Modern Spirit: The Group of Eight & Los Angeles Art of the 1920s

by Susan M. Anderson

 

Color and Metaphysics in the Natural Environment

In Edward Vysekal's painting The Herwigs a mother sits outside on a window ledge, rapturously bathed in the sunlight pouring down from above, with her naked child standing in her lap. The child reaches up toward a small bird feeder or wind chime that has been transformed by cubist rendering into a small, temple-like object floating above. Behind them stands the father with his arms outstretched in a gesture of blessing, or perhaps recalling Christ on the cross, while appearing to be leaning with his hands against a closed glass window -- as though he, too, is outside, with the Hollywood Hills spread out behind him. With the French window open, its front edge visible as a strong vertical to the right of the contemporary Holy Family, what we have is a sophisticated, impossible space.

Art critic Arthur Millier called The Herwigs "a landmark of figure painting in this region."[50] It is also a masterful summation of some of the prominent directions appearing in the work of the Group of Eight and other Los Angeles artists of the 1920s. A mysterious, ambiguous painting with metaphysical overtones, it suggests that we are witnessing not a moment in actual time but an event of another order, in which one can be both inside and outside at the same time. The placement of what looks like an open tomb to the right of the family suggests spiritual rebirth and redemption. The art of the 1920s, which was personal and communicated great feeling, was not always meant to be understood in a literal sense. The representation of revelatory contact with the living world was pivotal.

The tilted perspective of the painting, which directs our attention to the loosely painted, cubist abstraction of the hills beyond, along with the tonic palette of yellows and oranges, indicate Vysekal was well versed in the work of Macdonald-Wright. Vysekal likely chose the key of yellow for The Herwigs in order to reflect a subject that, according to Macdonald-Wright's Treatise on Color, "is radiant, joyous, sunny, and of no great solidity."[51] Millier noted that the glowing color had the effect of "spiritualizing" the painting.[52] Vysekal mastered the layering of transparent washes to create a vibratory effect, as of colors being refracted through a prism. Macdonald-Wright practiced a similar approach, derived from his study of Cézanne's watercolors and Chinese brush paintings. Although Vysekal drew upon the teachings of Macdonald-Wright, like others in Los Angeles during the 1920s, his work was very different from his colleague's and never derivative. This was true of other members of the Group of Eight.[53]

Macdonald-Wright was one of the first prophets of European modernism to have a deep and lasting impact on the art scene in Los Angeles. In 1920, with loans through Alfred Stieglitz, he had organized the Exhibition of American Moderns at the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, providing a look at influential American modernist painters from across the country, including Thomas Hart Benton, Oscar Bluemner, Andrew Dasburg, Charles Demuth, Arthur Dove, Preston Harrison, Marsden Hartley, Konrad Kramer, John Marin, Man Ray, Morgan Russell, Charles Sheeler, Joseph Stella, and others. The landmark exhibition furthered an incipient dialogue about European and American modernist movements.

Macdonald-Wright's teachings, first private ones and those offered at Chouinard from 1920 to 1923, then those at the Art Students League from spring 1923 to 1932, introduced a generation of artists to a range of styles -- such as cubism, expressionism, futurism, and synchromism -- as well as an interest in Asian art and philosophy. Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell had founded the synchromist movement in Paris in 1913, advocating abstract painting based on the analogy between music and color. He then became affiliated with Stieglitz in New York before returning to California in 1918.[54]

During the 1920s, most of the Group of Eight at least briefly attended Macdonald-Wright's lectures or classes at either Chouinard or the Art Students League (and De Kruif taught with Macdonald-Wright at the Art Students League satellite in San Pedro in 1930).[55] Two of the group members were close to the circle that surrounded the artist. Edouard Vysekal studied with him soon after Macdonald-Wright moved to Los Angeles and taught at the Art Students League before he took over its direction; Alvarez was a dedicated student who transcribed some of the lectures Macdonald-Wright gave at Chouinard and the Art Students League from 1920 to 1925.[56]

Little is known about the private feelings or spiritual searching of the members of the Group of Eight, except for Alvarez. She documented in her diaries a sixteen-year dedication to the teachings of the writer, philosopher, and spiritual leader Will Levington Comfort in the pursuit of spiritual fulfillment. She made a series of symbolist paintings or "decorations" beginning in 1925 that are a rapprochement between her interests in meditation and Eastern philosophical ideas and Western modernism. They were also an effort to move away from easel painting toward muralism, design, and architectural decoration.[57]

