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You know, usually when we talk about a medical

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diagnosis, there's this certain comfort in the

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expectation of precision. Right, like it's an

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exact science. Exactly. It's like engineering.

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You fall off a bike, you break your arm, and

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the x -ray shows that stark, jagged white line

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across the bone. Yeah, and the doctor just points

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at it and says, you know, there it is. That's

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the fracture. Right. It's a totally binary system,

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broken or not broken, sick or healthy. We really

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crave that kind of visible, undeniable categorization.

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We do, but then, you know, you step out of the

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hospital and into the world of art history, and

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suddenly that x -ray machine is just completely

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useless. Oh, absolutely useless. We're looking

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at a diagnostic landscape that is incredibly

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murky. People stand in front of a canvas, they

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look at chaotic brush strokes or, like, twisting

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landscapes or distorted faces, and they immediately

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try to diagnose the artist. They want to play

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psychologist. Yes. They say, ah, look at the

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violence in that red paint. This person was clearly

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mad. This is the ultimate expression of a tortured,

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agonizing soul. Which is so often just completely

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wrong. Totally. We don't realize that we are

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actually just projecting our own modern feelings,

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our own historical anxieties, straight onto the

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canvas. It's the absolute definition of muddy

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diagnostic waters. I would argue perhaps no artist

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in the entirety of the 20th century has been

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misdiagnosed by history more completely and more

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frequently than Chaim Soutine. Which is exactly

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why we're here today. So welcome to this custom

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tailored deep dive. Glad to be here. Today, we

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are immersing ourselves entirely in the life,

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the art, and the profoundly misunderstood genius

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of Chaim Soutine. And to do this, we're going

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to be using Celeste Marcus's incredibly detailed,

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monumental 2025 biography titled Simply James

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Soutine. It's an amazing book. It really is.

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We're going to go chapter by chapter through

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his absolutely unbelievable journey. And we should

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establish right away the stakes of this deep

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dive are remarkably high. We are looking at a

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man whose life was, well, uninterrupted study

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in absolute extremes. Yeah, the contrast is wild.

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Right. I mean, Soutine survived grinding dangerous

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poverty in the Russian Empire. He became an overnight

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millionaire in Paris. He ran from the Nazis.

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And he painted rotting beef carcasses with the

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reverence of a religious zealot. Exactly. So

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today we are going to explore the mechanics of

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his highly specific painting techniques, his

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incredibly complex, often contradictory relationship

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with his Jewish identity, and how the absolute

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titans of art history repeatedly and often willfully

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misunderstood what he was trying to do. Just

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a quick note before we really jump in. The sources

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we're using today cover some intensely politically

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charged historical events. Very heavy stuff.

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Yeah. Things like the Dreyfus affair, systemic

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anti -Semitism in Europe, and the absolute horrors

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of World War II and the Vichy regime. And our

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role here isn't to judge history or take ideological

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sides on those events. Right. Our mission is

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to impartially report the facts as they are presented

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in the source text, framing it entirely as the

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historical context of Soutine's life. Because

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you really can't understand him without understanding

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the world he was navigating. Exactly. So for

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you listening today, the primary mission is to

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completely dismantle the popular myth of Soutine

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as this like mad, tormented expressionist. We

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really need to throw that label out. Because

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when you actually look at the source material,

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what Marcus reveals is a meticulous genius. His

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lifelong obsession wasn't his own inner turmoil

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or psychological trauma. No, his obsession was

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capturing the pure, vibrating physical energy

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of the world around him. So let's start at the

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very beginning. Because before we can understand

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Soutine, the Parisian legend, you know, the darling

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of Montparnasse, we have to understand where

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he actually came from. And to do that, we have

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to unlearn almost everything pop culture tells

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us about his origins. Oh, completely. Soutine

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was born in 1893. Or possibly 1894. Right. The

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records are super hazy, and he himself wasn't

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always sure. But he was born in a place called

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Smilovice. Today, that's in Belarus, but back

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then, it was part of the Russian Empire. And

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he was the 10th of 11 children. Yeah. born to

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a very impoverished mender named Zalman Soutine.

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Now, when I say the words poor Jewish family

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in an 1890s Russian village, I guarantee almost

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everyone listening immediately pictures the classic

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shtetl. They definitely picture a sepia -toned

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fiddler on the roof trope. Exactly. The cultural

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imagination defaults to this image of an isolated,

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backward, purely religious little hamlet. completely

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cut off from the economic realities of the modern

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world. But Marcus goes out of her way early in

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the biography to make it very clear that this

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is a historical myth. It's just not true. No.

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The term shtetl simply comes from the Yiddish

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word for town or city. These places were not

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isolated hamlets. They were bustling, highly

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active commercial centers that functioned as

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vital economic hubs within the broader Russian

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empire. And the numbers completely back that

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up. Smilovice had nearly 3 ,500 people. It wasn't

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just a cluster of wooden huts. It was a real

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town. Yeah, it had two Orthodox churches, a mosque,

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and five synagogues. It had tanneries, gristmills,

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bars, hotels, and this massive central market.

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It was a vibrant commercial ecosystem. And it

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was primarily driven by its Jewish residents

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right up until the Russian empire began systematically

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suffocating them. Right, with incredibly severe

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regulations, zoning laws, and taxes. And part

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of that systemic control even included forcing

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Jewish populations to adopt formal surnames for

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taxation and tracking purposes. Soutine's very

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name is an artifact of this. The name Soutine

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is literally just the French rendition of Soutine,

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which was actually the name of a nearby town.

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So his name is basically a product of imperial

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bureaucracy. Exactly. That's fascinating. And

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speaking of deeply entrenched myths, there is

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a massive martyrdom myth surrounding Soutine's

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childhood that we have to bust wide open right

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now. Oh, this is a big one. If you open almost

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any mid -century art catalog about Soutine, you

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will read a legendary origin story. The story

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goes that young Soutine was mercilessly, brutally

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beaten by his intensely religious family. Because

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he drew a portrait of an old Jewish man. Right.

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And the family, acting as religious sell -its,

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supposedly viewed this as a violation of religious

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laws against graven images. The legend claims

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he was beaten so badly he had to run away into

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the woods in the dead of night. Which is so dramatic.

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It is. And this foundational trauma of being

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rejected by his backward community supposedly

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fueled his dark, tortured art for the rest of

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his life. It is a perfectly packaged deeply Dickensian

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origin story. It hits all the dramatic notes,

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right? The starving young artist fleeing the

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cruel, unsupportive, anti -intellectual family.

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OK, let's unpack this for a second, because I

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feel like we always hear the cliche of the starving

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artist running away from a cruel family. It's

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almost too perfect. It is too perfect. And the

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problem is, according to Marcus's research, it's

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completely fabricated in its framing. Wait, really?

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Yeah. Marcus brings in counter evidence from

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a man named Fibaka Shraga Zarfin. Zarfin was

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an artist who actually grew up in Smilovice alongside

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Soutine. And Zarfin's reality paints a completely

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different picture of the artist's childhood.

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Zarfin actually said Soutine loved his childhood.

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He did. He loved sauntering around the busy market.

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running out into the fields and drawing happily

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in the mud. He wasn't some persecuted pariah

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cowering in his own home. He literally covered

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the interior walls of his family's house with

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his drawings using charcoal from the fire. And

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the village people weren't terrified of his art

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either. They were actually fascinated by his

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uncanny ability to copy photographs. Right. But,

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you know, we do need to address the beating because

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a beating did actually happen. Oh, it did. It

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just didn't happen the way the myth claims. Soutine

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was indeed drawing a portrait of an 85 -year

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-old local man. But it wasn't Soutine's family

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that attacked him. It was the subject's adult

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sons. They chased Soutine away and beat him severely

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with sticks. Wow. Okay, but the aftermath is

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the crucial part that flips the entire narrative

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on its head. When Soutine staggered home beaten,

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his deeply impoverished father didn't cast him

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out. Not at all. His family essentially rallied

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around him and filed a formal legal complaint

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against the attackers. A local magistrate heard

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the case, ruled entirely in Soutine's favor,

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and ordered the wrongdoers to pay a penalty fine

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of 15 rubles. And that 15 rubles changes the

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course of art history. That is just wild. Because

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that money acted as the exact seed capital Soutine

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needed. It logically funded his move out of Smilovici

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to buy professional art supplies and begin formal

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studies in a larger city. I cannot get over that

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detail. It is such a massive paradigm shift.

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You have a century of art critics claiming Soutine

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was this traumatized runaway projecting his pain

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onto the canvas. Right. But the historical record

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shows his family basically sued on his behalf,

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won his tuition money, and let him go pursue

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his dream. Yeah, it was a pretty supportive launchpad.

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It sounds like it. His dad, Zalman, who the myth

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claims was trying to violently force him to be

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a tailor, actually went out of his way to have

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a special warm coat made for his son when Soutine

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eventually left for Paris. It completely changes

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how you view his foundation. It really does.

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So by the time he was 10 years old, Soutine was

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living in Minsk, about 40 kilometers away from

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his hometown. He worked briefly as an apprentice

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for a tailor, then for a photographer. Which

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exposed him to the mechanics of capturing reality

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on a flat surface. Exactly. And he began taking

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formal art classes from a local painter named

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Jacob Kruger. Now Kruger's school wasn't some

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grand academy. It consisted of just three small

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rooms rented inside a confectionary merchant's

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house. But it was there that Soutine began his

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formal classical education. And this early period

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in Minsk is where Marcus identifies a quiet but

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absolutely foundational moment in his psychological

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development. Decades later, when Soutine was

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a famous artist in Paris, he recalled that one

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of his very earliest, most profound memories

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was simply sitting and studying the patterns

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cast by a single ray of sunshine. Just a ray

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of sunshine hitting the floor and a table. He

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was mesmerized by the dust motes suspended in

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the light. Which sounds so poetic. It does, and

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it's easy to dismiss that as just a child daydreaming.

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But Marcus notes that this was actually the initiation

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of his lifelong rigorous education in observing

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physical vitality. How so? Well, to truly paint,

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you must be intensely present. You have to be

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acutely attuned to the physics of light, how

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a sun's ray strikes the top of a wooden table

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and makes it blindingly bright, but simultaneously

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throws the underside of that same table into

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a deep, impenetrable shadow. Oh, I see. So it's

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the beginning of his obsession with the energy

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of physical matter. He's not looking at the table

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and thinking about how the table makes him feel

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emotionally. Right. He's studying the mechanics

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of how the table exists in space. That's such

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a crucial distinction. Precisely. And that acute

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sensitivity propelled him to seek further training

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at the Vilna Fine Arts Academy in Lithuania.

