Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative - ISSN 1780-678X
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Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative - ISSN 1780-678X |
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Issue 10. The Visualization of the Subaltern in World Music. On Musical Contestation Strategies (Part 1) |
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The present-day scholar: an (im)possible representation? |
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Author: Hilde Van Gelder Abstract (E): Departing from a photographically illustrated 1955 biography of the Flemish industrial Lieven Gevaert (1868-1935), this essay traces the fate in the 20th Century of a particular genre in painting, that of the portrait of the learned scholar. It digs into the way photography took over painting's privileged position as the most suited medium for depictions of learned men throughout the late 19th and early 20th Century, as the photograph was held to present a true trace of the reality of one's learnedness. Gerhard Richter's crucial series 48 Portraits (1971-72) convincingly shatters that well-installed belief by questioning through painting the supposedly true nature of the photographic image. By 'unpainting' the photograph's indexicality, Richter's work offers a deep reflection on a patriarchal, Western tradition of the representation of learned men. Confronting 48 Portraits with the painted portrait image of Ulrike Meinhof from the October cycle (1988) and the Eight Student Nurses (1966) confirms the presumption that Richter, in his choice to represent only men in 48 Portraits , is not the sexist he has at times been held for. On the contrary, his paintings subtly play with the conventions of the genre of the learned portrait to suscite a deep reflection on the position of women in it. An analogy is further worked out with Luc Tuymans' portrait of Patrice Lumumba ( Lumumba , 2001). Abstract (F): A partir de l'analyse des illustrations photographiques d'une biographie de l'industriel flamand Lieven Gevaert (1868-1935), cet essai s'interroge sur le sort d'un genre pictural très particulier à la fin du XXe siècle: les portraits de savants. Il examine d'abord la manière dont la photographie a pris la place de la peinture comme médium privilégié de ce type de réprésentations la fin du 19e et au début du 20e siècle, lorsque la photographie était jugée capable de fournir la trace réelle de l'intelligence du savant. Avec ses 48 Portraits (1971-72), une oeuvre-clé de la peinture moderne, Gerhard Richter détruit radicalement cette croyance en interrogeant l'essence soi-disant naturelle de la photographie avec des moyens proprement picturaux. En "dé-peignant" l'indexicalité photographique, le travail de Richter produit une réflexion profonde sur la tradition patriarchale et occidentale de la représentation des savants. La comparaison de cette oeuvre avec le portrait peint d'Ulrike Meinhof de la série October cycle (1988) ou avec les Eight Student Nurses (1966) confirme que Richter, qui n'a représent que des hommes dans ses 48 Portraits, n'est pas le peintre sexiste pour lequel il a été pris. Ses peintures jouent au contraire très subtilement avec les conventions du genre du portrait savant afin de susciter une interrogation profonde sur le rôle des femmes dans ce genre. L'article termine par une comparaison fouillée avec le portrait de Lumumba par Luc Tuymans (Lumumba , 2001). keywords: learn portrait, Lieven Gevaert, Gerhard Richter, indexicality |
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Prologue: A scholar portrayed
Up to now, the most extensive biographical reference work dedicated to the figure of the Flemish industrial Lieaen Gevaert (1868-1935) opens with three initial illustrations, in this order: just before the title page, a recto page shows a photographic image of Lieven Gevaert's motto, as it was chiselled, in 1904, into the façade of one of the buildings of the company with the same name in Mortsel. [1] Before one even starts reading the book, the image summarizes, concisely and to the point, the life of this fascinating figure: "Arbeid adelt" [Labour ennobles] [fig. 1].
Fig. 1 A. Dox, Lijfspreuk van Lieven Gevaert zoals aangebracht in één van de gebouwen van de firma , ca. 1952-3 [ © Historisch Archief Agfa-Gevaert]
The verso page, mirrored with respect to the real title page, shows a portrait of an older Gevaert, taken around 1932 by the then chief photographer of the company, Charles Rhein (1879-1960) [fig. 2]. [2]
Fig. 2 Ch. Rhein, Portret van Lieven Gevaert , ca. 1932 [ © Historisch Archief Agfa-Gevaert]
After a short preface and the introduction, the first chapter, with a title meaning 'Lieven Gevaert as a person' opens with a photographic self-portrait of the young Gevaert, taken when he was seventeen [fig. 3].
