This Week in Culture

How the “Sherlock Holmes” of Biology Solved a Century-old Portrait Mystery

Late one summer evening in 2018, Javier Burgos found himself glued to his computer screen, scouring the internet for answers to a century-old art mystery. He stumbled upon a 2013 exhibition in Ravenna, Italy that piqued his interest. As he watched a video of the show, two particular portraits caught his eye. One he recognized as “Le Medecin Chef de I’Asile de Bouffon” by Théodore Géricault, a renowned French romanticist painter. But the other portrait was entirely new to him. The painting depicted a man with a furrowed brow, his eyes sorrowful and fixated on some unseen object. The composition was mostly dark, with only the man’s pale face illuminated. Burgos was struck by the skillful brushwork and use of color, which led him to suspect that it too was created by Géricault. However, the painting was not listed in any catalogues of the artist’s known works.

The mystery that Burgos, a biologist at Valencia’s Jaume I Univeristy, was attempting to solve dated back to the winter of 1822 when psychiatrist Étienne-Jean Georget commissioned Géricault to create portraits of his patients. Georget was among one of the first clinicians to offer a scientific approach to finding the causes of insanity. He created a new way of classifying mental illnesses, arguing that insanity could be caused by monomania, which is a pathological obsession around a single idea, more commonly alcohol or gambling. He believed that it was possible to diagnose it just by analyzing a person’s facial expression. Hence, the portraits he commissioned. After Georget’s death, the series of portraits was lost until 1863 when Loius Vardiot, a French historian, rediscovered five of the paintings. But, according to him. There were ten monomanias in all but only five were acquired by Lachèze after Georget’s death. The other five went to another of Georget’s pupils, Marèchal, and their whereabouts remained unknown.

As an art aficionado and a biologist specialising in Alzheimer’s disease, Burgos was uniquely positioned to pursue this mystery. His efforts took him to museums, art catalogues and psychiatric texts in search of clues. Eventually, he discovered a promising lead in an exhibition catalogue that confirmed the existence of one of the missing paintings, attributed to Géricault and titled “Portrait of a Man, Homo Melancholicus”.

Burgos did not stop there. He went on to contact the owner of the painting, a private collector in Italy, who allowed him to examine the piece in person. This encounter proved to be a pivotal moment for Burgos, inspiring him to publish his findings in The Lancet Neurology. His article captured the attention of a gallerist in Versailles who had a similar portrait, which Burgos flew to France to examine. This second portrait, while not officially acknowledged as a Géricault painting, showed many of the same characteristics as the first, leading Burgos and the gallerist to speculate that it represented the monomania of drunkenness.

What truly sets this investigation apart, however, is the discovery of a handwritten note on the back of the second portrait, which read: “This portrait of an insane man painted by Géricault was given to me by the widow of D Maréchal in 1866, Paris, 9 November, Louis Lemaire”. A chemical analysis of the note confirmed its authenticity as dating to the second half of the 19th century.

Morgan Freeman’s Most Ambitious Project: The Entire History of Life on Earth

Morgan Freeman, is known for playing numerous great roles during his career as an actor. However, one of his most impressive achievements is the number of documentaries he has been a part of, covering various topics ranging from religion to penguins. His latest documentary, “Life on Our Planet,” which premiered on Netflix on Wednesday, is his biggest one yet. It covers the entire history of life on Earth in eight parts, taking viewers through billions of years, from the age of the dinosaurs to the development of human civilization to the extinction of countless species. 

To create historically accurate scenes, the show heavily relies on visual effects that make up 30 to 40 percent of each episode, while the remaining footage is actual footage shot in 45 different countries. The show, despite its name, focuses a lot more on death than it does on actual life. Predators can be seen stalking their prey in numerous scenes, and the show also narrates five mass extinctions that collectively killed off millions of creatures. 

The show eventually depicts the rise of human civilization, the only species capable of bringing about its own mass extinction. Freeman commented in an interview, “It was said that God created the heavens and the earth and put man in control. That’s a big mistake if God did that because in just a few million years we’ve almost created another extinction-level event.”

Pierre Soulages: The Master of Black

Danielle DeTiberius reflects on the significance of darkness in her poem titled “The Artist Signs Her Masterpiece, Immodestly“. She had recently seen the dark paintings by Pierre Soulages at Levy Gorvy Dayan Gallery in Manhattan, inspiring her to write the poem. In her poem, she states, “Some darkness refuses to fade.” A reference to Pierre Soulages’ works.

Pierre Soulages was a French artist who was once regarded as one of the country’s most successful living artists. He was known as the “master of black” because of his interest in the colour as a medium. He saw light as a matter to work with and with the use of a masterful technique he was able to make light reflect off the black surface of his canvas, thereby turning the once dark color into a luminous one.

Soulages was born in Rodez, France, in 1919. As a child, he was fascinated by Celtic carvings, prehistoric cave art, and Romanesque architecture. He went to Paris to study art in 1938 and was influenced by exhibits featuring Pablo Picasso and Paul Cezanne. He enrolled at the Ecoles de Beaux-Arts but soon left Paris, frustrated by the school’s traditional approach to education. He fought briefly in the Second World War in 1941, but was soon demobilized after being drafted.

Despite being unable to paint during that period, he was introduced to abstract art by Russian painter Sonia Delaunay, whom he met in 1943. He later moved to Paris after World War II where he opened a studio where he began producing abstract works. He soon became one of the pioneers of post-war abstract painting, attracting attention from venues like the Venice Biennale and the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York City.

Eventually, the color black progressively appeared in his paintings, sometimes in combination with other colors such as ocher and blue. He also designed sets and costumes for Roger Vailland’s play Heloise et Abelard in 1949 and other productions, including Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory in 1951.

It was in 1979 that his aesthetics shifted when he initiated his lifelong series “Outrenoir” which translates literally to “beyond black.” The technique he uses to portray depth and textural variety in this series of works is one of the main reasons why he is regarded so highly as an artist. The way he applies thick layers of black paint to create smooth and rough areas that reflect light in various ways is masterful.

In 1992, Soulages was awarded the Praemium Imperiale by The Japan Art Association. In 2001, he became the first living artist honored with an exhibit at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The Soulages Museum opened in his hometown Rodez in 2014. His works continue to be a staple of the post-war era, resonating with anyone who has the privilege of viewing his works up close.