Professor Butter Beard and Seward Johnson’s “Déjeuner Déjà Vu”
“I don’t think you need a long face to make art serious. If it touches the heart and it changes you, then the art is powerful and the strength is what makes art serious.” - Seward Johnson, American Sculptor
Have you ever wished to step into a painting? I can easily imagine feeding the ducks calmly swimming in the pond of Nebamun's ancient Egyptian garden surrounded by rows of sycamore-figs, date-palms and dom-palms all heavy with ripening aromatic fruit. Or dancing with Bosch’s humans, the offspring of Adam and Eve, leaping freely in a surrealistic paradisiacal garden, as mad as the Hatter himself. Or joining Van Gogh in a stroll towards his Parisian café where huge yellow lanterns light the terrace, the façade, the pavement, and even the cobblestones of the street, which takes on a delicious violet-pink tinge. Or maybe accepting Monet’s invitation to cross the bridge into his view of heaven where water lilies bloom in a luminous pool of green and blue that is frothed with lavender-tinged reflections of clouds.
This past week, I did just that. I turned a corner in the garden on a steamy summer afternoon and happened upon a quartet enjoying a shaded midday luncheon on the grass. I believe I may have startled the first handsome man and his nude female guest since they suddenly appeared to gaze directly into my delightfully shocked smile. Their packed picnic of ripe apples and pears and freshly baked bread tumbled out of the wicker basket onto the turquoise blanket. The second dandy of a man didn’t notice my stumbling entrance as he was obviously attempting to engage in conversation while his soul was keenly more aware of his female guest cooling her feet in the nearby shallow burbling creek.
As I approached, I stumbled again as I nearly shook hands with a visiting frog patiently waiting for any fly that might be tempted by the aromatic fruit. No one noticed that stumble but me. And then, and only then, did my brain finally accept that the picnickers were actually life-size painted cast bronze.
In 1994, John Seward Johnson II entered a new phase of his artistic evolution, when he began turning his attention to a new direction, the scenes and figures of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, which he would attempt to represent in full-scale sculptural installations down to the smallest detail. The first of these new sculptures was inspired by Édouard Manet’s “Déjeuner sur l’herbe.” It was followed for over a decade by more than twenty others that have been installed within his “Grounds for Sculpture,” a 42-acre sculpture park and museum located in Hamilton Township, New Jersey.
John Seward Johnson II, better knows as Seward Johnson, was born in New York City in 1930. He was the grandson of Robert Wood Johnson I, the founder of Johnson & Johnson, the globally known pharmaceutical company. Seward later wrote, “My family name seems to be the reason why some people say I must not be an artist because I am an heir to the Johnson and Johnson fortune, so why would I need to be an artist?”
By 1994, Johnson was already an artist internationally known for trompe-l'œil painted bronze statues. When he decided to concentrate his sculptural talents on the most famous painting of Manet, he wrote that it was because as a sculptor, who started as a painter, he wanted to honor a French painter whom he admired, and who was one of the first to celebrate the presence of man in nature.
He wrote, “As I was researching the early days of the French Impressionists, I learned that they were among the first to champion the need people had to develop a closer connection to nature as a way of finding a deeper sense of well-being. The Impressionists’ philosophy about nature was directly related to the philosophy we used to guide us when designing the park (his Grounds for Sculpture). So, I knew some of those figures belonged in this new haven for sculpture.”
In order to implement this unique approach, Johnson addressed three main constraints: 1) Respecting the setting of the painting, the layout of the figures, the various components and objects represented, as for example, the ribboned hat and the wicker picnic basket in the foreground; 2) Respecting the colors; and 3) Respecting the perspective or viewpoint of the viewers of the painting, because it is from this viewpoint that figures and objects are configured in the space defined by the frame of the painting. Manet’s painting is masterfully translated into the live space – as if you stepped into the frame effortlessly joining the quartet as the fifth expected guest to the summer mid-day luncheon.
And as a guest, I would never enter empty handed. For this luncheon setting, I chose to add aromatic toasted cumin seeds to my favorite brioche recipe. After spreading my best French mustard on the dough, I layered thin slices of Black Forest ham and sharp cheddar and then rolled the dough before slicing it into individual buns that exploded with flavor and height when baked. The museum guards may be troubled by my pre-opening presence, but I may be able to distract them by offering them a bun, still warm from the oven, just long enough for me to disappear from the gallery by stepping into the “luncheon on the grass.”
Toasted Cumin Brioche Rolls with Ham, Cheese and French Mustard
Two Dozen Rolls
5 cups bread flour
2 tsp fine sea salt
6 Tbsp toasted cumin seeds
4 Tbsp granulated sugar (divided 1 Tbsp and 3 Tbsp)
½ cup warm whole milk
½ cup sour dough starter (optional)
4 tsp active dry yeast
5 large eggs
16 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into 1 Tbsp pieces
14 pieces of thinly sliced ham
14 pieces of thinly sliced cheese (Swiss, cheddar, or even American – you want the slices pliable so they will easily roll in the dough)
6 Tbsp of your best mustard
1) In a four-cup glass measuring bowl, whisk together the warm milk, sour dough starter, 1 Tbsp of sugar and the dry yeast. Set aside to bloom for 5-10 minutes.
2) Toast the cumin seeds in a small sauté pan until you hear them begin to pop. Remove them from the heat to cool briefly.
3) In the bowl of a standing mixer, stir together the bread flour, salt, cumin seeds and the remaining 3 Tbsp of sugar.
4) Switch to the dough hook. In a small bowl, whisk together the five eggs. Add the eggs to the dry mix. Pour in the bloomed yeast mixture. Mix on medium speed with the dough hook to form a soft, elastic dough.
5) With the mixer on low, add the butter, one Tbsp at a time, until fully incorporated and the dough is shiny and soft to the touch.
6) Scrape the dough into a large butter-greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap until the dough is doubled in size (about one hour).
7) Heat your oven to 375 degrees and line two muffin pans with paper liners (preferably tall and homemade – very easy to make!!!)
8) Once the dough is fully risen, turn it out onto a lightly flour-dusted surface and divide in half. Roll the first half into a 12x20 inch rectangle. Spread 3 Tbsp of the mustard onto the dough rectangle leaving a clean 1” border on all sides. Lay out half the cheese slices on the dough and then lay out half the ham slices. Roll the dough, jelly-roll fashion, and seal the edges. With a serrated knife, slice the dough roll into twelve rounds. Place each roll into a liner in the muffin pans. Cover the pans loosely with plastic wrap and let rise again while your oven preheats.
9) Bake one pan at a time for 25 to 28 minutes until the tops are golden and firm to the touch.
