Recognizing a
Masterpiece:
William Gaddis's Reinterpretation of Flemish Art
It is a well-established fact that William Gaddis’s The Recognitions was considered something extraordinary when it was published a decade after the end of World War II. In a retrospective of the criticism at the time of its debut, Susan Strehle Klemtner (1978) writes, “The uncertain reception [. . .] is understandable; the reviews indicate common problems [. . .] for a casual reader: complexity of event and structure, unusual treatment of character, a difficult narrative surface” (61). The massive novel had its early admirers, too, but even they would not have guessed what Gaddis’s work would spawn in American letters as The Recognitions is considered a forebear of the postmodern novels of DeLillo, Pynchon, Mailer, Wallace and others (Beer 69; Swann 101). Therefore, what Gaddis was to American fiction, Flemish painter Jan van Eyck was to European painting, taking it from the medieval world to the modern.
The comparison between Gaddis and van Eyck is a natural one, considering that the fifteenth-century Flemish masters have such a significant role in The Recognitions. The main plot of the novel – though the term plot does not quite work with the book – involves a young artist, Wyatt Gwyon, who masterfully forges paintings in the style of the Flemish guilds. Gaddis makes copious allusions to these Renaissance painters and their works – but more than merely allude to van Eyck and his fellow guildsmen, Gaddis reinterpreted their techniques for his unique narrative style. His reinterpretations range from the overall structure of the novel, to its perplexing chronologies, and finally to even the physical details of the scenes and the plethora of characters who move about within them.
Others have documented connections between The Recognitions and the Flemish painters. Most notably, Brian Stonehill deals primarily with structural issues in The Self-Conscious Novel: Artiface in Fiction from Joyce to Pynchon (1988). To date, the most thorough discussion of the Flemish connection appears in Christopher Knight’s Hints and Guesses: William Gaddis’s Fiction of Longing (1997), where the author concerns himself with issues of theme, symbolism and characterization. The purpose of this paper is not to refute the conclusions of Stonehill and Knight, but rather to build upon them. I believe it is Gaddis’s reinterpretation of the Flemish painting techniques that gives his novel such an unusual and troublesome style.
Had Gaddis not been planning to fully exploit what this Flemish group could bring to his narrative, he might have chosen different painters from a different century, specifically the Dutch painters of the 1600s, and even more specifically Vermeer and de Hoogh. It is clear that Gaddis tapped the real-life drama of art forger Han van Meegeren, who had to reveal his ingenious forging techniques to keep from being imprisoned by the Dutch as a Nazi collaborator. Van Meegeren’s fantastic tale of how he fooled the art establishment with his previously unknown Vermeers and de Hooghs was unfolding in the media just as William Gaddis was beginning to work on what would become The Recognitons, and the novelist transferred van Meegeren’s methods directly to his young forger, Wyatt Gwyon.
So why not make Wyatt a forger of Dutch paintings instead of Flemish ones? The only answer can be that Gaddis viewed the Flemish painters of two centuries earlier as a much richer vein for his novel. The Flemish artists were a good choice, according to art historians. Joseph Van der Elst writes, “The quality of stagecraft in Flemish painting was always to tell the story presented through vividly portrayed actors, distributed according to the importance of their stage business, and in designs that were psychologically as well as spatially composed. [. . .] In no art save that of ballet can be found such rhythmic cadences” (125, 75).
One of the many enigmatic qualities of the book is its repetitive structure. Comparisons have been made to Dante and Joyce among others. But Stonehill points out, and I believe rightly so, that the novel resembles a Renaissance triptych, where “the central panel is twice the width of its wings”; and, moreover, the two sides “mirror each other in details large and small [. . .]” (130). In the 1993 Penguin edition, the central section, with 439 pages, is roughly twice as long as the first and third sections, 274 and 233 pages, respectively. Just one of numerous mirror-image examples is that the book opens with a description of the so-called “Spanish Affair” which takes place on a boat bound for Spain; and part three returns to images of the sea and Spain, specifically the port of Tibieza de Dios, which is “governed by descendents of Spain” (723). Most of the interior sections of the novel, however, are set in New York and Paris. Amusingly, at almost the exact middle of the “triptych,” where an important religious figure is often positioned, William Gaddis has placed his alter-ego, the novelist Willie, who appears sporadically throughout the novel. It is on page 478 of 956 that a character notes, “—Good lord, Willie, you are drunk. Either that or you’re writing for a very small audience.”