Fig. 3 L. Gevaert, Zelfportret op zeventienjarige leeftijd , 1885 [ © Historisch Archief Agfa-Gevaert]
This order - first the motto, then the mature portrait, immediately followed by the young portrait, is not unimportant. There is no coincidence. It follows the strictly encoded prescriptions of the historical genre in painting, a genre that traditionally served to remind people of significant individuals or crucial events from a nation's history. Based originally on the iconography of the life of Christ, the portrayal of the historical importance of an individual consisted in both the sketching of the later, truly heroic acts and those events in the youth of this person which prematurely announced a great future. Almost always, a series of canvases were used, whose size, among others, but also use of colour or dramatic value of each image separately, were indicative of the importance of that specific scene in the series as a whole. [3] These visual conventions from the art of painting were soon applied in the illustrated literary biographies dedicated to historical characters. Careful attention was paid to the structuring of illustration material in order to obtain the correct narrative sequence. Thus it is in the book Lieven Gevaert. De mens en zijn werk , where the effectivity of the semiotic opening strategy stands out. The motto announces the immediately following image of a handsome man who has ennobled himself through his own excellent efforts. Next, after a concise textual legitimation, we see the youthful image which, in retrospect, serves as a foreshadowing of his meanwhile illustrious life story. The photo, a 'true' piece of evidence
Starting in the second half of the 19 th century, photographs increasingly began to replace the traditional, handmade graphic illustrations in the biographical-literary genre. Photographic images undoubtedly increased the respect a person might enjoy. The reason for this is as complex as it is simple. Firstly, the photo is iconically stronger than the painting: it is figuratively more accurate, and is as such seen as 'more correct' as a reproduction of a situation or an individual. This is all the more the case because it constitutes a trace of the reality it represents. It is considered to be a physical carrier of a piece of reality. Already at the end of the 19 th century, Charles Sanders Peirce wrote that "photographs, especially instantaneous photographs, are very instructive, because we know that they are in certain respects exactly like the objects they represent. But this resemblance is due to the photographs having been produced under such circumstances that they were physically forced to correspond point by point to nature". [4] The photo proves that something or someone was somewhere, at some time, in the same way that a footprint in the snow does. The light falls into the camera lens and subsequently leaves an imprint on a photosensitive film, which is finally printed as a positive image on a paper medium. At no single moment is there a break in this direct stream of special, tangible reality to the eventual photo print. The photo can, thanks to its privileged physical or indexical link with reality, claim a certain veracity. More than a painted or etched image, it shows that someone was there who at that moment looked exactly like that. In its most basic nature, the photo, in the here and now of our moment of experience, points to a reality that existed in such a quality, sometime, somewhere. This is the famous paradox of photography, as Roland Barthes phrased it so exquisitely in 1964: photography installs in the observer of the image a double consciousness of a 'having-been-there' yet 'not-being-there-anymore'. [5] Even if the subject of the photograph is still alive, the sight of a photo still offers the shock of the realisation of an irrevocable and irreparable loss: this person does not exist today as he did at that moment. Yet we can feel him, thanks to the photo, as tangibly and physically present as he was then . The photographic image sharpens the recollection. It brings the past closer, as it were, in our memory. Yet the photo also makes the past more elusive, in confirming that it will never come back. As such, photography installs an illogical link between the here and the past. This, so Barthes concludes, constitutes its "unreal reality": unreal because you experience the image as here, and real because you know it isn't like that anymore, and can never be. Exactly that paradoxical knowledge, he writes, carries with it an unsettling conclusion. Every photo, he argues, proves that "something happened like that " [" cela s'est passé ainsi "]. Thus, Barthes puts into words a deep-seated belief relating to photographic images in general, which was also adapted in connection with the portrayal of persons. After the large-scale commercial break-through of the photographic medium in the 1880s, a collective belief took hold that the portrait photo, much more than the painted image, could leave a veritable impression in the here and now, of what someone had really been like, of his individuality. 'Yes, that's exactly the way he was', is the kind of thing we have all been heard to say on looking at a photo of someone we know or knew well.
The photographic portrait in the early 20 th century: 'natural' claims to 'learnedness'
This idea, the photographic claim to veracity, also had important consequences for the sub-genre or representation type of the portrait of learned individuals. The art of painting may have been more static and matter-of-fact, and as such maybe, as far as the required decorum was concerned, more suitable for the portrayal of learned and exceptionally deserving individuals in full regalia, yet it proved to be the photograph that was clearly favoured in order to provide the ultimate proof of the real, 'veritable' erudition of its subject. Early examples of this are the magnificent portraits that the French photographer Félix Nadar made, between 1854 and 1870, of famous persons such as the art critic Jules Champfleury [fig. 4].
