Copyright 2018 Claude van Lingen
ANALYTICAL CUBISM HAS BEEN ADDED
Please scroll down
"...You impressed me greatly; I will never look at art the same way. That's a great teacher.” Julia Morton Jan. 5 2017.
Writer & Video Producer Covering Art & Culture.
"I work regularly with a variety of galleries, producing monthly exhibition statements, press releases, newsletters, and blog entries. I also work directly with artists, helping them create statements, and catalog essays."
juliamortonmedia.com/
https://stuffpeoplemake.com/
See video interview with Claude, "Teaching to learn" on Julia's stuffpeoplemake.com site
Brian Whitehead
...You made an important impact on my formative years – giving cogent, clear and informed direction in terms of where we were in the art world and how it was evolving at that time (early 1970’s)...
Senior Lecturer (BA Hons) Graphics / BA (Hons) Advertising
The University of West London. Central School of Art and Design, London
Please scroll down
"...You impressed me greatly; I will never look at art the same way. That's a great teacher.” Julia Morton Jan. 5 2017.
Writer & Video Producer Covering Art & Culture.
"I work regularly with a variety of galleries, producing monthly exhibition statements, press releases, newsletters, and blog entries. I also work directly with artists, helping them create statements, and catalog essays."
juliamortonmedia.com/
https://stuffpeoplemake.com/
See video interview with Claude, "Teaching to learn" on Julia's stuffpeoplemake.com site
Brian Whitehead
...You made an important impact on my formative years – giving cogent, clear and informed direction in terms of where we were in the art world and how it was evolving at that time (early 1970’s)...
Senior Lecturer (BA Hons) Graphics / BA (Hons) Advertising
The University of West London. Central School of Art and Design, London
|
This book is based on the highly successful Perceptual Studies course I
designed and taught at the Johannesburg College of Art at the School of Visual Arts New York and the drawing and painting classes at Austin Community College. |
Claude van Lingen
|
A PROPOSAL
Art, Creativity and Controversy is not an academic treatise, it is directed at a broad spectrum of readers that includes the general public, museum and gallery visitors, high school, college art and art history students as well as artists wishing to develop a personal vision and/or new ideas. It is like a field guide directing the reader through some of the major influences in Modern Art History.
In addition it is a reminder to teachers, professors and authors of the importance of stressing WHY and HOW art has changed over the centuries.
It answers questions and clarifies statements such as:
"Why do artists make such strange work?" "My child can do better", "I don't understand what modern art is about," "How do I find a style?” "Art is about self-expression—not logical thinking."
Art, Creativity and Controversy, Why and How Artists Create Controversial Work is based on the premise that it is within the philosophy and zeitgeist (spirit) of the times that innovative artists develop new ideas and use the means most suitable to interpreting them.
By understanding WHY adventurous artists create unusual work skeptics will, (even if they still don't like the work) be able to discuss it intelligently and not denigrate it.
PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT BY CLICKING ON ART, CREATIVITY AND CONTROVERSY BLOG COMMENTS ABOVE and then on the NUMBER OF COMMENTS ALREADY MADE.
YOUR IDEAS ARE MUCH APPRECIATED.
Please let me know what you think about:
1. The title of the book
2. The cover of the book
3. The premise of the book
4. The use of the FROM THIS —to —THIS? feature
5. The content of the sample chapters
6. What can be added or eliminated
7. Please share any ideas you have on the blog. Enter it at the top right. You may be
candid, I am not sensitive and value your thoughts—positive or negative.
Thank you.
WITH THANKS TO TREVOR GOULD FOR ADDITIONS TO THE TEXT.
THE FOLLOWING UNEDITED OVERVIEW WILL PERIODICALLY BE UPDATED.
Please scroll down to view more detailed extracts from a number of chapters devoted to Impressionism, Cubism, Abstraction and a number of later movements.
CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER OVERVIEW
An unkempt bed, stained and littered with condoms and other memorabilia of sexual encounters—an artist having sex with her a collector—a nude black woman
as Christ surrounded by black disciples, with a white man as Judas in a recreation of da Vinci's Last Supper—a cow cut in half and displayed in two glass cases you can walk between, a small sculpture of the crucified Christ submerged in a glass container of the artist’s urine?
How did art get to this point? Why make it? Is it art?
What do you think each of these means, illustrates or communicates??
The question is “Why have there been so many changes in the approaches to making art?” The answer lies in the fact that it is the changing philosophies, religious beliefs and zeitgeist of a period within which artists develop new ways of expressing new ideas.
To find the answers to these questions we need to go all the way back to the ancient Egyptians and Greeks!!!
FROM THIS ––TO –––––THIS AND––––––––––––––––THIS?
Ranofer. Priest of Ptah
c. 2181 BC |
Akhenaten
c.1353 BC |
Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten
c.1353 BC |
A very early example of the way in which a religious belief can change the zeitgeist of a period and the art that is created is exemplified by the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten’s (c. 1353 BC) shift from the polytheistic, multi-god beliefs of his forefathers to be the first monotheist in history–the god Aten was to be the only god worshiped in Egypt.
Instead of the stiff stylized representations of his predecessors he allowed artists to represent him and his family more realistically. He had an elongated skull and a distended belly, and artists took advantage of these characteristics. This resulted in cartoon-like representations of Akhenaton and lifelike sculptures of his beautiful wife, Nefertiti.
Upon his death, subsequent pharaohs and priests forced the return to the stylized art of previous centuries.
Instead of the stiff stylized representations of his predecessors he allowed artists to represent him and his family more realistically. He had an elongated skull and a distended belly, and artists took advantage of these characteristics. This resulted in cartoon-like representations of Akhenaton and lifelike sculptures of his beautiful wife, Nefertiti.
Upon his death, subsequent pharaohs and priests forced the return to the stylized art of previous centuries.
FROM STYLIZATION TO THE IDEAL
FROM THIS––––TO –––––––THIS ––––––––––AND –––––––THIS?
Kourus 530BC |
Venus de Milo 101 BC
|
The Discobolus of Myron
c. 460–450 BC |
The beginnings of Greek sculpture—and the reasons for its development into the representation of the ideal—form the basis of this chapter.
The ancient Greeks strove for the ideal in mind and body. This philosophy gave us Democracy, the Olympic Games, as well as the striving for the ideal in areas of human endeavor such as sculpture and architecture.
Initially the Greek's rigid, cylindrical sculptures were made from tree trunks. These were later interpreted into similar marble sculptures. It is thought that when they encountered early Egyptian sculpture the Greek sculptors emulated the Egyptian rigid frontal view and one foot in front of the other convention as seen in their Kourus sculptures.
The discussion of idealism, contraposto, action and the line of beauty, as well as their influence on later art, is to come.
The ancient Greeks strove for the ideal in mind and body. This philosophy gave us Democracy, the Olympic Games, as well as the striving for the ideal in areas of human endeavor such as sculpture and architecture.
Initially the Greek's rigid, cylindrical sculptures were made from tree trunks. These were later interpreted into similar marble sculptures. It is thought that when they encountered early Egyptian sculpture the Greek sculptors emulated the Egyptian rigid frontal view and one foot in front of the other convention as seen in their Kourus sculptures.
The discussion of idealism, contraposto, action and the line of beauty, as well as their influence on later art, is to come.
FROM THE IDEAL BACK TO STYLIZATION
FROM THIS–––TO ––––––––––––THIS
FROM THIS–––TO ––––––––––––THIS
Hercules. Roman copy
Original By Lysippos c.400 BC |
Apse San Vitale, Ravenna
|
The rise of Christianity and its role in the changing attitudes to life and art is to be discussed in this chapter.
FROM STYLIZATION TO THE BEGINNINGS OF REALISTIC REPRESENTATION
FROM THIS–––––––––––––TO –––––––––––THIS?
Christ the Pantocrator
1300. Mosaic Baptistry of San Giovanni, Florence |
Giotto. The Lamentation
1304-1306. Fresco Arena Chapel, Padua |
This chapter discusses the influence of St. Francis of Assisi on—not only Renaissance art—but also the development of science and how his teachings paved the way to where we are today.
THE FOLLOWING CHAPTER OVERVIEWS ARE IN PREPARATION
THE DISCOVERY OF PERSPECTIVE (Bruneleschi)
THE STUDY OF ANATOMY (Pollaiuolo and da Vinci)
FROM RELIGIOUS TO MYTHOLOCICAL SUBJECT MATTER
THERE ARE NO LINES IN NATURE! (da Vinci's discoveries—sfumato and chiaroscuro)
THE FRONTAL AND TWISTING REPRESENTATION OF THE HUMAN FIGURE (Michelangelo)
THE CHANGE FROM RELIGIOUS TO SECULAR SUBJECTS (The role played by Martin Luther)
THE GLAZING-BLENDING AS OPPOSED TO THE PAINTERLY APPROACH IN PAINTING (The war between the two approaches to painting).
THE FOLLOWING ARE A FEW SAMPLE CHAPTERS FROM
ART, CREATIVITY AND CONTROVERSY.
1. Impressionism
2. Van Gogh
3. Abstraction
4. Working on Mondrian
5. Working on Cubism
6. Working on Lyrical Abstraction/Abstract Expressionism
7. Contemporary Art
ART, CREATIVITY, CONTROVERSY
Why and How Artists Develop New Ideas
Introduction
'My child can do better!" "Why do artists make such strange work?" "I don't understand what modern art is about?" or, "How do I find a style?" and "Art is about self-expression, not logical thinking."
As an artist and teacher I cannot recall the number of times I’ve heard statements such as these. This problem is understandable if it is realized that to fully comprehend and appreciate any specialized field of human endeavor requires much study and practice. How much do we know about areas outside our expertise, whether it is science, medicine, engineering, finance, architecture—whatever? Similarly, it takes study and research to understand art, even if it is in generally accepted fields such as the Renaissance or Impressionism.
Modern and contemporary art may require a bit more work to come to an understanding of why artists create unusual or disturbing work. But, take heart, even viewers of the art of the Ptolemaic period of ancient Egypt and the early Renaissance went through a similar quandary.
Of note is the fact that innovative artists do not think of creating a style, on the contrary, they are dissatisfied with the current approaches to making art and wish to break away from entrenched ideas. It is irate critics or even fellow artists who often derogatively name the paradigm shift that has taken place. This new direction is then taken up by followers and turned into a style that eventually becomes acceptable to the general public (Impressionism is an example). Because the word style brings to mind the constant changes that take place in fashion and design and accentuates the surface changes that take place to make objects more appealing, the use of the terms directions, approaches, and personal vision are preferred.
SAMPLE CHAPTERS
ART, CREATIVITY AND CONTROVERSY
Why and How Artists Develop New Ideas
THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT IS TO BE EXPANDED
IMPRESSIONISM—THE BIRTH OF MODERN ART
FROM THIS––––––––––––––––TO––––––––––––––––THIS?
