Oswaldo Vigas: Coming into the light as his country descends into darkness

Two current exhibits at the Orlando and Tampa Museums of Art are both focused on elevating artist profiles. I have written previously on Orlando Museum's exhibit Louis Dewis: The Resurrection of a Belgian Post-Impressionist. The Tampa Museum exhibit Oswaldo Vigas Transformations (January 31, 2019 - May 27, 2019) is part of a broader campaign to introduce the works of the Venezuelan artist to an audience beyond his native country and the Latin American arts community. The campaign is spearheaded by a foundation formed by the artist's son and widow for that express purpose.

Oswaldo Vigas was born in 1923 in Valencia, Venezuela, the son of a local doctor. He began painting at the age of 12 but entered Central University of Venezuela to study Pediatrics. His love of art won out, however, and he began to take his calling more seriously. He won the Venezuelan Fine Arts Prize in 1952 and utilized the ticket that was a part of the prize to travel to Paris and enroll in the prestigious École des Beaux Arts.

Vigas resided in Paris for 12 years and, while there, was an active member of the avant-garde art scene with friends such as Wilfredo Lam, Rufino Tamayo, Max Ernst, and Pablo Picasso. During that time, some of his pieces were a part of a group show at the 1954 inauguration of the Venezuelan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and, in 1962, he was selected to participate in the first exhibition of Latin American art at the Musée d'Art Moderne.

Vigas returned to Venezuela in 1964 and spent the remainder of his life there, continuing to paint, heading up the Art Department of the University of the Andes, and creating a film school. While primarily known for his painting, Vigas branched into sculptures, tapestries, printmaking, and ceramics during the 1970s and 80s.

Oswaldo Vigas

Vigas' art was inspired by:

• Venezuela's pre-Columbian and African cultural patrimony
• European and American modernism
• The great masters of western art, to include Pablo Picasso, Paul Gaugin, and Paul Cézanne.

His styles ranged over Surrealism, Cubism, Figuration, Abstraction, Constructivism, Informalism, and Neo-Figuration. Today his art can be found in private collections as well as in prestigious institutions such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Art Museum of the Americas.

Vigas died in 2014 at the age of 90.

A selection of the paintings included in the exhibit is shown below. In my view, the works done before his travel to Paris is simply stunning. According to the exhibition notes,

Oswaldo Vigas achieved success early in his career with imaginative abstractions and provocative figurative paintings. Depictions of women remained constant throughout his work and appeared as mythical forms in the guise of muses and idols. Vigas' admiration of pre-Columbian artifacts ... inspired his acclaimed series of Bruja (or Witch) paintings. ... This important suite of paintings, with its homage to the past yet anchored in modernism, established Vigas as one of Venezuela's most significant artists in the 1950s.

Composition with Blue Bird, 1942

Composition IV, 1944

Three Figures in Yellow (The Three Graces), 1948

Study for Dancer, 1950

Little Witch, 1951

Infant Witch, 1951

The below paintings "represent Vigas' vested interest in Venezuela's native traditions and landscape."

The curvilinear forms in Yare reference the colorful masks during the Dancing Devils of Yare, a traditional festival held in San Francisco de Yare, Venezuela, during the Feast of Corpus Christi. The Scorpion illustrates Vigas' approach to the organic forms of flora and insects.

Yare, 1952

Vestal, 1953

The Scorpion, 1952

The influence of the circles within which he moved while in Paris is evidenced by his shift away from "narrative figuration to structural compositions of interlocking forms and intersecting linear lines."

Project for Mural in Orange II, 1954

Two Nascent Characters in Yellow, 1953

Project for Mural in Green, 1953

Project for Mural, VI, 1953

Composition in Gray, 1954

His works in the early 1960s were influenced by his exposure to Zen Buddhism:

He filled his canvasses with spontaneous brushwork and layered color to create vibrant textured paintings.

Germination II, 1960

Germination III, 1960

Stone Sky, 1960

Megatú, 1962

Prayer, 1963

Vigas returned to Venezuela in 1964 and his work in those early return years lay at the intersection of figurative and abstract art.

Playfull, 1966

Solar, 1967

Oswaldo working on Solar

In the 1970s he approached figurative abstraction with a new dramatic form:

In his early works, static figures anchored the paintings. Here, the body appears to stretch across the composition as if in motion. ... He used contrasts between light and dark, as well as overlapping oblique shapes, to disrupt the picture plane. The past and present collide in these works as Vigas pays homage to Venezuela's pre-Columbian past and mythologies with a spirited modernist sensibility.