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OK, yes. Let's talk about the Vilna Academy because

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the history of this specific school is steeped

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in profound historical irony. Oh, it's completely

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ironic. The Russian Empire established this academy

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as a direct tool for state -sponsored Russification.

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Following a major Polish and Lithuanian uprising

252
00:11:18,850 --> 00:11:22,669
in 1863, the empire basically wanted an institution

253
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that would pump out art designed to crush local

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cultural identity and enforce Russian imperial

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aesthetics. But bureaucracies make mistakes.

256
00:11:30,909 --> 00:11:33,250
And this was a big one. The imperial government

257
00:11:33,250 --> 00:11:36,169
appoints a man named Ivan Trutnev to run the

258
00:11:36,169 --> 00:11:39,370
school. And Trutnev basically takes the government

259
00:11:39,370 --> 00:11:42,090
funding completely ignores the political propaganda

260
00:11:42,090 --> 00:11:44,769
mission and turns the Academy into an elite,

261
00:11:44,850 --> 00:11:47,289
world -class art institution. He just hijacked

262
00:11:47,289 --> 00:11:49,889
it. He did. Instead of crushing minority cultures,

263
00:11:50,049 --> 00:11:52,230
the school ends up churning out a whole generation

264
00:11:52,230 --> 00:11:55,110
of brilliantly trained, highly ambitious Jewish

265
00:11:55,110 --> 00:11:58,690
artists who use their top tier education to promptly

266
00:11:58,690 --> 00:12:00,870
leave the Russian Empire and move to Paris. It

267
00:12:00,870 --> 00:12:03,029
was a massive strategic backfire for the Russian

268
00:12:03,029 --> 00:12:05,970
state, but an unbelievable stroke of luck for

269
00:12:05,970 --> 00:12:09,149
Soutine. He received an incredibly rigorous classical

270
00:12:09,149 --> 00:12:10,929
education there. And it was actually partially

271
00:12:10,929 --> 00:12:14,110
funded by a mysterious local doctor named Rafelkas,

272
00:12:14,350 --> 00:12:16,809
who recognized Soutine's raw talent and sponsored

273
00:12:16,809 --> 00:12:19,700
him. So armed with that strict academic training

274
00:12:19,700 --> 00:12:22,480
and wearing the coat his father made him, Soutine

275
00:12:22,480 --> 00:12:24,919
sets his sights on the cultural capital of the

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00:12:24,919 --> 00:12:28,159
world. Paris. Paris. Which brings us to chapter

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00:12:28,159 --> 00:12:32,980
two. The summer of 1913. Soutine arrives in Paris.

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00:12:33,419 --> 00:12:35,480
And let's set the scene for a minute. He's roughly

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00:12:35,480 --> 00:12:38,700
20 years old. He has about 50 rubles in his pocket.

280
00:12:38,980 --> 00:12:41,860
He speaks absolutely no French. Only Russian

281
00:12:41,860 --> 00:12:44,559
and Yiddish. Right. He is notoriously awkward,

282
00:12:44,860 --> 00:12:48,029
painfully shy. completely unwashed, and wearing

283
00:12:48,029 --> 00:12:51,210
that heavy paint splattered coat. And he immediately

284
00:12:51,210 --> 00:12:53,870
enrolls in the prestigious École des Beaux -Arts,

285
00:12:54,149 --> 00:12:56,789
specifically placing himself in the atelier of

286
00:12:56,789 --> 00:12:59,629
Fernand Cormont. That choice of studio is highly

287
00:12:59,629 --> 00:13:02,070
significant. Cormont's atelier was practically

288
00:13:02,070 --> 00:13:04,450
mythological. I mean, the history there is crazy.

289
00:13:04,549 --> 00:13:06,610
Yeah, this is the exact same studio space where,

290
00:13:06,710 --> 00:13:10,389
years earlier, a volatile Vincent van Gogh had

291
00:13:10,389 --> 00:13:13,269
nearly shot Cormont with a pistol during a screaming

292
00:13:13,269 --> 00:13:16,389
argument. Wait, really? With a pistol? Yep. It's

293
00:13:16,389 --> 00:13:18,789
also the same place where Henri Matisse had been

294
00:13:18,789 --> 00:13:21,169
unceremoniously kicked out for pushing boundaries

295
00:13:21,169 --> 00:13:24,549
too far. So Soutine wasn't easing his way into

296
00:13:24,549 --> 00:13:27,269
the art world. He was stepping right into the

297
00:13:27,269 --> 00:13:30,450
absolute boiling crucible of modern art history.

298
00:13:30,679 --> 00:13:33,679
And physically, his living situation was its

299
00:13:33,679 --> 00:13:36,200
own kind of crucible. Soutine moves into a place

300
00:13:36,200 --> 00:13:39,139
called La Roche, which translates to the beehive,

301
00:13:39,580 --> 00:13:42,139
and beehive doesn't even begin to cover it. The

302
00:13:42,139 --> 00:13:44,480
origins of this building are wild. Oh, they're

303
00:13:44,480 --> 00:13:47,500
so strange. It was this massive octagonal structure

304
00:13:47,500 --> 00:13:50,120
located in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.

305
00:13:50,600 --> 00:13:52,820
It was originally built by Gustave Eiffel, yes,

306
00:13:52,879 --> 00:13:55,039
the Eiffel Tower guy for the 1900 World's Fair.

307
00:13:55,230 --> 00:13:58,610
And after the fair, a wealthy philanthropic sculptor

308
00:13:58,610 --> 00:14:00,750
named Alfred Boucher bought the structure at

309
00:14:00,750 --> 00:14:03,529
auction, had it dismantled, reassembled it on

310
00:14:03,529 --> 00:14:06,490
a cheap plot of land, and turned it into a massive,

311
00:14:06,750 --> 00:14:09,350
incredibly cheap artist colony. It was intended

312
00:14:09,350 --> 00:14:12,110
as a utopian sanctuary for struggling creatives,

313
00:14:12,330 --> 00:14:15,129
but the reality of living in LaRouche was, well,

314
00:14:15,409 --> 00:14:17,590
far from utopian. It was practically a nightmare.

315
00:14:17,929 --> 00:14:20,610
The text paints a visceral, almost horrifying

316
00:14:20,610 --> 00:14:23,090
picture of the squalor. Squalor is putting it

317
00:14:23,090 --> 00:14:25,860
mildly. There was absolutely no indoor plumbing.

318
00:14:26,899 --> 00:14:28,600
Soutine lived on the ground floor, which was

319
00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:30,840
the cheapest, meaning he was constantly dealing

320
00:14:30,840 --> 00:14:33,860
with the damp. He shared his tiny, unventilated

321
00:14:33,860 --> 00:14:37,620
space with rats, roaches, screeching stray cats

322
00:14:37,620 --> 00:14:40,799
and relentless bedbugs. Not to mention the winding

323
00:14:40,799 --> 00:14:42,919
hallways of the Rotunda were littered with the

324
00:14:42,919 --> 00:14:45,899
detritus of hundreds of starving artists. Dirty

325
00:14:45,899 --> 00:14:49,419
plaster busts, moldy fruit, dead rotting flowers

326
00:14:49,419 --> 00:14:51,759
discarded from still life paintings. Just a mess.

327
00:14:52,049 --> 00:14:54,250
And to make the sensory experience even more

328
00:14:54,250 --> 00:14:56,450
overwhelming, LaRouche was located right next

329
00:14:56,450 --> 00:14:59,009
to the Vaugirard Slaughterhouses. Oh man, so

330
00:14:59,009 --> 00:15:01,450
the air these artists breathed every single day

331
00:15:01,450 --> 00:15:04,789
was this thick, nauseating mixture of turpentine,

332
00:15:05,070 --> 00:15:07,330
cheap oil paint, unwashed human bodies, and the

333
00:15:07,330 --> 00:15:09,870
metallic smell of condemned livestock waiting

334
00:15:09,870 --> 00:15:12,289
to be butchered. It was an environment that violently

335
00:15:12,289 --> 00:15:14,909
assaulted the census. Yet despite those nightmare

336
00:15:14,909 --> 00:15:17,049
conditions, it was the center of a revolution.

337
00:15:17,330 --> 00:15:19,610
It was home to the so -called School of Paris.

338
00:15:19,809 --> 00:15:22,210
Which was actually a somewhat derogatory term

339
00:15:22,210 --> 00:15:24,909
coined by French critics to describe the massive

340
00:15:24,909 --> 00:15:27,929
influx of foreign, predominantly Jewish immigrant

341
00:15:27,929 --> 00:15:30,190
artists who were taking over the avant -garde

342
00:15:30,190 --> 00:15:32,590
scene. Right. Soutine was living shoulder to

343
00:15:32,590 --> 00:15:34,129
shoulder with people who would become legends.

344
00:15:34,309 --> 00:15:37,350
Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipschitz, Pinchas Kremen.

345
00:15:37,769 --> 00:15:39,610
They were starving, they were freezing, but they

346
00:15:39,610 --> 00:15:42,429
were furiously, relentlessly ambitious. But just

347
00:15:42,429 --> 00:15:44,970
as Soutine is finding his footing in this bizarre

348
00:15:44,970 --> 00:15:47,889
ecosystem, the geopolitical reality of Europe

349
00:15:47,889 --> 00:15:52,480
shatters. In July 1914, barely a year after Soutine

350
00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:55,019
arrives, World War I breaks out. And everything

351
00:15:55,019 --> 00:15:58,019
changes. The legendary liberalism and bohemian

352
00:15:58,019 --> 00:16:00,700
tolerance of Paris evaporates almost overnight.

353
00:16:01,240 --> 00:16:04,179
It is replaced by intense, suffocating xenophobia.

354
00:16:04,899 --> 00:16:06,759
Foreigners, especially those from Eastern Europe

355
00:16:06,759 --> 00:16:09,100
who spoke in thick accents, were immediately

356
00:16:09,100 --> 00:16:11,720
suspected of being spies or saboteurs. And the

357
00:16:11,720 --> 00:16:13,639
economic impact on the artist was devastating.

358
00:16:13,899 --> 00:16:16,700
The text notes that WWI caused the cost of living

359
00:16:16,700 --> 00:16:20,179
in Paris to skyrocket by up to 400%. Basic survival

360
00:16:20,179 --> 00:16:22,320
became nearly impossible. People on the streets

361
00:16:22,320 --> 00:16:24,659
were literally rioting over the price of potatoes.