Titian and/or Giorgione
|
Edouard Manet
Luncheon on the Grass. 1863 Oil on canvas, 82 in x 104 in |
In 1863 the Salon rejected 3,000 artists’ work. In response to the uproar that ensued Napoleon III created the “Salon des Refusés—an exhibition that would have long-lasting repercussions. At this exhibition Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’Herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) caused a furor. The portraying of the nude Victorine Meurent (a well known artist) gazing unashamedly at the viewer, sitting in a landscape with two fashionably dressed men, was shocking. So was the lighting that was flat and did not have the chiaroscuro (light and shade) effects favored by the Academy. This flattened lighting was the influence of the Japanese prints that were popular at the time, and heralds the beginning of the return to the acceptance of the flat surface—and no deep perspective--that Renaissance artists had fought so hard to achieve. And, in contrast to the smooth glazing and blending approach favored by the Academy, Manet’s loose brushwork was highly disturbing. Although the Impressionist painters looked up to Manet as a mentor, he never considered himself an Impressionist or exhibited in any of their exhibitions.
The rumblings of change at this time could also be detected in the works of Romantic artists such as Delacroix and Gericault, the painting of landscapes in the forest of Fontainebleau by artists of the Barbizon School, and the realism of Courbet.
The rumblings of change at this time could also be detected in the works of Romantic artists such as Delacroix and Gericault, the painting of landscapes in the forest of Fontainebleau by artists of the Barbizon School, and the realism of Courbet.
Impressionism Revolutionary?
FROM THIS —--——---AND————----—— THIS––––––––—--—–TO–––––––––––––THIS?
FROM THIS —--——---AND————----—— THIS––––––––—--—–TO–––––––––––––THIS?
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
The Swing. Ca. 1767 Oil on canvas, 32 in x 25.25 in |
Jaques Louis David
The Death of Socrates. 1787 Oil on canvas, 51 in x 72.2 in |
Claude Monet
On the River Bank. 1868 Oil on Canvas, 32 1/16 x 39 5/8 in |
Revolutions All Over the Place
Why would there be such a drastic change from the frivolous Rococo style of Fragonard and the Classical approach of artists of the Academy such as David to the freely painted, brightly colored landscapes of the Impressionists? Once again we have to look at the way in which the changing conditions of the times influenced artists of the period.
By the 18th century all the innovations made in perspective, anatomy, light and shade since the Renaissance had been assimilated and were now in widespread use. Baroque art and architecture had evolved into the highly frivolous and ornate Rococo styles. Watteau and Fragonard are examples of this period of excess and powdered wigs. The rediscovery and excavation of Pompeii (1748) triggered a renewed interest in Classical art that resulted in a reaction against the Rococo style.
Add to these changes the importance of the individual brought about by the Age of Enlightenment, (the Age of Reason, with its emphasis on the championing of scientific thinking and the move away from religion), the American War of Independence (1775-1783), the French Revolution (1789-1799) as well as the Industrial Revolution. The accent on reason led to a reaction against it in the form of Romanticism. Artists such as Delacroix, Gericault, Friedrich, the Hudson River School and poets such as Blake, Shelley, Wordsworth, Emerson and Whitman, and composers such as Beethoven, Liszt and Chopin, are some examples of this late 18th and early 19th century movement. Because of these changes the patronage of the church, and that of royalty, had for all practical purposes become non-existent. Within this void the academies with their rigid rules were instituted. As a result your future as an artist now depended on your ability to get into the academies’ art schools and showing in the annual exhibitions they organized.
The academies enforced strict rules that included the following:
• the most favored subject matter was that taken from history or mythology.
Portrait, landscape, and still life painting followed in order of preference
• the smooth glazing/blending approach to painting was favored. Visible brush
strokes were considered vulgar
• bright color was also considered vulgar therefore color had to be subdued, and
preferably in shades of brown—like those of the old masters in the museums.
• to help achieve this effect you painted on brown or dull green (bole) grounds
(surfaces)
• you were a gentleman or a lady and while painting, dressed accordingly. You
did not go into the countryside like a common laborer to paint, you painted
landscapes from memory, sketches, or a model you had set up in your studio
• wherever possible you used the golden section in you compositions.
Taking all these restrictions and changes into consideration you have fertile ground for new ideas in art.
All the changes brought about by the enlightenment, the industrial revolution, the American and French revolutions, etc. allowed for individual thought. Individual thought now sparked the numerous changes that—not only in art, but science and invention as well—would characterize our world to this day.
Around the middle of the 19th century these rules rankled some artists and they decided to challenge the Academy. Their efforts eventually led to a paradigm shift in the art of painting, a shift that resulted in a movement that would derogatively be called Impressionism. It was the first of the “My child can do better” negative statements that would be leveled at most new art movements to come.
Impressionism is another excellent example of the creative process. These artists questioned the status quo, decided to change what they did not agree with, were in tune with their times, used the new thinking and technologies at their disposal, came up with new ideas, and developed the means to execute their intentions.
What were you to do if you were an artist living in the middle of the 19th century and you were dissatisfied with the stranglehold the Academy had on the art world?
You did not want to:
• make paintings based on old historical, Biblical, or mythological subjects
• use dull colors
• use the tedious drawing, glazing and blending techniques.
You really wanted to:
• use subject matter you found around you. Courbet said, “I don’t paint angels
because I’ve never seen one”
• paint nature with the immediacy of the camera. (It originally took 20 minutes or more to take a photo)
• base your compositions more closely on the cropping of the camera
• use color based on those of the prism, (Isaac Newton’s discovery) and the
findings of color interactions by theorists such as Chevreul.
To achieve their aims the rebels had to rethink painting from the ground up.
Some basic questions they asked themselves were:
• how can I paint quickly to emulate the speed of the camera? (Invented in
1829)
• how can I achieve clean bright colors that show the brilliance of outdoor
light?
Their answers to these questions included:
• using the painterly approach to painting that had historical precedents dating
back to artists such as Titian, Rembrandt, Hals, and what they saw the British
artists Turner and Constable were doing.
Their answer in their use of clean bright colors was more complex and their innovations included:
• eschewing the brown and grey bole grounds of the academy and painting
on white canvases—a convention with us to this day
• because mixing color on the palette dulls their intensity they used Chevreul’s
discovery of the interaction of color and placed pure, or nearly pure colors
next to each other so that they would be mixed by the eye from a distance.
The Impressionists aims were facilitated by:
• train travel that—like the rest of society—allowed artists to get out of the dirty,
crowded cities
• the innovation of paint in tubes and the newly invented landscape easel that
allowed artists to paint more easily out of doors
• the development of new and brighter colors derived from coal tar dyes. (Not
always permanent)
• colonialism brought Europe into contact with “exotic” cultures and it
was the art of Japan that had the greatest influence on European art in the
19th century.
Why would there be such a drastic change from the frivolous Rococo style of Fragonard and the Classical approach of artists of the Academy such as David to the freely painted, brightly colored landscapes of the Impressionists? Once again we have to look at the way in which the changing conditions of the times influenced artists of the period.
By the 18th century all the innovations made in perspective, anatomy, light and shade since the Renaissance had been assimilated and were now in widespread use. Baroque art and architecture had evolved into the highly frivolous and ornate Rococo styles. Watteau and Fragonard are examples of this period of excess and powdered wigs. The rediscovery and excavation of Pompeii (1748) triggered a renewed interest in Classical art that resulted in a reaction against the Rococo style.
Add to these changes the importance of the individual brought about by the Age of Enlightenment, (the Age of Reason, with its emphasis on the championing of scientific thinking and the move away from religion), the American War of Independence (1775-1783), the French Revolution (1789-1799) as well as the Industrial Revolution. The accent on reason led to a reaction against it in the form of Romanticism. Artists such as Delacroix, Gericault, Friedrich, the Hudson River School and poets such as Blake, Shelley, Wordsworth, Emerson and Whitman, and composers such as Beethoven, Liszt and Chopin, are some examples of this late 18th and early 19th century movement. Because of these changes the patronage of the church, and that of royalty, had for all practical purposes become non-existent. Within this void the academies with their rigid rules were instituted. As a result your future as an artist now depended on your ability to get into the academies’ art schools and showing in the annual exhibitions they organized.
The academies enforced strict rules that included the following:
• the most favored subject matter was that taken from history or mythology.
Portrait, landscape, and still life painting followed in order of preference
• the smooth glazing/blending approach to painting was favored. Visible brush
strokes were considered vulgar
• bright color was also considered vulgar therefore color had to be subdued, and
preferably in shades of brown—like those of the old masters in the museums.
• to help achieve this effect you painted on brown or dull green (bole) grounds
(surfaces)
• you were a gentleman or a lady and while painting, dressed accordingly. You
did not go into the countryside like a common laborer to paint, you painted
landscapes from memory, sketches, or a model you had set up in your studio
• wherever possible you used the golden section in you compositions.
Taking all these restrictions and changes into consideration you have fertile ground for new ideas in art.
All the changes brought about by the enlightenment, the industrial revolution, the American and French revolutions, etc. allowed for individual thought. Individual thought now sparked the numerous changes that—not only in art, but science and invention as well—would characterize our world to this day.
Around the middle of the 19th century these rules rankled some artists and they decided to challenge the Academy. Their efforts eventually led to a paradigm shift in the art of painting, a shift that resulted in a movement that would derogatively be called Impressionism. It was the first of the “My child can do better” negative statements that would be leveled at most new art movements to come.
Impressionism is another excellent example of the creative process. These artists questioned the status quo, decided to change what they did not agree with, were in tune with their times, used the new thinking and technologies at their disposal, came up with new ideas, and developed the means to execute their intentions.
What were you to do if you were an artist living in the middle of the 19th century and you were dissatisfied with the stranglehold the Academy had on the art world?
You did not want to:
• make paintings based on old historical, Biblical, or mythological subjects
• use dull colors
• use the tedious drawing, glazing and blending techniques.
You really wanted to:
• use subject matter you found around you. Courbet said, “I don’t paint angels
because I’ve never seen one”
• paint nature with the immediacy of the camera. (It originally took 20 minutes or more to take a photo)
• base your compositions more closely on the cropping of the camera
• use color based on those of the prism, (Isaac Newton’s discovery) and the
findings of color interactions by theorists such as Chevreul.
To achieve their aims the rebels had to rethink painting from the ground up.
Some basic questions they asked themselves were:
• how can I paint quickly to emulate the speed of the camera? (Invented in
1829)
• how can I achieve clean bright colors that show the brilliance of outdoor
light?
