Was there a myth in the making?-A Structuralist Approach to Robert Motherwell's Elegies to the Spanish Republic

Alice S. Brooker

In 1948 Robert Motherwell created a small abstract to paint accordingly; rathe~ the intuitive, expressive expe­ drawing in black and white to illustrate a poem by Harold rience of painting became, for him, constantly interwoven Rosenberg. Motherwell had planned to publish this draw­ with a modifying intellectual strain.• ing in the second edition of Possibililies' (Figure I). When It was from the Surrealists' priociple of psychic autom­ the edition was not published, he put the drawing away and atism that Motherwell found his original inspiration for the forgot about it. Then, in 1949, Motherwell rediscovered the Spanish Elegies series. Like the Surrealists, Motherwell was piece while cleaning out a drawer. Now realizing that the fascinated with the concept of tapping into the subconscious; tension created by the reduced palette of black and white but for him, it was not merely to unearth such things as was echoed in the interplay between the sensuous ovals and Freudian symbols of repressed sexuality. Rathe~ as Jack D. thick, assertive rectangles, he reworked the original drawing Aam states in his 1983 publication on Motherwell, it was to into a small painting which he titled At Five in the discover•. .. a language that could adequately express com­ Afternoon. He took the new title from a line in a poem by plex physical and metaphysical realities.• , Federico Garcia Lorca2 (Figure 2). Following the SurrealiSts' methods, Motherwell used Although small in scale (15' x 20"), the new painting automatic "doodling" to create elementary forms which he was pivotal for Motherwell's artistic development. It I» later refined into the formal vocabulary of mammoth ovals came the germinal work for the theme and imagery of his and monolithic rectangles.8 These primary forms became, in best known series. the Elegies to the Spanish Republic. tum, what Aam defined as "the basis for the nonspecific Originally, he chose the title At Five in the Afternoon but highly charged iconography of the "Elegies"• (Figure 3). because it made reference to Lorca's poem about the vio­ When asked by Max Kozloff, during an interview in lent death of a Spanish bullfighter. As Motherwell con­ 1965, what "catalyst" or "agent" brought American Ab­ tinued to return to this imagery, he felt the need for a title straetionim from a state of imitation to that of mature that would carry similar connotations but would be more expression. he cited the "priociple of Surrealist Automa­ easily understood by a larger segment of society. Therefore, tism. "1• Yet Motherwell did not totally abandon himself to he renamed the series Elegies to 1he Spanish Republic.' In this concept, which is why Aam suggests that the painter discussing the title Motherwell states: was also influeoced by the vocabulary of geometric shape and limited color scheme found in the De Stijl group. 11 ... I take an elegy to be a funeral lamentation or Therefore, it seems that the shapes found in the Elegy series funeral song for something one cared about. The vacillate between Mondrian's cool, hard-paintings, among modem artists. His eloquent articulation coupled but are perceived as a combination of forms created by with his rigorous academic training in philosophy thrust sharp contrasts. Likewise, the tension between the sensuous, him to the forefront of the Abstract Expressionist move­ undulating ovals and the static, angular verticals is never ment during the 1940s and '5-0s. Herc he assumed the role broken. Motherwell did not allow the opposing shapes to of an unofficial spokesperson. Studies under Meyer Shapiro overshadow one anothe~ just as he would not allow the and subsequent association with the exiled European artists white to bleed into the black. Bleeding might have softened residing in New York during World War II gave him a the edges or would have created substantial gray areas. As substantial historical foundation for his involvement in a result of the restrictions, the canvas has too much tension modem art. Such a background did not impel the artist to to be considered inert, but is also too stable to be consid­ fabricate an intellectual philosophy of art and then endeavor ered active. Like a dammed up stream, it evokes both 63 movement and pause simultaneously without compromis­ ... it is close to mindlessness, or to pure essence, ing either. with nothing between your beingness and the In 1944, four years after he had begun to paint pro­ external world. As though your beingness was fessionally, Motherwell spoke of the problems facing the being transmitted withoul intervention~ ... it is new generation of American artists. He stated that every more what you unconsciously know than what epoch has both "temporal" and "eternal" values and that it you think." is the mission of each artist to extract only those values that • ... persist in reality in any (time, in any place) . .. A blueprint of the mind's structure could not be dis­ like the confronting of death." 