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Posted by cypher on June 2, 2007, 12:14 pm
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"In my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a
true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now."
Samual Johnson, Boswell Life vol. 1, p. 4 (2 July 1763)
www.thepanicartist.com The general public, are fascinated by tales of
youthful preciosity and infantile genius and as a teenager I was
equally entranced by such stories. The art of child prodigies turn
normal artistic appreciation on its head - works are admired, not for
their intrinsic quality - but for their biographical demonstration of
youthful preciosity. In fact often - very ordinary paintings are
praised simply because of the young age of the artist. This is part of
the Freak show quality of the art of prodigies. But in great art
historical terms the efforts of young prodigies are only of
significance because of what they are thought to anticipate - mature
works of genuine originality and mastery. Art historians do not look
in awe at Picasso's early works - but they are fascinated by how it
laid the foundations for his later masterpieces.
>From the age of eleven, I longed to become a world-class painting and
drawing prodigy - no doubt I hoped that by excelling in art I would
earn the family and social respect I so desperately craved. But try as
I might I never achieved my goal. Although through dogged self-
training I did achieve a level of proficiency unusual in one so young
- my work was full of the clumsy, crass and mannered mistakes of the
self-taught.
There has been no time in my life - when I have not been drawing.
Between the ages of say two and eight I showed only a moderate
ability, though my work from the age of eight and ten showed much
greater promise. Just when the interest in art of other children my
age was fading - mine was increasing. I vividly remember receiving my
first professional artists paints and 'canvas-boards' from an
eccentric schizophrenic middle aged lady - who was a keen Sunday
painter and lived in our flat in Tara - I was just eight. I was no
teenage prodigy, my first and only attempt - at the age of twelve - to
enter the Texaco art competition for children found me not even in a
runners up position. Yet it seemed that no set back or lack of
encouragement could deter me from pursuing my dream of becoming an
artist, and soon by my mid teens I was not only painting to a higher
standard than that of most Texaco winners - I was painting to a
standard sometimes as good as that of many renowned young artists in
art history (however my work was tainted by pathological and sexual
disturbance). From the age of ten till the age of sixteen, I spent
every hour I had learning about perspective, drawing, and working
with, pencil, charcoal, pastels, watercolour and oil paint. I also
attended, over thirty five (three hour long) watercolours classes with
Bryan Byrnes (a hack marine painter and watercolourist) and over ten
(three hour classes) in oil painting with Bryan Mc Carthey (a kitsch
photo-realist oil painter). All my art teachers in School (Mrs Gabler
in Sandford Park Prep School, Miss Gibson in Greendale Community
School and Mr Sheils in Sandymount Highschool) recognized that I had
exceptional talent and vocally praised me. In 1985 at the age of
fourteen, I was chosen with three other classes mates to undertake a
Eucharist banner project for Kilbarrack Church. But on the whole I
maintained a low profile in school. At the age of just sixteen I left
school for a year and pursued my art full time, and it was the work I
began in 1987 and continued with after returning to school, which was
to lead to my greatest early form of recognition. In 1989 at the age
of eighteen - I was successfully admitted to Dun Laorgaire College of
Art and Design on the basis of my exceptional talent - I had no school
qualifications to my name. Despite successfully entering Art College,
I was to get into a physical fight with the principal's son - dismally
under perform and fail to regularly attend Dun Laoghaire. So after
only a year I was expelled! In a type of institution where it is
almost impossible to be expelled - my expulsion was extraordinary.
So we have established that I was a talented but not truly precocious
young artist. I was born with no natural facility - and what creative
gains I did make came from years of intensive study and largely auto-
didactic training. A largely self-taught artist, my method of self-
education was both novel and highly ingenious. Rather than emulate the
mature efforts of the masters. I began a historical study of the
barely known early works of the great artists. By pitching my own
efforts against the teenage works of Schiele, Picasso, Orpen, Seurat,
Degas and Lautrec at a similar age as myself - I was able to establish
a kind of classroom of historical examples.
While the history of art is littered with anecdotes about the early
brilliance of great painters like Giotto, Raphael, Masscano and
Michelangelo - for the most part these early achievements have to be
taken on faith - since we have very little to go on. Did students in
the Fifteenth century draw any differently than children of today?
Looking over the remains of Fifteenth century art, one would be hard
pressed to find any examples to answer this inquiry. But by looking at
the work of many of its brilliant painters one might presume - they
did not. In fact one might assume that Michelangelo and Raphael never
drew a wrong line or hack design. But of course the truth is that
failed works were ruthlessly destroyed. Or later - even re-ascribed.
