March, 2021 - Of Art and Wine

Art, Artists, Money, and 90+ Point Wines to Spend It On.

Damien Hirst, For the Love of God. 2007.

Yes, those are flawless diamonds, all 8,601 of them. I don’t know about the teeth, but they might be expensive dental work, too. At any rate, this piece was purchased for 100 million dollars and is the most expensive contemporary art work ever made – so far. I say so far because all of us who create art aspire to get the ultimate market value for our work, preferably upfront. It was Damien Hirst, the artist who created this piece, who put that idea into our heads. We should sell at the price that collecors bid the work up to. Artist should get more money on the front end, For the Love of God! (which is also the name of this piece of art).

Of course, Hirst went so far as to completely go around the normal gate-keepers: the galleries and the art dealers. He did an auction of new work from his studio in 2008 by going straight to Sotheby’s auction house. He was duly punished as an art world outcast for a number of years, a story that art publications made a cautionary tale out of. However, he made a startling comeback in Venice in 2017, where he sold over 300 million dollars of art! So what is Hirst’s secret? Well, he seems to have turned his art into a luxury goods business on the one hand, and on the other, once his reputation was built, he went solo (or rogue depending on your point of view). Rather like those actors who left the old Hollywood studio system, Hirst left the galleries to deal direct.

Damien Hirst in all his defiant glory. Photo credit Francesco Guidicini newyorker.com Click image to magnify.

Of course, Hirst isn’t the only artist who, after having gained fame, took it to the outer limits. Time for a famous story about the old money machine himself, Pablo Picasso, of whom his daughter Maya said, “My father is a man who lives modestly, with a lot of money in his pocket.” This matches a quote from the King Midas of Art himself, saying humbly, “I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money.” Of course, his various villas on the French Riviera show that he may have failed in this ambition. However, this contradiction in his life did not seem to bother him at all. Nor did his life long declaration of being a communist conflict for one minute with his huge valuable art collection (his own work and yes, some pieces by Matisse).

Just to show how far he could go to demonstrate his “art” power, he once made his own money. When shown a new 500 franc bill, he asked to look it over. A friend handed him the new bill which had a border in white.

Picasso looked at it and said, “I am King Midas. In two seconds I can make this into a 1,000 francs.” He took a pen and began to draw a bull fight along the white edges of the bill. Afterward he signed it, of course. He then handed it back to the man, who later showed it off to a group of friends, one of whom immediately gave him 1,000 francs for it, proving Picasso’s point. Picasso/Midas was known to pay for meals by signing napkins he had doodled on. His most interesting foray into creating his own money was when he ran into trouble with the SPA, the French SPCA, in Vallauris, where in 1961, a bull fight had been held in his honor. A lawsuit was filed about animal cruelty, costing him legal fees of 5,000 francs. The artist sent his lawyer a check that he had designed, for 5,000 francs, with a date and his signature. The lawyer framed it and kept it in his office – a truly original Picasso.

Le Désespéré or The Desperate Man by Gustave Courbet 1844 Click image to magnify.

Gustave Courbet was a 19th century French painter that wanted to push the boundaries of art. Even though he painted during a period of Romanticism, his focus was on Realism, which was a rejection of the romantic painting that had been held over from the 18th century. In particular he wanted to deal with the plight of the working man. However, he did not necessarily want to be poor himself. While he is famous for shaking things up with paintings like the one above or his even more famous, Origin of the World, musee-orsay.fr, he claimed that he “minted money with flowers.” And so he did with these very sweet paintings that we now might see reprinted on candy box covers. Most of them bore names like A Basket of Flowers or Flowers in a Basket, and they sold very well.

A Basket of Flowers, 1863 and Flowers in a Basket, 1863 both by Gustave Courbet.

