Remembering William Weyman

At top: William Weyman, pictured at center, with Samuel Bjorklund and Leo Marchutz. At bottom: William Weyman, pictured to the right of Sam (left) and to the left of Sam (right)

Around Marchutz, we often hear the names “Sam and Billy,” the school’s co-founders, uttered with an affection and deep respect that a certain sort of devoted teacher can impress upon his students. Owing partly to the fact that we know the type well, it saddened us all to learn that William “Billy” Weyman passed away on Friday.

I regret that I never met Billy, and for that his friends and family will have to fill in the gaps with a richer portrait threaded with vivid memories and, to quote Dante, bound by love. No second-hand account could do a person that justice. He was a brilliant artist, a beloved professor, husband, father and friend, and the chief architect of the Marchutz School’s curriculum, an accomplishment whose magnitude we hope will only grow in the years to come.

To honor his life, we share with you two short excerpts from his memoir, published two years ago. In it he recalls his first years in Aix-en-Provence where he made acquaintance with the master who would become his mentor, Leo Marchutz.

* * *

“I was led somewhat innocently into Leo’s life, and also into Cezanne’s particular world, where his phantom spirit still pervades the countryside. How it all came to be is a labyrinthine mystery, the point being that my life was never the same once I descended the gangplank of the steamship le Flandre at le Havre in September 1961 and set foot on French soil for the first time. Without knowing it, I was headed into a life dedicated to art in many of its facets.

“A soft mistral was blowing, the sky almost lapis blue, as I walked past the light-filled Place de la Mairie and entered rue Gaston de Saporta. At number 23, I had been instructed to enter the courtyard, open the dark green door on the right, and mount four flights of stairs to the attic studio. Following these instructions, I ended up literally in the attic. The ceiling was low, and the room was lit by two bare neon tubes and a fraction of the natural light seeping in through a small window at floor level. A few empty easels were scattered arbitrarily here and there. Five or six other students milled around and chatted, probably, like me, wondering what a French art class would be like. At orientation, an art history teacher and advisor who was familiar with my transcript from Sewanee had insisted I take this course. He seemed to be in total admiration of the artist, Leo Marchutz, who would be teaching this class.

Almost as soon as I joined the chattering group, a man entered the room. I guessed him to be in his late fifties. I don’t know if I imagined it or not, but for a brief moment it seemed this makeshift studio was subtly transformed by his presence, its eerie blue-white light a bit warmer. He was slight of stature, and his head was set low on his shoulders. He was not a handsom man, but rather one who emitted another kind of attraction, which was unmistakeably revealed by an inner light that shone through his greenish eyes.

He seemed to be meditating on what he would say to us. Then, from his blue checkered shirt he produced a pouch from which he withdrew tobacco and fit it carefully in a chrome box.  A thin sheet of rolling paper, which he moistened with his tongue, was put into place. He snapped the box shut, and a perfectly rolled cigarette fell softly into his hand. This ritual took about three minutes. His fitting the cigarette into a black and silver holder and lighting it completed what seemed a contemplative experience, giving him the inner space to know precisely what he would say to us, and, God, it was precise.

“I suggest that you begin by doing some ‘caupys.'”

“In this first impression of Leo, I detected one side of him that proved to be true, a side which, over the years, he often admitted: his timidity. What I failed to perceive, for it could only be revealed gradually in close contact with him, was that underneath that apparent shyness, there was genius. He looked at paintings and sculpture of history not only with an unblemished eye, but with a sharp mind and a pure heart.”

Above: a young Billy Weyman, pictured at right, with friends in Aix-en-Provence.

* * *

Today, Billy’s final reflection upon the life and death of his own mentor is especially poignant:

“Memory is powerful and reminds us that, as T.S. Eliot said, “the past is not only the past, it is present; it lives.” Wherever he is, Leo lives not only in my mind but in the minds of all who knew and loved him. There is no measure for how much he influenced and altered the direction of our lives.

