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December 10, 2010
Beloved bard shares his art
Leonard Cohen’s drawings offer a unique perspective.
OLGA LIVSHIN
For decades, Leonard Cohen has been a household name for poetry lovers and music aficionados. A beloved Canadian singer-songwriter, he is recognized all over the world as a poet on an unending quest for beauty and wisdom.
Several years ago, Cohen unearthed another facet of his creative personality, one his fans were unaware of until recently: he is an artist, too. An exhibition of his drawings, Leonard Cohen Artworks, opened at the Granville Fine Art gallery in Vancouver at the beginning of the month, the day after his sold-out performance at Rogers Arena. The exhibition includes 35 limited-edition prints of Cohen’s drawings. Cohen himself wasn’t in attendance at the opening receoption, but his spirit was – in his drawings and in the memories the pictures evoked in the gallery guests.
Gallery co-owner Linda Lando, who was instrumental in introducing Cohen’s art to Vancouver, told the Independent, “I didn’t know he drew until 2007. My brother was in London, England, and he saw a performance of Glassworks, with music by Philip Glass and images of Leonard Cohen’s artwork in the background. He was so impressed, he called me right away.”
Lando knew and loved Cohen as a poet and songwriter already and, intrigued by his visual art, she started sending e-mails. One of them reached Cohen’s manager and, after a year of negotiations and logistics, the first Cohen art show opened in Vancouver, at Lando’s gallery, in 2008. The current show is the second one she has organized to the delight of Cohen’s local art and music fans.
“The 2008 show was very successful,” Lando recalled. “People came in, attracted by the name, but they stayed for the art. If the artworks weren’t that good, they wouldn’t have sold so well. The same with this show: people are overcome by the power of his drawings. They tell me their stories, how much Leonard’s poems and songs have touched them. They tell me about their own meetings with him…. A couple from Montreal recognized the park in one of his drawings. An old man remembered Cohen’s poetry reading at UBC – it must have been 30 years ago.”
In a 2007 interview Cohen gave to the Canadian art magazine Border Crossing, he said that he has been drawing for as long as he can remember, but that he never expected his drawings to make a public appearance. Drawing was something that helped him relax, providing relief from his intense poetic work. For him, his drawings were “acceptable decorations” for his notebooks, nothing more, although, over the years, three of his albums have featured his artwork on their jackets.
The situation changed in 2006, when Cohen published his Book of Longing. Drawings and poetry have equal places in that book, offering its readers a glimpse into the heart of a painfully honest and wryly humorous artist who refuses to set limits to his self-expression.
Cohen’s pictorial output includes multiple images of women and a number of self-portraits. Many of the drawings have incorporated text and the artist’s stamp – a sort of Japanese hanko – as his signature. Another stamp he uses liberally resembles a Magen David, signaling the artist’s connection to his Jewish identity.
Speaking to the Independent about her impressions at the opening, local sculptor Suzy Birstein said, “His stamps and words provide a lovely framework for his art. It’s like printmaking: taking advantage of the media.”
Most of Cohen’s drawings of women seem to have their stylistic roots in Etruscan frescoes or Hellenistic amphorae; many are similar, as if one curly haired muse of Mediterranean origins posed for them.
His self-portraits, on the other hand, are each vastly different. Cohen has admitted that he has about 300 self-portraits in his personal collection and that, according to him, “none of them looks like me.”
At one point in his life, Cohen began every day with a self-portrait. “There is a little mirror on my desk, and I just drew. Then I look and see what expression is there, what is the guy saying, and I annotate it. It’s a very accurate presentation of the moment,” he told an interviewer.
The annotations on the portraits are short poems, depicting the mood of the day. The artist’s pencil doesn’t flatter himself. Honest and spare, he creates a character out of a few precise lines, many seeming to openly mock their creator.
All the self-portraits in the exhibition – 10 in all – are of an old man who has lived and struggled, suffered and triumphed. The text of “Much Hangs Down” echoes the dangling jowls of its image, declaring with refreshing sincerity and self-ridicule: “The spirit soars / but much hangs down / much hangs down / from the ladder of love.”
Another, “Deeply Familiar,” shows a face lined with deep wrinkles, expressing skepticism and melancholy, as he frowns upon the world: “Always somewhat off balance / but peaceful in his work / peaceful in his vertigo / an old man with his pen / deeply familiar with his predicament.”
A hat plays a considerable role in Cohen’s image, both on stage and in his art. In the drawing “The Hat,” he seems baffled by life, the humorously gloomy annotation lamenting: “One of those days / when the hat doesn’t help.”
The artist’s humble view of himself is highlighted in the drawing “Just to Have Been,” which is adorned with a Hebrew prayer. The English text states wistfully: “Just to have been one of them / even on the lowest rung.” Perhaps he means a poet? Or a Jew? It is for a viewer to decide.
Leonard Cohen Artworks is on until Dec. 31.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She’s available for contract work. Contact her at [email protected].
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