Robert Henri and Eulabee Dix
A MONA Moment |
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A recent exhibition at the Museum of Nebraska Art featured two great portraits by Nebraska native Robert Henri of the same woman, Eulabee Dix. In one of the coincidences of history, Henri and Dix were both artists, and both spent much of their childhoods in Nebraska: Henri in Cozad, Dix in Beatrice. Ironically, Dix pursued a career as a miniature portrait artist, the technique of which could not have been more unlike that of her friend, Robert Henri--her individual brushstrokes invisible, diaphanous filigree, laying on their bed of ivory, exhaling its subtle breaths of opalescence glowing through the watercolors above.
And yet, like Henri, her portraits are seldom pedestrian or perfunctory. Unlike Henri, however, her art betrays a difficult life tinged by tragedy. Was she unknowingly betraying her own heart of darkness in the eyes of the subjects of her portraits? Despite the trappings of comfort, many of them appear not to be a very happy lot. In her own self-portrait, the severity of her gaze and the hint of arrogance in her lips outweigh the gayety of her violet choker and tousled hair. In our MONA exhibition which included a selection of Dix' miniature portraits, the value of the bright red shirt of her portrait of her nephew Horace Philip Dix III is diminished against the boy's gray pallor and eyes heavy with melancholy: Even the Cocker Spaniel he holds has a dour, intent look.
I say this not in criticism. Dix was an artist. This is what artists do. They express the truth as they see it. She had her own, unique understandings of life, the side of it with its burnt offerings. She was a gifted artist working in a medium that could easily be given to artificiality. Perhaps her troubled life finds expression in the eyes of her subjects' portraits.
Better, perhaps, we return to the life view of Robert Henri. In his book, The Art Spirit, he speaks to us with the compelling authority, the immediacy of life. His is an inspired voice, which, like spontaneous combustion-ignites the power of ideas to inform our lives and drive our destinies. It is a home for thinkers and doers, a classroom for the instruction of our hearts, a sanctuary for the refreshment of our minds.
It is written in the language of the life force of art, thrilling in its ring of authenticity when he states, that art, "when really understood, is the province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing. When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature . . .. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and he opens ways for a better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it, shows there are still more pages possible. The world would stagnate without him, and the world would be beautiful with him. He does not have to be a painter or sculptor to be an artist. He can work in any medium. He simply has to find the gain in the work itself, not outside of it.
Museums of art will not make a country an art country. But where there is that art spirit there will be precious works to fill museums. Better still, there will be the happiness that is in the making.