Appeared Blue, 1976

Blue Character, 1975

Oswaldo Vigas is world-class artist with a stellar body of work whose only sin is that he plied his trade in the Southern Hemisphere, beyond the gaze of the art cognoscenti. He painted across a number of styles but I was especially drawn to the fluidity, inventiveness, innovativeness, and color combinations of his figurative work which seemed less hemmed-in and monochromatic than his more abstract pieces.

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Ottavio Amigoni: Apparition of Saints Faustinus and Jovita in the Defense of Brescia

The Ringling Museum's (Sarasota, FL) Knights exhibition features Medieval and Renaissance arms and armor on loan from the collection of Florence's Museo Stibbert. The shine and lethality of the 100 or so offensive and defensive weapons on display are somewhat softened by the presence of nine paintings, none familiar to me.

In this series I explore the backstory of these pieces, beginning with Ottavio Amigoni's Apparition of Saints Faustinus and Jovita in the Defense of Brescia.

Ottavio Amigoni, Apparition of Saints Faustinus and Jovita
in the Defense of Brescia, mid-17th-century

The map below shows the location of Brescia, a part of the Republic of Venice in 1600, within the Lombardy region today.

Italy in 1600 with Brescia highlighted in the red oval

The patron saints of Brescia are Faustinus (the preacher) and Jovita (a deacon), nobly born Brescian brothers, who fearlessly preached Christianity while their bishop cowered in fear. According to tradition, the brothers were arrested for their activities, tortured, paraded down to Milan, Rome, and Naples, and then brought back to Brescia. They remained constant in their faith through it all so Emperor Hadrian ordered them beheaded. Depending on the source, this beheading occurred in 118 or 120 AD. February 15th is the feast day of the saints. The painting below dramatizes the beheadings.

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Martyrdom of Saints
Faustinus and Jovita

Italy's history is rife with wars between competing city-states and Duchys. During the early 15th century the Republic of Venice and the Duchy of Milan continued this tradition with a series of four campaigns which began in 1427 and ended with the Treaty of Lodi in 1454. In the fourth campaign of the series, the Venetian forces and their allies were led by Gattamelata and Francesco Sforza, while the Milanese force and its allies were led by Niccolò Piccinino. Piccinino laid siege to the city of Brescia in 1438.

The siege lasted from 1438 to 1440. During that time, 40 bombards battered the walls for months. The final attack, when it came, included 15,000 soldiers and 500 horses but they were repulsed by 1000 Brescian footsoldiers and 600 horses.

According to tradition, the victory was also owed to a miraculous apparition of the patron saints Faustinus and Jovita. A 16th-century monument halfway along Via Brigida Avogadro marks the spot where the saints appeared on the bastion of Roverotto.

Returning to the painting, the listed artist is Ottavio Amigoni (1606 - 1661), an Italian painter who was active in Brescia painting primarily frescoes. The bulk of his identified works are done in the Baroque style.

I have grouped the Amigoni painting with two similarly labeled efforts below for purposes of comparison.

Ottavio Amigoni, Apparition of Saints Faustinus and Jovita
in the Defense of Brescia, mid-17th-century

Gian Domenico Tiepolo, Saints Faustinus and Jovita Appear
in Defense of Brescia under Attack from Niccolò Piccinino
in 1438, 1754 - 1755 (Oil on canvas)

Grazio Cossali, Appearance of Saints Faustinus and Jovita in
the Defense of Brescia, 1603, Church of Saints Faustinus and
Jovita

Of the three, the Amigoni effort seems to be the least pre-occupied with its title. In the Tiepolo painting, the apparition is a dominant feature, floating effortlessly high above the battlefield, visible from all aspects. The saints are less monumental in the Cossali effort but are centered. with the construct of the painting, and the play of light, directing the viewer's eye to them. In the Amigoni effort, the saints are barely visible (apparitions) as stick-like figures within the confines of a shining halo which is itself almost obscured behind and within the smoke of battle.

The Amigoni painting seems to be more about the battle, the layout of the battlefield, and the heroism of the Brescians. It is constructed on multiple planes with the earliest part of the foreground occupied by non-combatants. Four of the five persons on the left side of the painting are looking out and are probably elites who would have been known to contemporary viewers. On the right-hand-side of this initial frame we see Piccinino, the leader of the Milanese forces, pointing out the apparition to another mercenary leader.

