince their counterparts at the potential lending institutions as well as private collectors, to give up and risk their beloved works of art, which, for a time, they cannot show to the public or friends. This exhibition will not travel to other venues, reducing the risk to the art and making more people to travel to see it. The added prestige is countered by the costs since there is no other institution to share them.

The total of 237 works exhibited includes 33 paintings and 142 drawings, as well as tapestries and decorative arts. The loans come from some 60 institutions and private collectors. From the photos of the installation, it seems much of the lighting is dim in order to preserve the works on paper.

For many years, the Raphael altarpiece described simply as "Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints" was installed at the top of the grand staircase at the Metropolitan Museum. It is burned in my memory because I passed it so many times, but I could never get excited by it. Maybe that is because it was an early work, Raphael’s first altarpiece commissioned by the nuns of Sant’Antonio in Perugia for their private chapel. This was in 1504-1505, when Raphael was in his early 20’s and was not yet the great artist he would become over the short span of his life. At the time, the nuns knew he would not cost them as much as a better-known artist. In the seventeenth century, the nuns sold off the altar piece by piece. For this exhibition, the entire altarpiece was reconstituted, bringing together all the predella panels scattered far and wide.

In this painting, “The Holy Family with Infant Saint John the Baptist” (The Madonna of the Rose), 1517-18, done near the end of Raphael’s life, you can better understand the title of the show “Sublime Poetry”. However, art historians, through history, education, scientific analysis, and personal opinion, believe that parts of the painting are by the hand of Raphael’s star student and assistant Julio Romano (1499-1546).

Artists learn by studying the work of those who came before, and Rembrandt was no exception. Rembrandt never went to Italy, but he did collect prints and drawings by Raphael. Raphael’s portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (1514-1515) always brings to my mind Rembrandt’s self-portrait of 1640, based on the Raphael painting he saw and sketched in a sale of the collector Lucas van Uffelen’s estate in Amsterdam.

I will mention just two other notable works: The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, has lent this wonderful drawing of the heads and hands of two Apostles (ca. 1519-1520). It was already in the Ashmolean collection in 1846. These are quoted as “auxiliary Cartoon” for the Transfiguration, which was the last painting created by the master.

From the selection of decorative arts is a tapestry after Raphael, credited to two Flemish tapestry makers, Jan van Tieghem and Frans Gheteels. Dated to the third quarter of the 16th century, the subject, Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas at Lystra, otherwise known as “The Sacrifice at Lystra is from the Acts of the Apostles Tapestry series. Lent by Colecciones Reales, Madrid, it illustrates the impact of the master’s designs.

This once-in-a-lifetime exhibition was curated by the Metropolitan’s own Museum Carmen Bambach, who wrote the much-praised catalog. The show closes June 28.

Resurrected Monuments

Time flies, and over six years ago, I wrote a Missive, “Addressing the Statue,” about the concept of taking down statues that do not fit in with the current thinking. 

https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2019/12/addressing-statue.html

I have always been opposed to dismissing the past, in any sense. You might say that another word for the past is History. We learn from history. I am sure you have heard the expression said to a young person going off into the world, “Fail early and fail often”. Why would anyone, meaning well, say that? It is simply that this is how we learn, from our mistakes.

Artnet had an article recently by Eileen Kinsella titled, “Toppled Monuments are Reappearing Across the U.S. Under Trump”. Much as it pains me, I have to say that, in my opinion, this is at least one positive aspect of the current administration, though it is probably being done for all the wrong reasons.

At the time of George Floyd’s murder, among others, a statue of Christopher Columbus was toppled in Baltimore and dumped in Baltimore’s harbor, citing the latter’s history of enslaving and colonizing the Indigenous people. Yes, that is abhorrent to most people today, but that ignores the fact that he is credited with discovering this Continent. I know he did not actually land on our shores, but still, one constituency in particular, Italian immigrants, is proud of him. He also satisfies a question of who was the founding father! I would have encouraged those who objected to the sculpture to have a plaque created stating their issue, but not destroying it. In any event, a replica of the Baltimore Columbus has recently been installed on the White House grounds!

