Word: self-portraits
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Although such perceptions can dazzle, the poles of this novel are fuzzily drawn. Yet whatever Recovery is not, it remains a compelling, scarcely disguised self-portrait of a resplendent mind. It is worthwhile alone for its insights into the alcoholic and suicidal character. As Berryman's friend Saul Bellow observes in an astutely touching foreword to the book, what the poet "needed for his art ... he drew out of his vital organs, out of his very skin. At last there was no more. Reinforcements failed to arrive." *Jane Howard
NOTABLE EXHIBITS currently at Harvard include the Wertheim Collection now being shown at the Fogg, which includes a number of French late nineteenth century works of astonishing quality. All are carefully chosen, from the Van Gogh self-portrait with its bright green background burning through at the subject's eyes to a Matisse bowl of geraniums that illustrates the gradual way the twentieth century grew out of the advances of the eighties and nineties. There is not a weak or ordinary picture in the group and, together in one room, they provide an excellent area for cross-comparison...
...talents who because he never found a consistent style has been immensely difficult to appreciate. The early influences are the ones expected for the time: Corot and Manet in particular. The diversity is present right away in Hodler's work, and so is the excellence. The Angry One, a self-portrait of 1881, demonstrates a fully mastered technique and skillful if clearly derived composition...
Although they all come from live models or immediate motifs, none of Arikha's pages look as if they began with a firm, a priori grasp of reality. A case in point is his Self-Portrait Shouting One Morning, 1969. "I was in a filthy mood," Arikha recalls. "I climbed out of bed, yelling at my wife, yelling at the shaving mirror . . ." The bleary-eyed moment of evil temper is caught with acid precision in an image as transitory as the mood itself. The quick, scrubby notations for nose and cheek bone and wiry corncob hair compose themselves around...
...SELF-PORTRAIT WITH BIG STICK, by Thomas P.F. Hoving (1931-). A standing figure, slightly over lifesize, wearing a purple toga with a capital S (for Superman) on the chest, in red, now faded. The left hand points to a Master Plan. Despite reports in the New York Times, radiographic examination reveals no trace of horns or pointed tail in the under painting. In the background, above a landscape with kiosks and parking lots thought to represent Central Park, various allegorical groups symbolize the Master's career...