If the art connoisseurs are to be believed any flawed painting
ascribed to a master - must inevitably the work of a less talented
studio assistant! And following on from that - any masterpiece
produced in a master's studio must inevitably be by the master's hand!
Since the Renaissance there have been countless artists who started
their training precociously early. But almost without exception their
early efforts were not preserved. One must remember that when we look
at historical artifacts - that their preservation has come about from
theoretical expansions in what was once considered worthy of study and
preservation. Until the ninetieth century, the efforts of children
were not thought worth keeping. Those works that do survive were
either the artifacts of the powerful and wealthy or of historical
importance and until the eighteenth Century art was not part of the
educational curriculum. Painting and drawing had not been part of the
curriculum since antiquity and until the eighteenth century only two
kinds of children were normally given any training in art - those that
were meant to become professional artists and those who were of
aristocratic well to do parents. The rise of the Academies in the late
eighteen-century brought about the emergence of schoolroom accolades -
gold, silver and bronze medals for drawing and painting - which is how
many of these works were persevered (because of their excellence).
Until the ninetieth century many zones of creative production - such
as that produced by apprentices, child-prodigies, Non-Europeans, and
the insane were not considered art. All of this changed in the late
ninetieth century when the Romantic notion of genius extrapolated by
the likes of Goethe created an interest in how men of genius were
formed. Thus there is more student work preserved by artists in the
ninetieth century than all of the preceding centuries combined.
Picasso of course is the most notorious teenage prodigy in the history
of art - because unlike his countless (and probably more talented
predecessors) Picasso was a nineteenth century prodigy who's every
scribble and sketch - his parents, academies and contemporaries
thought worth preserving. Most of these works are now in the Picasso
museum in Barcelona, where over two thousand works by him from 1890
until 1904 are held.
So art history is full of stories of young promising artists - but 99%
of them amount to nothing in the end. Talent can only bring an artist
so far and then no further. Many young artistic prodigies are the
children of artistic parents - even art teachers. In such cases only
time will tell if art is a passion or merely a duty for them. I am
reminded of Anton Raphael Mengs - who's father use to push drawing
pads and pencils into his cot - bring him as a youth around the courts
of Europe and trained his son himself for greatness. Mengs achieved a
high degree of technical skill in his art - but it was all to no avail
- his work remained mannered, unfeeling and cold (quite typical in
fact to many stunted prodigies). Which reminds me again of Picasso -
whose father Don Jose Ruiz Blasco - was also an art teacher. I have
always felt a little sorry for Don Jose. Around the age of nineteen
Picasso stopped signing his paintings Ruiz and started signing them;
Picasso (his mothers name) - a clear snub to his father. Picasso and
most of his biographers (Richardson less so) have played down
Picasso's father's decisive role in his early formation as an artist -
but it is quite clear to me in everything he did from nine to sixteen.
Even when genuine artistic prodigies do emerge - while they may show
premature technical skill - their paintings never come close to
matching the depth of experience, profundity or technical virtuosity
of their adult peers. So that while it is true to say that Picasso at
thirteen possessed a great deal of technical ability - it is also true
to say that he had nothing original to say in his work until he
reached his mid twenties. Indeed a case could be made that the
academic death of art in the nineteenth century corresponded to the
rise of child prodigies. Which is to say that when art was reduced to
a pat academic formula without any possibility of growth the scene was
set for the art of prodigies to find favor.
Some of my favorite prodigies were Anthony Van Dyke, Theodore
Chasseriau, Gianlorenzo Bernini, John Everett Millias, Egon Schiele,
and William Orpen. Anthony Van Dyke was one of a handful of child
prodigies who fulfilled their early promise. His earliest surviving
oil paintings produced when he was just fourteen - are remarkable
technical accomplishments for one so young. However they are tainted
by the overarching influence of his master Rubens. Theodore Chasseriau
was one of Ingres star pupils. One day in class Ingres saw what
Chasseriau was drawing and said aloud to the class: "come see,
gentlemen, come see. This child will be the Napoleon of painting!" His
early paintings have the austere grandeur and gloom of the Spaniard
master Francisco de Zurbaran. But Chasseriau's later work married the
sure line of Ingres with the rich colour of Delacroix (at a time when
these masters were the heads of two extreme and conflicted poles in
art). In his short life he painted some of the most beautiful and
sensuous nudes in art history - but Chasseriau tragically died at the
age of thirty-seven - a sad case of what might have been.