Their answers to these questions included:
• using the painterly approach to painting that had historical precedents dating
back to artists such as Titian, Rembrandt, Hals, and what they saw the British
artists Turner and Constable were doing.
Their answer in their use of clean bright colors was more complex and their innovations included:
• eschewing the brown and grey bole grounds of the academy and painting
on white canvases—a convention with us to this day
• because mixing color on the palette dulls their intensity they used Chevreul’s
discovery of the interaction of color and placed pure, or nearly pure colors
next to each other so that they would be mixed by the eye from a distance.
The Impressionists aims were facilitated by:
• train travel that—like the rest of society—allowed artists to get out of the dirty,
crowded cities
• the innovation of paint in tubes and the newly invented landscape easel that
allowed artists to paint more easily out of doors
• the development of new and brighter colors derived from coal tar dyes. (Not
always permanent)
• colonialism brought Europe into contact with “exotic” cultures and it
was the art of Japan that had the greatest influence on European art in the
19th century.
A Fresh Beginning
Claude Monet
La Grenouilliére, 1869 Oil on canvas, 29 3/8 x 39 1/4 in. |
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
La Grenouilliére, 1869 Oil on canvas, 26 1/8 x 32 7/8 in. |
In 1869 Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet sat next to each other at the popular swimming hole, La Grenoulliére, (The Frog Pond) near Paris and painted what may be considered the first true Impressionist paintings. They had previously discussed at length their theories about art and the result was that the paintings they produced of this subject are very similar.
Claude Monet. 1840-1926
Claude Monet
Impression, Sunrise, 1872
Oil on canvas, 18 x 25 in.
Impression, Sunrise, 1872
Oil on canvas, 18 x 25 in.
Impression, Sunrise illustrates the Impressionists’ interest in shimmering light that they interpreted with swift brush strokes and broken color—the eye being allowed to mix strokes of different colors into a meaningful whole.
It is the title of this painting that the critic Louis Leroy derisively used to label an exhibition by a group of artists (Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot, among others), as Impressionists, in their first exhibition during April and May of 1874.
To our eyes Impressionist paintings may be pretty pictures, but at the time they caused a furor. The subject matter, visible brush strokes and bright color upset people’s sense of order and stability and what they thought art should be about. This type of reaction is typical of new directions in the arts, and has a long history dating back to Giotto in Florence (as opposed to the Byzantine style adhered to in Sienna) and even the more realistic style introduced by the pharaoh Akhenaton (circa 1360 BC) in Egypt, which was only in favor for the duration of his rule!
Monet continued painting in an Impressionist manner for the rest of his life. His last works, (the approximately 250 Water Lily paintings) created in the garden he designed at Giverny, would have an influence on Abstract Expressionist painting after WWII.
It is the title of this painting that the critic Louis Leroy derisively used to label an exhibition by a group of artists (Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot, among others), as Impressionists, in their first exhibition during April and May of 1874.
To our eyes Impressionist paintings may be pretty pictures, but at the time they caused a furor. The subject matter, visible brush strokes and bright color upset people’s sense of order and stability and what they thought art should be about. This type of reaction is typical of new directions in the arts, and has a long history dating back to Giotto in Florence (as opposed to the Byzantine style adhered to in Sienna) and even the more realistic style introduced by the pharaoh Akhenaton (circa 1360 BC) in Egypt, which was only in favor for the duration of his rule!
Monet continued painting in an Impressionist manner for the rest of his life. His last works, (the approximately 250 Water Lily paintings) created in the garden he designed at Giverny, would have an influence on Abstract Expressionist painting after WWII.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1841-1919
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
The Luncheon of the Boating Party 1881
Oil on canvas, 51 x 68 in.
The Luncheon of the Boating Party 1881
Oil on canvas, 51 x 68 in.
Because Renoir didn’t paint The Luncheon of the Boating Party on site, but painted from photographs and models in his studio and carefully planned his composition, this painting is considered to herald the end of Impressionism in its purest form.
THE LEGACY OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS
Impressionist ideas have been adopted by thousands of artists all over the world and, this once maligned movement, has become a much-loved style.
Nevertheless, the rebellion of the Impressionists heralded the rapid changes that were to occur in modern art. Impressionism as an avant-garde movement only lasted about ten years. Artists such as Cézanne, Seurat, van Gogh, and Gauguin—the Post-Impressionists, soon took its ideas in new directions.
The quickly changing zeitgeist of the times at the turn of the 20th century fostered new thinking within every aspect of society—the arts included. Post-Impressionism was soon followed by movements such as Symbolism, The Fauves, Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, Dada, and Surrealism. As avant-garde movements some lasted little more than three years.
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
SELF EXPRESSION AND CREATIVITY
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)
THE LEGACY OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS
Impressionist ideas have been adopted by thousands of artists all over the world and, this once maligned movement, has become a much-loved style.
Nevertheless, the rebellion of the Impressionists heralded the rapid changes that were to occur in modern art. Impressionism as an avant-garde movement only lasted about ten years. Artists such as Cézanne, Seurat, van Gogh, and Gauguin—the Post-Impressionists, soon took its ideas in new directions.
The quickly changing zeitgeist of the times at the turn of the 20th century fostered new thinking within every aspect of society—the arts included. Post-Impressionism was soon followed by movements such as Symbolism, The Fauves, Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, Dada, and Surrealism. As avant-garde movements some lasted little more than three years.
POST-IMPRESSIONISM
SELF EXPRESSION AND CREATIVITY
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)
FROM THIS–––––––––––––—–TO –––––––––––––––THIS?
|
|
Vincent van Gogh Vincent van Gogh
The Old Tower at Dusk. 1884 Starry Night. 1889
Oil on board, 13.75" x 18.5" Oil on canvas, 29"x 36.25"
The Old Tower at Dusk. 1884 Starry Night. 1889
Oil on board, 13.75" x 18.5" Oil on canvas, 29"x 36.25"
The idea that van Gogh was the proverbial “mad artist,” sloshing on paint in a frenzy of self-expression is prevalent. This is far from the truth. He was a genius, with a mind as clear as any in the history of art. As can be seen in his early, The Old Tower at Dusk he was able to paint realistically.
Background
Vincent was a very religious man who empathized with the poor. As an artist, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and in Paris at Fernand Cormon's studio. He furthered his art education by careful observation of the works of other artists while working—like his brother Theo—as an art dealer. Most notably it was the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists who influenced his work during his stay in Paris between the years of 1886-1888. In addition, the Japanese prints he admired and collected were a great influence as well; at times he even interpreted them in his own way.
Research and Intention
In his letters to Theo and his artist friends, Vincent was very clear about his intentions and the means he used to execute them. His research was thorough: For example, in Holland, he actually lived with the peasants in order to gain the knowledge he needed to paint them authentically. He hated the superficial, sentimental representations of peasants made by artists in the cities who had never experienced the roughness of peasant life. About his early painting, Potato Eaters (1885), he wrote (letter #404) that he wanted to express how the hands of the family that had been digging in the earth their whole lives were taking food from the same bowl.
After working in an impressionistic vein in Paris—even trying Seurat’s highly structured application of Chevreul’s theories on color—and moving to the South of France—he said that their approach was too mechanical for him, and he decided to return to his earlier, more expressive approach.
Further proof of the clarity of his thinking is to be found in this quote from his letter to fellow artist Anton Ridder van Rippard. “I want you to know that if you see something worthwhile in what I am doing, it is not by accident but because of real intention and purpose.” (Letters to an Artist: Vincent van Gogh to Anton Ridder van Rippard).
His writing about paintings such as the Night Café (#534 of September 9, 1888) and his bedroom (#554 of October 16, 1888), or his statement on painting quickly, “expressing the desperately fast passage of things in modern life” (#W 23 of June 11 or 12, 1890), undeniably attest to how well he observed, felt, clarified, and executed his intentions within the zeitgeist of the times in which he lived. Further evidence of his being aware of the times in which he lived is to be found in his painting, Starry Night. It is thought that his inspiration for Starry Night was a reproduction of Lord Rosse’s drawing of the Whirlpool Galaxy that he saw in the book translated into French by Camille Flammarion in Paris, or in the library of the asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in Southern France.
Background
Vincent was a very religious man who empathized with the poor. As an artist, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and in Paris at Fernand Cormon's studio. He furthered his art education by careful observation of the works of other artists while working—like his brother Theo—as an art dealer. Most notably it was the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists who influenced his work during his stay in Paris between the years of 1886-1888. In addition, the Japanese prints he admired and collected were a great influence as well; at times he even interpreted them in his own way.
Research and Intention
In his letters to Theo and his artist friends, Vincent was very clear about his intentions and the means he used to execute them. His research was thorough: For example, in Holland, he actually lived with the peasants in order to gain the knowledge he needed to paint them authentically. He hated the superficial, sentimental representations of peasants made by artists in the cities who had never experienced the roughness of peasant life. About his early painting, Potato Eaters (1885), he wrote (letter #404) that he wanted to express how the hands of the family that had been digging in the earth their whole lives were taking food from the same bowl.
After working in an impressionistic vein in Paris—even trying Seurat’s highly structured application of Chevreul’s theories on color—and moving to the South of France—he said that their approach was too mechanical for him, and he decided to return to his earlier, more expressive approach.
Further proof of the clarity of his thinking is to be found in this quote from his letter to fellow artist Anton Ridder van Rippard. “I want you to know that if you see something worthwhile in what I am doing, it is not by accident but because of real intention and purpose.” (Letters to an Artist: Vincent van Gogh to Anton Ridder van Rippard).
His writing about paintings such as the Night Café (#534 of September 9, 1888) and his bedroom (#554 of October 16, 1888), or his statement on painting quickly, “expressing the desperately fast passage of things in modern life” (#W 23 of June 11 or 12, 1890), undeniably attest to how well he observed, felt, clarified, and executed his intentions within the zeitgeist of the times in which he lived. Further evidence of his being aware of the times in which he lived is to be found in his painting, Starry Night. It is thought that his inspiration for Starry Night was a reproduction of Lord Rosse’s drawing of the Whirlpool Galaxy that he saw in the book translated into French by Camille Flammarion in Paris, or in the library of the asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in Southern France.
The 72-inch telescope (the Leviathan of Parsonstown) built by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse at his seat Birr Castle, Ireland in the 1840’s, showed spiral features in nebulae such as M33, M51, and M101
Whatever may be thought of van Gogh’s expressionism, proof of the clarity of his thinking may be found in his masterful command of composition. Just analyze any of his works—in the original if possible—from the compositional point of view. In doing this you will not find any object or color out of balance, or a single brush stroke that is not integrated into the whole that does not compliment the feeling he intended to convey.