362
00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:27,480
And obviously, the art market completely froze.

363
00:16:28,259 --> 00:16:30,580
No one was buying avant -garde paintings while

364
00:16:30,580 --> 00:16:32,539
the German army was marching toward the Marne.

365
00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:35,320
The small government stipends some artists relied

366
00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:38,139
on dried up instantly. So many of the artists

367
00:16:38,139 --> 00:16:40,580
living at LaRouche actually felt a duty to their

368
00:16:40,580 --> 00:16:42,919
adopted country and went to the front lines to

369
00:16:42,919 --> 00:16:46,120
fight for France. Right. The poet Blais -Cendrars

370
00:16:46,120 --> 00:16:49,519
lost his right arm in battle. The painter Mousy

371
00:16:49,519 --> 00:16:52,600
Kisling was severely wounded. Guillaume Apollinaire

372
00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:55,340
took shrapnel to the head. But Soutine was in

373
00:16:55,340 --> 00:16:57,940
no shape for combat. He was physically weak,

374
00:16:58,379 --> 00:17:00,740
constantly plagued by stomach issues, and frankly

375
00:17:00,740 --> 00:17:03,840
terrified of violent conflict. He did briefly

376
00:17:03,840 --> 00:17:05,839
volunteer to dig defensive trenches around Paris

377
00:17:05,839 --> 00:17:08,319
as part of an army of workers, but he couldn't

378
00:17:08,319 --> 00:17:10,900
handle a physical toll. He mostly survived those

379
00:17:10,900 --> 00:17:13,259
brutal war years because of a Russian painter

380
00:17:13,259 --> 00:17:16,400
named Marie Vasiliev. She turned her own art

381
00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:18,920
academy into a makeshift canteen where starving

382
00:17:18,920 --> 00:17:21,019
artists could get a bowl of hot soup and a piece

383
00:17:21,019 --> 00:17:24,579
of bread for practically nothing. And it is within

384
00:17:24,579 --> 00:17:28,329
this absolute crucible of wartime poverty, fear,

385
00:17:28,529 --> 00:17:31,289
and near starvation, that Soutine meets the man

386
00:17:31,289 --> 00:17:33,509
who will completely alter the trajectory of his

387
00:17:33,509 --> 00:17:39,710
life and career, Amedeo Modigliani. by the sculptor

388
00:17:39,710 --> 00:17:42,509
Jacques Lipschitz in 1915. And here's where it

389
00:17:42,509 --> 00:17:44,670
gets really interesting, because Modigliani is

390
00:17:44,670 --> 00:17:46,829
like the high school quarterback deciding the

391
00:17:46,829 --> 00:17:49,009
quiet theater kid is actually the coolest guy

392
00:17:49,009 --> 00:17:50,990
in school. That's a great way to put it. If you

393
00:17:50,990 --> 00:17:53,390
were writing a movie script, you'd be told to

394
00:17:53,390 --> 00:17:55,890
tone down the contrast between these two because

395
00:17:55,890 --> 00:17:58,390
it's almost too perfect. They become the ultimate

396
00:17:58,390 --> 00:18:00,549
odd couple of Montparnasse. They really were

397
00:18:00,549 --> 00:18:02,910
opposites in almost every conceivable metric.

398
00:18:03,430 --> 00:18:06,609
Modigliani was from Livorno, Italy. He was a

399
00:18:06,609 --> 00:18:08,829
Sephardic Jew, which carried a completely different

400
00:18:08,829 --> 00:18:11,349
cultural weight than Soutine's Eastern European

401
00:18:11,349 --> 00:18:13,890
Ashkenazi background. Right. Modigliani grew

402
00:18:13,890 --> 00:18:16,470
up highly educated, speaking flawless French

403
00:18:16,470 --> 00:18:19,990
and Italian. His family proudly, and perhaps

404
00:18:19,990 --> 00:18:22,789
mythically, claimed direct lineage to the great

405
00:18:22,789 --> 00:18:26,230
philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Modigliani carried

406
00:18:26,230 --> 00:18:29,799
himself like a displaced aristocrat. He was devastatingly

407
00:18:29,799 --> 00:18:32,740
handsome, draped in velvet, and possessed this

408
00:18:32,740 --> 00:18:35,519
incredible magnetic charisma even when he was

409
00:18:35,519 --> 00:18:38,339
completely gestitute and horribly drunk on absinthe.

410
00:18:38,380 --> 00:18:41,920
And then you have Soutine, Ashkenazi, deeply

411
00:18:41,920 --> 00:18:45,190
awkward. unable to look people in the eye, lacking

412
00:18:45,190 --> 00:18:48,269
even the most basic social graces, and possessing

413
00:18:48,269 --> 00:18:51,390
famously terrible hygiene. Yeah, quite the contrast.

414
00:18:51,549 --> 00:18:53,950
Modigliani adopting Soutine wasn't just a popular

415
00:18:53,950 --> 00:18:56,289
guy helping an outcast. It was like a polished,

416
00:18:56,609 --> 00:18:58,809
classical architect deciding to sponsor a guy

417
00:18:58,809 --> 00:19:01,309
who builds houses out of raw dynamite. Well said.

418
00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:04,559
Modigliani saw the explosive, undeniable potential

419
00:19:04,559 --> 00:19:06,839
in Soutine, and he took him entirely under his

420
00:19:06,839 --> 00:19:09,299
wing. Which was huge, because Modigliani was

421
00:19:09,299 --> 00:19:11,680
already deeply respected by his peers in Paris,

422
00:19:12,180 --> 00:19:14,279
even if he hadn't achieved massive financial

423
00:19:14,279 --> 00:19:16,859
success yet. His validation meant everything.

424
00:19:17,059 --> 00:19:19,299
He painted Soutine's portrait multiple times.

425
00:19:19,640 --> 00:19:21,940
And more importantly, he introduced Soutine to

426
00:19:21,940 --> 00:19:25,119
his own art dealer, a man named Leopold Zborowski.

427
00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:28,200
For a long time, Modigliani was basically the

428
00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:31,500
only person actively championing Soutine's genius

429
00:19:31,500 --> 00:19:34,420
to a world that otherwise found him repulsive.

430
00:19:34,740 --> 00:19:37,039
But this immense debt of gratitude introduces

431
00:19:37,039 --> 00:19:40,319
a profound lasting tension into Soutine's life.

432
00:19:40,859 --> 00:19:43,220
Modigliani essentially gave Soutine his career,

433
00:19:43,339 --> 00:19:45,640
but Soutine fiercely, almost pathologically,

434
00:19:46,339 --> 00:19:48,700
protected his own creative and personal autonomy.

435
00:19:49,319 --> 00:19:52,000
He hated the feeling of owing anyone anything.

436
00:19:52,180 --> 00:19:54,690
Oh, he despised it. In later years, well after

437
00:19:54,690 --> 00:19:57,809
Modigliani's tragic premature death from tuberculosis

438
00:19:57,809 --> 00:20:00,710
in 1920, Soutine actually spoke of his former

439
00:20:00,710 --> 00:20:02,789
best friend with bitter resentment. Yeah, he

440
00:20:02,789 --> 00:20:04,970
went so far as to claim that Modigliani had intentionally

441
00:20:04,970 --> 00:20:07,150
tried to ruin him by introducing him to alcohol

442
00:20:07,150 --> 00:20:09,789
and hashish. Which is wild. Was Soutine's later

443
00:20:09,789 --> 00:20:12,269
resentment a defense mechanism to protect his

444
00:20:12,269 --> 00:20:14,829
intense creative independence? Was his need for

445
00:20:14,829 --> 00:20:16,789
autonomy so strong that he couldn't handle the

446
00:20:16,789 --> 00:20:18,750
psychological burden of knowing his success was,

447
00:20:19,150 --> 00:20:21,500
in part, a gift from someone else? It's hard

448
00:20:21,500 --> 00:20:24,000
not to see it that way. It really highlights

449
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:26,980
how Soutine viewed himself in relation to the

450
00:20:26,980 --> 00:20:30,140
world. He absolutely refused to belong to a movement.

451
00:20:30,339 --> 00:20:33,640
No manifestos for him. Right. While Picasso and

452
00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:36,319
Georges Braque were inventing cubism and the

453
00:20:36,319 --> 00:20:38,460
futurists were writing aggressive manifestos

454
00:20:38,460 --> 00:20:40,839
and artists were collaborating and cross -pollinating

455
00:20:40,839 --> 00:20:43,740
ideas in the cafes of Montparnasse, Soutine was

456
00:20:43,740 --> 00:20:46,359
entirely stubbornly solitary. He didn't want

457
00:20:46,359 --> 00:20:48,500
to sit around drinking coffee and debating art

458
00:20:48,500 --> 00:20:51,170
theory. He wanted to go to the Louvre and stand

459
00:20:51,170 --> 00:20:53,829
in silence in front of the old masters. He refused

460
00:20:53,829 --> 00:20:56,910
to be tethered to a bohemian scene that he felt

461
00:20:56,910 --> 00:20:59,309
was a distraction from the act of painting itself.

462
00:20:59,529 --> 00:21:02,710
And this realization that pure unbridled bohemian

463
00:21:02,710 --> 00:21:05,069
emotion wasn't enough, that he needed a different

464
00:21:05,069 --> 00:21:07,990
environment to unlock his potential, leads us

465
00:21:07,990 --> 00:21:11,410
directly to chapters three, four, and five. The

466
00:21:11,410 --> 00:21:14,049
geographic shift that triggers the most explosive

467
00:21:14,049 --> 00:21:16,589
defining period of his entire artistic life.

468
00:21:16,740 --> 00:21:19,900
The Surrey period. Exactly. The First World War

469
00:21:19,900 --> 00:21:23,920
finally ends. The 1920s begin to roar to life,

470
00:21:24,500 --> 00:21:27,079
and Soutine's dealer, Zabarovsky, decides to

471
00:21:27,079 --> 00:21:29,559
get Soutine out of Paris. He sends him down to

472
00:21:29,559 --> 00:21:31,859
the south of France, first to Cagnes -sur -Mer,

473
00:21:32,119 --> 00:21:35,099
and then to a small, sun -drenched town called

474
00:21:35,099 --> 00:21:37,420
Surrey, situated right near the Spanish border.

