Sebastian Smee
Sebastian Smee. Thank you for agreeing to this interview.
What an intriguing way of exploring the lives and work of great artists, your book, The Art of Rivalry, approaches this task through their friendships and rivalries with other artists. How very human. What first gave you the idea of approaching art history through this lens?
If you look at some art and read the occasional artist biography, these relationships between artists are something you’re always aware of. They exist in poetry and music and other creative fields too – think of Coleridge and Wordsworth or Verdi and Wagner. But it was my specific understanding of Lucian Freud’s relationship with Francis Bacon that sent me down this path. Rather than just straight- out competitiveness, what interested me most was the dynamic of seduction – falling under someone else’s spell – and rejection – a kind of necessary or inevitable pushing away.
Each of the relationships had a tipping point, an event that changed the relationship in some way and impacted on the creative output of the artists. Did you know about these critical periods before you started the research or did that knowledge arise during the research and writing process?
A bit of both. Even though I knew Freud well, I didn’t understand the intricacies of his relationship with Bacon until I focused my research on the period in the 1950’s I ended up writing about. What I discovered amazed me.
There is a tendency for writers on art history to look at individuals as if they existed in a vacuum; or to write about movements, which, in many cases, have been constructed artificially by later observers. This book is so different because it gives a kind of intimacy with the artists that exists on another level. How important was it to offer this other dimension?
I think it can be helpful to get to know a few artists as human beings. You begin to understand – exactly as you say – that this stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum, nor in a way that matches the theorizing that comes later, and that motiviations can be grand and poignant as well as petty and a bit arbitrary. Love life usually has something to do with it. It’s all worth thinking about.
In this book you explore three pairs of highly significant 20th century artists: Matisse and Picasso; Bacon and Freud; de Kooning and Pollock; and you have also included Degas, and Manet, whose ‘scandalous painting’, Déjeuner sur l’herbe, was exhibited at the Salon des Refusés in 1863. The work of the latter pair spanned the second half of the 19th century, only nudging the 20th century. Can you tell us why you chose to write about these four pairs of artists, in particular?
One sort of followed on from the other – although not necessarily in chronological order. In each case a similar dynamic was established. One artist was technically gifted, the other less so. One was socially fluent, or charismatic, the other was more introverted or awkward. All were wrestling with similar artistic challenges, and there were many other points of biograhical and artistic connection. Freud, Bacon, Matisse and Picasso, for instance, were all profoundly influenced by Degas; Pollock and de Kooning went through crucial phases inspired by matisse and picasso. Peggy Guggenheim played a role in the career not only of Pollock but of Freud. The Steins collected Manet before moving on to Matisse and Picasso. And so on. Finally, all were modern (including Degas and Manet, who are generally credited with ushering in the era of modern art). Being modern mattered in the sense that they were interested in hitting upon a kind of radical originality, a new way of seeing. This meant disrupting established criteria for aesthetic excellence, which in turn meant a greater tendency to fall back on fellow artists for affirmation. This made relatrionships between leading artists both closer and more fraught.
There is directness of style in your writing that is particularly refreshing. Peter Schjeldahl, art critic for the new yorker, described your writing as ‘ clear as spring water’. How do you go about writing a book of this complexity while still keeping it accessible to the general reader?
That’s a lovely compliment, thank you. I think some people come to art expecting it to be difficult and abstruse, but in fact it’s very straightforward. If you are writing about relationships and psychology, as I do here, it should be especially easy to make it clear and accessible. I think most people instinctively relate to this stuff.
Now for something more personal. Can you tell us a bit about your journey from graduate in fine arts at Sydney University to art critic for the Boston Globe and Pulitzer Prize winner for criticism in 2011. What were your major influences?
Well, you mentioned Peter Schjeldahl. He was a major influence. But his style is so personal that it wards off imitation. I wrote for newspapers both in Australia (the Sydney Morning Herald, the australian) and in london (the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent, and so on) before coming to Boston. I learned a lot on the job (“there’s nothing I know that I didn’t learn on deadline,” as Schjeldahl once said). But there were plenty of models of clear and lively prose in the field of criticism, from John Mcdonald, Helen Garner, and Robert Hughes here to James Parker, Alex Ross, Adam Gopnik, John Updike, and Janet Malcolm in the US. I admire them all and many others besides.
Thank you Sebastian. I am really looking forward to hearing you speak at the St Albans Writers’ Festival.