Specialization is nothing new in the world of art. Titian did it with his portraits in 16th century Venice. He even had a niche within a niche when it came to doing portraits of Charles V of Spain. Everyone who was anyone wanted a portrait painted by Titian, and for great sums of money, the artist was happy to oblige. In some ways, he may have been a forerunner of Andy Warhol, who also specialized in portraits. Men, women, children, dogs, even cans of soup got his stylized two-dimensional treatment at “The Factory,” as Warhol’s studio was called. Even though he did not approach creating any feeling of depth in his portraits, Warhol worked on the faces of his clients like a master plastic surgeon. He would elongate a neck, shorten a nose, enlarge lips, clarify the skin tone, or simply pop in unusual colors, all to embellish the look of his subjects. And he churned the images out en masse, which makes the name of his studio take on a truly industrial connotation.

Marilyn Monroe and Liz Taylor and Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol, 1965.

While it would be truly wonderful to use these examples to debunk the image of the starving artist, what makes for success combines a number of factors, not the least of which is timing. A great step forward into a new era of painting, at just the right moment, combined with a talent for marketing and the ability to create mystique, can do the trick but are difficult to align.

This leaves us to think of the Patron Saint of the Starving Artist, Vincent Van Gogh, here drawn by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. His life story is full of “what ifs.” What if he had been born a bit later? What if his brother, Theo, had been a more daring art marketer? What if his estate had gotten even a small percentage of the monies that have traded hands over the years to buy his paintings? That last is something for all artists to think about. How about that instead of just owning the rights to our images for our lifetimes and for 70 years after our deaths?

What if the artist or the estate of the artist got paid a precentage of the sale each time a painting changed hands through purchase? Film actors get residuals anytime anything they performed in is run on television anywhere around the world. Residuals of that type might be an idea that would please both Damien Hirst and Pablo Picasso, and keep the wolves from the door of many another artist.

Primay sources for some of the information in this article are Les Artists Ont Toujours Aimé L’argent (Artists Have Always Loved Money) by Judith Benhamou-Huet and “The False Narrative of Damien Hirst’s Rise and Fall” by Felix Salmon newyorker.com.

Images of work by Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol used in accordance with Fair Use Policy for purposes of critique and review.

Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor, and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.com or her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com.

90+ Point Wine$

Ondulé Red at $79.99 Photo credit to The Creative Exchange on unsplash.com

Wine making like painting produces a wide range of products, varying from the truly awful to the exquisitely divine. We are sticking with divinity here, as we approach the subject of 90+ Point Wines. First of all, who among us did not even guess that wine had scores like on a final exam? As a teacher, my eyes focused clearly when I first came across this scoring system. I wondered what wine gets a grade of 90+? I admit that as a teacher I seldom had monies for bottles of wine costing hundreds of dollars. Of course now that I intend to be a rich artist, watch out!

Just to satisfy your curiosity as to how high the prices can go, here is a link to “The World’s Top 50 Most Expensive Wines” wine-seacher.com. Believe me these are in the Damien Hirst category. For most of the rest of us, a look at 90+ point wines that cost $100 or less brings the whole subject into reach. So what does that 90+ score mean?

There is a lifestyle magazine called Wine Spectator, founded in San Diego in 1976. It was purchased by its current publisher and editor, Marvin R. Shanken, a few years later. It was he who started the Wine Spectator Wine Tastings in 1986. Naturally, if you are going to compare tastes, there must be some system for ranking the different wines. Hence a grading system was developed. For a detailed wine tasting chart and the rankings of wines from different countries, click this link winespectator.com.

As with your final exam essay, for those of you who remember any of those, 95-100 is A, stratospherically divine. 90-94 is an A- which is outstanding, to be sure. 85-89 is very good, special even. 80-84 is good but well made. 75-79 is passing, moderately drinkable. Below that one gets into plonk, a term from Australian English that means wine of low cost and low quality.

There are several magazines that deal with wine ratings; however, their standards vary. Wine Enthusiast, for example, is a bit more generous in its ratings. As in the art world, the world of wines has its top critics, the Clement Greenberg or Robert Hughes of the industry. Wine Spectator’s Robert Parker plays a major role in the setting of prices of Bordeaux wines. He is of such fame that the French made him Chevalier de L’Order de la Legion d’Honneur. He also has his own monthly publication called The Wine Advocate. Michael Broadbent, who passed away last year, was the person known for establishing the wine auction during his time as a specialist at Christie’s.

