Rick Janson Art Studio

Years ago I visited London’s Victoria & Albert Museum and stumbled upon the cast collection. In the 19th century it was popular to make plaster casts of well-known sculpture for educational purposes. Opened to the public in 1873, these life-size casts included work from around the world, initially starting with the most revered pieces from the Italian Renaissance, include Michelangelo’s 17 foot tall David.

I was awestruck walking around the two rooms and seeing everything in one place like this, literally jammed together in close proximity.

Students did initially use the casts as learning tools, it being difficult to travel the world to encounter all these sculptures in person. In the late 1920s there was debate about whether or not to get rid of them. Chuck ’em out. The fad had passed.

Fortunately, the V&A didn’t put them in the dustbin, and they have become a detailed record for restorers after centuries of weathering, the effects of pollution, and previous poor restoration attempts. Some of these works have been forever lost through the wars and the V&A now has the only such record of them.

In Florence, in the same year the plaster collection was opened, a replica of Michelangelo’s David was used in the sculpture’s original location, and David instead was installed at the Accademia where he is now out of the rain and in the spotlight. Just walk into any old graveyard and its not hard to see what the elements do to stone and marble over time.

Michelangelo’s David was sculpted between 1501 and 1504. But what about an outdoor sculpture unveiled in 1971?

That’s a hot topic in San Francisco right now, where the city’s plans for renovating the square containing the so-called Vaillancourt Fountain doesn’t include the brutalist sculpture the fountain is built around. Armand Vaillencourt, who is now 95, showed up himself to forestall his work’s demise. Surprisingly there has been little coverage in Canada despite Vaillancourt’s Quebec origins. It might have something to do with Vaillancourt’s political views — the day before the sculpture was unveiled, he spray painted “Quebec Libre” on it. It was 1971, after all. The city of San Francisco immediately removed the message. Bono, who has no connection to the sculpture, thought that he could likewise spray paint it with “Rock and Roll Stops Traffic.” Hmmm.

There is not a love lost over Vaillencourt’s Fountain — not entirely a surprise given there is little affection for brutalism in the 21st century. The San Francisco Arts Commission itself described the piece as resembling “a ruined heap of building blocks, toppled and abandoned by some gargantuan and disappointed child.” Artnet reports that the fountain has been described as “Stonehenge with plumbling problems,” no doubt a response to the fact that the fountain pump has stopped working, and estimates on its replacement alone are in the vicinity of $3 million. Obviously they are not shopping in Home Depot’s garden centre for water pumps.

There’s more wrong than just the plumbing. The concrete is crumbling and is said to contain asbestos, which would make it a hazard for any restoration, let alone its dismantling. The city currently has a fence around it for safety purposes. Full restoration is said to be closer to $30 million — a tough ask in the current environment for a piece of art that is not well loved, except, perhaps for skateboarders.

Not all art movements are always cherished, but rather go through a re-evaluation process from time to time. Sometimes they are lost to time, sometimes they are revived.

I was surprised to see a new book published on Jean Leon Gerome, the French Romantic painter. Gerome has long been out of favour, in part because of his portrayal of a colonialist past in North Africa, and in part because of his method. In the late 19th century and into the 20th century it was all about making the brush stroke visible in the work. Gerome taught more than 2,000 students how to make the brush invisible.

Gerome’s work is often well observed, and contains a meticulous record of North African culture that is warranting a fresh look in the 21st century.

Surprisingly, it is the Arab Museum of Modern Art that is sponsoring this new look at Gerome. It was their catalogue that arrived in my post box. Will museums be dusting off the Geromes in their collection again?

Gerome was among the first artists I learned about in Mr. Samatoka’s Grade 9 Art History Class. I don’t think I have heard his name since.

Which brings us back to Brutalism. Will brutalism have another day? If we destroy its best examples now, will we regret it later? When I watched Brady Corbet’s 2024 film The Brutalist, it made me wonder if we are on the cusp of a new appreciation? But maybe not in San Francisco, or it seems, in Canada.

—

Top Photo: Me in front of Alexander Calder’s Cheval Rouge (1974). The work is featured in the scuplture garden in front of the National Gallery in Washington DC. None of my work today! If you want to check out the Rick gallery of newer work, click here.