475
00:21:37,740 --> 00:21:40,660
Soutine spends roughly three years there, from

476
00:21:40,660 --> 00:21:45,769
1919 to 1922. And creatively speaking, he absolutely

477
00:21:45,769 --> 00:21:47,869
loses his mind. The output during the Surrey

478
00:21:47,869 --> 00:21:50,470
period is just staggering. Soutine paints roughly

479
00:21:50,470 --> 00:21:53,069
300 canvases in just under three years. If you

480
00:21:53,069 --> 00:21:54,930
do the math, that averages out to a completed

481
00:21:54,930 --> 00:21:57,329
highly complex oil painting every two to three

482
00:21:57,329 --> 00:21:59,990
days, non -stop. And the style of these Surrey

483
00:21:59,990 --> 00:22:02,609
paintings is what made him famous, but paradoxically,

484
00:22:02,809 --> 00:22:04,769
it's also what caused him to be so fundamentally

485
00:22:04,769 --> 00:22:07,470
misunderstood by later art historians. I want

486
00:22:07,470 --> 00:22:09,529
to try to describe what these paintings actually

487
00:22:09,529 --> 00:22:11,130
look like to someone who has never seen one.

488
00:22:11,289 --> 00:22:13,329
It's quite an experience. Imagine a world that

489
00:22:13,329 --> 00:22:16,029
has been completely compressed and set into a

490
00:22:16,029 --> 00:22:19,130
violent churning motion. The landscapes are built

491
00:22:19,130 --> 00:22:22,549
on these incredibly anxious angular scaffoldings.

492
00:22:22,930 --> 00:22:25,529
Houses don't just sit on hills, they twist and

493
00:22:25,529 --> 00:22:28,470
warp on crazily looming inclines that look like

494
00:22:28,470 --> 00:22:30,650
they are about to collapse. Very unsettling.

495
00:22:30,829 --> 00:22:33,130
The foreground and the background are knotted

496
00:22:33,130 --> 00:22:36,000
together. There is no atmospheric perspective

497
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:38,700
giving you a sense of calm distance. Everything

498
00:22:38,700 --> 00:22:42,240
is vibrating on the exact same frenetic frequency.

499
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:45,880
The trees look like heavy green torpedoes rushing

500
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:48,579
downward while the hills seem to push violently

501
00:22:48,579 --> 00:22:51,119
upward against them. And the physical act of

502
00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:53,700
creating these paintings was a spectacle of endurance

503
00:22:53,700 --> 00:22:56,789
and chaos. According to eyewitnesses, Soutine

504
00:22:56,789 --> 00:22:58,670
would stand in front of his canvas out in the

505
00:22:58,670 --> 00:23:00,970
landscape, and he would hold as many as 40 different

506
00:23:00,970 --> 00:23:03,470
paintbrushes in his hands at once. 40 brushes?

507
00:23:03,829 --> 00:23:06,130
It sounds like a circus act. It does, but it

508
00:23:06,130 --> 00:23:09,269
was a very specific mechanical choice. Soutine

509
00:23:09,269 --> 00:23:11,470
realized that if you mix colors directly on the

510
00:23:11,470 --> 00:23:13,609
canvas, you lose their brilliance, they become

511
00:23:13,609 --> 00:23:16,529
muddy and gray. So to keep the colors pure and

512
00:23:16,529 --> 00:23:19,180
violently bright, He would dip a specific brush

513
00:23:19,180 --> 00:23:22,619
into a pure color, make a single, rapid, incredibly

514
00:23:22,619 --> 00:23:24,920
forceful stroke on the canvas, and then instead

515
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:27,180
of cleaning it or holding onto it, he would just

516
00:23:27,180 --> 00:23:29,259
drop the brush on the dirt floor, grab another

517
00:23:29,259 --> 00:23:31,079
one loaded with a different color, and strike

518
00:23:31,079 --> 00:23:34,680
the canvas again. Wow. The sheer breathless speed

519
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:38,059
of his application is literally visible in the

520
00:23:38,059 --> 00:23:40,779
final texture of the work. You can see the urgency.

521
00:23:41,259 --> 00:23:43,779
And this is exactly where the Expressionist label

522
00:23:43,779 --> 00:23:46,319
gets permanently slapped onto Soutine's forehead.

523
00:23:47,250 --> 00:23:49,890
Viewers look at these twisting, apocalyptic -looking

524
00:23:49,890 --> 00:23:51,990
landscapes, and they automatically assume they

525
00:23:51,990 --> 00:23:54,170
are looking at a psychological x -ray of the

526
00:23:54,170 --> 00:23:56,430
artist. They assume Soutine is having a nervous

527
00:23:56,430 --> 00:23:58,609
breakdown in front of the easel. Exactly. They

528
00:23:58,609 --> 00:24:01,630
think he is painting his own inner anxiety, his

529
00:24:01,630 --> 00:24:04,210
own trauma, his fear of the modern world, and

530
00:24:04,210 --> 00:24:06,289
projecting it onto the innocent trees and houses

531
00:24:06,289 --> 00:24:08,509
of Surrey. But Marcus argues in the biography

532
00:24:08,509 --> 00:24:11,269
that this is a total misdiagnosis. If you look

533
00:24:11,269 --> 00:24:13,210
at the Surrey paintings and see a panic attack,

534
00:24:13,549 --> 00:24:16,319
you are projecting. Marcus insists that Soutine

535
00:24:16,319 --> 00:24:18,319
was painting exactly what he saw and not what

536
00:24:18,319 --> 00:24:21,039
he felt. Wait, nobody actually sees a house twisting

537
00:24:21,039 --> 00:24:23,619
at a 45 -degree angle. How is he painting what

538
00:24:23,619 --> 00:24:26,140
he sees? This is the crux of understanding Soutine.

539
00:24:26,759 --> 00:24:29,380
We have to differentiate between painting emotion

540
00:24:29,380 --> 00:24:31,980
and painting energy. Think about Soutine's life

541
00:24:31,980 --> 00:24:34,640
up to this point. He had only ever painted in

542
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:36,900
the muted gray oppressive light of the Russian

543
00:24:36,900 --> 00:24:40,339
Empire and the smoggy wartime gloon of Paris.

544
00:24:40,420 --> 00:24:42,819
Oh, that makes sense. Right. Suddenly he is standing

545
00:24:42,819 --> 00:24:45,160
in the south of France. The light is blinding.

546
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:48,279
The coastal winds are fierce. The sheer physical

547
00:24:48,279 --> 00:24:51,000
intensity of a seaside mountain town like Surrey

548
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:53,799
was optically overwhelming. So it's not about

549
00:24:53,799 --> 00:24:56,430
his feelings. No, he wasn't painting his sad

550
00:24:56,430 --> 00:24:58,910
feelings about the hills. He was trying to visually

551
00:24:58,910 --> 00:25:01,369
simulate the vital kinetic energy that courses

552
00:25:01,369 --> 00:25:04,349
through physical matter. When wind hits a tree,

553
00:25:04,470 --> 00:25:06,710
the tree physically strains. When light hits

554
00:25:06,710 --> 00:25:08,710
a hot landscape, the air physically shimmers

555
00:25:08,710 --> 00:25:11,390
and distorts. He was trying to create a mechanical

556
00:25:11,390 --> 00:25:14,529
record of that visual experience, not a tormented

557
00:25:14,529 --> 00:25:17,230
outpouring of his soul. That makes so much sense.

558
00:25:17,390 --> 00:25:19,490
He is painting the physics of the landscape,

559
00:25:19,710 --> 00:25:22,470
not the psychology of it. And the results of

560
00:25:22,470 --> 00:25:25,829
this frenzied output are undeniable because in

561
00:25:25,829 --> 00:25:28,990
1923 everything changes. The big break. Yes.

562
00:25:29,529 --> 00:25:31,930
An incredibly wealthy American pharmaceutical

563
00:25:31,930 --> 00:25:34,589
tycoon and art collector named Albert Barnes

564
00:25:34,589 --> 00:25:38,069
visits Paris. Barnes is famous for his discerning

565
00:25:38,069 --> 00:25:41,150
eye and his massive checkbook. During his visit

566
00:25:41,150 --> 00:25:44,049
he happens to see a painting Soutine did of a

567
00:25:44,049 --> 00:25:46,849
pastry chef. part of a series of portraits he

568
00:25:46,849 --> 00:25:49,569
painted down south, and Barnes is completely

569
00:25:49,569 --> 00:25:51,730
blown away by the energy of the brushwork. He

570
00:25:51,730 --> 00:25:53,789
immediately asked the dealer to see more of this

571
00:25:53,789 --> 00:25:56,369
artist's work. And Barnes ends up buying somewhere

572
00:25:56,369 --> 00:25:59,470
around 50 of Soutine's paintings in a single

573
00:25:59,470 --> 00:26:02,549
massive acquisition. Just process that. In a

574
00:26:02,549 --> 00:26:04,650
single afternoon, Soutine is scooped out of a

575
00:26:04,650 --> 00:26:07,349
decade of starvation, squalor, and bedbugs and

576
00:26:07,349 --> 00:26:09,849
elevated into the absolute upper echelons of

577
00:26:09,849 --> 00:26:12,240
the global art world. He is instantly rich, he

578
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:15,119
is famous, he has arrived. Which makes his reaction

579
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:17,480
to this success one of the most fascinating psychological

580
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,019
puzzles of his life. So what does this all mean?

581
00:26:20,500 --> 00:26:22,740
He literally paints his way out of starvation,

582
00:26:22,940 --> 00:26:25,420
becomes a millionaire overnight because of these

583
00:26:25,420 --> 00:26:29,720
specific Surrey canvases, and his reaction is

584
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:31,960
to go on a search and destroy mission to burn

585
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:34,950
them. Yeah, hate is an understatement. The text

586
00:26:34,950 --> 00:26:37,269
notes that for the rest of his life, Soutine

587
00:26:37,269 --> 00:26:39,809
harbored a deep revulsion for the Saria paintings.

588
00:26:40,009 --> 00:26:42,250
It's like a musician hating their biggest hit

589
00:26:42,250 --> 00:26:45,410
song, but on a terrifyingly existential level.