So now let’s get down to the basics, like how the ordinary wine enthusiast experiences some of these wines. Here Robert Parker does not let us down. Millesima Fine Wine has a detailed list of 90+ wines, with the rankings by Parker, that range in price from around $20 to about $80 (see millesima-usa.com). They include red wines, whites, sparkling wines and champagne, Burgundy wines, as well as white Bordeaux, and all with his ranking numbers. These tend to range around 92 on the grading scale and offer excellent tasting experiences.

Another way to get the experience of these wines is to join a wine club. Cellars Wine Club, for instance, has a 90+ Point Wine Club with wines that rank those points on Robert Parker’s scale. One can enjoy a shipment of a couple of bottles or endulge one’s desires to expand one’s knowledge of these fine wines by joining the 90+ Point Case Club. All of the wines come with tasting notes and free shipping.

Art and wine have so much in common, from the artistry and science of their creation, and the way they can be viewed and tasted, to the role of the critics in helping to define and shape what we enjoy. As I say when giving the premise that this blog is based upon, art and wine are the perfect cultural pairing.

Articles used in this look at 90+ Point wines are linked in blue.

Of Art and Wine affiliates with Bluehost.com and CellarsWineClub.com and may earn from qualifying purchases.

©marjorie vernelle 2021

Coming Soon: Pre-Raphaelites and Melancholy Women, plus Wine in the Anglophone World.

Ophelia by Sir John Edward Millais, 1851-52.

Though when looking at this painting, one might not think of the Pre-Raphaelites as rebels, in fact, they were. They wanted to go back to the art that came before the Renaissance of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo. Yet while they wanted to turn back the hands of time, their art does have links to the forward movement of Impressionism.

An Art History C.S.I. and Wine and Poison, a Lethal Combo.

Self-portrait of Masaccio from the Brancacci Chapel in Florence, Italy.

Well, there he is, a Renaissance rock star without the rock music. What he rocked was painting. You can tell by the expression on his face that he was a no-nonsence type of guy, rough around the edges and maybe at the core as well. While his given name was Tommaso, or Thomas, he was known as a big fellow who cared little for personal grooming, thus he was nicknamed, Masaccio. In its kindest form it means Big Thomas, but it also means Messy Thomas or Dirty Thomas. He blazed brightly in Florence in the 1420s before taking his talent to Rome in 1428, the hot spot for papal commissions. However, he never returned, as someone supposedly killed him there that same year. Our search to find out what happened begins there and with two of the several competing theories about how he died.

According to a version I heard in an art history lecture I attended when living in Avignon,France, former seat of the Papacy, Masaccio’s fame preceded him to Rome where major jealousies were inflamed among the other artists vying for those papal commissions. This was added to by reports that Masaccio had developed a secret formula for creating a brilliant red. In fact, he had already shown his penchant for color in his works in Florence (see the portrait of St. Jerome in his red cardinal’s robes).

Producing colors, especially brilliant ones, was not an easy task in the early 15th century, so the idea that a formula for brilliant red was possible caused a great stir. One night as Masaccio walked down one of the narrow streets in Rome’s rabbit warren of small dark streets, a fellow artist, jealous of Masaccio’s talent and that newly created red, stabbed Masaccio in the back, leaving him to die on the street. I have searched for a printed version of this story but so far can only point to what the art historian said in the lecture.

