Back to Basics

Adhering to principles of the Italian Renaissance, Nelson Shanks paints the powerful and the influential.

By: Ilene Dube
   The pope is standing upright. His eyes are open and alert, and a mystical light washes over him. He is far more striking than the hunched-over man we see in the news.
   "I wanted the painting to reflect his lifetime being," says Bucks County resident Nelson Shanks, who has painted portraits of Michael Bloomberg, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Princess Diana, Luciano Pavarotti and Dr. C. Everett Koop, among others.
   Pope John Paul II, commissioned by the Friends of the Vatican Art Museum, will be on view at the Philadelphia Art Museum from the middle of January until mid February. In March, it moves to the Vatican Show in Texas and will travel for three years before returning to Rome.
   Mr. Shanks, 64, spends several sessions getting to know his subjects. He goes through the closets of world leaders to pick the wardrobe he thinks they will look best in.
   He doesn’t work from photographs — they don’t accurately capture the skin tone that is so important in his renderings — but when painting Bill Clinton for the National Portrait Gallery, his time with the outgoing president was restricted and the painter reluctantly brought in a photographer.
   To paint the pope, he made his first trip to Rome in March. "It took two months to do sketches and get the lay of the land," he says, seated in a chair in his Andalusia, Pa., studio, where the light from the north-facing window is growing dim. Mr. Shanks works every moment he can, and only conducts interviews after he has lost the light. "He was in his own world, dealing with things, doing things, not addressing the subject of sitting," he says. In order to get a sense of Pope John Paul II in his more youthful days, Mr. Shanks watched hundreds of videos and looked at pictures.
   "He is intensely spiritual, and I wanted to capture that," says Mr. Shanks, surrounded by mannequins, props and enormous canvases of nudes and still lifes. "There is a play of light in the painting. A cool bluish daylight comes from the dome, and a yellow golden orange from the window gives it a lot of contrast," says the artist, whose palette includes about 28 colors.
   His subjects in modern business attire are often surrounded by lighting and colors reminiscent of the Renaissance and Baroque Italian and French masters. It is no coincidence that these are his favorite periods.
   "I’m a big fan of (Gianlorenzo) Bernini (1598-1680)," he says of the Italian architect and sculptor. The holy scripture behind the pope is on the Baldacchino altar, designed by Bernini in 1640 for the Basilica di San Pietro.
   The miter on the pope’s head depicts Christ as the Good Shepherd. "He had many miters, but I picked this one because the pope is the good shepherd on Earth, so it was appropriate. I also liked the colors," says Mr. Shanks.
   "There is a 500-year history of not-so-great portraits of the pope," he continues. "Even the portrait of Pope Innocent X painted by (Diego) Velazquez in the 1640s is still a portrait of a grumpy old man in a chair. (My painting) is inclusive of the architecture, the symbolism, metaphor." An independent appraiser has valued the 52-by-54 inch canvas at $500,000. Mr. Shanks often gets several hundred thousand dollars per painting.
   It is now fairly dark in the studio, and Mr. Shanks concedes to electricity. The phone rings incessantly, and Mr. Shanks takes each call; Christine, his assistant, has left for the day.
   We are surrounded by antique chairs with carved wood arms and needlepoint upholstery, vases with peacock feathers, palm trees and the smell of oil paint. A sofa is crowded with the life-sized dolls and stuffed animals Mr. Shanks uses when his subjects are not available. Every time a subject gets up or moves, the folds of the drapery change, so Mr. Shanks uses the mannequins to keep the folds constant. The building itself is a converted barn from the mid 1800s.
   Against one wall is a painting of Mr. Shanks’ children, Alexander, 7, and Annalisa, 9, having a piano lesson. The masks of comedy and tragedy are on a chair, and Mr. Shanks’ beautiful wife, Leona, a painter and sculptress, is half asleep in the background.