In sculpture the Italian Gianlorenzo Bernini sculpted superbly gifted
sculptures (carved in marble - the greatest test of the sculptor) at
the age of twelve and thirteen and went on to capitalize on his early
preciosity to become the greatest sculptor of the Baroque. Then there
was John Everett Millias who displayed extraordinary drawing ability
as young as the age of nine. If anything, Millias possessed more
academic skill than Picasso, though in the long run that was to be to
his detriment. For one of the great problems of the teenage prodigy in
painting - is the tendency towards myopic infatuation with technical
finish at the expense of emotional and existential growth (this is not
surprising since many of these prodigies remained timid art school
'nerds' utterly unaware of real life in all its darkness, danger and
profoundity). Millias greatest painting 'Orphelia' (1852) was painted
between the age of twenty-two and twenty-three! It remains one of the
few world-class masterpieces (made at any age) - by an artist under
twenty-three (Raphael's -'The Bethrothal of the Virgin' (1504) -
painted when the Italian was only twenty-one also springs to mind).
Egon Schiele is unusual amongst child prodigies - because he gave full
vent to the frustrations and pathologies of adolescence in his art. By
the age of twenty he was producing drawings of himself nude or of
girls - in chalk, pencil and watercolour - that are some of the most
visceral and exciting in art history. But most prodigies ended up like
another favorite of mine - William Orpen. The pencil drawings and oil
paintings Orpen made at thirteen to sixteen were some of his best work
- but he was to end up as a rather ordinary portrait painter - more
concerned with making money than in changing the course of art
history.
In the late 1980`s (just as I realised I had dismally failed to become
a teenage prodigy) there emerged a new teenage prodigy in America - a
little Rumanian =E9migr=E9 called Alexandra Nechita. This prodigy made no
attempt to draw realistically in the way demanded of nineteenth
century pupils. Instead she painted and drew to the standers of
modernist masters like Picasso and Chagalle. And her rewards were no
meager Gold or Silver medals in painting. Her rewards were the heights
of art-market avarice! Nechita was described as that most rare of
child prodigies an abstract cubist painter! Nechita`s first exhibition
was at the age of eight, when she was ludicrously hailed as the Petite
Picasso - the fact is that Picasso had invented half of her mannerism
(and Chagall the other half) while at the same time excelling in a
naturalistic style of art utterly beyond her. In a post-modern world
the subtle distinctions between originality, innovation and genius
were considered mute - it was utterly appropriate that the era's
teenage prodigy should be a mannered pastisher. By her tenth birthday
she had already had eight solo exhibitions of her work and some of her
canvases were selling for up to $40,000 each. Nechita`s canvases are
indeed are remarkable for one so young - but they add nothing to high
art that has not already seen. Apart that is, from the phenomenon of
her giftedness marketed and hyped by certain crass dealers and her
family. Again I would suggest that the case of Nechita signaled the
bankruptcy of Modernism as a living artistic style. I never considered
much of Nechtia's work - it seemed to me to be utterly pointless for a
child to paint like an adult trying to paint like a child!
Personally I look upon many of the child prodigies of recent years
(like Alexandra Nechita) with skepticism. Many of the ways in which
they are judged seem to me to be hopelessly modern. Art prodigies
before the late twentieth centaury were judged great on the basis of
their mastery of realist drawing and painting - which is not only the
greatest test of a mature artist - but the most impossible of styles
for the young. Today however young artists like Nechita are hyped on
the basis of their mimicry of the signature styles of modern masters.
The trouble is that the challenge of most modern art is not based upon
the actual difficulty of the technique - but on the originality of the
ideas and the formation of a uniquely personal style. Now anyone
young, old or infirm can mimic Monet or Picasso or Chagall on a bad
day - but in art historical terms such copies have no value what so
ever - other than as training exercises.
So from the fake to the real deal. Although not the most technically
accomplished child artist - Picasso was certainly the best-known
teenage prodigy in painting - not only because of his early technical
feats - but also because of the sheer volume of work that remains from
his early years - and because of his later greatness. For example
before turning 20 Picasso had already produced approximately 220 oil
paintings and 470 fully finished drawings. Not to mention
approximately 1191 other drawings and sketches in 28 sketchpads (these
figures are taken from Josep Palau i Fabries catalogue resume of
Picasso's early years 1891-1907 and a study of Picasso sketchbooks).