590
00:26:45,549 --> 00:26:47,990
He would use his new wealth to track them down,

591
00:26:48,190 --> 00:26:50,170
he would buy them back from collectors or dealers,

592
00:26:50,390 --> 00:26:52,509
and he would literally slash them to ribbons

593
00:26:52,509 --> 00:26:54,849
with a knife, or throw them into fires to burn

594
00:26:54,849 --> 00:26:57,809
them. It is wild. Why would he destroy the exact

595
00:26:57,809 --> 00:26:59,930
thing that saved his life? Because painting,

596
00:27:00,170 --> 00:27:02,450
for a genius like Soutine, is not a rational

597
00:27:02,450 --> 00:27:05,450
commercial exercise. Marcus suggests that the

598
00:27:05,450 --> 00:27:07,970
Surrey paintings were created in a state of extreme,

599
00:27:08,410 --> 00:27:11,509
almost dangerous excitation. It was a unique,

600
00:27:11,910 --> 00:27:14,130
suffocating head space that Soutine had to force

601
00:27:14,130 --> 00:27:17,150
himself into in order to capture that raw, total

602
00:27:17,150 --> 00:27:18,910
energy of the landscape. So it was exhausting.

603
00:27:19,369 --> 00:27:22,390
Very. Once he evolved past that phase, once he

604
00:27:22,390 --> 00:27:25,210
developed more technical control and subtlety

605
00:27:25,210 --> 00:27:27,690
in his brushwork, looking at those early works

606
00:27:27,690 --> 00:27:31,180
was likely physically painful for him. They represented

607
00:27:31,180 --> 00:27:33,880
an embryonic, chaotic version of himself that

608
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:36,559
he had outgrown. He wanted to be remembered for

609
00:27:36,559 --> 00:27:39,339
his classical mastery, not his youthful frenzy.

610
00:27:39,619 --> 00:27:42,079
Which perfectly explains his next move in Chapter

611
00:27:42,079 --> 00:27:45,279
6. Armed with Barnes' money, he doesn't throw

612
00:27:45,279 --> 00:27:48,079
parties in Montparnasse. He completely rejects

613
00:27:48,079 --> 00:27:50,900
the chaos of the Serret era and anchors himself

614
00:27:50,900 --> 00:27:53,059
in the only community he ever truly respected.

615
00:27:53,380 --> 00:27:55,980
the dead old masters hanging in the Louvre. He

616
00:27:55,980 --> 00:27:58,660
begins a profound lifelong dialogue with painters

617
00:27:58,660 --> 00:28:01,680
like Rembrandt, Chardin, Courbet. Soutine starts

618
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:04,039
doing what is essentially a series of brilliant

619
00:28:04,039 --> 00:28:05,980
cover songs of the greatest hits of classical

620
00:28:05,980 --> 00:28:08,700
art. And it's crucial to understand that he isn't

621
00:28:08,700 --> 00:28:11,180
just copying them. He is performing what Marcus

622
00:28:11,180 --> 00:28:14,880
brilliantly terms pictorial translation. He takes

623
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:16,640
their classical subjects and renders them in

624
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,000
his own vital energetic vernacular. Let's talk

625
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,200
about the actual logistics of how he did this,

626
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,660
because it is legendary and deeply bizarre. He

627
00:28:24,660 --> 00:28:26,980
decides he wants to paint the rayfish, which

628
00:28:26,980 --> 00:28:30,140
is inspired by a massive famous still life by

629
00:28:30,140 --> 00:28:32,740
Chardin that hangs in the Louvre. And he wants

630
00:28:32,740 --> 00:28:36,180
to paint a series of hanging beef carcasses directly

631
00:28:36,180 --> 00:28:39,119
inspired by Rembrandt's masterpiece, The Slaughtered

632
00:28:39,119 --> 00:28:42,160
Ox. But Soutine has a strict rule. Right. He

633
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:44,859
absolutely refuses to paint from memory and he

634
00:28:44,859 --> 00:28:46,680
refuses to paint from photographs. He will only

635
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:50,000
paint from real life. So he uses his new wealth

636
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,759
to go to the Parisian abattoirs. He buys real

637
00:28:53,759 --> 00:28:56,099
massive animal carcasses, hauls them back to

638
00:28:56,099 --> 00:28:58,099
his apartment, and hangs them from the ceiling.

639
00:28:58,339 --> 00:29:00,619
His assistant, a woman named Paulette Jourdain,

640
00:29:00,819 --> 00:29:03,140
later recalled the intense labor of this process.

641
00:29:03,460 --> 00:29:05,619
She remembered Soutine using heavy cords and

642
00:29:05,619 --> 00:29:08,079
pulleys to string up these massive dripping sides

643
00:29:08,079 --> 00:29:10,539
of beef right in the middle of his studio. And

644
00:29:10,539 --> 00:29:12,880
we have to imagine the sensory reality of this.

645
00:29:13,119 --> 00:29:15,720
blood pooling on the floor, the overwhelming

646
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:18,740
stench of rotting meat as the days passed. Soutine

647
00:29:18,740 --> 00:29:21,240
even had to hire an assistant whose sole job

648
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:23,640
was to sit beside the carcass and flick away

649
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,200
the swarms of flies so Soutine could see the

650
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:28,839
meat clearly while he painted. Now, when stories

651
00:29:28,839 --> 00:29:31,259
like this circulated in Paris, critics and the

652
00:29:31,259 --> 00:29:33,099
public immediately accused Soutine of having

653
00:29:33,099 --> 00:29:36,099
a morbid fascination with flesh. They assumed

654
00:29:36,099 --> 00:29:38,759
these bloody carcasses were dark, depressing

655
00:29:38,759 --> 00:29:41,680
meditations on death and decay. But Marcus argues

656
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:43,740
that this interpretation is exactly backward.

657
00:29:44,140 --> 00:29:46,160
He wasn't obsessed with death at all. If you

658
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:47,980
look at the paintings, he isn't painting the

659
00:29:47,980 --> 00:29:50,500
rot. He is painting the fluids, the blood, the

660
00:29:50,500 --> 00:29:53,160
vibrant reds and blues of the veins. He is painting

661
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:55,700
the biological machinery that facilitates life.

662
00:29:55,940 --> 00:29:59,400
He is painting the absolute mechanics of vitality.

663
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:01,700
Precisely. To understand the progression of his

664
00:30:01,700 --> 00:30:03,880
art, we have to look at what painting these carcasses

665
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:06,220
actually taught him. In the Saray landscapes,

666
00:30:06,279 --> 00:30:09,119
as we discussed, the energy is all over. The

667
00:30:09,119 --> 00:30:12,559
sky, the trees, the houses, everything is vibrating

668
00:30:12,559 --> 00:30:15,220
with an asphyxiating total intensity across the

669
00:30:15,220 --> 00:30:18,119
entire canvas. Your eye has nowhere to rest.

670
00:30:18,660 --> 00:30:21,680
But a hanging side of beef has a natural anatomical

671
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:24,799
focal point, the gaping cavernous cavity of the

672
00:30:24,799 --> 00:30:27,319
ribcage. The crimson geometries of the meat.

673
00:30:27,539 --> 00:30:31,049
Exactly. By forcing himself to stare into that

674
00:30:31,049 --> 00:30:34,410
central cavernous pitch between the ribs, Soutine

675
00:30:34,410 --> 00:30:37,849
learned how to control and localize energy. He

676
00:30:37,849 --> 00:30:40,769
learned how to create a rigorous classical scaffolding

677
00:30:40,769 --> 00:30:43,470
for his paintings. It's as if he takes Rembrandt's

678
00:30:43,470 --> 00:30:46,029
sheet music but plays it on an electric guitar

679
00:30:46,029 --> 00:30:48,410
with the amp turned up to 11. That's a great

680
00:30:48,410 --> 00:30:51,230
way to think of it. The energy no longer twisted

681
00:30:51,230 --> 00:30:54,650
the entire campus into chaos. It radiated outward

682
00:30:54,650 --> 00:30:57,849
from a distinct discipline center. This is the

683
00:30:57,849 --> 00:31:01,549
concept Marcos calls intelligent energy. It is

684
00:31:01,549 --> 00:31:04,190
still extreme vitality, but it is now strictly

685
00:31:04,190 --> 00:31:06,549
governed by classical structure and profound

686
00:31:06,549 --> 00:31:08,890
deliberation. How did he maintain that balance

687
00:31:08,890 --> 00:31:11,450
between absolute chaos and rigorous classical

688
00:31:11,450 --> 00:31:14,349
structure? His technique during this period becomes

689
00:31:14,349 --> 00:31:17,130
incredibly sophisticated. There's a specific

690
00:31:17,130 --> 00:31:19,410
detail in the text regarding his version of the

691
00:31:19,410 --> 00:31:21,269
Chardon Ray fish that perfectly illustrates this.

692
00:31:21,410 --> 00:31:23,549
In the composition, there is a picture sitting

693
00:31:23,549 --> 00:31:26,029
next to the fish. But when Soutine paints the

694
00:31:26,029 --> 00:31:28,190
picture, he doesn't actually paint the outline

695
00:31:28,190 --> 00:31:30,769
of the object. He paints the dark shadows behind

696
00:31:30,769 --> 00:31:32,849
the picture. He allows the negative space to

697
00:31:32,849 --> 00:31:35,349
form the object. Think about the optical mechanics

698
00:31:35,349 --> 00:31:38,849
of that. By refusing to paint the outline, he

699
00:31:38,849 --> 00:31:42,000
forces the viewer's brain to do the work. Your

700
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,880
eye has to construct the solid object out of

701
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,319
the swirling darkness around it. It creates incredible

702
00:31:47,319 --> 00:31:49,759
optical tension. Yeah, your brain is constantly

703
00:31:49,759 --> 00:31:51,980
building and rebuilding the shape of the picture

704
00:31:51,980 --> 00:31:54,660
as you look at it. That is what makes the painting

705
00:31:54,660 --> 00:31:57,640
feel like it is physically vibrating. It's an

706
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:00,160
incredibly high wire active painting. It requires

707
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:03,490
immense absolute discipline. He is allowing himself

708
00:32:03,490 --> 00:32:06,990
intense, saturated color and violent, thick brushwork,

709
00:32:07,390 --> 00:32:09,450
but it is all held together by an incredibly

710
00:32:09,450 --> 00:32:12,329
precise intellectual understanding of light,

711
00:32:12,710 --> 00:32:15,549
shadow, and negative space. So artistically,

712
00:32:15,549 --> 00:32:17,710
he is maturing. He is reaching this incredible

713
00:32:17,710 --> 00:32:20,369
pinnacle of intelligent energy. But as we move

714
00:32:20,369 --> 00:32:22,250
into chapters seven and eight, his personal life

715
00:32:22,250 --> 00:32:24,609
is getting infinitely more complicated and messy

716
00:32:24,609 --> 00:32:27,509
because now he has serious money. And with money

717
00:32:27,509 --> 00:32:30,619
comes high society, complicated patronage, and

718
00:32:30,619 --> 00:32:34,079
a whole new set of hidden emotional scars. Enter

719
00:32:34,079 --> 00:32:37,319
Elie Four. Elie Four was arguably the most influential

720
00:32:37,319 --> 00:32:40,319
respected art critic in Paris during the 1920s.