Monuments represent the emotions of the moment, and these often change during periods of upheaval and power shifts. In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation challenged Catholicism, Papal authority, and clerical corruption. This led to the destruction and removal of statues in many European churches. Today, we would see beyond their religious symbolism to revere them as works of art, but with the wave of iconoclasm they have been lost forever. A block of stone that would have once separated the nave and quire of Durham Cathedral was reused and found in one of the buildings of the Cathedral College. The figures were probably defaced sometime after the death of Henry VIII (1547).

The Southern Poverty Law Center found that over 160 Confederate monuments were removed between 2015 and 2020. Here, the distinction is between destroyed and removed. Some have been relocated or relegated to a museum. The artistic or historic value may be preserved, but their story is no longer one you might pass every day and learn as you walk by.

Confederate statues in tribute to Southern pride or white supremacy are also being reinstalled after they had been taken down, so as not to offend one constituency or another. Again, I would say that is part of history and that those who forget will relive it. General Albert Pike has been described as “a racist Confederate Civil War general who defended slavery and wrote a militant variation of 'Dixie.” He has also been described as a Masonic leader, an author, a poet, a philosopher, and a philanthropist. His toppled statue has been reinstalled by order of the Trump administration.

Here in Santa Fe, the obelisk, known as Soldiers’ Monument, at the center of the Plaza (elsewhere it might be called the town square) has been a political issue for years. In 2020, on Indigenous Peoples’ Day (known elsewhere as Columbus Day), the obelisk was toppled by a small group of Indigenous demonstrators. It was erected in 1867 to honor the Union army soldiers, mostly local Hispanic volunteers who died in Civil War battles to keep the Confederacy from overtaking the New Mexico Territory. One of the plaques on the base referred to battles with "savage Indians" in reference to Apache raids on settlements. The offensive words, however, had been chiseled out in 1974. Today, the architectural plinth remains in place while an ongoing debate rages along with cost studies for razing, rebuilding, or moving the monument to the Military Cemetery. I believe it should be rebuilt or at least the pedestal left in place, accompanied by an explanation of the full history.

That same year, a statue of Don Diego de Vargas was removed from the Cathedral Park. De Vargas had led the Spanish retaking and resettlement of New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, but he also ordered the killing of 70 Pueblo Indians in 1693. After a man was killed in Albuquerque during a 2020 protest demonstration around a de Vargas monument, Santa Fe’s Mayor had our statue preemptively removed to a long-unknown location. A year later, a former city councilor said he saw it in the garden of a home/business where it had been placed by the contractor who moved the statue in the first place. In 2024, it was placed on temporary exhibition at t the New Mexico History Museum.

The destruction and/or the resurrection of a monument is more than a passing current event; it becomes part of our history. 

Artist in Training

I am getting emails every day about various art fairs. There is the European Art Fair known as TEFAF, there is a drawing fair in Paris and the Outsider art fair in New York. The latter term is usually in reference to artists who have had no formal training, but like everything else, there are exceptions to that as well. This had me thinking about how the visual arts were taught in Western European cultures through the ages.

Did the caveman have formal training? Of course not. One looked at the object drawn by another earlier and developed their own way of creating what they saw. Maybe if one drew a horse, the other thought, well, I could draw a deer, or even the image of my friend over there. It is thought that the first images of a person in drawing or sculpture were 40-50,000 years ago.

Through most of the history of European art, people learned their craft through an apprenticeship. The word comes from the French, ‘apprendre’, to learn or, further back, Latin “apprehendere’ meaning to take hold of or grasp. The word just puts a more formal name to do what we all do to get ahead,… we learn from others. You have to crawl before you walk, and then you can go your own way.

A formal guild system for all crafts, which included what we consider art, originated in the Middle Ages. You became an apprentice, then a journeyman, and then, if you were good enough, a master. The journeyman was employed by a skilled artist, and in another step along the way, often travelled to learn more on the road to becoming a master. A contemporary image of work being created at the sculpture guild.

During the Italian Renaissance, artists moved from rendering flat images to show depth and distance using geometry and perspective. They studied anatomy to learn how the human “machinery” worked. Leonardo and Michelangelo observed and performed human dissections, all in the advancement of their craft. Here is a drawing by Leonardo with his study notes.

Out of the guilds came the academies, the earliest being the Accademia del Disegno, the Academy of design, established in Florence in 1563. It was founded by Cosimo I de’Medici at the instigation of Giorgio Vasari and the co-founder Michelangelo. They wanted to oversee Florentine artistic activities and elevate the status of artists, who were defined as painters, draftsmen, and sculptors, so they would not be considered merely as craftsmen. It is an argument that continues to this day, where anyone creating furniture, ceramics, textiles, glass, and metal work, including gold and silver, is thought to be in a subcategory known as the “decorative” or “applied” arts!