In this, my personal memory of the man, the form and the meaning become clear enough…All that he touched on paper or canvas was religious art, regardless of subject matter, for it was all conditioned by love, or light, love’s corresponding visual metaphor in the work of art.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Above: Beatrice welcoming Dante into Heaven by William Weyman

Like the artist and mentor that he admired so dearly, Billy Weyman changed many lives, including mine, for the better. On behalf of the Marchutz School and Alumni Fellows, I express condolences to all of his family, friends and colleges. To see his art, we encourage you to visit the website of Daedalus Gallery that Billy ran with his wife, Jacqueline, in Savannah, Georgia.

– Kate Butler

The Speech of Mo

This Tuesday, we had the privilege of watching student Maureen Anderson read a speech she wrote for the semester’s closing ceremony at the IAU. Here it is. 

John handed out our first reading for seminar: a text about color, lines and light by Rembrandt. It was concise and profound, as I would soon find many of these readings to be, and, like the rest, it expanded beyond this discussion, this artist, and this context. “Contours should be drawn,” he said, “not in a continuing manner, but rather fragment by fragment, with a lightness of hand, that the object be not closed but open to the light, that it may breathe in the enveloping atmosphere.”

I remember a day, I think it was in early October. Paint and turpentine shared the space within my bag, my easel hung haphazardly and with each step, my two glass jars said a word or two to each other. I stood beside a stream and I contemplated the risk of crossing over it via fallen tree, as ants, seemingly infinite in number, greeted me to investigate the trespassing. They herded me across. I saw the woods which held me. I looked further. Grey violets hid themselves in the trees and the light spat out an electric yellow green. One stroke at a time, I tried to figure out how to paint it. It was really hard.

But that was my problem: I wasn’t trying to paint a painting, I was trying to paint the woods. I didn’t know there was a difference at the time, but alas, I am so much wiser now.

I don’t remember exactly what each leaf on each tree looked like that day, but I remember there was comfort, solitude, nature, a nameless quality. That’s what I should have, somehow, been painting, using those trees as tools to create something else.

After struggling with this for a while, John gave me some simple but powerful advice. As he sat and read, I was to look at the entire scene that existed before me, and paint the one color that jumped out at me, one intentional, specific stroke at a time, with much, with much feeling and deliberation. In doing so, someone who did not look like, but felt like John began to appear on my canvas.

At my most recent critique, I saw all of my paintings from the past four months together. It’s hard to describe how everything hit me at that moment, but together they retold the semester, and I felt full. I realized that it’s not just about the paintings I’ve made, it’s about their whole story and the meaning they give each other. I was able to see how I’ve begun putting myself into a painting; it was the difference between painting the leaves of the trees and painting the heart of nature. It was the difference between painting the color of someone’s face and the color of their character.

I still can’t claim I can really make a true piece of art, but I’m figuring out how to figure it out. I’ve been painting and drawing all semester at Marchutz, and I’m finally realizing that fragment by fragment, Marchutz has been drawing me this whole time.

I’ve been breathing in the provencal white yellow light that casts my-favorite-color-violet shadows. I’ve been breathing in the silence of the landscape and the rhythm of voices in discussion, in laughter. I’ve handed the pencil to everyone in the Marchutz family to draw a little contour for what is becoming me, I’ve let Flannery O’Connor and Van Gogh throw a few down, and those ants at the stream may have gotten one in too. In allowing the world to draw me I am learning to be open to its light, to exist harmoniously with it. I’m recognizing that one stroke at a time, I am becoming more whole, more able to relate to the world in which I exist. I’m hoping that if I let the world create me, it will teach me how to create a world.

Anyways, “Contours should be drawn, not in a continuing manner, but rather fragment by fragment, with a lightness of hand, that the object be not closed but open to the light, that it may breathe in the enveloping atmosphere.”

Sur le Motif

Translation: on the motif. Here’s a glimpse into our annual excursion to Cezanne’s studio and late motifs.