   Against another wall leans a handsome Mr. Clinton with a portfolio tucked under one arm. This canvas shows him from the hips up, but Mr. Shanks plans to re-create the past president full figure in an 8-foot-tall version.
   Mr. Shanks had only a few hours with the president during his last two months in office. "He had a lot of agendas on his mind," Mr. Shanks recalls. "He seemed relaxed. He was reading a book on photography, but he loves to wave his arms around."
   The artist, who works on about seven paintings at a given time, expects to spend time with Mr. Clinton’s portrait in March. He is painting renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Linton Whittaker, "and Buckingham Palace is wondering about my availability."
   Mr. Shanks predicts Hillary Rodham Clinton will want her portrait painted by him, as well — he nearly painted her while in the White House, but she had to deliver a speech instead. "The National Gallery has requested any sketches I do," he says.
   As if all this were not enough to keep him busy, Mr. Shanks — who has served as associate professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, as distinguished visiting professor in fine arts at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., conducted seminars at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the New York Academy of Art, and has taught at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League in New York — is starting his own school in Philadelphia.
   Called Incaminati (Italian for moving forward, progressive), the name comes from a 1580s Italian academy. "The art world has gone completely mad, and we need to reorient ourselves back to classical precepts and get our footing back," espouses Mr. Shanks, whose school will teach classical techniques and the basics. "Art was falling to pieces in the 1580s, as well. The Carracci cousins (Ludovico, Annibale and Agostino) put together an academy and dedicated their efforts to teaching from the human figure — classical drawing and technique, emphasizing drawing from nature. Annibale was one of the most important artists who ever lived."
   Mr. Shanks lives in the style of many of his subjects. His nine-bedroom manor home, about 100 yards from his studio, looks like an Italian villa. Overlooking the Delaware and the Betsy Ross Bridge, it was designed in 1859 by Napolean Le Brun, one of the architects of the Philadelphia Academy of Music. "I thought of moving to Europe but couldn’t find anything this nice," he quips.
   It is filled with museum-quality masterworks from the Renaissance, and includes work by Annibale Carracci. "He and Caravaggio were the most important painters in the world. I’ve been collecting seriously for 40 years," says the frequent visitor to Christie’s London auction house. Over the fireplace is a painting by Bernardo Strozzi, one of the most influential painters of the 1600s.
   "Art is in a dilemma at this point," Mr. Shanks goes on. "Abstractionism and the negation of academic learning, the emphasis and freedom, the laissez-faire, anything-goes attitude has produced a kind of anarchy. It has to be redirected. Young students are clamoring to learn, but teaching institutions are bankrupt of learned faculty because of this de-emphasis on learning."
   Incaminati, located at 12th and Callowhill streets, opened its doors in the fall to 30 students. Many have master’s degrees, are professional artists, and have wanted to study with Mr. Shanks for years. Students come from as far as Florence, Italy.
   Students are immersed in the basics of figure drawing and classical techniques five days a week, all day. They study the history of religion in art and "the meaning and relevance of beauty. Students will achieve creativity through knowledge."
   Mr. Shanks’ teaching style is to show by example, so much of the time he is painting. This is how he will complete his portraits and teach simultaneously. He has several assistants, including Leona.
   If the artist seems Old World in some respects, in other ways he is waggish. When painting dress designer Mary McFadden, he chose to paint her in the buff. "It dawned on me as a neat statement to do a nude of a fashion designer," he said. "The ultimate suit is the one we’re born with. She didn’t hesitate when I asked."
Nelson Shanks’ portrait of Pope John Paul II will be on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art second-floor Renaissance galleries, Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, Jan. 11-Feb. 2. Mr. Shanks will give a three-day master class at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1301 Cherry St., Philadelphia, March 7-9, preceded by a three-hour public painting demonstration. For information, e-mail [email protected] or call (215) 972-7632. For information about Incaminati, call (215) 245-7780 or e-mail [email protected]