馬克·坦西

藝術家及柯特·馬庫斯畫廊，紐約
紐約蘇富比，1988年5月2日，拍賣收益惠澤紐約聖文森醫院及醫療中心支援護理計劃，拍品編號13（捐贈自藝術家及上述畫廊）
私人收藏，美國（購自上述拍賣）
現藏家購自上述收藏

巴塞爾，巴塞爾美術館，〈馬克·坦西〉，1990年4月-5月，載彩圖

洛杉磯，洛杉磯藝術博物館；密爾瓦基，密爾瓦基藝術博物館；沃斯堡，沃斯堡現代藝術博物館；波士頓，美術館；蒙特利爾，蒙特利爾美術館，〈馬克·坦西〉，1993年6月-1994年11月，58頁，品號23，載彩圖

亞瑟∙C∙丹托，《馬克·坦西：遠見與回顧》，紐約，1992年，93頁載彩圖

This work is in excellent condition. Please contact the Contemporary Art Department at +1 (212) 606-7254 for the report prepared by Terrence Mahon. The canvas is framed in a wood frame.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

A crucial work from the high point of Mark Tansey’s early career, Source of the Loue is an elaborate painting in which art history and allegory are intertwined, creating a mystifying scene awash with hidden references and secret allusions. Rendered on a monumental scale that recalls the scope of history painting, Tansey depicts a subterranean grotto where anonymous figures labor toward the shoring up of a giant, cavernous opening. Protected by a tall metal fence rimmed with concertina wire and what appears to be an active military presence, Tansey’s figures go about their business constructing an immense wall that closes off the mouth of the cavern. Cloaked in a monochromatic palette of ethereal blue, Tansey’s painting emanates a dreamlike quality despite the photographic precision of its rendering. As the child of two Art History professors, Tansey’s work is often riddled with cryptic references and insider puns, and the present painting is no different, as it riffs off Gustave Courbet’s Realist masterpiece The Source of the Loue, examples of which reside in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York.

 

Rather than romanticize his subjects, which had been the preferred style of the French Academy at the time, Gustave Courbet endeavored to create an honest and realistic portrayal, for which he became known as a leading figure of French Realist movement in the mid-19th Century. In Courbet’s 1864 The Source of the Loue, rather than present the pastoral splendor of the surrounding landscape, with its tall trees and lush foliage, Courbet zooms in toward the rocky cavern, focusing on the darkened interior and its jagged crags. As the literal “source” of his inspiration, the Loue river provided an endlessly fascinating subject for the artist, who felt compelled to return to its wellspring on several different occasions. Courbet often painted there, directly at the mouth of the Loue river, which flowed through his native village of Ornans. Despite its realistic portrayal, Courbet’s painting has been also interpreted allegorically, with the flowing waters of the Loue river symbolizing the creative juices that flowed within the artist himself, or alternatively, as a metaphor for female sexuality.

 

Exquisitely rendered upon a vast scale, Tansey’s figures go about their job in Source of the Loue, as brick by brick the enormous wall grows steadily taller. Toward the lower left, a soldier commands a giant crane that will lower more concrete onto the scene, while nearby, a man wearing army fatigues pauses to check his watch. Two men dressed in long trench coats survey the scene, as the workers continue their immense task. In the lower right, a figure clad in jeans and a sleeveless white tank is bathed in a pool of ethereal light, as he prepares to launch a bucket of materials with the help of a pulley. Tansey’s flawless execution renders the entire scene with photographic precision, though shrouded in rich variations upon a single hue--the deep turquoise that was his preferred palette at the time. Shrouded in mystery, the entire scene retains an archival quality of a black-and-white photograph, yet the otherworldly hue lends it a surreal, dreamlike essence. Like Tansey’s figures who pause to stop and watch the building of the wall, the viewer also faces the action at the center of the scene, puzzling over the strange tableau that Tansy creates.

 

Source of the Loue is the result of Tansey’s meticulous and time-consuming process that might take the artist weeks or months to reach completion. Drawing upon his immense archive of newspaper and magazine clippings, Tansey uses a copy machine to create a preliminary collage that will serve as a study for the final painting. Culled from magazines like National Geographic and Popular Mechanics, Tansey selects imagery that appeals to him, which he then recombines into new permutations that retain the authoritative “truth” of their original source. Since the photographs are often decades-old, the figures retain the clothing and appearance of the era in which they lived, resulting in their bygone look that harkens back to Norman Rockwell and Edward Hopper's paintings. Their photographic depiction in Tansey’s large-scale canvas results from his painstaking process, in which he applies layers of gesso that is then washed, scraped and brushed into a smooth and flawless finish.

Having featured in Arthur C. Danto’s 1992 monograph and the 1994 retrospective of his work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Source of the Loue is an important painting that depicts a significant recurring motif, the subterranean cave, a common feature in a number of paintings from this era, most likely referring to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. So, too, does Source of the Loue wittily reference Courbet’s Realism and its associated allegorical interpretations. Tansey seems to question the very nature of realism itself, seeking to expose the obvious artifice of such long-held painterly assumptions. In Source of the Loue, Tansey posits the question, “What is realism, anyway?” What is it that makes Courbet’s Source of the Loue more “real” than any other depiction? Indeed, Tansey reminds the viewer that paintings are inherently false representations of a perceived “reality” that can never be truly captured with paint on canvas. They are essentially false facades, and in order to drive home this fact, Tansey creates a literal facade in his painting via an impenetrable brick wall. Truly, the magic of Tansey’s postmodern paintings is their ability to re-contextualize long-held beliefs regarding art theory and interpretation. In Source of the Loue, by isolating the subject of Courbet’s realism, then disguising it within a surreal dreamscape, Courbet’s image resurrects much of its original impact. In this way, Tansey’s paintings retain the aura of their source imagery while also transcending their historic implications, to finally break free into an entirely new realm.