The central plane shows the flat land around Brescia Castle as a raging battlefield with charging horses and smoke rising from the arquebuses employed by the foot soldiers. The castle is the dominant structure, with its white stone walls unsullied by the battle raging around, its openings belch defensive fire at the advancing hordes, and defenders engage those who would seek to scale its walls.

Within the castle walls there is a tranquil, peaceful green space whose trees point us to the battle raging beyond.

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The role of artificial intelligence in identifying the footprint of an extinct human species

In his 2005 New York Times Bestseller Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari posited that, no one "... knows how many lost relatives of ours are waiting to be discovered ..." And recent scientific findings are showing his prescience.

Homo sapiens was known to have encountered Homo neanderthalis on their Out-of-Africa journey (which commenced approximately 80,000 years ago) because a number of non-Africa-resident human populations have 2% (on average) Neanderthal DNA in their genomes. According to a Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology study, DNA from Neanderthals may be influencing skin tone, ease of tanning, hair color, and sleeping patterns of present-day Europeans. Current-day Africans have very little Neanderthal DNA in their genes as they did not make the trek through Eurasia.

In 2010 a previously unknown human species was discovered as a result of DNA analysis on a  fossilized finger fragment found in the Denisova Cave in Siberia. The cave is known to have been occupied by Neanderthals but the analysis showed the fragment belonging to a hitherto unknown species, a species that was eventually named Homo denisova. Comparison of the Denisova reference data to human population genomes shows Denisovan DNA resident in some current Asian human populations.

John D. Croft at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

A more recent study compared 5,500 genomes of modern humans living in Europe, Asia, and Oceania looking for the presence of archaic DNA. The findings were as follows (Browning, et al.):

• All groups had clusters of Neanderthal DNA that matched Altai Neanderthal DNA
• Some populations had DNA clusters that matched the Altai Denisovan DNA
• There was a third DNA cluster that was unlike the Neanderthal DNA and only partially resembled the Denisovan DNA.

The authors concluded, based on the foregoing, that ancestral humans encountered, and mated with, two separate groups of Denisovans, providing two infusions of Denisovan DNA into the human genome. The hypothesis is that the first infusion occurred in present-day China, Japan, and Vietnam while the second infusion was taken on by the humans who continued into Southeast Asia. The impact of Denisovan DNA in modern-day humans is realized in the immune system and fat and blood sugar levels.

Analysis of a recent skeletal fragment from a 13-year-old girl who died 50,000 years ago showed that she had a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father, proof that these two species had interbred (Scientists surmise that Denisovans and Neanderthals diverged 390,000 years ago into distinct but closely related populations.).

She was not alone. A recent artificial-intelligence-driven study has identified the DNA footprint of an extinct hominid who interbred with ancestors of current-day Asiatics. The AI analysis posits that this extinct species is a Neanderthal-Denisovan hybrid; in other words a species with a DNA profile similar to that of the 13-year-old girl mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

The techniques used to ferret out the above information is called Deep Learning. According to the Center for Genomic Regulation:

Deep Learning is an algorithm that imitates the way in which the nervous system of mammals work, with different artificial neurons that specialise and learn to detect, in data, patterns that are important for performing a certain task. ... "We have used this property to get the algorithm to learn to predict human demographics using genomes obtained through hundreds of thousands of simulations. Whenever we run a simulation, we are traveling along a possible path in the history of humankind."

If the foregoing findings are borne out, a previously unknown, extinct human species will have been surfaced, much as Sapiens predicted.

Bibliography
Sharon Browning, et al., Analysis of Human Sequence Data Reveals Two Pulses of Archaic Denisovan Admixture, Cell, March 15, 2018.
Center for Genomic Regulation, Artificial Intelligence applied to the genome identifies an unknown human ancestor, Press Release.
Peter Doehill, Artificial Intelligence has found an Unknown Ghost Ancestor in the Human Genome, Science Alert.
Ben Guarino, Ancient Humans had sex with more than just Neanderthals, Scientists find, Washington Post, 11/11/19.
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Harper Collins, 2015.
Greta Jochem, Neanderthal Genes Help Shape How Many Modern Humans Look, NPR, 10/5/2017.
Michelle Starr, This Ancient Teenager had Parents from Two Different Species, ScienceAlert, 8/22/18.