Another connection between the Flemish painters and Gaddis is the disordering of time. Once van Eyck and other painters perfected the techniques of rendering three dimensions, they were intoxicated by the possibilities. Van der Elst writes that “space was so exciting that they created very deep illusions of it” (123).Yet, in spite of their fascination with three-dimensional paintings, the Flemish masters often chose to abandon total realism in their work. One of the remnants of medieval art that they continued to incorporate into their paintings, especially their altarpieces, was the unrealistic representation of time. In van der Weyden’s St. John Altarpiece, for example, in the right panel of the triptych, we see both the beheading of John the Baptist in the foreground, and the delivery of the head to King Harod in the background. Furthermore, the Gothic arches that frame the panels show statuary representing various saints, many of whom lived after John the Baptist’s time. In order to include more images and additional narrative, van der Weyden “abandons the concept of temportal unity” (Masterworks).
Similarly, Gaddis abandons temporal unity in The Recognitions. On the one hand, the novel seems to be realistically linked to history. Early in the novel there is a reference to the eruption of Krakatao. Also, Gaddis refers to various temporal markers throughout; in parts 1 and 2, it is the approach of Christmas that marks the time; in part 3, Easter is the temporal lighthouse the characters are focused on. In fact, Steven Moore writes, “[T]he passage of time is given such attention that a strict internal chronology is implied for the novel” (79). But a close reading reveals that Gaddis’s markers to do not always work together. The reference to Krakatao indicates the beginning year of the novel to be 1927; however, if one starts tolling the time from the middle of the narrative and works backward, 1919 appears to be the start point (Moore 80). Furthermore, sections III.3 and III.4 are in reverse order, as III.4 focuses on a transatlantic crossing after departing from New York, and III.3 is centered on the main character’s misadventures in Spain. In short, Gaddis sacrificed realism in order to tell the story he felt compelled to tell – just as the Flemish masters abandoned total realism in their narrative paintings by disordering chronology.
Gaddis also tapped the Flemish painters for characterization. Wyatt Gwyon begins his career as a forger by imitating Hubert van Eyck with an Anunciation painting. Hubert van Eyck is an enigmatic figure in art history. He may have been Jan’s older brother, as an inscription on the Ghent altarpiece suggests (Friedländer 7) – but no other piece of artwork has been positively linked to Hubert; therefore, over the centuries numerous theories have been put forth regarding his identity. Hubert’s enigmatic quality suits Wyatt’s character. Wyatt can never quite seem to find himself in the novel. At various times, he studies for the priesthood, tries to produce original art, then ultimately becomes a forger of art (but one who isn’t especially interested in money). Gaddis represents Wyatt’s lack of a concrete identity by making him nameless for most of the novel, using the name Wyatt for the last time on page 118. By the same token, later in the novel, the young forger is working on Death of the Virgin as a Hugo van der Goes. At this point, Wyatt’s life parallels van der Goes’s. Friedländer writes, “[Goes] was not averse to wine and was often a victim of fits of melancholy that sometimes mounted to delirium” (32). Van der Goes spent the last years of his life in a monastery as “protection against his passions” (32). In the novel, Wyatt battles alcohol abuse, depression bordering on insanity, and ultimately retreats to a monastery, where, like Thoreau, he will try “to live deliberately” and “simplify” (900).
Not only is the overall structure of The Recognitions like a triptych, but the stuff that fills the pages is very much like the stuff that fills the Flemish painters’s frames. That is, the Flemish masters created large-scale works by focusing on the minutiae within the composition. Van der Elst writes, “The mastery of scale required to make a whole large unit blend with its elements and yet, on closer view, dissolve into other smaller wholes is a skill which reached its highest perfection at the hands of Jan van Eyck” (124). This description pertains to The Recognitions as well. Admirers and detractors alike acknowledge the book’s broad and complicated landscape. But Gaddis’s vast novel is composed primarily of intricate exploration of small parts between its numerous characters. Gaddis self-consciously acknowledges the importance of vast artistic expression and the simultaneous attention to detail through the voices of his characters. One writerly character, Stanley, alludes to Aristotle while talking to a literary agent: “[. . .] all the work should fit into one whole, and express an entire perfect action [. . .]” (616). Directly connecting prose to painting, another character compares the Flemish artists “to a writer who can’t help devoting as much care to a moment as to an hour” (460).