Fig. 4. Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (Nadar), 'Jules Champfleury', ca. 1865. Published by Goupil et Cie. , 126 Boulevard Magenta, Parijs.[I. Jeffrey, Photography. A concise history (Londen: Thames and Hudson, 1981), 42]
Champfleury comes across as the physical incarnation of the idea of learnedness. His photo, as a direct material trace of the existence of this highly gifted individual, provides, as it were, its immediate and irrefutable proof. Let us look again, in the light of this famous image, at the beautiful photo of Gevaert made by Rhein [fig. 2]. The similarity between both photos is striking: it is perfectly clear that Rhein was well-informed about the codes of the learned genre as they were used from the late 19 th century onwards. He purposely aims to provide Gevaert with a place in the gallery of this tradition of representation. A comparison of Rhein's photo with the best painted portrait of Lieven Gevaert, realised by the Antwerp artist Isidoor Opsomer (1878-1967) around 1933 [fig. 5]
Fig. 5 I. Opsomer, Portret van Lieven Gevaert , olieverf op doek, 103 x 97 cm. Privé-verzameling. [ © Historisch Archief Agfa-Gevaert]
provides even more interesting material. Opsomer portrays Gevaert in profile and half-length, as an impressive figure in a three-piece suit. He towers majestically above a vast plain in the middle- and background, filled up to the horizon with factory buildings and lightly smoking smokestacks. Without doubt, we are dealing with a successful industrialist, in the way they were thought of in the early 1930s. Opsomer communicates this message clearly, and also succeeds in telling the observer, through the soft, subtle traits of his subject, that this is nowhere near a brutal exploiter. Quite the opposite: he portrays Gevaert as a sensitive and righteous man, unafraid to look us straight in the eye. Rhein's portrait photo adds yet another dimension: it doesn't just confirm this gentle look, but in addition stresses much more the learnedness of the man in question. Sitting in his library at home, Gevaert is musing, as if deep in thought. The light catches his big forehead, as if to stress his intelligence. The photographic focus on the wrinkles around his friendly eyes, emphasizes even more his good-natured intellect. Also Gevaert's beautifully manicured hands and fingernails, as well as the reading glasses he is holding, accentuate quite subtly that this is undoubtedly an erudite man of position. The photo confronts us with this 'natural' learnedness, because it objectifies it, as it were: we can see it physically, in the features of this refined man. No brush, paint or artistic trick of the artist played any part in this. The camera registered and the proof was produced once and for all.
"48 portraits" for the 20 th century
In the thirties of last century, there still was the luxury of believing in all this without any problem. But in 1972, the by then West German painter Gerhard Richter (°1932) took part in the 36 th Venice Biennial. In his country's pavilion he showed - apart from a number of city views, cloud series and mountain paintings - the now famous series of paintings, 48 Porträts [fig. 6].
Fig 6 Pavilion of the Venice Biannual , 1972, with installation of Gerhard Richters 48 Porträts[Gerhard Richter , tent. cat. (Parijs: Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1993), vol. II, 34]With this cycle, in which he copied in paint, on the basis of photographic material, the portraits of 48 scholars, he questions in an unprecedented way the genre of learned portraits. The immediate cause for the realisation of this monumental work, Benjamin Buchloh tells us, was the installation ' Two Sculptures for a Room by Palermo ', realised the previous year [fig. 7]. [6]
Fig. 7 Gerhard Richter, Zwei Skulpturen für einen Raum von Palermo , 1971, Munchen, Lenbachhaus[ Gerhard Richter , tent. cat. (Parijs: Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1993), vol. II, 26]
With this work, representing a double portrait of Richter himself and his German fellow-artist Blinky Palermo (1943-1977), Richter wanted to achieve a double enquiry: on the one hand about the tradition of the artist's self-portrait - to which I will be returning later in this contribution - and on the other hand about the (im)possibility of making learned portraits in the post-nazi and post-Stalinist era. The fascist and totalitarian political regimes that began to come to power just before the middle of last century - more or less coinciding with the death of Lieven Gevaert - had recuperated the portrait genre intensely, in order to make glorifying figurative representations of their leaders. Photography had become, in those ideological strategies, a privileged means of expression. [7] With its automatic claims to veracity, the photo was exceptionally suited to legitimate the leadership of figures like Stalin or Hitler. Those images are now part of the visual collective heritage. Anyone can visualize quite precisely Hitler's narrow, trimmed moustache as well as Stalin's thick, bushy moustache. Those photos - and we are talking about a considerable number - have been shown ad nauseam . They form the scars of the learned genre. With that traumatic memory at the back of his mind, Richter, who himself emigrated from Eastern Germany to the West in 1961, reviews that iconographic pictorial tradition of the representation of 'enlightened minds' in the early 1970s. When the biographers of Gevaert chose the image sequence for their book in 1955, they were in fact using iconographic conventions that had become taboo. This does not, in any way, diminish their visual choices, but in the light of an analysis of the fate of the learned portrait genre in the 20 th century, it is a crucial fact. In the post-war era, the adoration for learned individuals through one or a limited collection of images made way for commercialized and mediatized image data flows. The repeated television appearances of famous or important figures ensured, already from the 1960s, that the claims those isolated, traditional learned portraits made on the representation of the transcendence or the higher insight with which the individual in question was gifted, became much harder to defend. The horrible realisation that certain of those most learned minds are capable of the most appalling atrocities, was inevitably accompanied by a weakening of intellectual elitism. In a non-hierarchized, democratized society, the learned genre is, without doubt, in crisis.
