Sebastian Orth: Tattoo Artist and Writer

     I had the good fortune of meeting Sebesatian several times. Some of the more memorable conversations I ever had with any tattooer took place inside his shop. In the midst of Tibetan images and classic works of art by other tattooers that hung on the walls is where he spoke eloquently on the many different histories that exist in every valley on earth. He recently published Many Stories: The Point of the Needle, and in this short video he briefly discusses his book and how the psyche is transformed once one gets a tattoo. Great explanation to something that is mysterious yet modern, mythical but imbued with symbolism.

Gustave Moreau: Hieroglyphic Myth and Modern Symbols

(Jupiter and Semele, 1894-95) G. Moreau

Gustave Moreau: Hieroglyphic Myth and Modern Symbols

By Armando Ortiz

(Fairy and Griffon) G. Moreau

                Understanding Moreau’s works of art and how I came about learning of his work came full circle when realizing that the cover of Bolan’s 2666 was taken from Moreau’s epic piece Jupiter and Semele, where the symbolism and message being projected from his painting are both religious, cryptic, political and imbued with so much epic mythology that to come to a full understanding of them is quite a challenge. The cover and the novel it protected fit well with the apocalyptic story that is told inside. Nonetheless one comes to understand that even in darkness there is a flicker of light that either shines a light that reveals a hidden path or it simply lights the cigarette of someone who is just standing on the sidewalk contemplating the darkness. Though subconsciously I had been exposed to his work during my reading of Bolano, it was only while reading James Joyce’s Ulysses that I became interested in knowing who was Gustave Moreau. The quasi introduction came about as I was engrossed in the midst of a conversation on art and literature that one of the characters in Ulysses was having with one of the main characters in the novel,

“Art has to reveal to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. The painting of Gustave Moreau is the painting of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelly, the words of Hamlet bring our mind into contact with the eternal wisdom, Plato’s world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys.” (Ulysses p.185)

(Death on the Pale Hore, 1865) G. Dore

I wanted to learn more on this artist, but this was only one part of the puzzle because aside from his name I was aware of two other Gustave’s that also made masterpieces in their perspective fields of art and in their time, and these are Gustave Dore who is best known for his etchings and engravings of master works such as Don Quixote, Divine Comedy, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, and The Raven. I discovered Dore while reading 2666 where his work appears several times, becoming in a way an apocalyptic and quasi mystical message of the world that Bolano was depicting. It was then that I was able to appreciate many of Dore’s pieces of art, especially those depicting legions of angels and the fallen angels casted as demons.

(Mermaids/Whitefish, 1899) G. Klimt

Gustav Klimt who is best known for painting people that looked to be both floating in a dream world and going down the current of time had a certain appeal when I first saw his work, and as time has gone bye an appreciation for his genius has only increased. But both these artist will be touched upon on a later time. The fact that there are a number of accomplished artist with the name Gustav is enough to make anyone that likes connecting the dots spend months on end studying the lives of these artist. Nonetheless, their names do partially open the door to a better understanding of the late-19^th and early 20^th century art world.

                 

                Gustave Moreau’s art is very apocalyptic and what really stands out is that many of his paintings are watercolor, a medium that was not used much those days. It is one thing to paint landscapes with oils and mix white into different colors, but with watercolor one builds colors on top of the blank paper, and once that lightness is gone it is hard to recapture.

“It is in them that Moreau displayed his boldest technical freedom and the most remarkable facets of his personal style. <<Watercolor makes a man a colorist,>> said Delacroix. This is true of Moreau.” (Jean Selz p. 56)

(Persus and Andromeda, 1870) G. Moreau

His work is very compelling. The hues and combinations of colors are key to his art. In some areas he seems to have saturated the paper with multiple layers of color to the point that backgrounds turned purple or brown, all of which was contrasted by peach colors or faint limes and deep blue colors that make up his skies.

(Phoebus and Boreas, 1879) G. Moreau

“In the room that housed them (Moreau’s paintings) there was an auto-de-fe of vast skies all aflame; globes crushed by bloody suns, hemorrhages of stars flowing in purple cataracts on somersaulting clusters of clouds.”  - J.K. Huyusmans

His technique makes you think of light, and how when we look out towards the horizon is virtually impossible to assimilate to a painting, because though one may try, light and refraction plays a big part in the way we see light and color, and yet Gustave succeeds in this exercise with his paintings.

“Moreau undoubtedly saw in his painting much more than they were able to express. The dream he had of them was a vision more literary than pictorial. In his descriptions of his paintings he went so far as to mention elements which could not be represented graphically, such as fragrant smells and sounds. In this respect the careful notes which he wrote to explain his most important painting are very revealing.” (Jean Selz p. 36)

(The Apparition, 1876) G. Moreau

One need not worry about reading his notes on the paintings he created. Though it might reveal the artists worries and thoughts about what he wanted to accomplish on canvas. What he managed to paint is something that is very much along the lines as one of those songs that one just likes to listen to over and over. There is a connection in this case with his creation and the outside which still happens even today. Some might ask, well, what is so special about that, and I say that the same concerns that people back in his day had still have, and though the symbols used today are slightly different there is that concern of whether this life is a dream or not and lies beyond.

“Moreau did not remain enslaved to those traditions (Impressionist movement of the late 19^th century) so greatly respected  by the painters who, like him, were devoting themselves to interpreting scenes drawn from mythology or the Bible……… he sought to express personal thoughts and to develop ideological themes. The need to invest even the smallest detail of a picture with significant symbols that his most understanding admirers occasionally confessed that they could not decipher them.

                In order to grasp how the painter was able to fuse his intellectual vision with his particular type of pictorial expression, it is necessary to examine his work from the beginning of his career.” (Jean Selz p.6)