The next story, I do have a written source for. It comes to us via Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists. It was written about 140 years after Masaccio’s death, but that is at least 460 years closer to Masaccio than we are. Vasari also believed that it was a jealous fellow artist who did Masaccio in, but this time it was by poison. One thinks immediately of the Borgias and their elaborate jeweled rings which held secret compartments of poison. A tilt of the hand and deadly powders could be dropped into the wine gobblet of some unsuspecting dinner guest. Given Masaccio’s crude life, it probably didn’t happen that elegantly. However, there is another problem here. Vasari’s writings, though well-studied and respected, have been investigated over the years and sometimes show gross inaccuracies. For instance, for centuries the art world took his story of Andrea del Castagno’s having murdered his rival Veneziano to be historical fact. However, in recent times, a bit more digging into the records shows that Veneziano outlived Castagno by five years, so if he was murdered, it was not Castagno who did it. Rest in peace Andrea, your reputation has been restored.

At this point, it might be better to take a look at why Masaccio was so famous. First of all, he was very young, still only 26 when he died. He was born near Arezzo in 1401, came to Florence in his late teens, managed to be accepted into the painter’s guild at age 19, and was befriended by Donatello and Brunelleschi, two of the greatest innovators in Florence at that time, one in sculpture and the other in architecture.

It was 1425 when this painting rocked the art world in Florence. Known as The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, it was the first painting since classical times with bodies painted as they might naturally appear. In addition the figures are visibly emotional, suffering both grief and shame as the sword-bearing angel harries them out of paradise. Giotto, who painted 100 years before this, is credited with starting the return to natural realism in figures, but his were still within the stylistic structure of International Gothic. These figures go well beyond that or even the ones of the other painter who worked with Masaccio on the same project, the Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine. To see the difference, look just below.

Masolino da Panicale (known as Little/Delicate Thomas) Adam and Eve in The Temptation

Tommaso da Panicale was an older artist hired by the Brancacci family to work with Masaccio on their chapel. He became known as Masolino or Little/Delicate Thomas in contrast to his workmate, Big/Dirty Thomas. The older artist’s work here shows some awareness of the value of shadow in terms of making figures more natural looking (notice the shadow on Adam). His Eve, however, seems a lot flatter because of the lack of shadow, and both figures are rather placid though they are on the cusp of losing everything. Though the work of the two artists blended well, it was Masaccio’s figures that wowed the arts of Florence, and he was only beginning. Fifteenth century Florence was focused on the idea of creating depth in painting and drawing, of making something in two dimensions seem as though it contained three dimensions. Masaccio struck a major blow in that direction with his Holy Trinity, a painting in the Church of Santa Maria Novella.

The Holy Trinity painted by Masaccio (1426-28) in Santa Maria Novella

This painting, especially as it was originally aligned with an entrance to the church, was designed to give the feeling of depth, as though one could continue down some hallway behind the crucifixion scene. There was even a stone ledge separating the top of the painting from the skeletal figure on a stone coffer at the bottom of the painting. This added to the visual tricks to make the eye see depth and reality instead of a just paint on a flat wall. In particular, the coffered ceiling forming a vault over what appears as a hallway behind the main scene was exactly the goal of Florence’s search for perspective, the visual creation of depth. The figures below the crucifixion are Mary and St. John on the upper tier and the two patrons who paid for the painting, a husband and wife, on the bottom tier. Notice how they are aligned like steps that lead to the central figure of Christ. To understand how Masaccio used linear perspective to achieve this illusion, the video Empire of the Eye: The Magic of Illusion: Holy Trinity – Masaccio, takes the painting apart using 3D computer technology to show how Masaccio created this work, youtube.com.

Needless to say, that it was not only Filippo Brunelleschi, the creator of the fabulous dome that covered the great church Santa Maria dei Fiori (the Duomo of Florence), who mourned the loss of this talented young painter. Brunelleschi said upon hearing that Masaccio had died, “We have suffered a great loss.” So we return to the question of how did he die. As has already been seen, his life is rather mysterious. He even goes by two formal names, Tommaso Cassai and Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone. While there are two stories of Masaccio dying because of artistic violence perpetrated out of jealousy, it is also quite possible that he died from either plague or perhaps the malaria that often infected Rome in the summers. There is a theory that he might have committed suicide, but there is no rationale given for why. Since he was already famous in Florence, it would seem he had a lot to live for, so I discount the suicide theory.