Vysekal was a midcareer artist with an interest in modernism prior to meeting and studying with Macdonald-Wright. Apparently his work was advanced enough by 1920 that when Macdonald-Wright held a showing of "Synchromist Painters" in the Vysekals' studio, his work was included along with that of Russell, Benton, William Yarrow, Preston Dickinson, and Macdonald-Wright himself. Vysekal had taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1912 to 1914, before moving to Los Angeles.[58] Following that, he taught at the Art Students League for several years beginning in 1919, the same year he founded the California Progressive Group with Shore, Dunlap, William V. Cahill, and Luvena Vysekal. In 1922 he joined the Otis faculty and taught at that school until his death. Three others of the Group of Eight taught at Otis as well. Shrader, who had begun teaching there in 1918, became dean in 1923. Rich joined the faculty in 1921; Schuster in 1923. Hinkle, who had studios in Los Angeles and Laguna Beach, taught at Chouinard from 1921 to 1935.[59]

The Group of Eight was not an Otis Art Institute phenomenon -- that is, it did not grow out of the artists' associations at Otis. Rather, Otis benefited from an established synergy that the progressive artists brought to the school. While the Art Students League may have been the most important nexus for modernist experimentation in Los Angeles, and Macdonald-Wright the most advanced regional modernist, the fact that he was a "one-man band" at the Art Students League signals a limited curriculum. Otis Art Institute, situated at the edge of Westlake Park in the former mansion of General Harrison Gray Otis, founder of the Los Angeles Times, provided a vibrant, nurturing community and an extensive curriculum of fine and applied arts. It was a more traditional academy of art, offering a strong grounding in the art of the past and in academic technique. Shrader, who was dean, brought remarkable energy and engagement to powerful, community-building activities in Los Angeles through his studio home, his presidency of the California Art Club, and his devotion to Otis. But he was also deeply committed to creating an atmosphere conducive to modernist experimentation.[60] Serious students of art were encouraged to float between schools and to be active in the various clubs in town, like the California Art Club, the California Water Color Society, the California Print Club, and others. The art schools and clubs in Los Angeles were intersecting universes that shared members, teachers, students, and models.[61]

That Otis had an atmosphere that was conducive to experimentation and camaraderie was due in large part to Edouard Vysekal's presence at the school. Vysekal, "a colorful, fiery artist who favored velvet coats and flowing ties and brought a European flair to Otis," taught anatomy, life drawing, composition, and landscape painting. His syllabus at Otis encompassed classical art as well as the modernism of Monet, Seurat, Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, and Macdonald-Wright.[62] All the regional schools, including the Art Students League, emphasized drawing from live models in the academic manner. Vestiges of lectures Vysekal gave at Otis on anatomy in 1927 survive, giving a flavor of his teaching and personality. He considered life drawing to be an essential vehicle for portraying expressive ideas: "What decides the artist is the rare sensitivity necessary to distinguish between essentials and nonessentials. When I see a drawing one of the thoughts that comes to me is -- does it show marks of rare penetration? Could just anyone have done it? To see further than the outline takes knowledge, takes culture. Be faithful to your knowledge, use it."[63]

Edouard Vysekal and his wife, Luvena, progressed together as artists and were both well respected. In 1922 and 1923, Luvena created a series of written portraits of prominent artists, critics, and dealers. Her writings, published anonymously in the Los Angeles Times under the pen name Benjamin Blue, indicate her high stature in the art world; they also show that the art community had reached a degree of development and sophistication in which the candid portraits might be recognized and talked about.[64]

Luvena Vysekal's Benjamin Blue writings were revealing, incisive, and full of sarcastic wit. Perhaps none were as mean-spirited as the one she wrote on Macdonald-Wright, here briefly excerpted: "'Synchromie Cosmique' is one of his favorite dishes for breakfast, and he dotes on 'thematic romanticism.' He and Cézanne, you know, started the whole thing a going, only Cézanne lacked the 'broadly philosophic mind' to 'dynamically organize' the 'specific exterior' in its 'absolute finality,' therefore he can't be called the papa of synchromism, just its uncle. Even so, it should be emotionally gratifying."[65]

A painting Luvena Vysekal showed in the 1927 Group of Eight exhibition, The Aesthete, exemplifies the artist's sarcastic wit in its mannered stylization of a man dressed in a Japanese kimono grasping a colorful fan in one hand and a single iris in the other. Arthur Millier called the painting "a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan."[66] While the painting can be read as a mocking satire of a homosexual male, socially viewed then as "a harmless aesthete or mannish invert,[67] it also seems to reflect everything that Luvena Vysekal disliked about Macdonald-Wright in particular.

 

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