Tag: art history

Mason Williams Classical Gas 3000 Years of Art | you know the song have you seen the 1968 early music video by Dan McLaughlin?

Posted on by Catherine

Classical Gas as music video 1968

 

Do you remember watching the Smothers Brothers in 1968 and seeing this early music video?

Mason Williams, uber-talented musician, comedian, multimedia artist and writer, wrote for television shows as varied as Dinah Shore and Saturday Night Live and was the head writer on the Smothers Brothers. He composed Classical Gas in 1967. A year later he was inspired by a wry conceptual film, God is dog spelled backwards, a compilation of selected visual artworks (paintings and drawings) originally cut to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony:  The world’s greatest music and the world’s greatest art catalyze the world’s greatest film. Williams commissioned the filmmaker, Dan McLaughlin (1932-2016), to re-edit his student art film* and set it to Classical Gas. McLaughlin was a pioneer in computer animation and leading light in his field. This iteration transformed Classical Gas basically into an early music video. The multimedia collaboration aired on the Smothers Brothers in the summer of 1968 and was a hit.

The result is masterful, though dated. Can you spot a work from the 1960s? Can you spot a work by a woman artist? A black artist? Any outside the cannon?  For context, Janson’s influential textbook, History of Art, was published in 1962; McLaughlin’s student film is dated 1963. They are essentially simultaneous encyclopedic pursuits. Linda Nochlin’s groundbreaking essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” was published in 1971; maybe the video’s popularity added some fuel to that fire. It would be fun to edit a sequel with today’s tools.

As is, the editing is trippy fast to match the lightning notes, as break neck as any subliminal messaging. It feels painterly. Brush marks, broad strokes, and beautiful washes. The art is not spliced chronologically or thematically by any categorical art history “ism”, nor by a particular place or institution as in, “Is this stretch the Louvre patch?” Pacing is punctuated with mini concentrations devoted to a single artist. Selections tend to figurative works, seated, faces and gazes, all ages. Representations of love and family feel prevalent and arbitrary. Less familiar artists are included. There are humorous beats and repetition. Paintings depicting a musical bent are fun to spot.

I’m not sure if the order of images was altered from the first iteration to its Classical Gas transformation or how much Williams was involved in the second visually if at all. (So many questions: Did McLaughlin grab images at the library, photographed from artist monographs and museum collection books? Did institutions provide photographs? Maybe he rifled through an art history department’s visual bank? Were any works photographed in person, by McLaughlin, Williams or their contacts? Did he include personal favorites?)   *Some of these questions are answered in an audio tape decades after ( listen here ); sad to hear it seems from his perspective he wasn’t done right by Smothers Brothers or his distributor. Library books were combined as part of the work’s mixed media techniques. The crops and zooms helped resize vertical images for an unforgiving horizontal medium. He felt the mosaics were a happy success. Perhaps their inherent fracturing structure optimized the optical goals he envisioned.

Twenty two seconds in, the montage music video kicks off with several DaVincis. (The Portrait of a Musician is included–look for the red cap.) If you’ve never seen the video, I’d recommend letting it ride and experience it whole. If you are familiar with art history you might see a favorite painting quicken past.

Rewatching to concentrate on a few seconds is a fun ID challenge, like the game Masterpiece, or flash cards. Running at ten or twelve images per second at least it’s impossible to dial down without an editing bay. Albeit Mona Lisa, each work was afforded 2 frames.  Though incomplete, here’s my stab at attribution during a single three seconds (tops), starting at timecount 22 seconds. Give it a go!