Genius and learnedness: a difficult partnership
Along with Palermo and Marcel Broodthaers (1924-1976), Richter was undoubtedly among the first post-war artists to challenge the obsolete character of the traditional concept of a scholar. Via the 19 th -century romantic ideas, the notion of learnedness had, rather, evolved from the renaissance sprezzatura , shaped in literature by Baldassare Castiglione, into a combination of acquired erudition and innate inspiration. [8] The 19 th -century and early 20 th -century scholar was a man, obviously in a neat, tailor-made suit, with a starched white collar and a tie or bow tie, who was gifted, apart from his knowledge, with the hard to define, but in any case widely accepted genetically determined notion of genius. [9] The concrete interpretation of this concept actually came down to the man in question having more than excellently distinguished himself, in his own field, from his peers, who were intelligent, but less so than he himself. [10] He is, as it were, a primus inter pares . Nevertheless, the holocaust and the demise of communist ideals under Stalin had proved more than effectively the failure of such an over-simplified ideal of 'superhuman' learnedness. Genius, so it appeared, was not simply a synonym of kindness. Suddenly, from the late 1940s onwards, male 'genius' was also inevitably associated with danger, with the possibility of change into destructive aberrance. [11] With this horrifying conclusion, the conventional meaning of the entire genre of learned portraits tumbled into a taboo atmosphere. After Auschwitz, it was no longer obvious to represent a learned man, however good his nature, simplistically through the existing photographic codes of the learned portrait. The draft version of 48 Porträts , in which Richter stuck 48 black-and-white photo portraits, cut out by scissors, next to each other on two loose sheets, may show this even more sharply than the painted version [fig. 8]. [12]
Fig. 8 Gerhard Richter, Atlas , "Für 48 Porträts", 1971[ Gerhard Richter , tent. cat. (Parijs: Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1993), vol. II, 33]
This de-hierarchization and total equalization of the different individuals in question seriously damages the exclusive aura of learnedness which would undoubtedly surround an isolated, individual representation of each portrait separately. The juxtaposition of the characters effectively demystifies their 'learnedness' and largely annihilates the exclusivity claims of such photographic images. For, in spite of the fact that in some of them the names can be distinguished, the juxtaposing presentation relegates them back into a high degree of anonymity. Inevitably, Richter's approach raises a fundamental question: which of them is the 'rotten apple'? In who of them did things go wrong, did the learnedness turn into destructive annihilation? How relative is this notion of learnedness really, and, stronger still, what do we really know about these people? How 'veritable' is this extremely codified photographic representation of these characters effectively? Does it really prove their 'learnedness'? Were they as learned as they look? And does that automatically mean that they were 'good' people? History lessons have shown us that we can be mistaken. And also theoretical-philosophical photography research itself has meanwhile evolved. We now know that, contrary to what Roland Barthes phrased so romantically in 1964, a photo will not, as an instrument of proof, guarantee that something happened like that . [13] For, to what extent did the photographer intervene in the image process? What did he show within the frame, what did he leave outside it? Moreover, up to which point is what eventually does fall within the image, a matter of staging or of spontaneity? [14] To use a platitude: would it suffice to dress the biggest idiot in a dark tailor-made suit, starched shirt and tie and then take his picture in order to - if circumstances were favourable - secure him a place in history as a great scholar? The painted version of 48 Porträts at first sight seems to further increase this doubt. Displayed next to one another in an exhibition pavilion that architecturally calls to mind unmistakable references to those less salubrious pages from the German national past, the whole setting seems to be against these 48 men selected by the artist [fig. 6]. Yet, there is no doubt, on closer identification, that they are learned and literate in the classical meaning of the concept and that they do not have a fascist past. Moreover, by no means all of them are Germans. Thus we find, for instance, Franz Kafka, Oscar Wilde, Paul Claudel, Emile Verhaeren, and Graham Greene, next to Albert Einstein, Anton Webern, Rainer Maria Rilke and Thomas Mann. Strikingly, moreover, Richter has opted in the painted edition of 48 Porträts to represent 48 Western, white men in suits and - with the exception of André Gide - white collars. [15] This certainly strengthens the homogeneous character of the series, and undoubtedly should be seen as a statement. Also Buchloh's interpretation takes this direction, but he concludes negatively when he points out the 'sexist' character of the selection, with the notable absence of women, while "there are hundreds of women who, for the period in question, would justifiably be eligible for inclusion in the series, next to male personalities". [16] But the all too obvious absence of women and non-whites could also be interpreted positively as a deliberate instigation by the artist to fundamental reflection on the ubiquity of an oppressive, patriarchal Western heritage. [17] In connection with this, Richter urges us to think about the limited argumentations - with hindsight based on proto-fascist ideas - of an exclusively white, male genius. [18] The homogeneity of the image series is suffocating and gives an oppressive impression: it radiates fear. In the majority of the canvases, indeed, it is striking how the artist virtually has a photographic flash hit the forehead of these individuals. As such, the images seem to be balancing between good and evil: what was really going on in those learned heads?