12 Motherwell argued that it covered through intellectual pursuit. If anything, mentally is not the "abstractness" of modern artwork that tends to searching for it prevented any trace of the "language" from alienate the artist from the rest of society, but this "rejec­ surfacing. As Levi-Strauss stated, " ... although the possi­ tion, almost in 1010, of the (temporal) values of the bour­ bility cannot be excluded that the speaker who created and geois."" In portraying "eternal" values, the true artist transmits myths may become aware of their structure and cannot afford to be blinded by the superficial and out­ mode of operation, this cannot occur as a normal thing, but moded components of his own environment, but must only partially and intermittently."19 Hence, Motherwell, in break free of them to experience the deeper conoems of the order to become a myth-painter of Levi-Strauss' definition, "spiritual" life in modern terms. It is only with fresh insight was once more confronted with two extremes: mental that Motherwell could develop an authentic visual vocabu­ awareness of a universal language of the mind, and the lary which would adequately express in universal terms the need to become oblivious to that awareness in order to personal tension he found in the confrontation of death. make use of the structure. Motherwell acknowledged his belief in the existence of Just as myths are often retold with only slight varia­ universal structures of communication that were, in his tions to the story, Motherwell repainted the composition of words, • .. . found in the interaction of the body-mind and Elegy 10 the Spanish Republic over 160 times with only the external world."" This belief, which had caused him to slight alterations. The motivating factor behind his com­ use psychic automatism in his works, contains striking paral­ pulsion in reworking this iconography has been a subject lels to the concept of mythic structure introduced by the of frequent speculation by modem scholars. Motherwell's teachings of his contemporary, the noted sociologist Claude own explanation is outlined in a letter to his friend and Levi-Strauss. Both men were greatly influenced by Jungian biographer, Frank O'Hara: theory, especially the idea that archetypes are transferred by common racial experiences into the unconscious of the indi­ ... it is really an effort to find out what is the vidual. Levi-Strauss further taught that • ... the purpose of essence, what is magical, what is radiant in a myth is to provide a ... model capable of overcoming con­ theme, what is not. Because any work of an is tradictions."" That is, in myth polar opposites often exist very complex and if one feels that there is some­ side by side. Motherwell, in painting with both intuition and thing very good in it, it is at the same time often intellect, structure and spontaneity, as well by utilizing not so clear what it is that is good.JO opposing formal qualities and color schemes, brought these opposites together and thus fulfilled the function Levi­ uvi-Strauss saw the repetition of a single motif with Strauss assigned to myth. only slight variations as an essential component of mythic During the early Forties, when the Abstract Expres• structure. He believed that it was only through the retelling sionists were emerging as a cohesive movement, Levi­ of a story that eventually its "essence" would emerge. Strauss was teaching at the University in E,dle in New York Therefore, he stated, • . .. since mythological thought has City, later known as the New School for Social Research. no interest in definite beginnings or endings, it never In one of his later publications he stated, "When the mind develops any theme to completion. There is always some­ is left to commune with itself and no longer has to come to thing left unfinished."" The myth defies obsolescence be­ terms with objects, it is in a sense reduced to imitating itself cause it remains open-<:nded. The nonessential details of as object."•• This concept was employed by Levi-Strauss to the story will change as temporal values in society change, explain the similarities between the structure of many but the core will remain the same, shaped by the structure myths and fables from diverse cultures and during different of the mind. epochs. He proposed that the similar structures exist not in Robert Motherwell searched for a universal language the tale but in the mind of the teller.17 which would adequately express eternal values by continu­ According to this Straussian reasoning, by eliminating ally reworking a formal vocabulary derived from psychic the traditional "object" as subject matter in his "Elegies," automatism. The "Elegies" remained open~rnded for so Motherwell perhaps sought to confront the structure of his long because they allowed Motherwell to believe he might own mind. If this is so, then his endeavors to represent momentarily transcend his own tcmporality and tenuously •eternal values" through motifs abstracted from automatic grasp the etemal.22 By assuming a structural language of sketching were actually effons to communicate universal the mind in the Elegies 10 the Spanish Republic, Roben metaphors through the structural language of the mind. Motherwell attained an enduring presence that might allow Both men believed that this "language" could only be his work, like other myths, to defy obsolescence. apprehended through indirect means. Motherwell, in dis,, cussing the perfect mode of painting, stated: Aorida State University