While Gaddis borrowed from the Flemish masters for significant elements of his book, perhaps the painters’s most profound influences were in the specific details of composition they lent to The Recognitions, including the use of color, Gothic arches as a framing device, and focusing on characters’s hands and eyes.
Color was a crucial element of composition for the Flemish painters. In fact, the proper use of color was one of the main concerns of the guilds. Application of the colors was a painstaking procedure that left nothing to chance: "When the monochrome was completed, a coat of flesh color in an oil medium was laid over it. Over this flesh tint the colors were spread thinly in a shining coat, and the details were drawn in with white. Other films of oil followed the first [. . . . The painter] understood the peculiarities of this material, for he directed that each color should be arranged with certainty and put in its place to avoid later changes" (van der Elst 39).
Color served numerous purposes for the Flemish painters, some purposes having to do with composition, others with symbolic meaning. Painters used their understanding of color to direct the eye in the composition. In portraiture, subjects tended to wear dark colors and pose against an equally understated background, thus focusing the viewer’s attention on the subject’s face. In narrative tableaus, bold colors helped important figures stand out from background and peripheral figures. Moreover, in the fifteenth century colors still carried the symbolic meanings attached to them in medieval times. For example, blue represented “fidelity” and green meant “amorous love” (Elst 45). We are reminded of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which the seductress of the castle tempts Sir Gawain with a green sash.
Similarly, Gaddis uses color to underscore elements in his scenes as well. In The Recognitions the color green is especially important and is by far the most prevalent color mentioned. Green is used for both narrative movement and symbolism – much the same way that Flemish painters used color. One example is a green scarf that ends up around the necks of various characters and helps to show the link between the characters and ultimately causes a misidentification that sends the father of Otto Pivner, the original bearer of the scarf, to jail. Regarding the symbolic meaning of green, it is noteworthy that Otto shows up wearing the green scarf for the first time at the apartment of Esme the morning after a casual sexual encounter with her. He forgets and leaves the scarf behind in Esme’s apartment; Esme is the object of sexual desire for several of the characters in the book. Working in another direction, the novel involves counterfeiting money as well as art, and the color green certainly ties into that aspect as well. Lastly, the final narrative movement of the book is in springtime, and, in fact, ends (probably) on Easter. In addition to its narrative and symbolic importance, green was often used in Renaissance paintings to create depth. Van der Elst writes, “To [create the appearance of depth] the Fleming often used a warm brown foreground, a cool green middle ground, and a cold blue background” (123). Certainly Gaddis uses color, especially green, to add depth to his novel as well.
One of the common features of Flemish altarpieces was the Gothic arch frame; Friedländer credits Dieric Bouts for the widespread use of Gothic arches (27). In addition to providing a highly stylized frame for the paintings, the Gothic arches contain “rich narrative material” (26). Gaddis makes reference to just such an architectural feature several times in The Recognitions. Most notably, Ludy, a novelist in the book, is looking for the main character Wyatt and finds him “seated motionless up the hill, outside the arch of the four-door square gothic ruin” (892). To place Wyatt in an altarpiece-style setting might hint at the character’s saintly transformation.
Finally, I’d like to talk about the use of hands and eyes that is so important to both Flemish Renaissance art and Gaddis’s book. In portraiture, hands were often rendered at the base of the frame to help define the space of the composition, to add a sense of depth, and to balance the color of the face. In narrative paintings, hands provide a sense of movement and communicate the attitudes of the subjects. In religious tableaus, hands also helped Renaissance observers to identify subjects; for example, to represent Mary Magdalene, the artist would place a pot of ointment in her hands, while St. Barbara is always holding a miniature tower (Elst 39). By the same token, Gaddis makes frequent use of hands. In one especially important scene between Wyatt and Esther, the wife he has abandoned but is reunited with briefly at a Christmas Eve party, Gaddis focuses on their hands to heighten the drama and reveal the tension between the two:
--No[, says Esther.] Her hands lay in his, under the squared white mass of the shirts, cold nails and soft lined joints against his hard palms.
--The music? [asks Wyatt.]