Unpainting, or the relativity of truth
So, Richter has copied, in paint, 48 photos, and he is able to do this very accurately. But a typical characteristic of his method is that he always, after finishing this exact painted copy of the photographic image, to a greater or lesser extent 'unpaints' the representation. This 'unpainting' entails that he blurs specific zones of the image - or the entire representation, up to the reintroduction of abstraction - or at least reduces their precision. [19] In the series 48 Porträts , the unpainting is minimal, so these paintings come across as blurry photos, and this creates a very confusing effect. For, even though you tend to think it is a photo, you know you are looking at a painting. The indexical link between representation and reality, characteristic of the photo, has been disturbed. The artist, Richter, has put himself, as it were, in between the photo and reality. It is Richter who is imitating the photographic representation of reality. Indexicality turns into something imperfect in his paintings, something that doesn't quite work the way it is supposed to. Thanks to this artistic strategy, Richter rehabilitates the power of the painted image. He undoubtedly restores the iconic, representing potential to the art of painting, which it had to relinquish to photography. For in contrast with the photo, with its automatic claims to truth, which then may suddenly turn out to be false, the painting does not, and never had, this veritable ambition. Quite the contrary: a painting, by its very definition, only offers 'a possible vision' of reality. It reflects, first and foremost, the world view of the artist himself. In this series of paintings, Richter uses the codes and visual claims of truth of the learned portrait genre in photography in order to - through unpainting - incite a fundamental thought process about the representation and meaning of 'learnedness' today. Richter's paintings also show how the art of painting deals with time in a totally different way. Photography claims a special relationship with the past. In Barthes' words, it comes down to the photo showing that something happened in that way - "thus" - in the past. Until you suddenly realise or suspect that something is a set-up, and photography is revealed as the greatest imaginable medium of visual deception. [20] In one press of the button, the photographer catches a 'truth', so it is believed. When this later proves to be forged or staged, it leaves our belief systems deeply scarred. Paintings, as complex creations of a subject, cannot possess those direct presumptions of truth. [21] As such, their temporal dimension takes a radically different course. Instead of being made in a moment, a 'flash', they have been made through time. Thus, they present themselves much more as a 'presence', here and now, without making at all clear how the situation represented was then and, stronger still, whether it ever existed at all. Paintings do not directly have to bear the load of the past, in the way that photos do. The example of Richter's world-famous painting Onkel Rudi (1965) may be able to show that most emblematically [fig. 10].
Fig. 10 Gerhard Richter, Onkel Rudi, 1965 [ Gerhard Richter , tent. cat. (Parijs: Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1993), vol. I, 36]
In this picture, the artist copies, very precisely, a photo of his uncle Rudi in nazi uniform, only to subsequently blur the wet paint through his technique of unpainting. The man's photo bluntly confirms his identity: "he was a nazi". But as a painting, it is all a bit less clear: he was a nazi, but what did he do exactly? Was he just naive, or really nasty? And above all, the artist suggests, he was 'my' uncle. That creates a totally different, more complex and undoubtedly more balanced story about the man. The slowness and layering of making, as well as reading such images, makes this kind of painting into a reflexive, historiographic praxis. This work thinks about history, without the intention of giving it fixed meanings. It retains a metaphorical distance from the historical reality, which the photo, as a direct material trace of a state, can achieve much less easily. Richter's paintings prove that "painting after photography", as David Green writes, is a more than relevant artistic activity. [22] It is capable of developing a story or 'history' through one single image, stressing the current, critical content of the work. Richter's paintings work with a completely different process of genesis of meaning than their original photographic models: because they are, first and foremost, a presence in the here and now rather than a trace from the past, they operate in the present. That gives their narrative character an intervening connotation: they show that the past is not a closed case. What counts is the here and now, and the meaning of historical facts today, which in their entirety can no longer be reconstructed truthfully.
The scholar as 'hero of the nation'
Richter's so-called October series presents itself here as the example par excellence of such subtle treatment of the social-political reality. The 15-part cycle of paintings 18.Oktober 1977 from 1988 reflects on an unprocessed chapter in the German post-war history: the terrorism by the Baader-Meinhof group. The title of the series refers to the events on and after that specific day, when two of the Baader-Meinhof members imprisoned in the Stammheim prison in Stuttgart were found dead in their cells. Andreas Baader had been shot, Gudrun Ensslin hanged. Jan-Carl Raspe died shortly after his arrival at the hospital from his bullet wounds, while Irmgard Möller survived her stab wounds. A number of the paintings in Richter's cycle also refers to those facts [fig. 11 and 12]. But eventually, the entire series is about facts that cover more than a decade.
Fig. 11 Gerhard Richter, Erhängte , 1988[ Gerhard Richter , tent. cat. (Parijs: Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1993), vol. I, 124]
Fig. 12 Gerhard Richter, Erschossener (1) , 1988[ Gerhard Richter , tent. cat. (Parijs: Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1993), vol. I, 126]
As such, Richter uses a purposeful strategy. He uses one important historical date (18/10/77) in order to discuss, by means of pars pro toto , a longer period of time. He shows the arrest of Baader, Meins and Raspe in a underground car park in Frankfurt in 1972, where Meins was forced to undress while he was covered by an army tank - an image that could be seen on television, on the day of the arrest, no fewer than eight times by the German population [fig. 13].