Scholars in Cezanne Country

“I owe him my fervor for Cezanne.” – John Rewald of Leo Marchutz

 

 

 

 

 

Pictured above: Rewald (left) Marchutz (right) and the book they co-authored. 

In light of our recent field study here in Aix to some of Cezanne’s most significant motifs, we present you a series of photos taken by Leo Marchutz and art historian John Rewald. The photos were originally published in a book co-authored by the two titled Cezanne au Chateau Noir, published in 1936, and were on display circa 2006 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. It’s worth noting that, on our trip, we were discouraged from taking photos of the stately, mysterious manor that is Chateau Noir –  motif of Cezanne, once home to the studio of Leo Marchutz, and now to our two Marchutz School professors  – out of respect to the Tessier family, who still reside on the property. But even more notable is that we were able to visit.

The photographs of Marchutz and Rewald are better than we could do anyway – of the Chateau Noir and other sites where Cezanne painted, the photos act as both records and references to art historians studying the masterworks that Cezanne created from the same motifs.

Check out a selection of the photos below. With them we’ve included two writings – the first, a reflection from John Rewald, the second, an excerpt from a scholarly essay on Marchutz’s contribution to Cézanne research. Among other things, the essay speaks to the significance of Marchutz’s dual vocations as an artist and art historian to his discernment of Cezanne’s oevre. On a more sentimental level, the story of Marchutz’s arrival in Aix offers insight into the very origins of his namesake school where we go to paint every day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above: view of the Chateaunoir

For a 1977 catalogue for a Cezanne exhibition in Paris, John Rewald reflected upon the on the labor of taking the photos:

“…..I first came to Aix in the late spring of 1933 and there met the painter Léo Marchutz, who for several years had been living at Château Noir. He owned a copy of the April 1930 issue of The Arts with an article by Erle Loran (Johnson) on “Cézanne’s Country”, where the first photographs of the artist’s motifs had appeared. On his own, Marchutz had located a series of further motifs, especially at Château Noir and around Le Tholonet. He asked me to take photographs of these with my newly acquired Leica; it wasn’t long until I moved into the main building of Château Noir and we set out a systematic hunt of Cézanne’s motifs throughout the region of Aix, l’Estaque, Gardanne, usually on bicycles, which we often had to push uphill in the stifling heat, for Cézanne liked to work from elevated positions.”  (Read the rest here.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Le Mont Saint Victoire seen from Les Lauves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Mill stone in the park of the Chateau Noir 

“In addition to the possibilities these documents offer for a historiographic study of the development of early research in modern art, Marchutz’ work can also be seen as an example for the often underestimated reciprocal influences between creative practice and art historic research.” – Agnes Blaha

More recently, a Agnes Blaha at the University of Vienna wrote a scholarly essay on Marchutz’s contribution to our understanding of Cézanne’s oeuvre titled Leo Marchutz: A Painter in the Centre of Early Cezanne Research. In her introduction, she recounts how Marchutz’s lifetime relationship with the work of Cézanne, both as an artist and an art historian:

“Léo Marchutz, born 1903 in Nuremberg, began his artistic career as an autodidact. In his early years, Cézanne’s art which Marchutz got to know by an exhibition held at the gallery of Bruno Cassierer in Berlin in 1921 and through his visits at the Neue Pinakothek in Munich influenced his view of the possibilities and purposes of art. In his later autobiographical statements, Marchutz’ stressed the importance of his early contacts to Cézanne’s art for his rejection of academic training as an artist and his decision to develop his own style through the individual study of other artists’ works in museums (Châtelet 19). Inspite of this early fascination for Cézanne, it was rather through coincidences that Marchutz began his investigation of Cézanne’s motives, a work which he should continue throughout his whole life. Marchutz first came to Aix-en-Provence in 1928, when his later wife, Anna Kraus, offered him this journey for his help with selling a picture by Cézanne. When they decided to visit the Château Noir, they made the acquaintance of a coachman who had been working for Cézanne and therefore knew some of Cézanne’s favorite places where he regularly went to paint. It seems plausible that this coachman gave the decisive impulse to look out for these places. Arrived at the Château Noir, Marchutz spontaneously decided to rent a small apartment in Cézanne’s old residence, a decision which clearly hints at the enthusiasm he felt for his self-chosen artistic role model. This enthusiasm can also be discerned in Marchutz’ paintings from the first years he spent in Aix, where he definitively settled down in 1931. His landscape paintings with views of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire and a number of still lives painted between 1928 and 1931 show, in spite of all existing differences in style, a deliberate proximity to Cézanne, which already can be seen in the choice of subjects typically associated with Cézanne. Additionally, his interpretation shows the intention to imitate some formal characteristics, especially concerning the creation of volume through large colored patches, an intention that becomes even more obvious when these pictures are compared with his paintings of the Mount Sainte-Victoire from the 1960s, which are in all aspects much more typical for the personal style he had developed.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View to the west above L’Estaque

Check out the complete set of photos taken by Marchutz and Rewald here at National Gallery’s Rewald archives. And stay tuned for a few snapshots from our own tour of Cezanne’s Aix-en-Provence.

At the Paris Museums

Photos by Hilary Stein and a group photo shot by Charley Neff from the week we spend looking at paintings in Paris.

The Art at Manning Hall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Across the walls of the lounge and stairwell at the IAU Manning Hall is a collection of art that any university would envy and that any museum should. Luminous works by Leo Marchutz and the school he inspired grace the walls with their unity of color and their penetrating expression of life. For those of you who live in walking distance, they’re worth taking a closer look at. For those of you don’t, voila! we’ve photographed and compiled a selection to view here online. At top: a Leo Marchutz painting inspired by an episode from the gospel of St. Luke. Below that, a work by Francois de Asis, two Marchutz lithographs and a painting from Venice by Alan Roberts. Below: A landscape by John Gasparach.

See more works on the Marchutz School Facebook page, or better yet, on our new tumblr.

Chasing Light and Molding Clay

 

 

 

 

Alumni fellow Kate Butler reflects on this year’s sculpture workshop in Giverny

The light is always changing, but every year the assignment is the same: create a sculpture from one of your sketches of the garden. In the presence of Monet’s lingering vision, the annual sculpture workshop posed us the challenge of bringing tangible form to our impressions of the water and color, plants and light and air. For five days, we had the benefit of being guided by Greg Wyatt, a foremost representational sculptor, who, after a morning of group introductions woven with profound commentary, led us down the Rue Claude Monet, through the entryway overgrown with flowers and vines onto the famous Japanese bridge, where we’d begin our inquiry into the relationship of three dimensional space to the flat surface of the page.

Greg established that we’d begin our sculpture process by drawing from nature and that, at least, we were prepped for. The weeks prior we spent landscape painting during which we learned to encounter nature as artists – to select values from all the light and matter, and to bring them together according to the dictates of our imaginations. Experience aside, there was something a bit disorienting in treating our impressions of color and value as fodder for a 2 by 1 inch wax sculpture – even for those of us who had done the workshop in years past.

I had. And as I scanned the garden, now rainy, with my increasingly wet sketchbook in tow, I thought of past mistakes as guidance for whatever I was going to do next. In short, I was ready to take a less literal approach to the exercise than I had as a student. Last time, I’d attempted something like a pictorial representation of the bridge bordered by two clumpy trees and a flat surface of water, which, though accurate in a certain sense, bore little resemblance to my experience of actually being in the garden with all its particularities of space and light. This time, I looked more closely at less tangible, more encompassing relationships – such as that of the willow branches to the water, reflected in its depths. I made a quick sketch and then moved on to explore the pond’s other lurking mysteries.