Legacy
What we can learn from van Gogh’s creative process is that—after his struggle to learn how to draw and paint, his contact with the Impressionists, and his observations of the world around him—he listened to his inner voice, found himself, and channeled his interests and feelings into coherent works of art. Where fellow artists such as Seurat—as we saw in the previous chapter—and Cézanne continued to take the innovations of the Impressionists in the formal exploration of color and space, van Gogh turned his interests inward and devised a language of form and color that communicated his inner feelings about his subjects. In other words, he allowed his internal landscape to become part of the creative process—a move that would lead to the figuratively based Expressionism of artists such as Edvard Munch, the German Expressionists, and to the non-figurative and direct communication of feelings by the Abstract Expressionists of the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Although he only sold one painting (Red Vineyard at Arles, 1890) during his lifetime; memorial exhibitions—that would influence generations of artists to come—were presented soon after his death.
The contributions of artists such as Cezanne, Seurat, Degas and Gauguin will follow.
FROM THIS––––––––TO –––––––––––THIS?
Whatever may be thought of van Gogh’s expressionism, proof of the clarity of his thinking may be found in his masterful command of composition. Just analyze any of his works—in the original if possible—from the compositional point of view. In doing this you will not find any object or color out of balance, or a single brush stroke that is not integrated into the whole that does not compliment the feeling he intended to convey.
Legacy
What we can learn from van Gogh’s creative process is that—after his struggle to learn how to draw and paint, his contact with the Impressionists, and his observations of the world around him—he listened to his inner voice, found himself, and channeled his interests and feelings into coherent works of art. Where fellow artists such as Seurat—as we saw in the previous chapter—and Cézanne continued to take the innovations of the Impressionists in the formal exploration of color and space, van Gogh turned his interests inward and devised a language of form and color that communicated his inner feelings about his subjects. In other words, he allowed his internal landscape to become part of the creative process—a move that would lead to the figuratively based Expressionism of artists such as Edvard Munch, the German Expressionists, and to the non-figurative and direct communication of feelings by the Abstract Expressionists of the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Although he only sold one painting (Red Vineyard at Arles, 1890) during his lifetime; memorial exhibitions—that would influence generations of artists to come—were presented soon after his death.
The contributions of artists such as Cezanne, Seurat, Degas and Gauguin will follow.
FROM THIS––––––––TO –––––––––––THIS?
|
|
Japanese Woodblock Print Edouard Manet. 1868
The Tea Ceremony Portrait of Emile Zola
Oil on canvas. 57.6 x 44.9 in.
and THIS___________ AND _____________ THIS
Paul Gauguin. 1888
|
Paul Cezanne. 1877
Still Life with Soup Tureen Oil on Canvas, 25.6 x 32.7 |
Take note of the Utagawa Kuniaki II print on the upper right, the Japanese screen on the left in Manet’s painting. Also note the use of flattened color in Manet's and Gauguin's paintings and the reverse perspective in Utagawa's print and Cezanne’s still life.
The flattened space, reverse perspective, bright color and the break with realistic representation, exemplified by the works of these artists, herald the coming of abstraction.
The flattened space, reverse perspective, bright color and the break with realistic representation, exemplified by the works of these artists, herald the coming of abstraction.
PART III
AND NOW FOR THE HARD PART
CUBISM
FROM THIS ––––------––– TO –––––------------------- THIS?
William-Adolphe Bouguereau
The Birth of Venus. 1879 Oil on canvas. 120 x 86 in. |
Pablo Picasso
|
The Birth of Venus is representative the type of work approved by the Academy.
Avant-garde artists of the 19th and 20th centuries detested it. The painting is based on Greek mythology and executed in the glazing and blending approach. No “vulgar” brush strokes are visible and tastefully muted colors are used throughout. Because of his mastery of the academic style and sensuous subject matter Bouguereau was the richest artist in Paris.
Take note that the figures in the center of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon are based on the Iberian sculpture of Picasso’s Spanish homeland, and the two figures on the right show the influence of African art. The front view of the eye set in a side view of the head of the figure on the left illustrates the influence of Egyptian art. It must also be mentioned that postcards of semi-nude African women, in poses similar to Bouguereau’s and Picasso’s central figures, were being sold in Paris at the time.
Picasso denied that he was influenced by African Art, as well as many other statements he made about his work. But these denials must be taken with a grain of salt as Les Demoiselles was painted in the same year (1907) he saw an exhibition of African art at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris. In addition, Picasso and his friends collected African and Oceanic art, a fact that casts doubt on the veracity of his statement.
Chapter 7
Why Little Cubes? Why Eyes and Noses in
the “Wrong” Places?
The period spanning the 19th and early 20th centuries was one in which creativity in the fields of science, technology, and the arts exploded. The imagination was captured by inventions and innovations such as the telephone, phonograph, wireless, automobile, typewriter, movies, the X-ray, electric light bulb, elevator, vacuum cleaner, sewing machine, the demonstration of the speed of light, the study of human psychology, Darwin’s theory of evolution, Marx’s socialism, the Suffragettes, the birth of jazz, atonal music, modern dance. For women, great changes were brought about by the efforts of the Suffragettes in gaining the right to vote. Helena Rubinstein, with her advertising slogan “Beauty is Power” for her range of beauty products, legitimized the use of make-up for every woman, a practice that up until this time had been frowned upon.
Photography, invented in 1839, was made available for general use by Eastman’s invention of the roll film in 1889. Train travel was common, and the introduction of the internal combustion engine made the automobile a viable mode of transport. In addition, the invention of the flying machine in 1902 had made man’s ancient dream of emulating the flight of birds a reality. Much like looking down on Paris from the Eiffel Tower, you could now look down on the earth and see objects rising from a base up at you and not have the daily experience of seeing the world in perspective. Space was moving toward instead of away from you.
On top of all this, colonialism had brought the West into contact with cultures across the globe. Chinese, Japanese and Egyptian influences now jostled with those of “exotic” Africa, the Middle East, South America, and Oceania.
It is because of these new inventions, experiences, and influences that the old concepts of space and time were shattered, shattered to such an extent that they consciously and/or subconsciously changed the perception of space and time for everybody—most notably for scientists and artists. The slow pace of the horse-drawn buggy era now sped up tremendously; communication across long distances could occur instantly via telephone or radio; and labor-intensive tasks could be done much more quickly. Within this atmosphere, Einstein, in 1905, imagined himself traveling on a beam of light—seeing space and time in a completely new way—and postulated the Theory of Relativity. Shortly afterwards, in 1907, Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, with details of faces, and the figures depicted from various points of view, seen at different moments in time, in a flat non-perspective space and combined them with styles from different cultures and periods in history—all in a single painting!
Photography, invented in 1839, was made available for general use by Eastman’s invention of the roll film in 1889. Train travel was common, and the introduction of the internal combustion engine made the automobile a viable mode of transport. In addition, the invention of the flying machine in 1902 had made man’s ancient dream of emulating the flight of birds a reality. Much like looking down on Paris from the Eiffel Tower, you could now look down on the earth and see objects rising from a base up at you and not have the daily experience of seeing the world in perspective. Space was moving toward instead of away from you.
On top of all this, colonialism had brought the West into contact with cultures across the globe. Chinese, Japanese and Egyptian influences now jostled with those of “exotic” Africa, the Middle East, South America, and Oceania.
It is because of these new inventions, experiences, and influences that the old concepts of space and time were shattered, shattered to such an extent that they consciously and/or subconsciously changed the perception of space and time for everybody—most notably for scientists and artists. The slow pace of the horse-drawn buggy era now sped up tremendously; communication across long distances could occur instantly via telephone or radio; and labor-intensive tasks could be done much more quickly. Within this atmosphere, Einstein, in 1905, imagined himself traveling on a beam of light—seeing space and time in a completely new way—and postulated the Theory of Relativity. Shortly afterwards, in 1907, Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, with details of faces, and the figures depicted from various points of view, seen at different moments in time, in a flat non-perspective space and combined them with styles from different cultures and periods in history—all in a single painting!
PABLO PICASSO 1881-1973
FROM THIS –––------––– TO –––––-------------------–– THIS?
Pablo Picasso
First Communion 1896/97 Oil on Canvas. 65 x 46.5 in. |
Pablo Picasso
Girl Before a Mirror. 1932 Oil on canvas. (Detail) |
Picasso was about fifteen years of age when he painted First Communion. It is painted in a realistic style, illustrating the solemnity and peace of his sister’s first communion. He was a child prodigy and could easily have continued working in this vein for the rest of his life, but he decided to explore new directions. The changes that were to follow were the result of a highly active mind and a competitive spirit matched by few.
Why paint Girl Before a Mirror when you could paint so realistically at the age of fifteen? If, like Picasso, you realize that thousands of artists before you have made realistic paintings and you don’t agree with the way in which realistic art has stagnated because of the rules of the Academy. In addition, the camera could capture reality almost instantly. Then, why not follow your avant-garde predecessors—the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and Fauves—and take the leap to explore new directions?
Picasso is undoubtedly one of the most creative artists in history, and his working processes are an outstanding source for the study of the creative process and the artist’s search for ideas and personal vision. In his search for a personal vision he looked to the approaches and philosophies of artists such as Cézanne, van Gogh, Gauguin, Munch, the Fauves, and El Greco.
Just like the other artists we have studied, Picasso’s creativity is closely linked to his background and the zeitgeist of the times in which he lived. As we have seen, his was one of the—if not the—most creative periods in history. Picasso was extremely competitive and wanted to be the leading avant-garde artist of his day so, in answer to the furor caused by Matisse’s Blue Nude in the Salon d’Automne of 1907 — he painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. This painting stunned the art world. Picasso’s friend George Braque said that looking at it was “like drinking kerosene to spit fire.”
In Picasso’s Les Demoiselles, Cézanne’s beliefs that forms in nature may be reduced to a sphere, cone, and cylinder and that the eye is constantly changing its point of view are manifest. This is evident in the Egyptian-type figure on the left with the head painted in side view and the eye from the front. The seated figure on the bottom right is shown from the back, but her head is impossibly twisted around to face the viewer. This distortion of figures and features inspired by “primitive” art was another reason why the feathers of a genteel society were so ruffled.
Another shock: it depicted figures in a brothel and not Greek goddesses and nymphs. When compared with what was acceptable to the general public and the Academy, this was a monstrosity. Nevertheless, just as Giotto’s painting changed the course of Renaissance art, Les Demoiselles changed the course of 20th century art.
New Ideas About Time and Space = New Ideas About Art
ANALYTICAL CUBISM
Les Demoiselles was just the beginning of the adventure into Cubism for Picasso. George Braque, who would become a close collaborator, soon joined him. Picasso and Braque were restless innovators, and together they eveloped the ideas that would scornfully be called Cubism. In competing with each other, they assimilated—consciously and/or subconsciously—the artistic, scientific, and technological influences of their time. Even though Maurice Princet gave him a layman’s explanation of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Picasso always denied any influence of mathematics or the concept of the fourth dimension on Cubism. Nevertheless these ideas were “in the air,” embedded in the zeitgeist of the times and as a result the influences on Cubism were many.