Fig. 13 Gerhard Richter, Festnahme (1) , 1988[ Gerhard Richter , tent. cat. (Parijs: Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1993), vol. I, 126]
Thus he constructs a metaphorical discourse about historical facts which, nevertheless, did not belong to mainstream German history in the late 1980s - and which, even today, remain largely unsolved. By painting them so vaguely, and by using subtle forms of grisaille and different formats, he de-sensationalizes these images that come across as so spectacular on television or in photos. The media have shown them again and again, and precisely in that way, the inability of the photos to explain anything at all about reality was made clear. Huge numbers of pictures were circulating, yet nobody knew whether they had committed suicide or, rather, had been killed on state orders. The truth remained unclear; the so-called 'photographic evidence' was worthless. This is made even clearer in the touching painting Jugendbildnis [fig. 14].
Fig. 14 Gerhard Richter, Jugendbildnis , 1988[ Gerhard Richter , tent. cat. (Parijs: Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1993), vol. I, 135]
The somewhat archaic term, as we know, traditionally refers to a youthful representation of someone who 'made it' in later life. History painting made use, as has been mentioned, of such portraits, in the form of series, in order to rekindle the memory of important individuals for the nation, in retrospect. Richter goes along with this convention, but shifts it meaning completely. Indeed, he portrays Ulrike Mainhof, in other words someone who, from the official point of view, is seen as a pre-eminent enemy of the state. [23] Through this attack on the conventions of the genre he raises, while remaining detached, a fundamental debate on the importance of this person for her country. It is of course striking that Richter reserves this special title for the portrait of a woman. In his book Gerhard Richter. Doubt and belief in painting, Robert Storr publishes without too much further comment a wanted poster from ca. 1972, in which the members of the Baader-Meinhof group are pictured together [fig. 15].
Fig. 15 Zoekaffiche "anarchistische gewelddadige criminelen, Baader-Meinhofgroep", ca. 1972 [R. Storr, Gerhard Richter. Doubt and belief in painting (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2003), 186]
The lay-out of this poster, undoubtedly known to Richter, bears a striking resemblance to the Atlas version of 48 Porträts [fig. 8]. The most important difference is that the poster features women, whereas Richter's selection of learned heroes does not. But already in 1966, Richter made the much-discussed work Eight Student Nurses , in which he portrayed eight trainee nurses murdered by the American serial killer Richard Speck [fig. 16].
Fig. 16 Gerhard Richter, Acht leerling-verpleegsters , 1966[ Gerhard Richter , tent. cat. (Parijs: Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1993), vol. I, 39]
Entirely in the trend of 48 Porträts six years later, we see eight young women who, thanks to Richter's use of the visual conventions of the learned portrait, are presented to us as heroines of the nation. There can be no hint of sexism in his oeuvre. There is, rather, a subtle stimulation of an in-depth reflection about sex stereotyping and the chances given to men and women respectively to develop into fêted national heroes and scholars. As such, there is undoubtedly no coincidence in Richter's use of the conventions of the (photographic) learned portrait in order to portray one of the most stereotyped women professions, nursing, as subordinate to the - obviously - male doctor.
The 'learned' artist today
Richter's paintings succeed in avoiding a trap in which the photo is much more easily caught. They do not have any pretensions of truthfulness, and make no claim to historical authenticity. Thus, they keep complex social questions open and don't pin them down to a specific and definite answer. On the contrary, they stimulate a reflective process in the observer. Richter's images do not function as the definitive proof for closed chapters from the past, but as open, critical questions in the here and now; in this context, it is necessary for us to keep asking them today. They effectively shatter the illusion, only too common nowadays, that historical information, via the photographic medium or real-time television, is immediately and unambiguously available. As an artist, Richter takes up, through the painting, a position in between the photo and reality. Through this ambiguous position he wants to create a dialogue about artist-hood. What is the role of artists today in the transfer of information? Where the media 'colour' the facts, while maintaining the illusion that they don't, Richter's paintings do so literally: transferring data in a 'coloured' way is just part of the medium's ontology. In that sense it is all the more noticeable, though entirely consistent, that Richter likes to use