The new exhibition in the Center Gallery of the Walker Art Museum, "The Art of Instruction: The Site of Inspiration," is deceptively enchanting. Although it appears to be nothing more than a series of step-by-step tutorial sketches on how to draw and paint, the true significance of the exhibition is revealed upon further reflection.
The purpose of this remarkable exhibition is to examine different approaches to the artistic process, highlighted by its application to different media. The media shown are diverse: there are graphite sketches, oil paintings, sculptures, collages, and wood engravings, to name a few. Some pieces appear as parts of a series, while others are singular. The stand-alone pieces often appear raw and incomplete, showing how the artist's unfinished work can often reveal as much or more than a finished piece. The series that show multiple versions of the same work in different stages of completion reveal the artistic process more explicitly.
One such piece is Ernest Haskell's series of engravings titled "Arabella." The first of the four engravings shows a rough outline of the woman's figure, with just her face in detail. The second is more developed, and the third still more developed, until the fourth represents the finished work. Haskell's artistic process is clearly shown from step to step.
A 1924 two-piece series by Mary B. Call examines the artistic process in a similar way. The first piece is a graphite sketch of a woman's face, rough and unfinished. The other piece is the oil painting that resulted from the sketch; the color and detail that were absent from the sketch are added to the final painting.
A series of nude model sketches by John Singer Sargent illustrate the artistic process in an entirely different way. In this case, only the first step of a portrait is shown. The three sketches are all rough, intended only to capture the posture and essence of the figure, and detail is completely ignored.
Pieces such as Sargent's and Haskell's—those that show the artist's own artistic process in some way—comprise roughly half of the exhibition. The other half is made up of finished pieces that portray scenes of art instruction in some way.
One of the most striking of these pieces is John Sloan's 1912 "Anschutz Lecturing on Anatomy," an oil painting that shows a scene of an art class where the students are sketching a live model standing next to a human skeleton while the professor speaks to them.
In this case, the artistic process is literally illustrated in the scene of the painting rather than displayed in the work's unfinished qualities. This distinction is one that carries through the entire exhibition, as all of the works fit into one category or the other.
Overall, this exhibition is a unique and interesting installation at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Though the museum houses many exceptional pieces of art, viewers are not often confronted with the process that is behind each artist's work. This exhibition highlights how that process changes with each artist as well as with each medium, whether it be a silver print or a graphite sketch. It also stresses that in many cases, an incomplete piece can turn out to be as salient a work of art as a finished one.
"The Art of Instruction: The Site of Inspiration" is exhibited in the Center Gallery of the Walker Art Museum, where it will remain until April 2.