Seen one, seen 'em all?
Well, not exactly. When it comes to the several hundred pictures of St. Fabiola in a marvelous new installation by Francis Alys at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, it's obvious that all these different copies derive from the same original, since they display a nearly uniform composition. Yet, no two copies are exactly alike. Originality resides in the hand of the copyist -- an incongruous state of affairs if ever there was one.
The installation consists of 307 pictures of St. Fabiola, a 4th century Roman noblewoman who, under the influence of St. Jerome, renounced her worldly wealth and became a Christian ascetic. Having grievously sinned by remarrying before the death of her first husband -- a reputed wife-beater whom she divorced -- Fabiola had a lot of atoning to do, according to the tenets of her church.
She built a hospital, gave extravagantly to the poor and moved to Bethlehem to study Scripture. Pope Siricius, who is said to have left his wife and children to enter the clergy and was eventually elected pope and who decreed that priests should be celibate, forgave her.
The pictures on view were found over the last decade or more in thrift shops, flea markets and antique stores in Europe, the United States and Mexico, where the Belgian-born Alys lives. Some are signed, many are not, and most appear to be the work of amateurs.
They're devotional pictures painted by the faithful or, in the case of some jewelry and a few souvenirs, no doubt commercially produced. All are based on the same long-lost work by the once-fashionable, now largely forgettable French academic painter, Jean-Jacques Henner (1829-1905).
Oil paint on canvas is the favored medium, although there are lots of others: needlepoint, collage, charcoal, carved and inlaid wood, plaster, reverse-painting on glass, colored foil, enamel, etc. One is even made from seeds and beans. Thirty works are shown in a display case -- the jewelry, a commemorative plate, decorated boxes and other souvenirs. The oldest dated work I found was made in April 1922 and the most recent in August 1992.
The composition is almost always the same: a left-facing profile of a middle-aged Caucasian woman with a slight overbite, wearing a red veil and posed before a plain brown background. Variations include changes in hair color beneath her veil -- blond, black and auburn, rather than brown -- and in the dark background's hue. Her general facial expression subtly shifts; sometimes she seems to grimace, elsewhere to daydream.