The influences on Cubism include:
• Cézanne’s theory that everything in nature may be distilled down to the cylinder,
sphere, and cone.
• Cézanne’s consideration of the fact that the eye is constantly moving and that artists
need not represent everything at the same moment in time or from the same point of view like the camera. In a way this observation relates to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and our constantly changing viewpoints over time—the fourth dimension,
also known as simultaneous vision. Although his amateur mathematician friend
Maurice Princet, had given him a layman’s explanation of Einstein’s theories,
Picasso always denied (as he did concerning African art) that he was influenced by the theory of the fourth dimension.
• Japanese prints, with their flattened representation of space, together with the influence of Egyptian art that resulted in the repudiation of perspective (photographic space), and the acceptance of non-perspective means of representing three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface.
• African, Iberian and Oceanic sculpture engendering an anti-classical art attitude in some artists
• the repudiation of the rules, subject matter, and style of painting dictated by the
Academy
• the fact that, because of the camera, some artists—on philosophical grounds—no longer wished to represent nature or the human figure realistically. Why spend weeks, months, or years on an activity that the camera could do quickly and more effectively? You could now stage a subject preferred by the Academy, such as a Roman banquet, with
live models and photograph it (as some photographers did). So, why paint it—just to
prove how skillful you are?
Facets and More Facets
It is against the background summarized above that Picasso and Braque developed what is known as Analytical Cubism. In this approach objects in the painting were carefully analyzed, broken into many-faceted shapes and rearranged into a new configuration. Color was subdued so as not to detract from the sculptural effect of the painting.
The image and the background in these works are so fragmented that the figure and ground often become interchangeable. Picasso and Braque’s intention was not to represent an object realistically, but to create a new type of space, rearranging elements as seen from different points of view at different moments in time, a device known as simultaneous vision. These works answered to the dictates of the structure and composition of the particular painting and not to the real world beyond. In other words, the paintings were individual objects—visual statements mainly referencing themselves. This way of thinking would be extended in Cubism’s offshoot, Abstraction.
Picasso and Braque worked very closely on the ideas of Analytical Cubism and its successor, Synthetic Cubism, alternatively making innovations that fired their competitive spirit and drove them in new directions. At one stage, they worked so closely that it was difficult to see the difference between their paintings and, for a period of time, they added to the confusion by signing their paintings on the back. They considered themselves a team, and at one stage called each other Wilbur and Orville, after the Wright brothers and Picasso, being a cowboy fan, sometimes called Braque “Pard.”
Why paint Girl Before a Mirror when you could paint so realistically at the age of fifteen? If, like Picasso, you realize that thousands of artists before you have made realistic paintings and you don’t agree with the way in which realistic art has stagnated because of the rules of the Academy. In addition, the camera could capture reality almost instantly. Then, why not follow your avant-garde predecessors—the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and Fauves—and take the leap to explore new directions?
Picasso is undoubtedly one of the most creative artists in history, and his working processes are an outstanding source for the study of the creative process and the artist’s search for ideas and personal vision. In his search for a personal vision he looked to the approaches and philosophies of artists such as Cézanne, van Gogh, Gauguin, Munch, the Fauves, and El Greco.
Just like the other artists we have studied, Picasso’s creativity is closely linked to his background and the zeitgeist of the times in which he lived. As we have seen, his was one of the—if not the—most creative periods in history. Picasso was extremely competitive and wanted to be the leading avant-garde artist of his day so, in answer to the furor caused by Matisse’s Blue Nude in the Salon d’Automne of 1907 — he painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. This painting stunned the art world. Picasso’s friend George Braque said that looking at it was “like drinking kerosene to spit fire.”
In Picasso’s Les Demoiselles, Cézanne’s beliefs that forms in nature may be reduced to a sphere, cone, and cylinder and that the eye is constantly changing its point of view are manifest. This is evident in the Egyptian-type figure on the left with the head painted in side view and the eye from the front. The seated figure on the bottom right is shown from the back, but her head is impossibly twisted around to face the viewer. This distortion of figures and features inspired by “primitive” art was another reason why the feathers of a genteel society were so ruffled.
Another shock: it depicted figures in a brothel and not Greek goddesses and nymphs. When compared with what was acceptable to the general public and the Academy, this was a monstrosity. Nevertheless, just as Giotto’s painting changed the course of Renaissance art, Les Demoiselles changed the course of 20th century art.
New Ideas About Time and Space = New Ideas About Art
ANALYTICAL CUBISM
Les Demoiselles was just the beginning of the adventure into Cubism for Picasso. George Braque, who would become a close collaborator, soon joined him. Picasso and Braque were restless innovators, and together they eveloped the ideas that would scornfully be called Cubism. In competing with each other, they assimilated—consciously and/or subconsciously—the artistic, scientific, and technological influences of their time. Even though Maurice Princet gave him a layman’s explanation of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Picasso always denied any influence of mathematics or the concept of the fourth dimension on Cubism. Nevertheless these ideas were “in the air,” embedded in the zeitgeist of the times and as a result the influences on Cubism were many.
The influences on Cubism include:
• Cézanne’s theory that everything in nature may be distilled down to the cylinder,
sphere, and cone.
• Cézanne’s consideration of the fact that the eye is constantly moving and that artists
need not represent everything at the same moment in time or from the same point of view like the camera. In a way this observation relates to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and our constantly changing viewpoints over time—the fourth dimension,
also known as simultaneous vision. Although his amateur mathematician friend
Maurice Princet, had given him a layman’s explanation of Einstein’s theories,
Picasso always denied (as he did concerning African art) that he was influenced by the theory of the fourth dimension.
• Japanese prints, with their flattened representation of space, together with the influence of Egyptian art that resulted in the repudiation of perspective (photographic space), and the acceptance of non-perspective means of representing three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface.
• African, Iberian and Oceanic sculpture engendering an anti-classical art attitude in some artists
• the repudiation of the rules, subject matter, and style of painting dictated by the
Academy
• the fact that, because of the camera, some artists—on philosophical grounds—no longer wished to represent nature or the human figure realistically. Why spend weeks, months, or years on an activity that the camera could do quickly and more effectively? You could now stage a subject preferred by the Academy, such as a Roman banquet, with
live models and photograph it (as some photographers did). So, why paint it—just to
prove how skillful you are?
Facets and More Facets
It is against the background summarized above that Picasso and Braque developed what is known as Analytical Cubism. In this approach objects in the painting were carefully analyzed, broken into many-faceted shapes and rearranged into a new configuration. Color was subdued so as not to detract from the sculptural effect of the painting.
The image and the background in these works are so fragmented that the figure and ground often become interchangeable. Picasso and Braque’s intention was not to represent an object realistically, but to create a new type of space, rearranging elements as seen from different points of view at different moments in time, a device known as simultaneous vision. These works answered to the dictates of the structure and composition of the particular painting and not to the real world beyond. In other words, the paintings were individual objects—visual statements mainly referencing themselves. This way of thinking would be extended in Cubism’s offshoot, Abstraction.
Picasso and Braque worked very closely on the ideas of Analytical Cubism and its successor, Synthetic Cubism, alternatively making innovations that fired their competitive spirit and drove them in new directions. At one stage, they worked so closely that it was difficult to see the difference between their paintings and, for a period of time, they added to the confusion by signing their paintings on the back. They considered themselves a team, and at one stage called each other Wilbur and Orville, after the Wright brothers and Picasso, being a cowboy fan, sometimes called Braque “Pard.”
|
|
Pablo Picasso George Braque
Ambrose Vollard. 1915 Violin and Candle Stick. 1910
Oil on canvas Oil on canvas
36 3/5 × 26 in 24 × 19 3/4 in
Ambrose Vollard. 1915 Violin and Candle Stick. 1910
Oil on canvas Oil on canvas
36 3/5 × 26 in 24 × 19 3/4 in
ABSTRACT ART AND ITS ORIGINS
Why No Pretty Pictures, Just Squares and Squiggles?
FROM THIS___________ TO ______________ THIS
Japanese Woodblock Print
The Tea Ceremony |
Edouard Manet. 1868
Portrait of Emile Zola Oil on canvas. 57.6 x 44.9 in. |
AND THIS_________ TO ___________ THIS?
Paul Gauguin. 1888
Wrestling with the Angel Oil on Canvas, 28.4 in × 35.8 in |
Paul Cezanne. 1877
Still Life with Soup Tureen Oil on Canvas, 25.6 x 32.7 |
Take note of the Utagawa Kuniaki II print on the upper right, the Japanese screen on the left in Manet’s painting. Also note the use of flattened color in Manet's and Gauguin's paintings and the reverse perspective in Utagawa's print and Cezanne’s still life.
The flattened space, reverse perspective, bright color and the break with realistic representation, influenced these artists and heralded the coming of abstraction.
The flattened space, reverse perspective, bright color and the break with realistic representation, influenced these artists and heralded the coming of abstraction.
The arguments between the proponents of abstraction and reality go back centuries. Plato (428–348 BCE) said: “The real is invisible to the naked eye—only abstraction can bring us close to the true essence of the universe.” In contrast, Aristotle (348–322 BCE) said, “Art imitates our shared reality—this serves social and humanitarian functions in our process of learning about the world.”
Artists have always considered the importance of the underlying structure (design, composition) when placing elements such as objects, colors, textures, and patterns in their paintings. Strip away the realistic, recognizable details of any painting and the underlying abstract structure becomes apparent.
Nevertheless, abstraction is to a large extent an “inside” dialog within the art world—just as there is an “inside” dialog in any sphere of life where the outsider finds it difficult to understand what is going on—think of medicine, law, engineering, computer science, etc., etc. For abstract artists it means exploring and experimenting with such devices as the underlying “language” of art, the sensuality of paint—or any other material used—and the reactions they generate within themselves and the viewer.
On the other hand there is an inside language to realistic art that is not generally understood by the uninitiated. This includes the application of concepts such as composition, balance, perspective, color theory and light and shade.
There are many issues involved in abstract art and to understand why and how it came about it is imperative to investigate its main influences and sources.
Firstly, the move toward abstraction begins with the popularity of Japanese art during the 19th century. Japonisme, as this phenomenon is known, influenced the work of artists such as the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists as well as various areas of design.
It was the use of non-perspective means of representing space, the elimination of light and shade and the use of flat color, (that did not create an illusion of three dimensions as seen in perspective renderings and photographs) by Japanese artists that had a great influence on the development of abstraction. As far as the flattening of color and space in painting is concerned the work of artists Manet, Cezanne and Gauguin, as discussed in previous chapters, serve as examples.