721
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:42,839
He was a former surgeon, which is fitting, because

722
00:32:42,839 --> 00:32:45,180
he was one of the very few intellectuals who

723
00:32:45,180 --> 00:32:47,920
truly dissected and understood what Soutine was

724
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:51,359
doing. He recognized Soutine not as a wild madman,

725
00:32:51,559 --> 00:32:53,680
but as a religious painter of carnal matter.

726
00:32:53,819 --> 00:32:56,039
Four possessed the deep historical knowledge

727
00:32:56,039 --> 00:32:58,920
to talk to Soutine about Cézanne, Tintoretto,

728
00:32:59,039 --> 00:33:01,720
and Rembrandt on Soutine's own intellectual level.

729
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:04,759
He became a father figure and a champion, even

730
00:33:04,759 --> 00:33:07,000
funding trips for Soutine to go to Amsterdam

731
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:09,500
so he could study Rembrandt's masterpieces in

732
00:33:09,500 --> 00:33:11,819
person. It sounds like the perfect mentorship,

733
00:33:11,819 --> 00:33:15,380
but it ends in absolute devastating disaster.

734
00:33:15,660 --> 00:33:19,119
It really does. Soutine falls deeply, desperately

735
00:33:19,119 --> 00:33:22,130
in love with Four's daughter, Marie Zeline. According

736
00:33:22,130 --> 00:33:24,789
to accounts from Soutine's friend, Kikoin, Soutine

737
00:33:24,789 --> 00:33:27,170
actually goes to the parents first. He formally

738
00:33:27,170 --> 00:33:29,109
declares his intentions, and he is so confident

739
00:33:29,109 --> 00:33:30,930
that he goes out and buys expensive furniture

740
00:33:30,930 --> 00:33:32,869
for an apartment they will share. But the daughter,

741
00:33:33,109 --> 00:33:35,710
Marie Zalene, has absolutely no idea about any

742
00:33:35,710 --> 00:33:38,490
of this. When Soutine finally professes his love

743
00:33:38,490 --> 00:33:41,430
to her, she is completely taken aback. She gently

744
00:33:41,430 --> 00:33:43,789
laughs and explains that she is already engaged

745
00:33:43,789 --> 00:33:47,109
to her cousin. And Soutine's reaction is catastrophic.

746
00:33:47,369 --> 00:33:50,009
He is so profoundly bruised by this rejection

747
00:33:50,009 --> 00:33:53,630
that he completely, abruptly severs all ties

748
00:33:53,630 --> 00:33:56,470
with the Foray family. He cuts off the most important

749
00:33:56,470 --> 00:33:59,190
intellectual relationship of his life, his greatest

750
00:33:59,190 --> 00:34:01,869
champion, simply because his pride couldn't handle

751
00:34:01,869 --> 00:34:04,509
the romantic rejection. And as we know, nature

752
00:34:04,509 --> 00:34:07,490
abhors a vacuum. Into the void left by Foray

753
00:34:07,490 --> 00:34:10,349
step Marcelin and Madeleine Casting. The Castangs

754
00:34:10,349 --> 00:34:13,250
are wealthy, highly influential society figures

755
00:34:13,250 --> 00:34:16,230
who essentially take over the management of Soutine's

756
00:34:16,230 --> 00:34:19,429
life. Especially after his primary dealer, Sparovski,

757
00:34:19,809 --> 00:34:22,409
tragically dies of a heart attack in 1932. They

758
00:34:22,409 --> 00:34:24,309
give Soutine a summer home at their chateau that

759
00:34:24,309 --> 00:34:26,769
manages finances and they introduce him to a

760
00:34:26,769 --> 00:34:29,949
glittering, elite Parisian milieu. A milieu that

761
00:34:29,949 --> 00:34:32,130
includes famous cultural figures like the poet

762
00:34:32,130 --> 00:34:34,989
Jean Cocteau and the writer Maurice Sacks. But

763
00:34:34,989 --> 00:34:37,489
Marcus points out something incredibly dark and

764
00:34:37,489 --> 00:34:40,349
vital about this high society circle. It was

765
00:34:40,349 --> 00:34:43,289
implicitly and sometimes very explicitly anti

766
00:34:43,289 --> 00:34:45,349
-Semitic. Marie Sachs, for example, is quoted

767
00:34:45,349 --> 00:34:47,849
as complaining about Jewish pollutants ruining

768
00:34:47,849 --> 00:34:51,170
the culture of Paris. So here is Soutine, a Jewish

769
00:34:51,170 --> 00:34:53,929
immigrant born in a Belarusian shtetl who grew

770
00:34:53,929 --> 00:34:56,530
up speaking Yiddish. Suddenly sipping champagne

771
00:34:56,530 --> 00:34:59,530
in aristocratic salons where casual anti -Semitism

772
00:34:59,530 --> 00:35:02,429
is just considered polite cocktail conversation.

773
00:35:02,989 --> 00:35:05,730
It highlights a deeply tragic disconnect in Soutine's

774
00:35:05,730 --> 00:35:09,150
identity. Soutine spent his entire adult life

775
00:35:09,150 --> 00:35:11,789
trying to transcend his specific ethnic and class

776
00:35:11,789 --> 00:35:14,869
origins through his art. He desperately wanted

777
00:35:14,869 --> 00:35:17,769
to belong to the universal, timeless lineage

778
00:35:17,769 --> 00:35:20,449
of Rembrandt and Chardon, not the marginalized

779
00:35:20,449 --> 00:35:23,039
lineage of the Eastern European shtetl. And the

780
00:35:23,039 --> 00:35:25,840
Castaings facilitated that illusion. They catered

781
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:28,079
to his every eccentric whim to keep him painting.

782
00:35:28,380 --> 00:35:30,639
For instance, Soutine became obsessed with the

783
00:35:30,639 --> 00:35:33,739
texture of old canvas. He demanded that the Castaings

784
00:35:33,739 --> 00:35:36,739
scour Parisian flea markets for abandoned, worthless

785
00:35:36,739 --> 00:35:39,599
18th century paintings. He loved the specific,

786
00:35:39,739 --> 00:35:42,440
rigid texture of the old, cracked paint, and

787
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:44,719
he would paint his new, vibrating masterpieces

788
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:47,900
directly over them. But you cannot outrun reality

789
00:35:47,900 --> 00:35:50,760
forever. While he is painting these incredibly

790
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:53,719
luscious, fleshy, vibrant beef carcasses, plump

791
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:56,679
pastry chefs, and rosy -cheeked choir boys, his

792
00:35:56,679 --> 00:35:59,119
own physical body is actively betraying him.

793
00:35:59,519 --> 00:36:02,480
He develops a severe, agonizing stomach ulcer.

794
00:36:02,619 --> 00:36:05,199
He is in so much constant pain that he frequently

795
00:36:05,199 --> 00:36:07,500
has to stop walking and slump against walls in

796
00:36:07,500 --> 00:36:09,860
the street. He can't eat the rich meat he paints.

797
00:36:10,019 --> 00:36:12,139
He can't eat the fowl he strings up in his studio.

798
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:15,280
He survives almost entirely on a bland liquid

799
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:18,019
diet of milk and boiled potatoes. The irony is

800
00:36:18,019 --> 00:36:20,719
almost too on the nose. The absolute maestro

801
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:24,099
of carnal physical vitality is slowly starving

802
00:36:24,099 --> 00:36:28,010
to death from the inside out. In 1937, his companion

803
00:36:28,010 --> 00:36:30,489
at the time, a German Jewish refugee named Gerda

804
00:36:30,489 --> 00:36:33,489
Michalis, though everyone called her guard, finally

805
00:36:33,489 --> 00:36:35,849
forces him to see a specialist, Dr. Tennant.

806
00:36:36,030 --> 00:36:38,849
And the diagnosis is bleak. The ulcer is lethal.

807
00:36:39,039 --> 00:36:41,659
Soutine's body is far too weak and malnourished

808
00:36:41,659 --> 00:36:43,960
to survive the surgery required to fix it, and

809
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:46,059
the doctor plainly gives him five or six years

810
00:36:46,059 --> 00:36:49,159
to live. And Garde is such a fascinating, tragic

811
00:36:49,159 --> 00:36:52,840
figure in this story. She falls completely selflessly

812
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:55,559
in love with the man himself, but she entirely

813
00:36:55,559 --> 00:36:58,219
ignores his art. She doesn't care about his fame

814
00:36:58,219 --> 00:37:01,429
or his genius, but it is through her presence

815
00:37:01,429 --> 00:37:03,989
that we see just how disconnected and perhaps

816
00:37:03,989 --> 00:37:07,510
cruel Soutine had become in his pursuit of artistic

817
00:37:07,510 --> 00:37:10,659
isolation. One day, a letter arrives from Smilovici.

818
00:37:10,900 --> 00:37:13,559
It's from his youngest sister, Etel. It's written

819
00:37:13,559 --> 00:37:16,119
in Yiddish, a language Soutine has tried so hard

820
00:37:16,119 --> 00:37:18,340
to forget that he can barely read it anymore.

821
00:37:18,900 --> 00:37:21,539
Gard has to help decipher it. Etel writes that

822
00:37:21,539 --> 00:37:23,760
their father is dead, their brother is dead,

823
00:37:23,980 --> 00:37:26,880
the family is starving, and she herself has incurable

824
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:29,860
diabetes. She thanks him profusely for a meager

825
00:37:29,860 --> 00:37:32,159
few francs he'd sent previously, calling him

826
00:37:32,159 --> 00:37:34,619
a ray of sunshine in their dark lives. And we

827
00:37:34,619 --> 00:37:36,619
have no historical record indicating that he

828
00:37:36,619 --> 00:37:39,239
ever wrote back or sent more help. Furthermore,

829
00:37:39,519 --> 00:37:41,820
we learn through Gard that Soutine actually had

830
00:37:41,820 --> 00:37:44,420
a secret daughter from an earlier affair, a child

831
00:37:44,420 --> 00:37:47,539
he flatly, coldly refused to acknowledge or meet.