Davinci – Mona Lisa(Louvre), Portrait of a Musician (Milan), Head of Woman (Royal Collection Trust /Windsor), Head of Man Shouting (MFA Budapest), A Man Tricked by Gypsies (Royal Collection), studies of heads in profile (not sure); Rembrandt- Man With Golden Helmet (no longer considered by Rembrandt) (Gemaldegalerie Berlin), A Man in Armor (Glasgow), A young woman trying on earrings (Hermitage), A Girl with a Broom (no longer considered by Rembrandt) (National Gallery of Art), Old Man in Armchair (now considered probably by Rembrandt) National Gallery, London; Titian (Girogiane) Pastoral Concert (Louvre); Pisanello Portrait of Princess (Louvre); Alesso Madonna and Child (Louvre); Ghirlandio Old Man and His Grandson (Louvre); David Marriage at Cana (Louvre); Frans Hals The Gypsy Girl (Louvre); Van Dyck Charles I (Le Roi a la Chasse ) (Louvre); Durer Portriat of the Artist Holding a Thistle (Louvre); El Greco Saint Louis (Louvre); Jean Clouet? Portrait of Francois I; Fragonard The Bathers (Louvre); not sure (portrait of woman);  Delacroix Liberty Leading People (Louvre); Daumier Crispin and Scapin (Musee d’Orsay); Goya Duchess of Alba (Hispanic Society of America); Bonnard Nu dans le bain (Nude in the Bath) (Paris); Van Gogh Detail from Starry Night (MoMa), Self portrait (Musee d’Orsay); Paul Klee Fish Magic (Philadelphia Museum of Art); Miro Lessons; Chagall; Raphael La Fonarina (National Gallery Rome); Velazquez Portrait of Juan de Pareja (Metropolitan Museum of  Art); Vermeer Art of Painting (Kunshhistorisches Museum, Vienna); Grunewald Isenehim Altarpiece detail Virgin and Child (Colmar France); Bellini Portrait of a Young Man in Red (National Gallery of Art); Cezanne; and El Greco detail from Burial of the Count of Orgaz (Iglesia de Santo Tome, Toldedo, Spain).

 

Rembrandt van Rijn, 1606-1669; A Man in Armour

 

I wonder if the museums have –or could –spot their holdings? What artwork would you add that’s missing?

*McLaughlin (1932-2016) attended UCLA film school for animation graduating in 1958. After serving in the Korean War, he became a pioneer in computer animation, chairing the UCLA animation department and heading the Animation Workshop from 1970 (After Bob Shull) till his retirement in 2007. His son published his writings on animation, see more here , with sample chapters. 

Mason Williams (b.1938)  attended Oklahoma City University (1957-60) and served in the Navy from 1961 to 1963. Fun artworld aside: friends with Ed Ruscha from childhood.

1968- Mason Williams – here with symphony

 

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David Collins shares vintage photos of Stage Fort Ave homes near Barrett’s Camp #GloucesterMA |searching for artist Byron Brooks Part 3

Posted on by Catherine

In response to Searching for artist Byron Brooks (Part 1) and (Part 2), David Collins, a Good Morning Gloucester reader and amateur geneologist, was inspired to act. First he emailed a PDF family tree for artist, Byron Lloyd Brooks, and then shared vivid remembrances and vintage photographs in response to the artist’s timeline in Gloucester, Massachusetts. These are wonderful additions to filling out Brooks story and a peek into Gloucester and Stage Fort Park history. Thanks so much, David!

For a time, Brooks lived in 12 Stage Fort Avenue. Collins’ family lived in 7 Stage Fort Avenue 1940s-1960s. Does anyone know the neighbors Collins mentions or have more photographs of long gone homes and Barrett’s Camp at Stage Fort Park? I’m looking forward to scouting for that boulder.

Part 3 Searching for artist Byron Brooks – David Collins responds:

historic photo courtesy David Collins for artist Bryon Brooks research_shows Stage Fort Park Avenue ca 1940s_his sister with friend_Gloucester MASS
ca. 1950, courtesy photograph to assist with Byron Brooks research from David Collins (his sister with her friend by side entrance 12 Stage Fort Ave, Gloucester, Massachusetts )