Abstraction developed under the same conditions that were discussed in the chapter on Cubism. In contrast to the scientific and technological advances of the period, belief systems such Spiritualism, Mysticism and Theosophy permeated much of society. Within this atmosphere Alexander Scriabin, Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky and Martha Graham created new approaches to music and dance (all influenced by Theosophy). In poetry it was the Imagists, and in literature writers such as Gertrude Stein who were breaking new ground.
It is important to note that at this time forms of entertainment such as the radio and movies were in their infancy. Going to the opera, symphony concerts, museums and galleries were the main diversions for a large segment of the public and these new innovations stunned audiences and viewers who clung to their entrenched classical ideals.
In their quest for new directions in visual art, artists such as Mondrian, Kandinsky, and the Russian Constructivists believed that the ideas embodied in Theosophy--originated by Madame Blavatsky during the latter part of the 19th century--could be applied to art.
Scott Finckler in a web article written in December, 1998 summarizes a basic belief of Theosophy as follows. “In Theosophy truth is sought by the study of comparative religions in an attempt to find certain doctrines common to all faiths, offering a combination of eastern philosophical attitudes with a western Christian morality. The emphasis of Theosophy is on the existence of a deeper spiritual reality beyond the material world of nature.” 2
In other words, a basic tenet of Theosophy is that all major religions of the world hold the same core beliefs, and that the various religious offshoots have added details to suit their needs. It is within this belief system that artists such as Mondrian, Kandinsky and the Russian Constructivists searched for the basic truths underlying art. What this means is that all the “messy” details of realistic art could be removed and what had always been the underlying structure of works of art, could be revealed in all its beauty and truth.
Add to these influences Eleanor Heartney’s views in her book, Art & Today about the new ideas concerning atomic theory and Freudian psychology, in which she points out that atomic theory questions visual reality, that atoms are the “abstract” hidden basis of reality, and that Freudian psychology—the reality of the mind—is that which is beneath the visible. 3
In a similar vein Charles A. Cramer points out in his Abstraction and the Classical Ideal that, “A rough equivalent of Mondrian’s project is the physicist’s discovery that all matter is made up of three basic units: the protons, electrons, and neutrons that combine to make different chemical elements such as hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and so forth… . The elements of De Stijl—horizontal and vertical lines, the colors red, yellow, and blue, and the values black and white—are essential and universal in this sense, the basic structural and structuring units of all form; structural units that are obscured by their combinations in nature, but to which all natural and artificial objects can ultimately be “reduced.” 4
So, once again it is the zeitgeist and the philosophies of the times that influenced the creative thinking of artists. In applying these influences, observations and principles to their work artists such as Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, and the Russian Suprematists and Constructivists decided to strip away all the surface details and concentrate on the abstract structure that underlies works of art. They also held a Utopian vision that their art could change the world and that the logical, rational approach to art, design and architecture would replace the chaos of nature and make the world a better place in which to live.
Theo van Doesburg and Mondrian, together with the architect Gerrit Rietveld and other collaborators played a pivotal role in the founding of the De Stijl movement, also known a Neoplasticism. Their ideas about simplification and removing all unnecessary decoration from design were taken up by the Bauhaus in Germany. Through the teachings of this influential school De Stijl’s intention of changing the world--as far as the art, architecture, interior, industrial and graphic design is concerned—developed into the International Style that dominated all manner of design for much of the 20th century.
In addition, their new way of thinking about art led to a number of forms of abstraction, each with its own philosophy and reason for being. The following are some of the directions abstract artists have explored.
1. Abstraction from nature
2. Geometric abstraction
3. Lyrical/Painterly abstraction
4. Abstraction based on the exploration of materials
5. Expressive abstraction
6. Metaphoric abstraction
Bibliography
2 Contemporary Architecture Derived from Theosophy. Scott Finckler. Web Article.
Dec. 1998.
3 Art & Today. Eleanor Heartney. Phaidon, London, New York. 2008
4. Abstraction and the Classical Ideal, Charles A. Cramer. University of Delaware
Press, Newark. 2006
Artists have always considered the importance of the underlying structure (design, composition) when placing elements such as objects, colors, textures, and patterns in their paintings. Strip away the realistic, recognizable details of any painting and the underlying abstract structure becomes apparent.
Nevertheless, abstraction is to a large extent an “inside” dialog within the art world—just as there is an “inside” dialog in any sphere of life where the outsider finds it difficult to understand what is going on—think of medicine, law, engineering, computer science, etc., etc. For abstract artists it means exploring and experimenting with such devices as the underlying “language” of art, the sensuality of paint—or any other material used—and the reactions they generate within themselves and the viewer.
On the other hand there is an inside language to realistic art that is not generally understood by the uninitiated. This includes the application of concepts such as composition, balance, perspective, color theory and light and shade.
There are many issues involved in abstract art and to understand why and how it came about it is imperative to investigate its main influences and sources.
Firstly, the move toward abstraction begins with the popularity of Japanese art during the 19th century. Japonisme, as this phenomenon is known, influenced the work of artists such as the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists as well as various areas of design.
It was the use of non-perspective means of representing space, the elimination of light and shade and the use of flat color, (that did not create an illusion of three dimensions as seen in perspective renderings and photographs) by Japanese artists that had a great influence on the development of abstraction. As far as the flattening of color and space in painting is concerned the work of artists Manet, Cezanne and Gauguin, as discussed in previous chapters, serve as examples.
Abstraction developed under the same conditions that were discussed in the chapter on Cubism. In contrast to the scientific and technological advances of the period, belief systems such Spiritualism, Mysticism and Theosophy permeated much of society. Within this atmosphere Alexander Scriabin, Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky and Martha Graham created new approaches to music and dance (all influenced by Theosophy). In poetry it was the Imagists, and in literature writers such as Gertrude Stein who were breaking new ground.
It is important to note that at this time forms of entertainment such as the radio and movies were in their infancy. Going to the opera, symphony concerts, museums and galleries were the main diversions for a large segment of the public and these new innovations stunned audiences and viewers who clung to their entrenched classical ideals.
In their quest for new directions in visual art, artists such as Mondrian, Kandinsky, and the Russian Constructivists believed that the ideas embodied in Theosophy--originated by Madame Blavatsky during the latter part of the 19th century--could be applied to art.
Scott Finckler in a web article written in December, 1998 summarizes a basic belief of Theosophy as follows. “In Theosophy truth is sought by the study of comparative religions in an attempt to find certain doctrines common to all faiths, offering a combination of eastern philosophical attitudes with a western Christian morality. The emphasis of Theosophy is on the existence of a deeper spiritual reality beyond the material world of nature.” 2
In other words, a basic tenet of Theosophy is that all major religions of the world hold the same core beliefs, and that the various religious offshoots have added details to suit their needs. It is within this belief system that artists such as Mondrian, Kandinsky and the Russian Constructivists searched for the basic truths underlying art. What this means is that all the “messy” details of realistic art could be removed and what had always been the underlying structure of works of art, could be revealed in all its beauty and truth.
Add to these influences Eleanor Heartney’s views in her book, Art & Today about the new ideas concerning atomic theory and Freudian psychology, in which she points out that atomic theory questions visual reality, that atoms are the “abstract” hidden basis of reality, and that Freudian psychology—the reality of the mind—is that which is beneath the visible. 3
In a similar vein Charles A. Cramer points out in his Abstraction and the Classical Ideal that, “A rough equivalent of Mondrian’s project is the physicist’s discovery that all matter is made up of three basic units: the protons, electrons, and neutrons that combine to make different chemical elements such as hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and so forth… . The elements of De Stijl—horizontal and vertical lines, the colors red, yellow, and blue, and the values black and white—are essential and universal in this sense, the basic structural and structuring units of all form; structural units that are obscured by their combinations in nature, but to which all natural and artificial objects can ultimately be “reduced.” 4
So, once again it is the zeitgeist and the philosophies of the times that influenced the creative thinking of artists. In applying these influences, observations and principles to their work artists such as Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, and the Russian Suprematists and Constructivists decided to strip away all the surface details and concentrate on the abstract structure that underlies works of art. They also held a Utopian vision that their art could change the world and that the logical, rational approach to art, design and architecture would replace the chaos of nature and make the world a better place in which to live.
Theo van Doesburg and Mondrian, together with the architect Gerrit Rietveld and other collaborators played a pivotal role in the founding of the De Stijl movement, also known a Neoplasticism. Their ideas about simplification and removing all unnecessary decoration from design were taken up by the Bauhaus in Germany. Through the teachings of this influential school De Stijl’s intention of changing the world--as far as the art, architecture, interior, industrial and graphic design is concerned—developed into the International Style that dominated all manner of design for much of the 20th century.
In addition, their new way of thinking about art led to a number of forms of abstraction, each with its own philosophy and reason for being. The following are some of the directions abstract artists have explored.
1. Abstraction from nature
2. Geometric abstraction
3. Lyrical/Painterly abstraction
4. Abstraction based on the exploration of materials
5. Expressive abstraction
6. Metaphoric abstraction
Bibliography
2 Contemporary Architecture Derived from Theosophy. Scott Finckler. Web Article.
Dec. 1998.
3 Art & Today. Eleanor Heartney. Phaidon, London, New York. 2008
4. Abstraction and the Classical Ideal, Charles A. Cramer. University of Delaware
Press, Newark. 2006
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
PIET MONDRIAN 1872-1944
A Long Road to Abstraction
FROM THIS___________TO ______________ THIS
Piet Mondrian
Lange Bleekerssloot with Barge. 1898 Oil on canvas. 15.2 x 20.9 in. |
Piet Mondrian
The Red Tree. 1909, Oil on canvas. 27 3/8 x 39 in. |
and FROM THIS__________ TO ____________ THIS
Piet Mondrian
The GrayTree. 1912, Oil on canvas. 27 3/8 x 39 in. |
Piet Mondrian
Composition No.10, Pier and Ocean. 1915 Oil on canvas. 30.9 × 42.3 in. |
and THIS?
Piet Mondrian
Composition With Large Blue Plane. 1921
Oil on canvas. 23.75 × 19.675 in.
Composition With Large Blue Plane. 1921
Oil on canvas. 23.75 × 19.675 in.
Before moving from Holland to Paris Mondrian painted in Impressionistic, Expressionistic and Symbolist styles. In Paris he was influenced by Cubism, and because of his belief in Theosophy, he soon started molding Cubism to his own needs.