64 I Rober1 M0therwell and Harold Rosenberg. Pos.sibilitil-s l Sept 1947. To put it anocher way. if one is inteffflod in abstract art. and starts a priori to make an abstraction. lhc hwnan mind 50Cms to be monotonous 2 · At Five in the Afternoon" is the constant n::frain of Part One of Gar­ and limited: one makes squares or circles or crosses or trian.gles. Basic., cia Lorca's 221-line p<>em UJ~m/<>r Ignacio Sanchrs Mejitu who died rudimentary geometric forms. Now, supposing you 'Wanted to make an in lhc bull ring, For a publication of the pot-m see H. H. Arnason. abstract picture . . . but at the same time you wantW an abstraa picture R{XH'rt Mothnwe/1 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1982) 118-122. as rich as nature. The only known mcanS of doing it is through the 3 In his essay entitled "Spanish Themes," Pete Rohowsky writes various modes or automatism. The main means we picked up were lin­ '", .. Molherwell explained that he later changed the name of the ear, which again. can most accura1ely be described as doodJing. And, as painting to Elegy to the Spanish Republic because 'someone wouJd Abstract Expressionism progressed, many people d)dn\ undersaand thal occasionally come up to me and say- I saw a most marvelous picture this was the core of ii. They lhought Olhcr thin~ were. and the doodk:s b)' you .. . what was the name? Someching 10 do with cockraiJs?"" were often added afterwards, to 'look' Abstract Expressionist ... Max Peter S. Rohowsky, ·Spanish Themes," Robe.n Motherwell: Rectnt Kozloff... An lntc-rview with Robert MOthcrwell .. An Forum. Scpctmber Works. Exhibition Catalogue (Princeton Art Mu.scum. Princeton, 1965:33-37. N. J .. 1973) 37. 11 flam 19. M0therweU himself alludes to the AatntM of the composition 4 S.cphanic Tcrenzio, Robert Mo1herwe// 011d Black, Exhibition Cata­ by stating that he could never envision 1he •Elegies· from 1hc side. 1hat logue (Storrs. Connoccicut: The William Benton Museum or Ari, 1980) is 10 say. in three-dimensional spaoc. Natalie f.dgar. "The Satisfaction 127. o( Robert Motherwell,"' An Nek'S, October 1965:39. S Mothc-rwell goes on to say'". .. when the question of a title came up, I 12 The Lecture. entitled "The Modem Painter's World,"' is reprinted in its feh 1ha1 1he image made i1 my ttally 6rs1 public painting. and J wan1ed entirety in Barbara Rose. ed., Readings In Am.-rlron Art Sinct /900 something that would connect wi1h a large public theme. Spain had (New Yorl<: Frederick A. Prat9'<. 196a) 133. been significant for me. It was the beginning or my political conscious­ 13 Rosc 131. ness, or the realization that the world could. after all. rc-gress." Phil Patton. "Robert MothenvcU: The Mellowing of an Angry Young 14 Frank O·Hara, Robm Mothu\,.'t'.1/: Wilh Sdttiions/rt>m 1/w Artls1) Man.· An News, March 1982:73. Writings (New York: 11,e Museum of Modem Ar1. 1965) 37. 6 Motherwell states •fa'trything I ha,-c e,u written was about painting. IS Claude L.c:,i-Strauu, "'The Structural Study or M)1.b: Journal t>f aDd after the fact of painting.. J have never made a program and then Am,rkan Folk/or,. Oclobcf/ Decn FJegy (New York: Ri1.2olt 1980).

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Figure I. Robert Motherwell, Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. I, 1948, india ink on rag paper (14½" x 11• ), Artist's Collection.

66 Figure 2 Robert Motherwell, At Ave in the Afternoon, 1949, casein on board (15' x 20"), Collection of Helen Frankenthaler, New York.

67 Figure 3. Robert Motherwell, Elegy 10 the Spanish Republic No. SS. 1955-QO, oil on cam-as (7<:Y' x 76¼"), Contemporary Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

68 J 1 I / , ,1 / I I.t: I Figure 4. Roben Motherwell, Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 54, 1957-1961 , oil on canvas (70" x 90¼1, Collection of the Museum of Modem An, New York.

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