A Little History(?)
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I’m not going to assume that novels are historically accurate, nor that Ignatius Reilly was a keen judge of art. Nonetheless, A Confederacy of Dunces was written in the 1970s, and here is Reilly’s encounter with Jackson Square artists, for what it’s worth:
He belched violently during the silence that followed. The ladies pretended to the study the sky and the little garden behind the Cathedral.
Ignatius lumbered over to the picket fence, abandoning the hopeless cause espoused by the wagon, and viewed the oil paintings and pastels and watercolors strung there. Although the style of each varied in crudity, the subjects of the paintings were relatively similar: camelias floating in bowls of water, azaleas tortured into ambitious flower arrangements, magnolias that looked like white windmills. Ignatius scrutinized the offerings furiously for a while all by himself, for the ladies had stepped back from the fence and formed what looked like a protective little grouping. The wagon, too, stood forlorn on the flagstones, several feet from the newest member of the art guild.
“Oh my God!” Ignatius bellowed after he had promenaded up and down along the fence. “How dare you present such abortions to the public?”
“Please move along, sir,” a bold lady said.
“Magnolias don’t look like that,” Ignatius said, thrusting his cutlass at the offending pastel magnolias. “You ladies need a course in botany. And perhaps geometry, too.”
“You don’t have to look at our work,” an offended voice said from the group, the voice of the lady who had drawn the magnolia in question.
“Yes, I do!” Ignatius screamed. “You ladies need a critic with some taste and decency. Good heavens! Which one of you did this camelia? Speak up. The water in this bowl looks like motor oil.”
“Leave us alone,” a shrill voice said.
“You women had better stop giving teas and brunches and settle down to the business of learning how to draw,” Ignatius thundered. “First, you must learn how to handle a brush. I would suggest you all get together and paint someone’s house for a start.”Â
Thanks – I got to laugh out loud at that passage again! Seriously – there has been a long tradition of on-the-spot portrait artists at the square – some were quite good. It has become mostly “souvenier art” because that’s what sells. So what if they want to ban prints, you can buy thousands of prints right down the street. At least they managed to beat back the invading army of tarot readers. At one point it had to be the highest concentration of tarot readers per square foot on the planet! Only in New Orleans.
Comment by CB — July 30, 2009 @ 5:50 pm
I’m not sure I see a meaningful difference between hand-made souvenir art and print souvenir art. More often than not, both are making something that reveals less creativity that a T-shirt, and neither merits special protection based on their work.
Comment by Alex Rawls — August 1, 2009 @ 1:37 pm
Certainly the Jackson Square “artists” are fame game for satire, but I think in the passage above Ignatius is reacting to the (annual?) art club showing of amateur “art” works along the fence of the yard behind the cathedral that is still held. I know this because I happened to walk by it this year, and the subject matter (and rendering there of) has remained remarkably the same.
As for the painters and drawers of Jackson Square making what sells, how different is that really from most of the music on display at the Satchmo’ Festival. Some of it was well played, and maybe some of it was “art.”
Comment by belyin — August 2, 2009 @ 9:31 pm