In our wax-scented studio, I opened my sketchbook to that drawing. It was, in a word, abstract. A bunch of rounded triangles jutting upward over a few horizontal lines that, while bearing resemblance to what I actually saw, weren’t exactly identifiable as reflections, and definitely not as willow leaves. From my drawing, I made a wire sculpture with spires, the upward reaching leaves, jutting out above something like an upside-down bowl to convey the horizontal plane of the water. To the clay mock-up I oriented the forms around an upward spiral like a shell, which I adjusted little by little until I arrived at a form that was more real, more whole, more like a living thing than the sculpture I made two years ago. The sculpture also felt more like my own, more “my style” in the sense that the undulating curves and almost gothic spires showed the touch of my hands, by consequence of my way of experiencing and interacting with the world.

By the time we reached the Coubertin Foundation with our finished wax sculptures in tow, I had come to a deeper realization of the relatedness of the self and the imagination to nature. I had pursued my experience of the garden rather than its literal appearance and the result was a creation that had more in common with the nature I was pursuing than any photographic representation, itself a concrete realization of what I discovered in the process. What I had arrived at was anything but arbitrary. “Art imitates nature,” St. Thomas Aquinas once said, not in her appearance but “in her manner of operation.” It had been whispered to me by John and Alan during painting sessions, had been expounded upon and discussed in seminar, explained to me by friends, fellows, scholars. But there’s nothing quite like inching toward a timeless law like that with your own two hands.

For me, the realization represented a step to cultivating an art practice out of which I can produce work that is whole and alive; that is sourced from somewhere genuine and somewhere real. And because no realization is allowed to be arbitrary at Marchutz, what I learned gained even more significance when John Gasparach handed us an essay on Impressionism in Art History class the next Monday.

The writer, an art historian named Richard Shiff, was talking about the etymology and implications of the “impression” as in the much used and abused art term “Impressionism.” The impression, he observes, “[bridges] the gap between the external and the internal, the physical and the intellectual or spiritual.” Art and poetry then, is “nature reflected in the human mind,” making that reflection, that impression, consequently “both a phenomenon of nature and of the artist’s own being.”

I thought of the sketches I made in the garden – the drawings of those willow leaves reflected in the pond at once representative of their nature but also true to my touch, my eyes, my presence in seeing them – “both a phenomenon of nature and of the artist’s own being.” I also thought of something John had said about Monet in class. As Monet drew closer to nature his work became more recognizably his own. Moving from the earth to the surface of the water in search of his motif, he gradually eliminated the far bank, such that everything that called to him most in nature – the “envelope,” as he called it, of air and light – was laid bare in the reflective surface. It was from that vantage point that he produced his works of art that were his most powerful, his most abstract, his most concrete, his most real. Monet’s late and works, the result of an artistic career pursuing his vision, are emphatically “both a phenomenon of nature and of the artist’s own being.”

So what does all this about impressions have to do with our five-day sculpture workshop in Giverny? Though experiences inevitably vary, I trust that we all learned something about the relationship of nature to the artistic process. I sure did. The light is always changing, but in its chase we can gain a glimpse of the reality of nature and ourselves in relation to it. It’s not easy to pay attention to the passing phenomena that make up what we know of life. It takes patience to progress from a fleeting vision in the mind’s eye to a thing you can see, grasp, hold in your hands. But it’s at the heart of what makes doing art so valuable.

Surface/Depth

“What do we know of our soul but the surface? It is what the lily in the pool knows of the water, what the mirrored profile knows of the mirror. Oh, to plunge into the pond, into the looking glass!” – Georges Rodenbach, Les Vies Encloses

 

 

Images from the sculpture workshop by Hilary Stein, Kate Butler and Charley Neff.

No. 3: From Monet’s Garden

 

Nearly two weeks ago we had the privilege of attending the school’s annual sculpture workshop in Monet’s hometown of Giverny led by a foremost representational sculptor, Greg Wyatt. Here’s a video to show for it featuring the Giverny sky, some stock footage of Claude Monet painting, and the voice of Lisel Mueller reading her poem “Monet Refuses the Operation.”