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Georges Mazilu:
Paintings
Eastwick Gallery One can see it from their movements and their mutilations. They are not dead, not exactly. Neither are they alive. They are merely living; cobbled bodies and souls unstrung by a drab conformity, a reticence, a lack of openness to the living pulse of life. They are visions of a world Friedrich Nietzsche predicted; D. H. Lawrence fought to prevent; and to which T. S. Eliot gave witness in "The Hollow Men." They cover twelve oils on canvas by Georges Mazilu now on exhibition at Eastwick Gallery until December 4th, 1999.
There is a genealogy for such paintings, apart from the sporadic satires and caricatures which can just happen at any time. They are perhaps best known from works such as The Garden of Earthly Delights (c.1480) by Hieronymus Bosch, and Martin Schongauer with his Temptation of St. Anthony (c.1500). But modern examples spring to mind in the 'Magic Realism' of early 20th century artists such as the German, Otto Dix, and the Russian expatriate, Pavel Tchelitchew, artists who excelled at metamorphosing familiar sight into unreal illusion. And today at Eastwick Gallery, Chicago, there is Georges Mazilu. Mazilu is Romanian-born and a Parisian since 1982, and his work is Renaissance in expression, and millennial in its theme -- Nietzsche's millennium of 'last men.' But further, in some of the paintings, there is a Lawrencian hope, a source of vigor, be it met with indifference or not. The world that Mazilu portrays is not a happy world; which is not to say it is necessarily unhappy or unbenign, but that it is inhabited predominantly by middle-aged 'hollow men,' unfulfilled, empty, patched with bits and parts, cobbled and strapped together. They wear the selfsame face. Often cap and gown, whether monk's or don's, is what holds their bodies to a human form. Frequently that form is appendaged: disjunct body parts, leather straps, or ad hoc prosthesis are sewn, pinned or strapped in place. Their dress may be a borrowing from clerical imagery; or it may well suggest men in thrall to a life-denying vision. Certainly, D.H. Lawrence believed that mankind draws its passions and intuitions from within a vital wellspring of life... only to formalize them, and to end by petrifying them into abstractions -- theories, ideologies, unreal ideals, till men no longer live them -- they live men. These are the men of Mazilu's paintings. These are the men that Nietzsche foresaw and Alan Bloom's summary of Nietzche's fear might well serve as subtext for Mazilu's vision:
And Bloom elsewhere in his book clarifies: "At worst, I feel that spiritual entropy or an evaporation of the soul's boiling blood is taking place, a fear that Nietzsche thought justified and made the center of all his thought." Thus: [Nietzsche] "argued that the spirit's bow was being unbent and risked being permanently unstrung." Are Mazilu's men philosophers, clerics, theorizers, ascetics... life-deniers? Are they merely the artist's fantasy, or portraits of the human heart that is to come? One sees no overt clues, but the men of these paintings are incomplete, empty, cut off from vital life seemingly by some deadening inhibition or burden. They as much recall Schongauer's St. Anthony as they evoke the tormenting devils Schongauer inflicts upon his Saint. There are two particularly striking canvases at Eastwick, L'Ange and Le Jury, and their images heighten the impression that Mazilu's inspirations arise within the conflict between that in humans which affirms life and that about them which denies life. Showcased at the gallery entrance is L'Ange [Angel] (Oil: 51.2"x31.9"). She stands at canvas right, above the dust, and she wears a faint smile of toying insouciance. However, of the three elders to the left, only the farthest registers her presence, with perplexity, as if the life that pulses within her is an entity inconceivable to him. His two companions seem absently absorbed and unaware of her -- they have their improbable bicycle, a mechanism, a contraption really, with which to occupy themselves. It was this same denial of natural impulse and vigor which led Leo Tolstoi to end Anna Karenina with the heroine's death, and D. H. Lawrence, feeling that author's visceral love for, and doctrinal wrath against his heroine, castigated Tolstoi's internal censor:
The middling men of Mazilu's paintings are the unbent bow that Nietzsche feared would come to pass; the empty shells of men that Lawrence sought to resurrect; but at Mazilu's fascinating best, they stand exposed as the rattles of the aged Tolstoi's formulae. The skin tones of the female nude in L'Ange are glowing, brighter than the three elders, and Mazilu choses strategic hard edges in an generally soft edge technique to direct attention to the dynamics between his figures, much as earlier conventions used pose and stance. The knowing, even impertinent coyness in her facial expression, and the confidence of her stance, both sensuous and sensual, seems destined to indifference from the men. She may indeed be a peril to them, such as they are. At left most canvas, there is what appears to be a flayed human form: it floats, loose and totally lifeless. It is curious how, building upon a style and genre with so long a legacy, Mazilu's art seems very much futuristic, dystopic, in content. The tenor of his portrayals accord with the postulated futures of H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, Terry Gilliam's film, Brazil.