Looking around the Picasso museum in Barcelona in 1999 - I looked at
his paintings and drawings and then the year when he had made them -
only to shake my head in amazement and resigned defeat - then I had to
chuckle at my desperate battle which had so dominated my teenage
years. How could I have ever have thought I stood a chance!
As was mentioned earlier while most other child prodigies went on to
have unspectacular careers, we all know how Picasso was to change art
forever. That said if Picasso had died at 25 he would have only been
of passing historical importance. One only has to compare his
paintings from 1891 to 1907 with the mature work of Paul Cezanne, Paul
Gaugain, Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec`s (another precious artist) or
Joaquin Sorolla's paintings of the same period to see the inferiority
of his work.
So much for the cynical reappraisal of the teenage prodigy phenomenon.
What matters more in this text, is my naive youthful knowledge of
teenage prodigy painters of the past. On the evidence of art history
what we can say for sure is that some artists are born gifted with a
'touch' and regardless of when they begin painting their work is
instantly distinguished by a maturity of line, understanding of design
and natural facility with paint. On the other hand the development of
other great artists was painfully dawn out. So much so that on the
evidence of their early work - one wonders at their courage to
persevere for so long. Artists like Cezanne, Van Gogh and Pollock all
of whom are now considered undisputedly great artists, had to fight
many inner demons before they could reach a point of freed up
expression. I was one of these latter artists.
Regardless of all these coldly mature observations (written in middle
age), it was prodigies like Schiele and Picasso that from sixteen to
twenty-one I was keenly in combat with. Thus my early paintings are
often about what it is like to strive to make great art at an early
age - and to wring from oneself art that spoke of the conditions of
youth.
The following artists are in my personal opinion the greatest youthful
Western artists (1300-2007). Those artists in the top twenty were
truly gifted child prodigies. While those at the bottom of the list
were artists who's early work I was familiar with - but who were in no
way preciousness in their youth. The list was based upon work still in
existence by these artists whom I have seen, and most of the work
adjudicated upon was created by these artist between the age of nine
and twenty. Emphasis was placed primarily upon the pure technical
ability of the child and only secondly upon the depth and range of
their work. Lastly the emotional maturity and originality of their
work was taken into account. As I have noted already despite his or
her precious ability, virtually no artist in history has ever created
a masterpiece of world significance before his or her twentieth-first
birthday. I ranked myself for the fun of it (number thirty-eight in my
own list!) meaning that I was a gifted - but not truly precocious,
artist in my youth.www.thepanicartist.com
1=2E Anthony Van Dyke.
2=2E Theodore Chasseriau.
3=2E Gianlorenzo Bernini.
4=2E Pablo Picasso.
5=2E Primo Conti.
6=2E Albrect Durer.
7=2E Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
8=2E Pol and Jean de Limbourg.
9=2E Jacob Van Ruisdael.
10. Salvador Dali.
11. Jean-Honore Fragonard.
12. Velazquez.
13. Raphael.
14. Rembrandt.
15. Michelangelo Buonarroti.
16. Diego Rivera.
17. Millias.
18. Angelica Kauffman.
19. Egon Schiele.
20. William Orpen.
21. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
22. Joseph Mallord William Turner.
23. Anton Mengs.
24. Tintoretto.
25. Ary Scheffer.
26. Camille Claudel.
27. Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun.
28. Maria Fortuny I Marsal.
29. Gericault.
30. Patrick Heron.
31. Freud.
32. Antonio Lopez Garcia.
33. Gros.
34. Pere Pau Montana.
35. Esnor.
36. Albert Rutherston.
37. Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
38. Cypher.
39. Bernard Buffet.
40. Max Beckman.
41. Ter Borch.
42. Alfred de Vigny.
43. Thomas Rowlandson.
44. Alexandra Nechita.
45. Balthasar Klossowski de Rola.
46. Edward Hopper.
47. Duchamp.
48. Otto Dix.
49. De Kooning.
50. Jack B Yeats.
51. Modigliani.
52. David Hockney.
53. Henri Cartier-Bresson.
54. Jean-Michel Basquiat.
55. Auguste Rodin.
56. Gustave Moreau.
57. Klimt.
58. Andy Warhol.
59. Peter Blake.
60. Joan Miro.
61. Claude Monet.
62. Keith Haring.
63. Edvard Munch.
64. Suzanne Valadon.
65. Eugene Delacroix.
66. Damien Hirst.
67. Jeff Koons.
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