“Hello, Catherine, Here is a little more information on the artist Byron L. Brooks, in case you are still interested. I have attached a family tree for him. It does also have some information on his two wives that I know of. I am not a professional genealogist, so don’t take the information as gospel. I grew up at what was then 7 Stage Fort Avenue (no “Park” in the address) in the late 1940s, 50s and early 60s in the house that is now 1 Anchor Lane, I believe. We moved to Connecticut in 1961 the week I turned 16. The house Byron lived in, 12 Stage Fort Avenue, was, back when I lived there, a 2-family house.  Most of the other houses in that part of the neighborhood were, or had been, summer camps. Stage Fort Avenue Y-ed at our house and both parts, one going on to one of the Park’s parking lots and the other going past us to Barrett’s Camps, were named Stage Fort Avenue. The house in front of Byron’s, the address was 10 Stage Fort Avenue back then and is now 7 Stage Fort Avenue, didn’t exist – at least not in the large form it is in now. Sam and Marion (Kerr) Johnson lived there. I think the house burned down in about 1975.

Ralph and Evelyn (DeCoste) Bradstreet lived in the downstairs part of 12 Stage Fort Avenue and several families lived upstairs over the years. Byron must have lived in the neighborhood a while before my family did. I think my folks moved to #7 about 1939 or so. I don’t know when the Bradstreets moved into #12. That said, Byron Brooks was my mother’s 2nd cousin. They share Ephraim Brooks [1818-1905] and Ruth Ward [1816-1892] of Nova Scotia as great-grandparents.

However, I had never heard of Byron until your 2nd GoodMorningGloucester article. I even collect art by people who called Cape Ann home – Charles Movalli was my best friend growing up*. I also have an extensive family tree that I have worked on for many years. Still, I had no idea Byron existed!  Of course, I had his parents in my mother’s part of our tree. I have now added information on him and his many siblings because of your articles. Thank-you! Hope this helps you, in return.” David Brooks 7/1/18

PHOTO COURTESY DAVID COLLINS_ 12 Stage Fort Avenue ca1947_razed_shared for Byron Brooks artist catalogue_Gloucester MA
photo credit: 12 Stage Fort Avenue, Gloucester, MA. ca.1947 photo courtesy David Collins

photo credit below (click to enlarge): 7 Stage Fort Avenue ca.1947-57 (L), and Stage Coach Inn vintage postcard, both images courtesy David Collins

about the photo with the girls on the rock and Stage Fort Avenue homes THEN (now gone):

“This one is of my sister and the girl (and her dog) who lived upstairs at 12 Stage Fort Avenue for several years while we lived on Stage Fort Avenue and then moved to School Street in Manchester. Her father, originally from Rockport, was a 7th cousin of Byron Brooks but I doubt he knew. The girls are sitting on a rock outside the side entrance to downstairs #12, the one the people we called Auntie Evelyn and Uncle Emerson (Ralph Emerson) Bradstreet (both cousins of each of my parents) probably used most often. It led into their kitchen. The doorway at the stairs in front (in the other picture I sent you) led into a hall, with stairs running up to the 2nd floor apartment and also a door at the left into the downstairs apartment.

The building behind the girls and to the left was, at least at one time, a Barrett camp. I think sometimes people bought them and made them more permanent homes even if they didn’t live in them year-round. The family’s name sounded like Brown-eyes but I don’t remember how it was actually spelled. Oh, I do remember: William and Irene (Douglas) Brauneis. Irene Douglas’ brother (a close friend and fishing buddy of my uncle) and his wife and family and his parents lived in the large house at the top of the hill behind the camps that was not a camp. I think the Brauneis family lived in theirs, maybe even full time eventually, long after we had moved.

The next home which looks altogether different was rented out in the summer, too, but I have no idea who lived in it. In the next camp to that one, not in the picture, a Mrs. Morrison spent the summer and her daughter and family, the Kilroys, would join her for a few weeks. Mrs. Kilroy had grown up in Gloucester. I hung around with daughter Carol and brother Robert the part of the summer when they were in town…Henry and Pauline (Osmond) Garvey and family lived in the Barrett camp that abutted our property on (what was then) Stage Fort Avenue. Great family. They would summer there from Tuckahoe, New York, but both had been brought up in Gloucester. ”- David Collins

*author’s note – more on this connection later

Byron Brooks on line catalogue (updated)