What price technique? About R12m
VLADIMIR Tretchikoff died six years ago, but his work still has the power to divide the art world in two. When his famous Chinese Girl — often referred to as the “Green Lady” because of the unusual hue the painter gave his subject’s skin — was auctioned at Bonham’s last month, there were some who considered the price of £840,000 (about R12m) a steal. After all, this is the original of the most reproduced print in art history. Take that, Mona Lisa.
But there were also, predictably, many commentators who considered this just the latest instalment in a long history of overrating Tretchikoff.
The Russian-born artist, who spent most of his working life in SA, was dubbed “the King of Kitsch” and was snubbed by the art establishment — at least partly, if not primarily, because of his popularity. It is not cool to admit that you like Tretchi.
I have my own ambivalent associations with the Chinese Girl. A few years ago, a friend hosted a painting party: each of the guests was given a copy of an artwork, a range of materials and a few hours in which to create an imitation.
The results ranged from colourful abstract images to passable landscapes.
The biggest challenges were, of course, the handful of iconic works thrown into the mix. One unfortunate couple drew the shortest of straws, in the form of the “Green Lady”. I don’t know how they divided the labour but I did see the end result: the Mandarin collar is more or less preserved, but the face looks like Michael Jackson’s would have after another eight or nine rounds of plastic surgery.
Now if this unfortunate art object appeared on the walls of a gallery, I would probably wax lyrical about the artist’s subtle invocation of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali in commenting on Tretchikoff’s exclusion from the pantheon of 20th-century art. Only a combination of cubism and surrealism could explain that warped and melting face, surely?
Even knowing the painting’s dubious provenance, however, I’m inclined to give the artists credit. At least they tried. At least they put brush to canvas — something I haven’t done in more than a decade, during which time I have had the audacity to comment (and sometimes pass judgment) on the work of hundreds of artists.
In fact, if my own artistic practice is any standard by which to measure, I must be the least qualified arts critic I know. I can produce a slightly more impressive portrait than my three-year-old daughter — who has not yet progressed to stick men — but I’m not willing to make any claims beyond that.
All this might sound like a self-flagellating version of the extremely silly declaration: “Those who can, do; those who can’t, criticise” (a variation on that old chestnut about teachers). Mea maxima culpa, etc. Well, it isn’t. The role of the critic is distinct from that of the artist, and requires a completely different skills set.
Nonetheless, it is worth asking the question: what happens when those who can’t, do anyway? It is just possible that I could become an acclaimed artist, even though I can’t draw.
The visual and plastic arts have been immeasurably enriched by the influence of conceptual, performance and digital artists. I am no reactionary; you won’t hear me bemoaning the collapse of categories or genres in what used to be called “fine art”. But it is worth considering the ways in which traditional teaching and apprenticeship models, which emphasised technique and a strong sense of art history or at least of seminal precursors, have been supplanted.
To put it another way: Damien Hirst may be able to preserve a shark in formaldehyde, but could he paint a shark on canvas?
More to the point, could he paint a version of the Chinese Lady that doesn’t look like Michael Jackson? Tretchikoff, like most self-taught painters, learned about line and texture and colour through mimicry, until he developed his distinctive brand of hyperrealism. Perhaps you can put a price on technique … it’s about R12m.