Le Jury (Oil: 36.3"x28.7") is another example of Georges Mazilu's thematic content. Here, the young female nude seems abashed, penitent before an examining board of two middle-aged judges. The latter are seated, canvas right, behind a desk which displays a pair of bottom doors facing the viewer's, rather than the judges' presumed access. The more central inquisitor is dressed in a subdued oxblood robe, while his companion, furthest to the canvas right, wears a robe of checkered green and black. (This checkered motif often adds an ironic touch of Harlequinade to decorum in Mazilu's work). The general effect is of a natural, vital female being, one whose wiles are instinctive and thus innocent, brought to intimidation before the sententious and leaden scrutiny of men desiccated by dedication to some abstraction. That the desk doors face her may well betoken to whom access to the facts of life is favored. It is irresistible to read into Mazilu's images, and each viewer reads into them according to his own lights, but the fundamental insight captured by the artist strikes an immediate response, rings true and underlies so much of human experience. That it comes as a highly individual Mazilu evocation renews the delight of discovery. An adjacent canvas, Vache [cow] (Oil: 26.6"x19.7"), presents a seemingly stolid bovine with horns of green; only the rump and hind legs kick up, as if quivering and vivisected remnants of natural urge. In Vache, the kicking hind leg is pinned to the torso, which adds irony to the implied animation. The title translates as 'cow,' but conceals overtones of 'cantankerous,' 'embarrassing'... bitchy. This is noteworthy, for in many of Mazilu's oils the animals are as docile and trudging as the incomplete and mutilated human manikins. Where Mazilu's men are accompanied by animals, they are beasts of burden, the ox, the donkey, the mule. These are only less decrepit; but then, they are beasts, inarticulate and thus closer to Life. In Man and Donkey (Oil:25.6"x28.7"), at first a common enough traditional image, both creatures pass in a leaden haze, a fellowship of broken spirits. The detail of a Mazilu painting, where detail appears in these sparse, focused compositions, is often suggestive: human forms are armless (as in Two Bearded Men: 18.1"x15"), or crippled; one even wears the needle and thread which he presumably uses to shore himself together. In the company of other Mazilu images, the association of man and beast does seem an equation. And the artist's Le Peintre et a chevre [The Painter and Nanny Goat] (Oil: 36.2"x28.7") adds to the equations of tamed beast and cerebral soul. And all but the 'seductive female' in these works are amalgams of leather straps, flesh, and parts artificial or alien to them. In several oils, the makeshift leather ribbons and whatnot take on a somewhat vegetal appearance, stylized or wind-blown into fleshy tendrils and leaf-like flourishes. The vegetative allusion may be the closest to vital signs of life that the forms are capable of reaching. Portrait of a Young Man (Oil:16.1"x13"), in which a cowl rests, almost floating on the subjects head, shows this effect well. Here, the sitter is one-armed. In Two Bearded Men (18.1"x15"), both are armless. It is Mazilu's world vision. For those who would deny the vital, even the instincts still evident in Le Vache seem perilous, as Couple de danseur (Oil:26.6"x19.7") suggests. In this painting, the somewhat ambiguous woman of the dance couple almost appears to take her partner's pulse. They seem homunculi that recall the joy of liveliness, but have lost it; shells that would crumble in any effort to mimic that vital pulse. The man, most exertive in stance, risks throwing off his very head in the act of attempting a primeval, human activity of energy and celebration. Le Fou de Carreau [Jack of Diamonds] (18.1"x15"), as last of the twelve oils, forms an excellent coda to the Eastwick showing of Mazilu's paintings. The Jack of Diamonds portrayed plays a simple, country pipe-flute held in his right hand, while, with the left hand, he is seen to render a self-benediction, fingers forming the traditional priestly gesture of blessing, an aureola or halo highlighting the act. If this latter is indeed a halo, it is misplaced and fallen: a bauble for a fool. He is the joker who shams that beneficence proceeds from the gesture, prescribed and solitary. Yet, in the music and the gesture, he is one of the most complete and lively of the figures in this showing. Only L'Ange, and the angelic, abashed female before the board of inquiry exhibit greater life spirit. And for this, the art of Georges Mazilu seems all-the-more kindred soul to D.H.Lawrence's fear and hopes:
Sam Hunter in his text to an excellently illustrated book on Mazilu ($20.00 at Eastwick Gallery) cites the influence of Velazquez, Goya, Bosch, and Brueghel. Mazilu's oils on canvas bring to mind Nietzsche, D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, and remind how often in the fears they voiced the words appear -- "unstrung," "shells," "decrepit," "empty" -- "hollow men," denying life to "rattle with words and formulae." Some, like Lawrence, sought to affirm life vigor and, as Mazilu in several of his oils, have imaged it as female form. Men have always had those fears, and since 'Modernity,' a thinning of the soul has been even more about and 'in the air.' Those intimations come to mind and have no doubt come to Mazilu's inspirations. Whether it is clear sight or prophecy, Mazilu's art has power. It is there in oil on canvas. Twelve oil paintings by Mazilu may be seen at Eastwick Gallery until December 4, 1999, still within this old millennium. --G. Jurek Polanski Jurek Polanski has previously written and art edited for Strong Coffee in Chicago. He's also well known and respected among the Chicago museums and galleries. Jurek is currently a Visual Arts Correspondent for ArtScope.net. |
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