--No. Her thumbs out, and palms up with the weight on them, her shoulders relax, and her hands open further, to draw up as instantly there is no support, first his right hand gone, clearly gone, and then with an instant’s paroxysm the left. (588)
Here their hands symbolize Wyatt’s leaving Esther for good.
Even more significant in The Recognitions than hands is Gaddis’s use of eyes, even lifeless eyes. Jan van Eyck and other Flemish painters perfected the rendering of realistic looking eyes. By using white on top of rich iris colors, the eye appears moist and alive. (See van der Weyden's Portrait of a Young Woman.) However, van der Weyden eventually decided that realistic eyes distract the viewer too much from the overall composition of the painting, so he stopped using the dots of white to project an illusion of life. (See Portrait of a Lady.) Gaddis focuses much attention on characters’s eyes, and he even makes use of the concept of dead or lifeless eyes. One of the ways that Gaddis demonstrates Wyatt’s growing agitation is by referring to his “burning green eyes” often in the book. Another example is how deeply affected Otto is by Esme’s eyes: “Her eyes embarrassed him with their beauty, all at once as she showed them” (199). In terms of dead eyes, Gaddis has several pairs in his novel. He refers to the “dusty” glass eye of a moose head in the Depot Tavern (444), to fish eyes staring back from the plate (788, 883), to the eyes in a tapestry hanging on a wall (659), and even to the 100 eyes of Argus that were “transplanted to the peacock’s tail” (202). Certainly, Gaddis is not the first writer to concentrate on characters’s eyes, but in a novel about forgery, about distinguishing between genuine and fake, real and unreal – being attentive to eyes is especially apropos. Perhaps the inclusion of so many dead eyes is Gaddis’s way of saying that such distinctions are all but impossible, or maybe not worth making in the first place.
When readers first encounter The Recognitions, most do not know what to make of it. In terms of the typical apparatus of fiction – characterization, plot, conflict, resolution, symbolism – the novel just does not behave like the usual text. For many, bewilderment is a common reaction. But looking at the book through the lens of Flemish painting seems to bring it into clearer focus. Understanding that Gaddis was not merely alluding to fifteenth-century art but actually incorporating many of those painters’s techniques into his unique narrative style explains the novel’s odd traits, like its seemingly redundant structure, its obsession with hands and eyes, and its eccentric and aloof main character – the very oddities that have kept The Recognitions from being universally regarded as a great work of literature. Perhaps in the twenty-first century, William Gaddis’s book finally will be elevated from cult classic to a bonafide classic of American letters.
Works Cited
Beer, John. “William Gaddis.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 21.3 (2001): 69-109.
Elst, Baron Joseph van der. The Last Flowering of the Middle Ages. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1969.
“Eyck, Jan van.” ibilio: the public’s library and digital archive. 2 Feb. 2003 <http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/eyck>.
Friedländer, Max J. Early Netherlandish Painting: From van Eyck to Bruegel. Trans. Marguerite Kay. New York: Phaidon, 1956.
Gaddis, William.The Recognitions. 1955. New York: Penguin, 1993.
Gass, William H. Introduction. The Recognitions. By William Gaddis. New York: Penguin, 1993.
Knight, Christopher. “Flemish Art and Wyatt’s Quest for Redemption in William Gaddis’ The Recognitions.” In Recognition of William Gaddis. Ed. John Kuehl and Steven Moore. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1984. 58-69.
Masterworks of Western Art: The Northern Renaissance. Dir. Reiner E. Moritz. Videocassette. Films for the Humanities and Sciences, 2000.
Moore, Steven.“Chronological Difficulties in the Novels of William Gaddis.” Critique 22.1 (1980): 79-91
Stonehill, Brian.“Plagiarizing The Recognitions.” The Self-Conscious Novel: Artifice in Fiction from Joyce to Pynchon. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1988.114-40.
Strehle Klemtner, Susan.“‘For a Very Small Audience’: The Fiction of WilliamGaddis.” Critique 19.3 (1978):61-73.
Ted Morrissey is a Ph.D. candidate in English studies at Illinois State University.
Text © Ted Morrissey 2004
Detail of St. John
Altarpiece. Click here for enlarged view.
Portrait of a Young Woman. Click here for enlarged view.
Portrait of a Lady. Click here for enlarged view.