Spring 2015

SPRING IN MY GARDEN

From this (above) in a few weeks, to this, (below)

The Religious Art of Andy Warhol

My gleaning of and response to THE RELIGIOUS ART OF ANDY WARHOL by Jane Daggett Dillenberger 

Andy Warhol, The Last Supper, 1986. Screen print and coloured graphic art collage paper, 23 3/4x31 5/8 in.

Jane Daggett Dillenberger, in her book The Religious Art of Andy Warhol (Continuum. New York. 1998), delves into the religious, pious and seemingly secret side of Andy Warhol's life and art works. Andy lived in a sedate and elegant New York townhouse that contained his studio.

Warhol's elegantly draped antique bed. On the table nearby were a carved New Mexican crucifix, bowls of fragrant petals, and a devotional book marked by Warhol and given to his brother John Warhola before the photograph was taken.

      Andy Warhol's studio at the time of his death.

Dillenberger points out that there was "another Andy, a private Andy, who is stunningly opposite to his public persona. This Andy is shy, reclusive and religious."(Dillenberger p 11) She goes on to say that only his closest friends knew of his spiritual side.  He seemed to be the antithesis of spiritual but that side of him existed and gives his art another dimension.

Before his death, Warhol worked on a cycle of paintings that had religious content and references. The image he projected as being cool, immoral and amoral, avariciously entrepreneurial, voyeuristic, obsessed with money, fame and glamour hid another side that grappled with concepts about piety, religiosity and ethics.

Andy was born into a fervently Catholic family, following what was called Ruska Dolina, the Rutheran section of Pittsburgh. When young, he was withdrawn and reclusive, devout and celibate.

The public mask he wore as an artist made him appear to be disingenuous, insincere and mischievous.

His mother, Julia, had a huge influence on him. 

Andy Warhol, Portrait of Julia Warhola, 1974. Silkscreen on canvas, 40x40 in. Painted after her death

Holy Cats by Andy Warhol's Mother. Book Cover, 9x6 in. The cover for Julia's fanciful book dedicated to her cat, "Little Hester who left for pussy heaven."

   Andy Warhol, Mother and Child. Ink blot and water-colour on paper, 9 3/4x8 3/4 in.

Andy habitually went to Mass more often than was obligatory and visited his local church, St. Vincent Ferrer, almost daily until shortly before he died. He regularly helped out at a shelter serving meals to the homeless and the hungry.

Warhol serving the homeless at the Church of the Heavenly Rest, New York. According to the rector, "Andy poured coffee, served food, and helped clean up. He was a true friend to these friendless. He loved these nameless New Yorkers and they loved him back."

Was his air of detachment - the distance he displayed between the world and himself - a reflection of his reserve; a persona he developed as an artist or an ironic caricature of Cool?

Andy's religion didn't surface in his work until a few years before his death. He embarked on a series of Last Suppers using as inspiration a cheap, kitsch mock-up of Leonardo's masterpiece he bought on Times Square. His use of Pop art to re-energise sacred subjects was revolutionary. His canvases sported slogans like Jesus Saves  and Heaven and Hell Are Just One Breath Away!

To understand Warhol's piety, insight into his beginnings is essential. "Andrew Warhola was born on August 6, 1928, in a two-roomed shanty in a ghetto of Pittsburgh to Julia and Andrej Warhola, who were Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants from Mikova in the Slovak Republic of the former Czechoslovakia." (Dillenberger, p 17) Ruska Dolina, the Ruthenian section of Pittsburgh, preserved the language and culture of their origins and life revolved around the Byzantine Catholic Church. They celebrate Christmas on January 7 and use old Slavonic in their churches. Life was strictly observant at home - no games, radio nor doing, instead entertainment on Sundays was provided by their mother's story telling.

The long services, multiple devotional icons and the pomp and glitter of the rituals made a deep impression on Andy. At home, most rooms had icons. His first experience of art was of religious art. He was often sick and while confined to home his mother encouraged him in his pursuit of art activities.

At the age of twelve, Andy started collecting photographs of movie stars which later flowered into the iconography of Pop art. The family was destitute which left Andy with a permanent anxiety about money. Later, as a wealthy man, he's quoted as saying, "I had to sell fruit on street corners to get through school, you know. It wasn't easy." (Dillenberger p 21)

As Warhol's career progressed, he continued with his pious observance of Catholicism. His mother moved in with him when he rented an apartment and they practised prayers and rituals together. They lived together for twenty years until a few months before her death. They had a close and symbiotic relationship.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1498. Tempera on prepared stone wall, 180x342 in.

Andy Warhol, The Last Supper (Dove), 1986. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 119x263 in.

Andy created many paintings based on Leonardo's famous The Last Supper which is a fresco on the wall in the refectory of Santa dell Grazie in Milan. I saw this fresco in 1973 before the crowds and restoration teams had descended on it.

"The image, of course, is part of popular culture, reproduced in every size and medium,  including an imaginative variety of kitsch Last Suppers in exuberantly bad taste, some with changing colours and others painted in black velvet". (Dillenberger p 79)

There was a family connection to this image of Leonardo's The Last Supper. A reproduction hung on the walls of the kitchen where the Warhola family had their meals in their immigrant home in Pittsburgh. Warhol's devout mother had a small coloured reproduction in her worn and often used Old Slavonic Prayer Book.

In Warhol's The Last Supper (Dove), above, three logos are superimposed over the sacred drawing. These are commercial logos: the corner price tag of 59 cents; the Dove soap logo and the General Electric logo. It is ironic to see these commercial icons juxtaposed with the sacred icon. Is Andy Warhol saying that the hackneyed image of The Last Supper has been reduced to popular culture and that the logos and Leonardo's over used image are now on the same plane? Is the use of the price tag a way of suggesting that money is God today? Is it a critique of dumbing down, commercialising higher ideals or cheapening valuable belief systems?

What are these marketing symbols doing obscuring the sacred, narrative image of The Last Supper?

Does the price tag say that everything can be purchased or that not everything can be purchased? Or perhaps 59c in 1986 when Warhol painted this would not have bought much, pointing to the devalued religious images. The painting is playful. If you didn't know that Warhol was a believer, you might read it as an atheistic critique of religion exposing its business-like goals whilst drawing people in with false promises and false values.

Dillenberger, whose book shows us Andy's devout side, suggests that the Dove soap reference coupled with the GE from packaged light bulbs denotes cleanliness and power; "Cleanliness is next to Godliness". The dove levitating above the head of Jesus alludes to the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist: "the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descending upon (Jesus) in bodily form like a dove" (Luke 3:21-22).

She says: "As for GE, "we bring good things to light" can be seen as a metaphor for creation, when God separated light and darkness and found his creation to be "good": God brings good things to light. GE as a symbol for the creator, the dove for the Holy Spirit, and Jesus here delineated at the Last Supper - the three make up the Holy Trinity. The Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a theological concept that is particularly significant in the Byzantine Catholic Church." (Dillenberger p 93)

And by juxtaposing fine art and graphic art was Andy in fact saying that commercial art and fine art are now the same? That all art practice is popular art? 

On April 1, 1987, the celebrities of the art world, the rock music and film worlds, the international jet set and scores of anonymous New Yorkers attended Andy's memorial service at St. Patrick's Cathedral. There were two thousand people, many of who would not have known about Andy's long church attendance and personal piety. He had kept these a secret from all but his closest friends. Were they, in fact, the key to his artistic psyche?