832
00:37:48,039 --> 00:37:50,219
When Gard asked him about the girl, Soutine simply

833
00:37:50,219 --> 00:37:52,099
said, I don't know her. I don't want to know

834
00:37:52,099 --> 00:37:55,440
her. It's harsh. This is a man completely disconnected

835
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,599
from his past. He literally ignores a letter

836
00:37:58,599 --> 00:38:01,059
from his starving sister in Smilovice and hides

837
00:38:01,059 --> 00:38:03,500
from a daughter he refuses to acknowledge. If

838
00:38:03,500 --> 00:38:05,559
you're listening to this, it's really hard not

839
00:38:05,559 --> 00:38:08,019
to judge him harshly here. We want our artistic

840
00:38:08,019 --> 00:38:10,780
geniuses to be well -rounded, moral, empathetic

841
00:38:10,780 --> 00:38:14,059
people. We do. How do we reconcile the man who

842
00:38:14,059 --> 00:38:16,659
creates such deeply observant, sensitive portraits

843
00:38:16,659 --> 00:38:19,679
with the man who abandons his own child? Was

844
00:38:19,679 --> 00:38:21,960
his complete devotion to the canvas a way to

845
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:24,860
escape the messy, painful reality of human relationships?

846
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:28,539
It is a very compelling and likely accurate interpretation.

847
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:31,860
For Soutine, the physical world outside the studio

848
00:38:31,860 --> 00:38:34,570
was chaotic. painful and increasingly dangerous.

849
00:38:34,889 --> 00:38:37,130
People demanded things of him. His body was failing

850
00:38:37,130 --> 00:38:39,710
him. The canvas was the absolute only place in

851
00:38:39,710 --> 00:38:41,769
the universe where he had total control over

852
00:38:41,769 --> 00:38:44,170
energy and matter. Which brings us to the final,

853
00:38:44,170 --> 00:38:46,769
darkest chapters of his life, chapters 9, 10,

854
00:38:46,849 --> 00:38:49,150
and the epilogue. The outside world completely

855
00:38:49,150 --> 00:38:52,309
shatters the walls of his studio. September 1939,

856
00:38:52,610 --> 00:38:55,070
World War II begins. The Nazis swiftly occupy

857
00:38:55,070 --> 00:38:58,449
Paris. The French Vichy regime actively collaborates.

858
00:38:58,710 --> 00:39:02,489
And suddenly, Soutine's polite wealthy high society

859
00:39:02,489 --> 00:39:05,849
bubble violently bursts. The historical reality

860
00:39:05,849 --> 00:39:08,130
he tried to ignore finally catches up with him.

861
00:39:08,469 --> 00:39:10,909
Under Vichy laws, Jews in France are forced to

862
00:39:10,909 --> 00:39:13,329
register with the authorities. Soutine complies.

863
00:39:13,769 --> 00:39:15,750
His official identity card is stamped heavily

864
00:39:15,750 --> 00:39:18,670
with the word Jouf, Jew. His friend, the sculptor

865
00:39:18,670 --> 00:39:21,530
Chana Orloff, remembers visiting him and finding

866
00:39:21,530 --> 00:39:24,150
him staring intently at the card. But he wasn't

867
00:39:24,150 --> 00:39:26,550
crying about his impending persecution. He was

868
00:39:26,550 --> 00:39:28,650
complaining that the police had clumsily smudged

869
00:39:28,650 --> 00:39:31,130
the ink of the stamp. Typical Soutine. Yeah.

870
00:39:31,289 --> 00:39:33,889
He was an artist, fastidious, and obsessed with

871
00:39:33,889 --> 00:39:36,389
visual clarity, even when looking at the instrument

872
00:39:36,389 --> 00:39:39,110
of his own doom. As the situation deteriorates,

873
00:39:39,329 --> 00:39:42,429
the Castangs, his wealthy patrons, used the chaos

874
00:39:42,429 --> 00:39:45,349
of the war to quietly manipulate Gard, the woman

875
00:39:45,349 --> 00:39:48,239
who genuinely loved him away from him. They replace

876
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:50,440
her with another woman, Marie Berthier -Runch,

877
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:53,119
who is formally married to the surrealist Max

878
00:39:53,119 --> 00:39:55,599
Bernst. Soutine is eventually forced to flee

879
00:39:55,599 --> 00:39:58,239
the city of Paris entirely, and hide out in a

880
00:39:58,239 --> 00:39:59,900
small, presidential village called Champilly.

881
00:40:00,500 --> 00:40:03,739
His health is failing rapidly, his ulcer is agonizing,

882
00:40:04,159 --> 00:40:06,659
the world is tearing itself apart, and he knows

883
00:40:06,659 --> 00:40:09,539
his own time is extremely short. And his response

884
00:40:09,539 --> 00:40:13,019
to this apocalyptic reality is to paint. He paints

885
00:40:13,199 --> 00:40:16,059
furiously. The villagers in Champigny remember

886
00:40:16,059 --> 00:40:18,099
him standing out in the fields, painting for

887
00:40:18,099 --> 00:40:20,320
11 hours straight until he was drenched in sweat

888
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:22,800
and the sun went down. And what is so poignant,

889
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:25,380
so remarkable about this final period, is that

890
00:40:25,380 --> 00:40:28,420
his late works show an entirely new, evolved

891
00:40:28,420 --> 00:40:31,199
vector of energy. Yes. Let's talk specifically

892
00:40:31,199 --> 00:40:33,420
about the painting Return from School After the

893
00:40:33,420 --> 00:40:37,199
Storm, which he painted in 1939. It is so fundamentally

894
00:40:37,199 --> 00:40:39,599
different from the frantic, twisting landscapes

895
00:40:39,599 --> 00:40:42,440
of Serre. It is a revelation. In these final

896
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:44,500
landscapes, the energy is no longer violent,

897
00:40:44,699 --> 00:40:47,380
asphyxiating, or chaotic. It is deeply tender.

898
00:40:47,980 --> 00:40:49,599
In return from school, he paints two children,

899
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:52,199
two little girls in black dresses, holding hands,

900
00:40:52,239 --> 00:40:54,639
walking along a dirt path. The trees above them

901
00:40:54,639 --> 00:40:57,280
are whipping in a dark, threatening wind. Soutine

902
00:40:57,280 --> 00:40:59,639
renders the storm in deep, heavy greens and flashes

903
00:40:59,639 --> 00:41:02,179
of anxious yellow. But the figures of the children

904
00:41:02,179 --> 00:41:05,039
themselves are painted with such incredible delicacy.

905
00:41:05,579 --> 00:41:09,449
He uses soft swirls of pink and red. Marcus points

906
00:41:09,449 --> 00:41:11,369
out that the roughness and danger of the storm

907
00:41:11,369 --> 00:41:13,969
raging in the background actually makes the warmth

908
00:41:13,969 --> 00:41:16,309
and intimacy between the two children so much

909
00:41:16,309 --> 00:41:18,849
more affecting. It's a profound metaphor for

910
00:41:18,849 --> 00:41:21,670
human vulnerability. The energy of the storm

911
00:41:21,670 --> 00:41:24,570
is immense and terrifying, but the small human

912
00:41:24,570 --> 00:41:27,750
connection anchors the entire painting. It is

913
00:41:27,750 --> 00:41:30,389
intelligent energy at its most empathetic and

914
00:41:30,389 --> 00:41:33,170
mature. But his physical body simply could not

915
00:41:33,170 --> 00:41:36,659
sustain the effort. In August 1943, his stomach

916
00:41:36,659 --> 00:41:39,920
ulcer severely ruptures. He's bleeding internally.

917
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:42,440
He is smuggled into an ambulance to be rushed

918
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:44,780
back to occupied Paris for emergency surgery.

919
00:41:45,179 --> 00:41:47,340
To avoid Nazi checkpoints, the ambulance has

920
00:41:47,340 --> 00:41:50,039
to take a long, agonizingly circuitous route

921
00:41:50,039 --> 00:41:51,780
through the countryside. By the time they reach

922
00:41:51,780 --> 00:41:53,940
the operating table, it's too late. Chaim Soutine

923
00:41:53,940 --> 00:41:56,880
dies at the age of 50. It's an absolutely tragic

924
00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:00,840
what -if. Soutine died in 1943 at the height

925
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:03,619
of his mature powers. And this is where the epilogue

926
00:42:03,619 --> 00:42:06,019
of Marcus's book becomes so crucial, because

927
00:42:06,019 --> 00:42:08,659
the afterlife of Soutine's legacy is immediately,

928
00:42:08,980 --> 00:42:11,239
almost aggressively hijacked by the art world.

929
00:42:11,559 --> 00:42:13,619
Marcus introduces a fascinating figure here,

930
00:42:13,780 --> 00:42:16,599
Esti Dinao. Dinao is the foremost living expert

931
00:42:16,599 --> 00:42:18,599
on Soutine and the co -author of his definitive

932
00:42:18,599 --> 00:42:21,519
catalogue, Raisinet, which is the comprehensive

933
00:42:21,519 --> 00:42:24,159
official listing of every single confirmed artwork

934
00:42:24,159 --> 00:42:26,880
he ever produced. And there is an incredible,

935
00:42:27,099 --> 00:42:29,500
almost poetic historical parallel here. Yes.

936
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,179
Dunao's father, Moshe Tlouzenovsky, was a Yiddish

937
00:42:33,179 --> 00:42:35,280
writer who lived in Paris at the exact same time

938
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:37,500
as Soutine. They traveled in the same immigrant

939
00:42:37,500 --> 00:42:38,980
circles, they even knew each other slightly.

940
00:42:39,579 --> 00:42:41,340
But Moshe managed to escape France and get to

941
00:42:41,340 --> 00:42:43,360
America before the war destroyed everything,

942
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:46,360
while Soutine stayed and died. Dunao spent her

943
00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:49,360
entire life rigorously studying Soutine, constantly

944
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:51,519
haunted by the tragic realization that his late

945
00:42:51,519 --> 00:42:54,179
period, the final mature phase of an artist's

946
00:42:54,179 --> 00:42:56,179
life, happened when he was only in his forties.

