Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida Project Ivan Albright

Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida
Project
Ivan Albright

Volunteer:
Date:
Grade Level:		5th Grade
Artist:		Ivan Albright
Print Sculpture:		Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida
Art Vocabulary:		Metamorphosing Stereotype Perspective Vanitas
I	The Artist
	In 1929, the Chicago artist Ivan Albright placed an advertisement for a model answered by Ida Rogers, not yet 20-years old. The artist painted the young wife and mother – "a very decent, nice girl," claimed Albright – throughout the next two years, metamorphosing her on canvas into a stereotype of the piteous older woman we see in this early masterpiece of 1929-30.
	Her puckered, drooping flesh squeezed into tawdry clothing sizes too small, the doleful woman sits alone at her dressing table, surrounded by a collection of objects as wasted and worn as she is. She gazes at a mirror held at such an angle that it could reflect either her sorrowful image or the empty void behind her. As if the powder puff could ward off the ravages of time, she dabs at her gray, lumpen flesh in vain. To render this haunting portrait of aging and decay, Albright used lurid, dark colors, illuminated by a harsh, raking light that accentuates each blemish, each stray hair.
	The son of a painter, Albright turned to painting after serving in the medical corps during WWI (1914-1918) where he made medical drawings which certainly contributed to the extremely detailed style of his paintings. His creative process was painstaking. Rogers posed in Albright's light-controlled studio in which the artist had created an elaborate dressing room stage set, complete with such decrepit props as a frayed rug, crocheted doily, smoldering cigarette stub, even a comb with wisps of hair between the teeth. He often made diagrammatic plans for color and on occasion used a brush with only three hairs to depict obsessively precise details. A painting could take years to complete. As Rogers recalled: "[Albright] had a little platform, a dais, and he put me on it and walked around... He'd spend days and days on a little bit. He was very slow."
	Like Picasso's portrayal of Kahnweiler.
	Albright has transformed his subject according to his personal artistic vision. He was interested in manipulating the appearance of his sitter and setting. Thus the perspective of the rug and dresser tilt perilously to the right in the picture, while the checkered handkerchief seems to hover in midair. but whereas Picasso's investigation involved structure and space, Albright's simultaneous presentation of different vantage points not only increases the viewer's discomfort, it also underscores Albright's central theme and lifelong fascination: the precariousness of life and death and decay's inevitability. In Ida, Albright has portrayed a modern-day vanitas figure surrounded by objects symbolizing this very impermanence – a mirror, flowers, money, an extinguished match. "The tomorrow of death is what appeals tome," declared Albright in one of his many notebooks. "It is greater than life – stronger than any human ties."
	As for the real Ida Rogers, the painting reveals little. In front of the left chair is a peanut shell. Rogers munched peanuts during sitting, perhaps to relieve the tedium, a habit that infuriated the artist. Behind the chair is a burnt scrap of paper. Although scrolls are often found in traditional vanitas painting, the singed sheet may refer to a poem the single artist (he did not marry until 1946) had written during the intense painting sessions. "Tis Ida the holy maiden I dream of/ Too perfect her face for the eyes of man," it began, and concluded with the lines: "I dare not look at her for fear I portray/ The emotion within me--will lead me astray." Albright gave Rogers the poem. "I looked at it and started to giggle," Rogers later said, "and he took it and tore it up."
	Portraits depict one moment in a sitter's existence, crystallizing that moment for perpetuity. Albright continued to examine mortality in his haunting, meticulously rendered work throughout six decades. Here the little we know of Rogers – her relative youth, her love of peanuts, her rebuff of the artist – is subsumed by Albright's permanent portrayals of aging and decay – paradoxically long before the real Ida Rogers began to grow old.
II.	The Painting: Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida
	This particular painting was chosen as a springboard for discussion and activities about self image. It is also an excellent example of portraiture.
	In addition, Daryl Rizzo (a sculptor and teacher) suggested the following approaches when presenting this painting:
	Set the stage by telling a story before showing the picture. He used the story of Narcissus. You could also tell the Beauty and the Beast story – idea of the magic mirror and transformation. Details: Have the students look at the picture intensely for one minute and then ask them to list all the details they can remember. This will get them to really "look." The painting is very rich and needs studying. Tricks: Show only part of the painting (covering most) and have students guess composition based on a few exposed details. Ask them what they think the woman will look for from hints you reveal.
	Discussion
	An interesting fact about this painting is that the model used was only 19-years old. Why did Albright paint her this way? What was he trying to say to us? What can we learn about Ida from the things that surround her? What do we learn about ourselves by the things that surround us? What is the emotional feel of this painting? How does he achieve that? What does Ida see in that mirror? What do we see in the mirror when we look at ourselves? How do students feel about growing older?
III.	Composition of Artwork
	Elements to consider when viewing the portrait:
	Does the portrait feature an equal balance between the figure and the background? Is one element more prominent? If so, what might the artist be saying about the subject? What is the setting? Does it reveal anything about the sitter? Consider the clothing worn by the sitter. Is it formal or casual? What does it reveal about the person's social class, era, and self-image? Are accessories included? If so, toward what end? Describe the sitter's pose and gestures. What attitudes do they project to the viewer? Is the sitter engaged in an activity or consciously posing for a portrait? How would you characterize the individuals facial expression? Does the artist show the person frozen in time or in the midst of a fleeting emotion? Does the sitter look directly at the viewer, look to one side, or gaze at something else in the picture? In other words, is the sitter aware of the spectator? Consider the point of view from which the artist has depicted the sitter. Is it frontal, from above, or from below? How does this choice affect our understanding of the person? Is the sitter's inner state stressed over his/her position in the world? Does the artist call attention to one feature more than any other to define the sitter? Clothing? Expression? Setting?
IV	Students' Self-Expression: Guided Activity
	Draw a "tabletop" self portrait with items that are important to the students representing them. Have the drawings be very detailed and only in pencil with no erasing allowed. Give students a chance to share and discuss their works. Feel free to use other paintings to reinforce your discussion. There are several in the collection that would work (van Gogh, self portrait; Rembrandt, self portrait, Mona Lisa's, etc.)
	Science: Have students collect objects with a variety of textures and place them in a paper bag. Include objects seen in the painting such as a doily, wicker, decorative glass, flowers, rug fragment, wood, dollar bill, mirror, etc. Pass the bag around and have students feel the textures with their hands and write a description of the texture they feel. Have students identify, through touch, any objects they see in the painting. Discuss feeling texture with your hands versus imagining it from a visual representation.
	Social Science: Have students collect photographs of someone in their family. Choose photographs that reveal the person at a variety of ages from childhood through adulthood. Have students arrange the photographs in chronological order and write captions for each one. Alternative: Have students bring in their own baby pictures and display them around the room. Have students try to identify their classmates as infants. Discuss how certain characteristics remain the same and which ones change as we mature.
	Language Arts: 1) have students collect photographs of someone they know and cut out objects or images from magazines that reflect this person's life, personality and interests. Then create a collage portrait of that individual. 2) Based on Albright's painting, have students write an entry in Ida's journal for the day of the portrait. what is she thinking and what is she getting ready for.
	For an activity, we did oral conversations between two paintings. We used Ida and some other of Albright.