greys, or the least colourful of colours. Two Sculptures for a Room by Palermo [fig. 7] is, in that sense, one of the most complex examples in his oeuvre. It allows for an analysis as a reflection on the learned sub-genre of the self-portrait, as an artistic indictment of the modern idea of the artist as an enlightened genius, as a pictor doctus who draws his reliability from the learned status that he has been granted. [24] Richter purposefully paints his and Palermo's busts in monochrome grey, as if to emphasize the grey matter in his head and at the same time neutralise it. Moreover, grey is also the colour that eminently links painting and photography. Through this choice for grey, Richter presents photography once more as the medium par excellence to make learned portraits. The now much-maligned busts of, for instance, nazi leaders, were invariably based on photographic images. By making a grey painted self-portrait in the reactionary form of a bust, Richter undoubtedly offers a fundamental reflection on the social role of artist-hood today. Apart from other elements, this is what links Richter's work with the work of the Belgian painter Luc Tuymans (°1958). Just like Richter, Tuymans made noticeably few self-portraits, yet his entire oeuvre, too, is imbued with a carefully considered vision on the present-day position of the artist in society and in particular on the critical interventions he can supply in the endless stream of visual information. Tuymans has frequently talked about his paintings as 'authentic forgeries'. [25] Thus he indicates most pertinently, that his oeuvre positions itself, indeed, within an age-old painting tradition, yet at the same time, in the post-photographic era, renews it. Painting is, for Tuymans, simply the most appropriate medium - in the literal sense of 'means' - to initiate an in-depth thought process about the way in which we experience reality. Today, maybe even more than in the past, we think reality in terms of images, and bring our past to mind through visual material we have made ourselves, or has been forced on us by the media. That is why there is much more at stake in Luc Tuymans' paintings than just giving a new interpretation of an existing painting tradition. His art simultaneously invites a much wider comment on the power and impotence of the image in our society. It initiates a visual debate around the fact that it has become so evident for us to think reality in terms of images that we can hardly 'remember' any other way. We live, collectively, in the perfect illusion that we can only realistically imagine war or famine in a certain area if we have seen, with our own eyes, a number of 'images' about it, on television or through another medium. Luc Tuymans' paintings, just like Richter's, shatter that illusion about the ultimate photographic image. In the context of this text, one crucial example is worth mentioning. In 2001, Tuymans participated in the 49 th Venice Biennial, where he exhibited a series of paintings that he made about the assassination of the Congolese politician and freedom fighter Patrice Lumumba. In 27 episodes, he tells a painted story of the circumstances in which the murder took place and the way in which not just Belgium, but the entire Western society has (not) dealt with it subsequently.
The learned portrait brought up to date
After Congo's independence, Lumumba came to power as president, after free elections. One year later, in January 1961, he was assassinated by a group of rebels with links to Joseph Mobutu. Although there was an attempt to explain the facts away as resulting from an internal African conflict, it soon became clear that Western interests were involved in the elimination of Lumumba. Not just the economic investments of the capitalist powers keeping the country in their control, were endangered. In the thick of the Cold War, it also appeared that the communist block was prepared to do anything to make Lumumba into the African Fidel Castro. Lumumba was, with full knowledge of the Western powers, silenced for good. Luc Tuymans aptly titled the phenomenal series of paintings that extracted this dark chapter in the Belgian colonial history from the collective memory, Mwana Kitoko [Beautiful White Man] . At first sight, this title seems to apply to one work in the series, i.e. a portrait of the young king Baudouin, with the title Mwana Kitoko [fig. 17].
Fig. 17 Luc Tuymans, Mwana Kitoko , 2000, Gent; SMAK[ Luc Tuymans , herziene uitg. (Londen: Phaidon, 2003), 205]
Mwana Kitoko or 'beautiful boy' in Congolese, refers to the nickname the indigenous people gave to Baudouin on his first official visit as a king to the country in 1955. The painting shows the young king, dressed in a white suit, disembarking from the plane on his arrival. Tuymans pictures him almost full-length, from a slight bird's-eye view. This painting contrasts sharply with another portrait in the series, which represents a frontal and close-up bust of Lumumba [fig. 18].