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Louis Dewis: The Resurrection of a Belgian Post-Impressionist

Coming, as I do, from the world of wine, I am very familiar with the resurrection story wherein a formerly respected indigenous grape variety had fallen into obscurity (through disuse) and was rescued from near-extinction by the timely intervention of an intrepid "savior." Such was the case for the Schioppettina grape variety (Colli Orientali di Friuli, Friuli-Venezia Giulia), the Malagouzia variety in Northern Greece, and the Erbamat variety (Franciacorta region of Italy). Such is also the case for Louis Dewis in the art world, a story told in a current Orlando Museum of Art exhibition titled Louis Dewis: A Belgian Post-Impressionist. According to the museum, this exhibit "places Dewis's work in historical context and seeks to reestablish his role in the story of 20th-century French and Belgian art."

Louis Dewis at Work

Orlando Museum of Art

Born Isidore Louis Dewachter in Leuze, Belgium, in 1872, this eldest of 7 children showed an early interest in art, with high-quality paintings ascribed to him by the age of eight. He adopted the pseudonym Louis Dewis to adhere to his father's wish that he not associate the family name with such a "frivolous" activity as painting.

Dewis' family owned a chain department store called Maison Deurachter which had stores located in Belgium and France. Louis entered the business in Bordeaux where his father had moved to manage the flagship store. Louis continued to develop his painting skills while working to grow the family business. He was not supported by his father or his spouse in this endeavor.

The First World War wreaked havoc on the family business and this gave Louis the space to begin showing his works in local exhibitions. He began organizing exhibitions to aid Belgium and his works shown therein garnered the attention of George Petit, a dealer who usually exhibited the works of Monet, Pissaro, Renoir, and Sisley, among others. Petit encouraged Louis to sell his business and move to Paris to concentrate on painting full time.

Louis took this advice but Petit died within 1 year of the move to Paris. Notwithstanding that setback, Louis had a successful, 25-year career in Paris (Orlando Museum of Art):

• Exhibited throughout France and Belgium in the 1920s and 30s in addition to Germany, Switzerland, Algeria, and Tunisia
• His work was chosen for the International Exposition of Art and Technology and Modern Life in Paris in 1937
• His painting View of Bruges was purchased by the French Republic for the Palace of the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland
• In addition, he was a member of a number of French and Belgian artist associations.

Louis left Paris in 1940 before the German WWII occupation of the city and ended up in Biarritz where he died in 1946. Intent on preserving her father's legacy, Louis' daughter had all the material in the villa packed up and sent to her in Paris. The shipped material included 400 paintings along with hundreds of drawings. This material languished in storage for over 50 years and Louis slipped from the collective memory. That is, until the 92-year-old daughter mentioned the patrimony to her American great nephew who launched an effort to restore the works -- and his relative's relevance.

Selected Works from the Exhibition
In the earliest paintings, Louis experimented with techniques aligned with Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.

Water Lilies, c. 1916 - 1921

Notre Dame, c. 1919 - 1925

The Portal, 1915

View of the Siene, c. 1919 - 1925

In his landscape paintings draw from the French schools but the Belgian influence shows through in the "darker tones of the northern climate."

Snow in the Ardennes, 1921

The Poplars, c. 1927

Poplars at Brunelles, c. 1925

The Peace of the Fields, c. 1923

The Home of the Woodman, c. 1930 - 1940

Landscape of the Belgian Ardennes, c. 1919 - 1923

The Spanish Village, c. 1942

At the end of WWI, Louis was anxious to connect with Belgium, which had suffered terribly during the war. He returned there in 1919 and painted a number of scenes of Brugges, one of the best-preserved medieval cities in Europe. For these paintings he deserted his Impressionist style for a more expressive realism.

Dyle Bridge at Mechelen, Belgium,
c. 1919 - 1921

Rainy Weather, c. 1923

Near Herblay, 1919

Little Village Road, c. 1935 - 1945

Port of Villefranche, 1930

The Seine at Rouen, c. 1920

Eventually Louis developed his own style,:a synthesis of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Belgian Realism.

Two Boats on Lake Marion, 1945

Fisherman at Lake Marion, c. 1942

The Village Road, 1939

The Bright Seashore at Biarritz, c. 1939 - 1945

Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, 1940

Avenue Bellefontaine (Biarritz), 1941

This is one of the more meaningful exhibitions that I have seen at the Orlando Museum of Arts since I have been resident here. This is an important story in terms of the quality of the works, the period in which they were produced, and the role that the museum is playing in the rollout. All in all the exhibition was well curated and the story flowed. Keep up the good work, Orlando Museum of Art.

©Everythingelse238