Mondrian’s belief in Theosophy led him to search for the universal, for the underlying truth, spiritual essence, and structure in art. To achieve his aim, he started by painting a series of trees and ocean scenes in which he progressively eliminated all unnecessary detail. The image above of The Red Tree illustrates the influence of the Fauves while The Gray Tree was influenced by Cubism. His use of vertical and horizontal lines was arrived at in a series of paintings (1914-1915) based on a pier stretching into the ocean. Take note of the way in which the short horizontal and vertical lines interpret the shimmering light on the waves using “simple” means. It was only after about five years of painstaking search that, in the pier series, he started using vertical and horizontal lines exclusively.
He eventually arrived at the point where, for him, the horizontal represented the earth and female, and the vertical represented growth and the male. He limited his palette to the basic primary colors of red, yellow, and blue, and added black, white, and grey (the mixture of all these colors) to this selection.
His paintings were meticulously crafted, taking extreme care with the compositions. Every line, shape, color and proportion was carefully calculated and balanced. In reproductions the painted areas appear to be flat, nevertheless subtle brush strokes are visible in the originals. This was because he painted over them time and again, always making subtle changes until he was satisfied with the results. It sometimes took him more than a year to complete a small painting.
Mondrian arrived in New York in 1940. He loved jazz and the vitality of New York and responded by painting Broadway Boogie Woogie—and his final unfinished work—Victory Boogie Woogie. In these works he dispensed with the black lines and large shapes of his earlier years and used numerous small squares and rectangles—all very evocative of the lively boogie-woogie music and grid-like structure of the city.
As we shall see his ideas would have a significant influence on the art, architecture and design of the 20th century.
Mondrian’s belief in Theosophy led him to search for the universal, for the underlying truth, spiritual essence, and structure in art. To achieve his aim, he started by painting a series of trees and ocean scenes in which he progressively eliminated all unnecessary detail. The image above of The Red Tree illustrates the influence of the Fauves while The Gray Tree was influenced by Cubism. His use of vertical and horizontal lines was arrived at in a series of paintings (1914-1915) based on a pier stretching into the ocean. Take note of the way in which the short horizontal and vertical lines interpret the shimmering light on the waves using “simple” means. It was only after about five years of painstaking search that, in the pier series, he started using vertical and horizontal lines exclusively.
He eventually arrived at the point where, for him, the horizontal represented the earth and female, and the vertical represented growth and the male. He limited his palette to the basic primary colors of red, yellow, and blue, and added black, white, and grey (the mixture of all these colors) to this selection.
His paintings were meticulously crafted, taking extreme care with the compositions. Every line, shape, color and proportion was carefully calculated and balanced. In reproductions the painted areas appear to be flat, nevertheless subtle brush strokes are visible in the originals. This was because he painted over them time and again, always making subtle changes until he was satisfied with the results. It sometimes took him more than a year to complete a small painting.
Mondrian arrived in New York in 1940. He loved jazz and the vitality of New York and responded by painting Broadway Boogie Woogie—and his final unfinished work—Victory Boogie Woogie. In these works he dispensed with the black lines and large shapes of his earlier years and used numerous small squares and rectangles—all very evocative of the lively boogie-woogie music and grid-like structure of the city.
As we shall see his ideas would have a significant influence on the art, architecture and design of the 20th century.
THE SECTION BELOW IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION
THE RUSSIAN SUPREMATISTS
AND CONSTRUCTIVISTS
Kazimir Malevich
|
Kazimir Malevich
|
Malevich’s Airplane Flying was painted in the same year Mondrian painted his Ocean and Pier series. Take note that the small square in White on White is painted in a cool white and the background is in a warm white. This white on white painting anticipates the black on black paintings of Ad Reinhardt during the Minimalist Period of the 1960s.
In the beginning the Russian artist Malevich was drawn to Cubism, but like Mondrian, he was influenced by Theosophy, and like Kandinsky, he took the spiritual side of the belief system as a source for his work.
The reason why he chose to paint simple shapes is explained in his Suprematist Manifesto of 1915, in which the opening sentence reads: “Under Suprematism I understand the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art. To the Suprematist the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth.”
As early as 1913, Malevich and other Suprematists reduced shapes and space to a minimum. Like Mondrian’s work the various elements in their paintings were superbly balanced.
The Suprematists and Constructivists firmly believed that their work could change the world into a better place, but in 1934 Socialist Realism became the official style in Russian art and artists working in an abstract, or any other manner, were severely punished.
THE LEGACY OF MONDRIAN, THE SUPREMATISTS AND CONSTRUCTIVISTS
FROM THIS___________TO_________ THIS?
La Sagrada Familia.
Antoni Gaudi Barcelona 1882-Present Still under construction. |
The Seagram Building.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, in collaboration with Philip Johnson, New York. Completed 1958 |
The ideas of Neo-plasticism, as Mondrian called this new direction, together with those of De Stijl in Holland, the Bauhaus in Germany, as well as the Suprematists and Constructivists in Russia, had a profound effect on 20th century art and design. To appreciate their influence, just look at the rectangular skyscrapers and other “simple” International Style buildings, interiors, furniture, and graphic designs that we are so familiar with. Now compare them to the frilly, decorative designs of La Sagrada Familia, the Victorian, Art Nouveau, Neoclassical and Gothic-inspired structures and designs of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The apparent simplicity of the work of these individuals and groups was the basis for the “form follows function” philosophy of the International Style in architecture. The simplicity, found in all manner of modern design, was subsequently debunked by Postmodern architects in the 1970s, and their more decorative Postmodern architecture was based on appropriating earlier styles. Ironically the same Philip Johnson, who had collaborated with Mies van der Rohe on the International Style Seagram Building, fathered this new movement.
The apparent simplicity of the work of these individuals and groups was the basis for the “form follows function” philosophy of the International Style in architecture. The simplicity, found in all manner of modern design, was subsequently debunked by Postmodern architects in the 1970s, and their more decorative Postmodern architecture was based on appropriating earlier styles. Ironically the same Philip Johnson, who had collaborated with Mies van der Rohe on the International Style Seagram Building, fathered this new movement.
DADA
To be expanded
To be expanded
FROM THIS__________ and______________ THIS
Pablo Picasso
Three Musicians.1921 |
Wassily Kandinsky
Improvisation. 1911 |
TO THIS______________ and____________ THIS
Marcel Duchamp
Fountain 1917 |
Marcel Duchamp
L.H.O.Q.Q. 1919 |
AND THIS
Jean (Hans) Arp
Squares Arranged According to Chance
1917. Torn-and-pasted paper and colored paper on colored paper, 19 1/8 x 13 5/8" (48.5 x 34.6 cm)
Dada is another movement of importance during the first quarter of the 20th century. At this time it jostled with approaches such as Cubism, Abstraction, Futurism, Orphism, Suprematism, and Constructivism.
Dada artists were extremely dissatisfied with the First World War (1914-1918). They detested the nouveau riche (newly rich) and the powers that created the horrors of
the first mechanized war in history with its tanks and poison gas, with its 20 million military and civilians killed and 21 million wounded.
Their answer to the situation was to attack every possible icon of society. Marcel Duchamp was the leading figure in this movement, and his urinal titled Fountain and the
placing of a goatee and mustache on a postcard image of the Mona Lisa showed how he disdained everything the society of his time stood for.
Dada artists, who were opposed to the rationalism that had produced the horrors of World War 1 explored chance, random, and the accidental. It is in light of this thinking
that—during the period he was associated with Dada—Jean (Hans) Arp made a work that is significant in respect to the use of chance in creating works of art. The title of his
work, Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance is self explanatory.
Dada artists were extremely dissatisfied with the First World War (1914-1918). They detested the nouveau riche (newly rich) and the powers that created the horrors of
the first mechanized war in history with its tanks and poison gas, with its 20 million military and civilians killed and 21 million wounded.
Their answer to the situation was to attack every possible icon of society. Marcel Duchamp was the leading figure in this movement, and his urinal titled Fountain and the
placing of a goatee and mustache on a postcard image of the Mona Lisa showed how he disdained everything the society of his time stood for.
Dada artists, who were opposed to the rationalism that had produced the horrors of World War 1 explored chance, random, and the accidental. It is in light of this thinking
that—during the period he was associated with Dada—Jean (Hans) Arp made a work that is significant in respect to the use of chance in creating works of art. The title of his
work, Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance is self explanatory.
GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM TO COME
POST WWII ABSTRACTION
This chapter is still in progress and is unedited.
World War II with its horrific destruction, loss of life, the apocalyptic force of the atomic bomb and the ensuing Cold War reinforced the existential angst that permeated the human psyche of the time. “Existentialism postulates that the absence of a transcendent force (i.e.: God) means that the individual is entirely free, and, therefore, ultimately responsible. It is up to man to create an ethos of personal responsibility outside of any branded belief system. That personal articulation of being is the only way to rise above man’s absurd condition (suffering and death, and the finality of the individual).” Existentialism: A Philosophy. K Smith. Slideshare, 2008.
Within the context of the belief that no God would allow the atrocities of the holocaust, two world wars, and the atomic bomb, the Existentialist philosophies of Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, and Sartre, were embraced. My stepfather, (a former choir boy in the Anglican Church) who fought in WWII in North Africa and Italy, who knew nothing about philosophy, came back to South Africa and said, “I cannot believe that any all-powerful God would allow what I have seen.” He remained an atheist for the rest of his life.
Similarly, writers, playwrights and filmmakers reflected the sense of fear, nihilism, and disillusionment of the times. Nature was no longer seen as having a beginning, climax and ending, it was now a never-ending series of ups and downs. In this respect the film based on John Fowles’ book The Magus has no beginning, climax or ending, the two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot wait forever. In Pollock’s abstract expressionist painting there is no focal point and he removed the frame allowing the painted surface to appear as if it continued forever.
At this time the 78 rpm record with it’s 3 minute duration gave way to the long playing 33 rpm record and then to the tape and CD disc. As a result of these innovations popular songs no longer needed to be three minutes in length. This change also brought about the age of disco, which in contrast to dance being controlled by the length of a tune and the band resting while the dancers had a drink, to the continuous music in which dancers could choose when to have a break. In addition, the cinema widescreen was introduced.
As a result of Existentialist thinking many visual artists could not bring themselves to depict anything in the real world. The retreat into abstraction seemed to be the only way in which to escape from a terrifying world and find some sense of order and inner peace.
European and American artists were prompted into working in a vein related to Kandinsky’s teachings, Dada’s ideas about chance, Surrealism’s Freudian ideas about the subconscious and Jungian ideas about the collective unconscious, on the other hand, some were influenced by Zen and Japanese calligraphy. The movements these ideas generated became known as Tachisme, Lyrical Abstraction, Painterly Abstraction, Abstract Expressionism and Action Painting.
Within the context of the belief that no God would allow the atrocities of the holocaust, two world wars, and the atomic bomb, the Existentialist philosophies of Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, and Sartre, were embraced. My stepfather, (a former choir boy in the Anglican Church) who fought in WWII in North Africa and Italy, who knew nothing about philosophy, came back to South Africa and said, “I cannot believe that any all-powerful God would allow what I have seen.” He remained an atheist for the rest of his life.