Fig. 18 Luc Tuymans, Lumumba , New York, 2000, Museum of Modern Art[ Luc Tuymans , herziene uitg. (Londen: Phaidon, 2003), 206 ]
In contrast with Baudouin, whose eyes are hidden behind sunglasses, the black man looks at us penetratingly. Eye to eye with the viewer, a circular movement of looks develops in Lumumba's portrait, as in a filmic loop. Lumumba's glasses then seem to take up position between the eye contact, like a simultaneously transparent and opaque screen. In a fascinating text about this series, Philippe Pirotte writes that Tuymans wants to confront us, through his portrait of Lumumba, with the hypothesis - impossible in the collective memory of the white man - of the black intellectual. [26] In the depth psychology of the white Westerner, the 'Negro' is ranked in the false category of the disadvantaged savage. In a very layered way, Tuymans' painting makes a number of asides on this problematic stereotype. On looking closely, it is noticeable that this black man looks remarkably Western or 'integrated'. Not just his clothing - obviously a black suit, white shirt and matching tie - but also his glasses show that he knew and followed Western fashion of the 1950s. Indeed, even Lumumba's Negroid facial features have been subtly moderated in the painting process. As such, he shows himself to us as a completely paradoxical figure who conveys, nevertheless, a remarkably self-assured impression. This is all the more noticeable when the painting is read in contrast with the representation of Baudouin who, in spite of the excessive power symbolism of his suit and attributes, radiates the greatest possible lack of confidence in his entire demeanour. In the frontal pose, moreover, Lumumba's face acquires a high degree of abstractness. Like in a filmic sequence, his face detaches itself, as it were, from the background, only to disappear back into it. The representation thus opens up in front of our eyes, before withdrawing back into itself. It confronts us with the power of the image as proof, yet simultaneously points out the incapability of remembering what exactly was going on. Tuymans' portrait of Lumumba is like a fault in the earth's crust. It seems the crack is about to widen at any moment, the earthquake is imminent. Lumumba's look is like dynamite, the white that Tuymans used to touch up his dark face, is like powder that will light the fuse. Who in this series is really the 'beautiful white man' the subtitle refers to? Which meaning does the word 'white' acquire in this context? If it is given the classical, iconographic interpretation of purity or cleanliness, it might refer to the black man rather than the 'white' man. Philippe Pirotte notes how Baudouin gives off an unnatural 'whiteness' in Mwana Kitoko : Tuymans considerably darkens his face, and smears it out, while Lumumba's is actually lightened. Also the insecure, virginal Baudouin, whom the black population was hard put to view as a complete person because he was unmarried, is veiled with the same ambiguous purity. Mwana Kitoko and Lumumba may be discovered as two sides of the same coin: they both, in their own way, bear the responsibility for the drama that was about to unfold, but both are also, up to a point, victim of a global system of power that held them in its grasp. Only the close-up with which Tuymans portrays Lumumba could indicate a greater involvement of the artist with the latter. The view of Baudouin is more distant, more observing. Tuymans allows Lumumba to get closer to us. Yet his white-diluted skin puts a mask on his face, as it were, just as James Ensor (1860-1949) did with his figures. But in contrast with the latter, Tuymans seems to disguise something about his figures, rather than disclose anything. Through this technique of disguising and disclosing, Tuymans indicates a more general phenomenon of meaning genesis: not only the image fails in the process of giving meaning, but also the collective memory itself is stacked with images and blind spots, whose connection it has lost track of. Tuymans literally points this out in Lumumba by applying a lighting spot on his forehead, suggesting the impact of a camera flashgun. Through the suggestion of this portrait as if it were the most banal passport photo, Tuymans masterfully succeeds in lending this image a sacral, mysterious character. [27] That spot is both the access to the image and the place where meaning escapes. What precisely went on inside this man's head, which story exactly matches it, we will never know for sure. The spot on his forehead stigmatises Lumumba and makes this image into both a chronicle of a death foretold and a rising from the grave that he does not have. Violence is the overpowering undercurrent of this performance, even though it is never shown directly. But that is exactly why it lingers all the more powerfully in the mind. The involvement of the artist, Tuymans, in the portrait of the black man is subdued but unmistakable, just as that was the case for Richter in connection with the photo of Ulrike Meinhof, which he called Jugendbildnis . In the whole of a series of paintings, which evoke the illustrious conventions of the historical genre, both artists assign a prominent role to an enemy of their own nation, respectively Belgium and Germany. The artist, as present-day scholar, does not show himself, but two prototypes that traditionally were not eligible for the conventions of the learned genre: the young white woman and the black man. It is hard to imagine a more in-depth discussion about the relativity of points of view and what today can effectively be meant by 'learnedness'.
Epilogue: the tragic adventures of Lieven Gevaert
In the light of the fundamental evolutions of the learned genre in the second half of the 20 th century, the figure of Lieven Gevaert emerges as someone who has fallen between two stools. Neither the portraits and paintings that were made in the 1930s, nor the scholar portrayed in them, reflect the slightest inkling as to the terrible developments that are about to take place on the European continent. But when Gevaert's biographers employ the pre-war iconographic conventions in the early 1950s, this glorious strategy has been superseded by the horrible social facts. The youth portrait of Gevaert indeed shows this man afterwards as someone who met the challenges of a great future, but who never received the wide public acclaim that is due to him. A poignant anecdote may confirm this: the big sculptural monument in honour of Gevaert, not coincidentally the last illustration in the 1955 biography, is somewhat deserted and forgotten today, right in the shadow of the company that he made great [fig. 19].[28]
Fig. 19 J. Lernout, E. Wijnants en J. De Cuyper, Lieven Gevaert-Monument te Mortsel , ingehuldigd op 3 mei 1941. [foto A.A. Van Uffelen, © Historisch Archief Agfa-Gevaert]
The time is ripe for a critical reflection on male and female learnedness in the 20 th century, of whatever cultural or racial background - from the pointed realisation that 'learned representations' of anyone will always remain in the grey area of a balanced argument. The white good and the black evil are, today, completely superseded bipolar extremes. The paintings by Richter and Tuymans artistically prepared the way. The art critics are now faced with the challenge to fill in the gaps, case by case. [29]
Notes
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