Regardless of how it happened, the fact that there were artistic rivalries so strong that violent actions took place can be seen in how Michelangelo received his flattened nose. In Alexander Lee’s, The Ugly Renaissance, Sex, Greed, Violence, and Depravity in the Age of Beauty (see erenow.net), he tells of how Michelangelo while sketching in the Brancacci Chapel engaged in a dispute with another promising young artist, Pietro Torrigiano, over who was talented enough to carry on Masaccio’s tradition.

Michelangelo, of course, declared himself to be that person. Tired of his classmate’s arrogance and sharp tongue, Torrigiano punched him in the face, declaring later that it was his greatest pleasure to feel the bone of Michelangelo’s nose crunch between his knuckles. Thus the extremely flattened nose Michelangelo is always depicted with. A fist fight in the holy chapel, perhaps Masaccio’s death by foul play, the tales are many. One thing for sure is that Masaccio led the way into the Renaissance, and who knows, he may have discovered a formula for brilliant red. Just look at Mary Magdalene’s cape.

Mary Magdalene at the Foot of the Cross by Masaccio, 1426.

Sources used for this post come from Giorgio Vasari, Vies des Artistes, translated into French by Léopold Léclenché and published by Citadelle Mazenod, France. Notes are also from an art history lecture at the Petit Palais, Avignon.

Wine and Poison, a Lethal History.

Death Comes to the Banquet Table by Giovanni Martinelli, 1635.

Shock, fear, loathing, shame, and blame, they can all be seen on the faces of the characters in this 17th century painting. Notice that Death is holding an hourglass in one skeletal hand while approaching one of reverlers who is seated at a table of good eats and wine. Of course, Jeanine Gros, a winemaker from France’s Côte d’Or states without equivocation, ” ‘Wine’ and ‘poison,’ these two words do not belong in the same sentence” (from The Assassin in the Vineyard). I wholeheartedly agree, but history often tells a different story.

One form of poison which came to be known as “the poison of kings and the king of poisons” was arsenic. While there are medical journal articles telling how arsenic has been used for “medicinal purposes” over the years to help with sleeping sickness and syphilis, it was known even in ancient times to be an effective, hard to detect way to move someone on to the After Life. Renaissance Italy was notorious for its use. In particular a certain concoction known as a cantarella (arsenic and toxic putrefaction alkaloids) got its name possibly from the small liqueur glasses that sweet dessert wines were served in. Just something a little extra to finish off a dinner. The fact that arsenic is odorless and tasteless means it can be mixed with food or wine very easily. The symptoms, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, are similar to many other common ailments. It could kill quickly in a day or be given slowly over a year’s time and was effective either way.

Arsenic became known as the “powder of succession.” There was even a type of school run in Italy by a Hieronyma Spara to help wealthy young wives become wealthy young widows. Of course, the Borgias, the pope and his children, Cesare and Lucrezia, were all known poisoners, with Cesare and his father, Pope Alexander VI, actually poisoning each other (Accidentally? Or was it a kind of “quick draw” poisoning match?) Wine was often the means of delivery as after a few cups, who was keeping track of which cup went where, or who was pouring? The Borgias were so notorious that word was out not to dine with them for one rarely survived the dinner.

Here I will make a little historical aside, as I want to point out that there were even more ingenious ways of getting someone out of the way. Queen Catherine de Medici of France, a woman from Renaissance Italy, was known for her collection of poisons and for perfumed and poisoned gloves. Catherine de Medici would visit the city of Grasse in the hills above the Côte d’Azur. I can remember seeing her home, duly marked by a historical plaque bearing her name and dates of residence, on several of my visits to the old part of that town. The emblem of Grasse is a sheep because before becoming a perfume capital, it was famous for fine sheepskin products like gloves. Queen Catherine may have been Grasse’s link between the making of gloves and the development of its perfume industry, as it is said that she was known to get to some of her victims by giving them luxurious gloves smelling of lavender or roses, which hid the scent of poisons that would soak through the pores in the victim’s hands. Supposedly that is how she killed the mother of Henry of Navarre, who still became king of France after Catherine and her heirs died. See this article at culturacolectiva.com on “Catherine de Medici, the Devil’s Queen.” Or see Sarah Albee’s Evil Mother Blog on “Deadly Gloves” at sarahalbeebooks.com