947
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:58,739
And because he wasn't there to defend his own

948
00:42:58,739 --> 00:43:01,679
work, to give interviews or write manifestos,

949
00:43:02,219 --> 00:43:04,539
the post -war art world just projected whatever

950
00:43:04,539 --> 00:43:07,039
ideological narrative they wanted onto his silent

951
00:43:07,039 --> 00:43:09,639
canvases. It's actually infuriating when you

952
00:43:09,639 --> 00:43:12,320
read how he was treated. It really is. Take Clement

953
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:14,940
Greenberg, the absolute titan of mid -century

954
00:43:14,940 --> 00:43:18,150
American art criticism. Greenberg essentially

955
00:43:18,150 --> 00:43:21,570
dismisses Soutine entirely. Why? Because Greenberg

956
00:43:21,570 --> 00:43:23,949
rigidly believed that the entire history of art

957
00:43:23,949 --> 00:43:26,590
was on a teleological march toward pure abstraction.

958
00:43:27,230 --> 00:43:29,369
He believed that painting had to abandon depicting

959
00:43:29,369 --> 00:43:32,110
real objects and instead focus purely on the

960
00:43:32,110 --> 00:43:34,289
flatness of the canvas and the nature of paint

961
00:43:34,289 --> 00:43:37,710
itself. Because Soutine stubbornly kept painting

962
00:43:37,710 --> 00:43:40,170
recognizable things, trees, houses, dead cows,

963
00:43:40,369 --> 00:43:42,409
little girls in storms, Greenberg called him

964
00:43:42,409 --> 00:43:44,849
a failed expressionist who asked too much of

965
00:43:44,849 --> 00:43:47,550
painting. Greenberg demanded that art criticize

966
00:43:47,550 --> 00:43:49,769
its own medium. Soutine didn't care about the

967
00:43:49,769 --> 00:43:51,469
medium's self -criticism. He cared about the

968
00:43:51,469 --> 00:43:54,090
physical world. He loved reality too much to

969
00:43:54,090 --> 00:43:56,730
abstract it away. Then you have Ili Weisel, the

970
00:43:56,730 --> 00:43:59,269
great writer and Nobel laureate. As a Holocaust

971
00:43:59,269 --> 00:44:01,909
survivor, Weisel looked at Soutine's twisting

972
00:44:01,909 --> 00:44:05,130
violent landscapes from the 1920s and claimed

973
00:44:05,130 --> 00:44:07,409
they were a prophetic premonition of the Holocaust.

974
00:44:08,039 --> 00:44:10,860
Weissel saw the paintings as a Jewish survivor's

975
00:44:10,860 --> 00:44:13,320
rage against a God who had cursed his own creation.

976
00:44:13,460 --> 00:44:15,780
Which, as Marcus firmly points out, is a total

977
00:44:15,780 --> 00:44:18,260
historical projection. Soutine wasn't painting

978
00:44:18,260 --> 00:44:20,440
the Holocaust in 1920 in the south of France.

979
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:23,000
He was painting the wind. And then, on the flip

980
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:25,679
side, you have Willem de Kooning. de Kooning

981
00:44:25,679 --> 00:44:28,360
is a giant of abstract expressionism, and he

982
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:30,340
heavily championed Soutine, helping to make him

983
00:44:30,340 --> 00:44:32,860
famous in America. But de Kooning only praises

984
00:44:32,860 --> 00:44:35,480
Soutine for his fleshiness and the aggressive

985
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:38,099
speed of his brushwork. Right, he uses him. De

986
00:44:38,099 --> 00:44:40,559
Kooning treats Soutine purely as a stepping stone

987
00:44:40,559 --> 00:44:43,380
to action painting, the American movement, where

988
00:44:43,380 --> 00:44:45,719
the canvas is treated as an arena in which to

989
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:48,559
physically act, where the paint records the artist's

990
00:44:48,559 --> 00:44:51,199
bodily movement. Everyone who looked at Soutine

991
00:44:51,199 --> 00:44:53,719
saw a mirror for their own personal agendas.

992
00:44:53,860 --> 00:44:57,139
Greenberg wanted to justify extraction. Wiesel

993
00:44:57,139 --> 00:44:59,900
wanted a profit to express Jewish trauma. de

994
00:44:59,900 --> 00:45:02,800
Kooning wanted a historical predecessor to legitimize

995
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:05,889
his own action painting technique. But if you

996
00:45:05,889 --> 00:45:08,230
strip away all those decades of theory, if you

997
00:45:08,230 --> 00:45:10,210
look at a shame Soutine painting without those

998
00:45:10,210 --> 00:45:13,130
heavy filters, you don't see a political manifesto.

999
00:45:13,510 --> 00:45:15,789
You don't see a Holocaust prophecy. You don't

1000
00:45:15,789 --> 00:45:18,110
see a stepping stone to Jackson Pollock. You

1001
00:45:18,110 --> 00:45:21,289
see a singular, unparalleled world builder. You

1002
00:45:21,289 --> 00:45:23,550
see a man wrestling with the absolute terrifying

1003
00:45:23,550 --> 00:45:26,110
miracle of being alive, trying to pin down the

1004
00:45:26,110 --> 00:45:28,530
vibrating energy of the physical world, stroke

1005
00:45:28,530 --> 00:45:31,710
by furious stroke. Exactly. Soutine was none

1006
00:45:31,710 --> 00:45:33,739
of the things they called him. He was a maestro

1007
00:45:33,739 --> 00:45:36,380
of intelligent energy. He invented his own completely

1008
00:45:36,380 --> 00:45:39,119
unique visual syntax to describe the vitality

1009
00:45:39,119 --> 00:45:41,460
of matter, and he followed his own laws with

1010
00:45:41,460 --> 00:45:44,039
absolute, uncompromising rigor until the day

1011
00:45:44,039 --> 00:45:47,179
his body failed him. So let's pull back and synthesize

1012
00:45:47,179 --> 00:45:49,119
this incredible journey we've been on today.

1013
00:45:49,949 --> 00:45:53,110
We started with a kid drawing in the mud in Smilovici,

1014
00:45:53,530 --> 00:45:55,769
whose family used the 15 rubles from a lawsuit

1015
00:45:55,769 --> 00:45:58,590
to fund his education. We followed him into the

1016
00:45:58,590 --> 00:46:02,010
squalor of LaRouche, surviving bedbugs and WWI

1017
00:46:02,010 --> 00:46:05,239
xenophobia. We witnessed the absolute frenzy

1018
00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:08,039
of Surae, a man holding 40 brushes at once to

1019
00:46:08,039 --> 00:46:10,300
capture the twisting hills. We saw the rigorous

1020
00:46:10,300 --> 00:46:12,699
discipline of the Louvre, hanging bloody carcasses

1021
00:46:12,699 --> 00:46:14,659
in his apartment to find the hidden geometry

1022
00:46:14,659 --> 00:46:17,559
of life. We watched him navigate the anti -Semitic

1023
00:46:17,559 --> 00:46:20,340
salons of high society, battle a lethal ulcer,

1024
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:23,199
and finally we saw his tragic, tender final days

1025
00:46:23,199 --> 00:46:25,539
in Champagny, hiding from the Nazis while painting

1026
00:46:25,539 --> 00:46:28,380
children braving the storm. Soutine was not a

1027
00:46:28,380 --> 00:46:31,159
madman. He was a meticulous, vital genius. And

1028
00:46:31,159 --> 00:46:33,280
that brings us to the core takeaway for you,

1029
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:36,300
the listener. The next time you stand in a museum

1030
00:46:36,300 --> 00:46:38,519
in front of a piece of art that feels chaotic

1031
00:46:38,519 --> 00:46:40,840
or overwhelming or difficult to immediately read,

1032
00:46:41,260 --> 00:46:44,579
pause. Take a breath. Ask yourself a very hard,

1033
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:47,539
very necessary question. Are you simply projecting

1034
00:46:47,539 --> 00:46:50,099
your own feelings, your own historical context,

1035
00:46:50,340 --> 00:46:52,679
your own desire for a clean diagnosis onto that

1036
00:46:52,679 --> 00:46:56,000
canvas? Or are you willing to do the hard work

1037
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:59,559
of learning the unique visual syntax that the

1038
00:46:59,559 --> 00:47:02,000
artist has invented? Are you looking at the painting

1039
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:04,280
as a mirror of yourself or are you willing to

1040
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:06,079
look through it as a window into their world?

1041
00:47:06,519 --> 00:47:08,739
That is the ultimate question for any lover of

1042
00:47:08,739 --> 00:47:10,800
art and I want to leave you with one final thought

1043
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:12,960
to mull over. Something that wasn't explicitly

1044
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:15,260
debated in the text but haunts the edges of this

1045
00:47:15,260 --> 00:47:18,860
entire narrative. Soutine died at 50 in 1943.

1046
00:47:19,380 --> 00:47:22,170
Just years later The abstract expressionist movement

1047
00:47:22,170 --> 00:47:25,090
absolutely exploded in New York, a movement led

1048
00:47:25,090 --> 00:47:27,369
by men like de Kooning who worshiped Soutine's

1049
00:47:27,369 --> 00:47:29,969
brushwork. Makes you wonder. It does. Had Soutine

1050
00:47:29,969 --> 00:47:32,389
survived the war, had his ulcer not ruptured,

1051
00:47:32,469 --> 00:47:35,510
had he lived just one more decade into the 1950s,

1052
00:47:35,610 --> 00:47:37,469
what would he have done? Would he have crossed

1053
00:47:37,469 --> 00:47:40,110
the ocean, embraced the abstract painters who

1054
00:47:40,110 --> 00:47:42,550
idolized him and become the wealthy celebrated

1055
00:47:42,550 --> 00:47:45,050
godfather of the New York school? Or would he

1056
00:47:45,050 --> 00:47:47,570
have stubbornly fiercely turned his back on them,

1057
00:47:47,929 --> 00:47:50,400
rejecting their pure abstraction as an abandonment

1058
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:53,159
of reality, and retreated once again to the quiet

1059
00:47:53,159 --> 00:47:55,739
halls of the Louvre, just a man standing alone,

1060
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:58,119
communing with Rembrandt. It makes you wonder

1061
00:47:58,119 --> 00:48:00,119
how the art world would try to diagnose him then.

1062
00:48:00,460 --> 00:48:02,679
Exactly. Sometimes the x -ray machine is broken

1063
00:48:02,679 --> 00:48:05,159
for a very good reason, because what's inside

1064
00:48:05,159 --> 00:48:07,780
the patient isn't a simple fracture. It's pure,

1065
00:48:07,980 --> 00:48:09,199
uncontainable energy.