In the twentieth century, paintings and sculpture departed from the academic tradition with Impressionism, Cubism, and Abstract Expressionism. In architecture, it was the Bauhaus. Later in the century, universities offered courses and Fine Arts degress. Today, the aspiring artist can take courses on how to use technology such as Photoshop and programs for 3D modelling and animation. Coming into these academic programs is that dreaded word, AI … not meaning that AI will create the art, but rather become a tool in creating it.

Through art, we communicate new ideas and emotions. The same work of art can be interpreted differently by every viewer. I like this opinion offered on OpenAI, which can be applied to art education:

If you only study, you stagnate ...

If you only create, you plateau ...

If you combine both, you accelerate ...

But I would add that if you want to stand out, you need to innovate ...

Introducing Children to Art

My wife tutors in one of the public elementary schools in Santa Fe, and she has students who struggle to master their ABC’s even in second grade, and those who are smarter than anyone in their class and are ready to skip a grade or maybe two.

As she was a museum curator her entire professional life, she likes to introduce kids to the world of Old Master paintings. She has a logical place to start in a book by Maria-Christina Sayn-Wittgenstein Nottenbohm called “Old Masters Rock” ...

https://www.geraldstiebel.com/search?q=puppa 

She asks the kids to pick a picture from the book to discuss and practice their reading skills on the serious but accessible text.

I remember the days when I was taken (dragged) from one museum to another because my parents enjoyed museums. As an art dealer, it was my father’s business as well. I do remember some highlights, like being told I was going to see the Mona Lisa at the age of 6 and my disappointment when my father pointed out this small dark picture in an underlit corridor at the Louvre, where it was hung at the time. This was circa 1950. A few years later, my father told me to lie down on a bench in the Sistine Chapel to stare up at Michelangelo’s ceiling … definitely memorable. Generally, however, I was bored.

One of my favorite quotes is from Xun Kuang, a Chinese Confucian philosopher who lived from 312–230 BC, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn”. When Penelope took my older son, Danny, to a museum, she would stop him in front of a painting and ask him what the story was. There was no right or wrong answer. There was no one to worry about whether it was what the art historians said the subject was. The story was Danny’s own, and in creating it, he engaged directly with the painting. With our son, Hunter, his mother’s methodology for visiting exhibitions was first a cursory tour during which he had to pick a single work to return to and discuss at length.

Our granddaughter, Boroughs, was 4 years old. She came to visit us during the run of the exhibition “Grounded in Clay” at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. In advance, Penelope had sent her a letter with photos of several of the pots, saying that they would go together on a “treasure hunt” to find them in the show. Armed with the photos, she had no trouble in locating the pieces in the galleries. Watching a video of the artist who discussed one of the pots made by an ancestor she never had the chance to know, Boroughs memorably announced, “She is so sad she is about to cry. Where does she live? I want to visit her and make her feel better.”

Most children don’t have the opportunity to be introduced to the arts by an art historian, but today, there is another means that they may enjoy, and that is AI. Even for adults, the standard museum audio guide only covers “Tell me, and I forget, teach me and I may remember …”, but if AI can grab a child’s imagination, by answering questions or playing a game or actually seeing themselves in an old master painting, then “involve me and I learn” may happen.

Visit from Justice Amy Coney Barrett

The University of New Mexico Law School and St. John’s College invited Justice Amy Coney Barrett to come to Santa Fe on her speaking tour to promote her new book, “Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution”. The event took place at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe. The students from the colleges and other distinguished members from the legal profession were invited, as well as a limited number of members of the general public. We were there, as I am a member of the Lensic Board of Directors and am very interested in the law and the workings of the Supreme Court.

Needless to say, there were a number of loud but peaceful demonstrators outside the theater. I have never seen such security. I cannot remember seeing it even in New York when I lived there. There were City and State Police, the sheriff’s department, and plainclothes men who were part of the court’s security staff.

The Executive Director of the Lensic, Joel Alberts, welcomed the audience and the guests for the afternoon. He said that he appreciated the protesters, saying that this was how democracy works and further that those in the audience were there to listen respectfully, and if any made a disturbance, they had very nice people to help them find their way out, gaining a laugh from all.