However, back to wine and poison, there are even more ingenious plots that have happened in recent times. In the 1980s, Austria, a producer of sweet wines highly favored by the Germans, went through a “sweetening” scandal when a few bad harvests produced sour grapes. The solution that a cabal of merchants put together was the addition of diethylene glycol to the wine. Not only was this not good for the wine drinkers, as once the scandal was discovered many wine products had to be recalled, it also killed the sewage system of a town when someone dumped 4,000 gallons of it into the sewers, destroying the useful bacteria used to process waste. See “Scandal Over Poisoned Wine Embitters a Village in Austria,” nytimes.com. However, there have been even thicker plots in recent years.

Kidnap the Vines; Ransom the Reputation.

Domaine Romanée-Conti in the Burgundy region of France Photo credit nypost.com

This lovely patch of land is in a very special part of Burgundy in France. It is only 4.46 acres and only 20,000 vines, but it makes a wine that connoisseurs say can make one sure that there is “a Presence in the universe beyond our own.” These are the vineyards of Domaine Romanée-Conti, a producer of a Burgundy that is beyond the Pinot Noir grapes it comes from. Only 500 cases of this Burgundy are produced a year, and one is lucky to get a bottle for a mere $1,000. Generally, the cost runs around $10,000. Aged bottles have gone for as much as $124,000. Why? It is le terroir, the land that the vines grow on, which in this region is quite varied, but where the heavens aligned and gave Domaine Romanée-Conti the best possible growing conditions.

With a wine this famous, there was bound to be trouble at some point. That point came in 2010 when the vineyard owner received a mysterious note with a map of his vineyard showing a couple of specific areas. The note said that the vintner could go there and see that the vines had been poisoned to verify that his whole vineyard was indeed in peril. The note promised that more poisoned vines would be found in 10-15 days. Aubert de Villaine, the owner of the vineyard checked the spot indicated on the map and indeed found that someone had injected the roots with weed killer. He simply thought to pull up those vines and replace them; however, the next note indicated that an unspecified number of vines had been poisoned over a long period of time somewhere in the vineyard and that when the growing season with irrigation began, the poisons would rise to the surface and kill the vines and their precious grapes.

Now here is the really interesting part. In order for the location of those poisoned vines to be known, de Villaine would have to pay 1 million euros to be given the location so as to neutralize the poison before the sap rose in the vines, and the vineyard was permanently destroyed. The stellar reputation and high dollar value of the wines from Domaine Romanée-Conti were in the balance. A cloak and dagger, cat and mouse game ensued in which de Villaine had to carefully find trusted law enforcement outside of the limited local area in case some of the locals were in on this criminal activity. He went to the French Police Nationale and got the help he needed. To read the whole story of this wicked plot and see how it ended (yes, the guy got caught), just go to “The Assassin in the Vineyard” at vanityfair.com.

So, no, “wine” and “poison” are indeed two words that should not be mentioned in the same sentence. However, as can be seen, just like poison and perfume, they have often gone together.

References for this article are found in the blue linked articles throughout the blog post.

Coming soon: Art, Artists, Money, and 90+ Point Wines to Spend It On.

All of this talk of poison may have affected me – hmmm, no. There is a reason I have Damien Hirst’s For the Love of God here. I want to point out to all those who think that artists like starving, that in fact, artists love money. Some of them in particular have literally increased the value of a bank note by simply drawing on it or signing it. Hirst’s diamond skull and his insistence that artists should be payed up front the thousands of dollars that their works will earn after being sold over and over on the secondary art market make for an interesting hypothesis.

For the Love of God by Damien Hirst, 2007. Image used for purposes of critique and review in accordance with Fair Use Policy.