The Justice was interviewed about her book by Hon. David F. Levi (President of the American Law Institute) and Ben Allison (co-founder of Santa Fe firm Bardacke Allison Miller LLP), who had attended Notre Dame School of Law with Justice Barrett and asked a few softball questions submitted beforehand by the students at the school.

We learned that Justice Barrett had clerked for the former conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, then taught for 15 years at Notre Dame School of Law before her first judicial appointment as a Federal Appellate Judge. She stressed that an important aspect of being a judge is to write clearly, and I thought it was interesting that she always did a first draft of her opinions by longhand on a yellow pad.

Obviously, I came in the afternoon both with my own point of view and an effort for an open mind. I always want to try to understand the other side of any question, whether I agree with it or not. I would ask those who had said the Justice should not be allowed to speak in Santa Fe, how else would they have had an opportunity to protest her in person and get noticed?

Interestingly, Justice Barrett spoke about the efforts the court made for collegiality since they “were serving life terms, like an arranged marriage with no option of divorce”. After a case was presented, they all had lunch together, with no one allowed to discuss the case. Also, when a new Justice was appointed, a sitting justice gave a dinner in their honor, first finding out what their favorite foods were. Justice Barrett did so for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson when she was appointed under President Biden.

Justice Barrett spoke of how important it was to adhere to the law and the precedent of former decisions. She spoke of textualism and originalism as what the founders meant when they wrote the Constitution and the other document that Americans hold dear, the Declaration of Independence. She said that the court was part of the political process since the Justices were chosen by the President and confirmed by the Senate, but not partisan once they came to the court. I will let the reader figure that one out!

Justice Barrett admitted that the court was also reacting to the extremely liberal Warren Court. Many have felt it went too far as Chief Justice Earl Warren’s court (1953-1969) was interested in social justice, equality, and civil liberties, and championed the rights of minorities. These were my heroes.

In their decisions, Justice Barrett said that the current Court was in 50% unanimous agreement, 15% along partisan lines, and 35%... I presume she meant it was up to each individual Justice, an interesting formula, you might say. Another contradiction in my opinion was that previous rulings should be respected unless they were unworkable or inherently wrong!

The protesters outside the Lensic were angriest about her siding with the majority in overturning Roe vs. Wade. Justice Barrett had already spoken of her deep religious background, and in her last few sentences of the afternoon, she answered the question very clearly when she said, “Of course, I would not do anything that went against my religion.”

How Scared are You of AI?

“How scared are you of AI?” is a useless question because it is here to stay, and it will learn more. As FDR said in 1933, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself". So rather than fear Artificial Intelligence, we need to accept and understand it. Then we can think about how to manage it. Most probably, my Missives have not attracted too many heads of industry, but should there be just one, I do hope that they are studying how to train their staff on how to cope with this seismic change. Microsoft is already doing so.

We do know that change scares everyone, but we usually learn to cope with all the positives and negatives that come with. I keep telling my wife that I have the same frustrations she has with these damn machines,…well, that is what my father called the computer. I tell her to try to enjoy all the advantages that it offers. As an art historian, she needed the 4,000-book art library we brought from New York, but within a few years, much of that information could be found online.

One could write a book on the fear of change in the past, but here is just one example. The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. People were immediately scared that it might cause deafness, or even transmit diseases, and with the early party lines, there was great concern about privacy. Even now, privacy is an issue as we resent the unwanted phone calls. That ringing at all hours on the land line may give you a start, as it does me. Increasingly, people abandon landlines for cell phones that can be put on vibrate or set to do not disturb. Have you seen a phone booth lately?!

We welcome the convenience of information provided by Alexa or Siri, but we worry they might be recording our conversations.

All this to say that we need to manage this new-fangled aid known as AI. Much of that needs to be done by the individual, more needs to be done by responsible corporations, and maybe most by government regulation.

One prime example is the fear or actual use of original publications of books and scientific papers. The laws of copyright started in Great Britain as the “Statute of Anne” in 1710. One of the big changes since then has been that copyright has extended for longer than the original 14 years, with possible renewal. Now, over 300 years later, it needs more revision, and that can only be done by the government and laws. It will be more complicated now, and I am not qualified to suggest how it could be done, but only hope that when it is, those regulations are as clear and understandable as possible.

In the field of art, we already have law and case law governing forgery, i.e., copying another artist’s work and claiming it to be by the original artist. The issue of borrowing too much from another’s work, which is covered by copyright law, was addressed in the case of The Warhol Foundation vs. Goldsmith. Andy Warhol created a series of silkscreen prints and pencil illustrations based on a copyrighted 1981 photograph of the musician Prince, taken by Lynn Goldsmith. Warhol made some aesthetic changes to Goldsmith’s original photograph, but they remained “recognizably derived” from the original. The Supreme Court decided in favor of the photographer.

Another positive event for those who fear for the arts; a week ago, the Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal of lower courts’ decisions since 2018 that a work of art created by AI could not be copyrighted because a copyright can only be granted to a work created by a human being.

The advent of each new form of technology has been greeted with fear, be it the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, the television, or the computer. What has changed is the pace. It is all happening so quickly that we feel we don’t have time to catch up. I believe that as we find each new element useful, we will adopt and adapt it as we have before.

Why is Art Necessary?

As an art dealer in New York, I never questioned whether art was necessary. It was our livelihood, and our circle was other dealers, collectors, museum curators, and critics. Of course, art is necessary in those areas, but why is it necessary for people in general? In the past, I have quoted Michael Kimmelman, art and architecture critic for the New York Times, as saying, “Art is never necessary. It is merely indispensable”.

I have written about why I thought art is important, but the word “necessary” has always bothered me. Obviously, we do not need art to physically survive, like air, water, and food. Yet art has, as far as we know, existed since human beings have been on earth. If you have read my Missives over the years, you know many of the fields that are called art, i.e., music, painting, drawing, sculpture, literature, poetry, dance, architecture, theater, and movies. I don’t know people who do not participate in at least one of these areas.

We know that art has existed since the caveman. He used rocks, charcoal, clay, and minerals mixed with water or animal fat to paint the sides of caves with images of animals. Even if you have not visited sites like the Lascaux caves, you have seen prehistoric images of bison, horses, and deer. There are also hunting scenes and handprints made by blowing pigment over a hand pressed against a wall.

Native Americans also created Pictographs 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, and in this image, you can see a wheel.

The earliest three-dimensional example is the Venus of Willendorf, estimated to have been carved out of Paleolithic limestone 25,000-30,000 years ago. The powerful figure is only 4.4 inches high. Some believe it was a symbol of fertility, and others that it had spiritual or ritual meaning. It was discovered in 1908 in an archeological dig near Willendorf, Austria, and can be found today on permanent view at the Natural History Museum in Vienna.

When one mentions art, most people think about a museum or gallery, but not of their own environment. You can’t help but see murals on a wall or in a tunnel as you pass by. If you live in a house, you make judgments based on artistic values, i.e., building materials, color, and layout. Which house is more pleasing, the calming retreat or the breathtaking standout from all the other buildings around?

Architects often pride themselves on being different, and their clients want a distinctive appearance or feel. If you go to Tehran, you can not help but gaze in awe at this architectural marvel, the stunning Azadi Tower in Tehran, designed by Persian architect Hossein Amanat and completed in 1971 to celebrate the 2,500 years of the Persian Empire.

It is the same with music; we all have our own taste, but music of one sort or another appeals to everyone. We just attended an American folk/bluegrass Okee Dokee Brothers’ concert. There were children from toddlers to pre-teens filling the aisles of the theater, dancing and bouncing with the rhythms. It was not only cathartic for the kids but also for the adults. We were so happy that we went.

Graphic art in the form of cartoons mocking prominent figures became popular in Great Britain in the 18th century and is still used today to illustrate a serious message in a humorous manner.

Art has always played a large role in religion. Over centuries, the Catholic Church commissioned dramatic paintings and sculptures to convey the message of the Faith to a primarily illiterate populace. Even if you do not consider yourself religious or an art fan, if you get to visit the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, you will stand in awe of Michelangelo’s ceiling and Last Judgement.

A television show can offer a form of escape or affect how we think. To survive the turmoil in the world, we need to be able to get away from it all, and if it is not a museum or a gallery, it might be a night to go to the theater or stream a movie.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), the German philosopher, said, ““We have art in order not to perish from the truth.” In these times, who can deny it?