Similarly, writers, playwrights and filmmakers reflected the sense of fear, nihilism, and disillusionment of the times. Nature was no longer seen as having a beginning, climax and ending, it was now a never-ending series of ups and downs. In this respect the film based on John Fowles’ book The Magus has no beginning, climax or ending, the two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot wait forever. In Pollock’s abstract expressionist painting there is no focal point and he removed the frame allowing the painted surface to appear as if it continued forever.
At this time the 78 rpm record with it’s 3 minute duration gave way to the long playing 33 rpm record and then to the tape and CD disc. As a result of these innovations popular songs no longer needed to be three minutes in length. This change also brought about the age of disco, which in contrast to dance being controlled by the length of a tune and the band resting while the dancers had a drink, to the continuous music in which dancers could choose when to have a break. In addition, the cinema widescreen was introduced.
As a result of Existentialist thinking many visual artists could not bring themselves to depict anything in the real world. The retreat into abstraction seemed to be the only way in which to escape from a terrifying world and find some sense of order and inner peace.
European and American artists were prompted into working in a vein related to Kandinsky’s teachings, Dada’s ideas about chance, Surrealism’s Freudian ideas about the subconscious and Jungian ideas about the collective unconscious, on the other hand, some were influenced by Zen and Japanese calligraphy. The movements these ideas generated became known as Tachisme, Lyrical Abstraction, Painterly Abstraction, Abstract Expressionism and Action Painting.
LYRICAL ABSTRACTION
Music In My Eyes?
FROM THIS____________TO_____________________ THIS?
Mondrian.
Broadway Boogie-Woogie 1942-1943. Oil on canvas. 50” x 50” 
|
Afro.
Yellow Country. 1957 Oil on canvas. 43" x 53" 
|
Riopelle Hans Hartung
Perspectives, 1956 Untitled, 1956
Oil on canvas Ink on paper
Viera da Silva
The Corridor. 1950
Oil on canvas
The artists represented by the images above are but a few of those exploring Tachisme, Painterly and Lyrical Abstraction. Roger Bissière, Alfred Manessier, Gustave Singier, Nicolas de Stael, Wols, Zao Wou Ki and Antonio Tapies are among the many whose work embraced the tenets of this approach to making art.
Like some of these artists many still used nature as a starting point. In 1960, Henri Goetz, my professor at the Académie Notre Dame des Champs, Paris, would go into the countryside and make notes of the colors and quality of light he saw and use these observations in his totally abstract paintings.
Like some of these artists many still used nature as a starting point. In 1960, Henri Goetz, my professor at the Académie Notre Dame des Champs, Paris, would go into the countryside and make notes of the colors and quality of light he saw and use these observations in his totally abstract paintings.
TO COME
POP ART
POST WWII AFFLUENCE AND CONSUMERISM
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
POP ART
POST WWII AFFLUENCE AND CONSUMERISM
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
Jackson Pollock. Autumn Rhythm. 1950 105 x 207 inches
sskion.The influence of Existentialism, the Civil Rights movement, Rock and Roll, the drug scene, Theater of the Absurd, etc., on society and the visual arts
Background
Before World War II American Dada writers and artists such as Man Ray had moved between the U.S. and Paris regularly, carrying the ideas of automatism and chance with them. World War II prompted a number of prominent European artists to move to America, Mondrian, was among them.
Within the context of the new power and riches of America, and the fears of the Cold War with Russia and the threat of annihilation by the atomic bomb, the philosophy of Existentialism arose.
"Existentialism postulates that the absence of a transcendent force (i.e: God) means that the individual is entirely free, and, therefore, ultimately responsible. It is up to man to create an ethos of personal responsibility outside of any branded belief system. That personal articulation of being is the only way to rise above man’s absurd condition (suffering and death, and the finality of the individual)." Wikipedia.
Existentialist philosophy arose out of the belief that no God would allow the atrocities of the holocaust, two world wars, and the atomic bomb in which so many millions were killed. Philosophers, (Jean-Paul Satre) writers, play writers, (Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot), film makers, and artists, in tune with the sense of fear, nihilism, and disillusionment of the times, responded by “expressing themselves.”
The idea that there was a beginning, crashing climax, and end to everything in nature was
decried—in contrast nature was a continuous series of small ups and downs. No more compositions contained by a frame, with a focal point, no more stories in literature, film and music (Philip Glass, Steve Reich) with a beginning, climax, and ending.
This open ended way of thinking is also evidenced in the introduction of the long playing record, the audio tape, (that affected popular dance—the disco era), and the wide screen in the cinema. The Pop song FOR ALL WE KNOW Written 1934 before WW11 anticipates post
WWII Existentialist thinking.
For all we know we may never meet again
Before you go make this moment sweet again
We won't say good night until the last minute
I'll hold out my hand and my heart will be in it
For all we know this may only be a dream
We come and go like a ripple on a stream
So love me tonight; tomorrow was made for some
Tomorrow may never come for all we know
In art, artists questioned what had been done before, and in applying existentialist philosophy—consciously and/or subconsciously—their answer was to do away with the focal point, any figurative allusions, and expand the painting beyond the edges of the frame.
There had been a strong desire, even before the war, to create an American art, one that was distinct from the European approach. America is big, expansive, bold. And, in contrast to the small spaces that artists lived in Europe, artists in New York lived in large lofts. So, for the avant-garde artists of the time, it meant working on a very large scale so that their paintings engulfed the viewer.
Jackson Pollock 1912-1956
Background
All of the characteristics mentioned above may be found in Pollock’s work—an approach that came to be called Abstract Expressionism (AbEx). He was born in Wyoming and went on field trips with his farmer/land surveyor father where he experienced the wide open spaces and witnessed American Indian sand painters at work. The influence of the latter is evidenced in the placing of his canvas on the floor, and instead of sand, he used household paints.
Innovations
Pollock applied paint by dripping and spattering it from sticks, hardened paint brushes, and small holes he had punched into the bottom of paint cans. In this way he dispensed with the traditional paint brush and its centuries of built in inhibitions. In his all-over paintings there is no focal point, and the marks appear to extend beyond the canvas surface.
By dripping paint Pollock did not use the wrist or arm movements of the easel painter, but, as he walked around and on the canvas he used his whole body. By doing this he said that he felt as if he were “in the painting.”
The results of this process were:
• an all-over maze of lines creating a shallow space that respected the flatness of the picture
plane.
• these paintings have no focal point
• marks appearing to go beyond the borders of the painting
• the removal of the frame allowing the pictorial space to conceptually move beyond the
confines of the painting.
• In a similar vein sculptors at this time removed the base and placed their constructions
directly on the floor, thereby occupying the same space as the viewer in a more democratic
way.
Pollock applied the subconscious, intuitive, and chance ideas he had learned from Dada. (See Arp. Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance, 1917, and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, 1926 (to which Einstein’s reply was, “God does not play dice.”) Nevertheless, it was not a mindless process, Pollock knew exactly what he was doing, and would sometimes pin the painting to a wall and contemplate his next move for up to two weeks.
Pollock’s Legacy
Pollock’s work had an important affect on the art of his time. His all-over approach and rejection of the focal point created an atmosphere in which the Color Field and Minimalist painters and sculptors could question what he had done and what had been done before and, in the process, arrive at answers of their own. His dance-like movements also inspired artists to create what would become known as Performance Art. His free intuitive approach was also adapted by figurative artists such as Lee Krasner, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, and in a non-figurative manner by Frans Kline.
THE LEGACY OF POST WWII ABSTRACTION
Just as Impressionism is still the source for a large number of artists, the various areas of Post WWII abstraction still influences many artists working today.
MINIMALISM
THE REACTION AGAINST ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
CONCEPTUAL ART
THE REACTION AGAINST THE VIETNAM WAR
POST MODERNISM
HOW ANTI MODERNIST IDEAS, CYNICISM, IRONY, APPROPRIATION, FEMINISM and NUMEROUS PHILOSOPHERS INFLUENCED ART, ARCHITECTURE, LITERATURE, MUSIC, ETC.
CONTEMPORARY ART
HOW THE BEGINNINGS OF DEMOCRACY IN THE AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS ESTABLISHED THE IMPORTANCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL THAT RESULTED IN THE BREAKING AWAY FROM THE CONTROL OF THE CHURCH AND ROYALTY.
OUT OF THIS CAME THE BIRTH OF MODERN ART AND SOME BRAVE ADVENTUROUS ARTISTS BREAKING WITH TRADITION.
FROM THE IMPRESSIONISTS, THROUGH SUCH MOVEMENTS AS THE POST IMPRESSIONISTS, THE CUBISTS, DADA, SURREALISM, ETC., UNTIL, WHERE TODAY NO STYLE IS DISCERNABLE AND MANY ARTISTS GO THEIR OWN WAY. ARTISTS NOW DEVELOP THEY OWN IDEAS AND FIND THE MOST APPROPRIATE MEANS TO COMMUNICATE THEM, NO MATTER WHAT THE IDEA CALLS FOR.
CONTEMPORARY ART.
The incredible variety in Contemporary art starts with the march toward the importance of the individual in all walks of life brought about by the French and American Revolutions. In art it starts with the Impressionists breaking away from the Neo-Classical and Romantic styles favored by the Academies in France, England and other countries in Europe. Their revolt was continued by the Post Impressionists and the numerous quick changes in art that followed. Today adventurous artists do not work in a style, but find something of importance, of interest, of something they are passionate about, to communicate. To achieve their aims they use the most appropriate means to express/communicate the idea—no matter what—repeat--no matter what!
The following contains sexual and religious subject matter that may be disturbing to some—discretion is advised. These works have been selected precisely for their provocative nature for the challenge they pose to normative institutions such a religion, sexuality, race, etc.
In this light, some of the works discussed include: a bed, stained and littered with condoms and other memorabilia of her life and sexual encounters—a video of an artist having sex with a collector—a cow cut in half and displayed in two glass cases you can walk between, a small sculpture of the crucified Christ submerged in a glass container of the artist’s urine.
How did art get to this point? What is it about? Why make it? Is it art and what do you think each of the following means, illustrates or communicates? Cutting edge art often confronts questions and poses reflections on current issues in society and culture. Which means at times it is confrontational, thought-provoking, stimulating demanding but always rewarding in the knowledge and experience of contemporary art.
For this reason much contemporary art may be difficult to understand, it is therefore helpful to read the artist statement and/or interviews with art critics and writers. In this respect, the following are some examples of artists of note. In addition, you are advised to Google the name of any artist and period in history to find additional information concerning their work or refer to books on subjects you are interested in. It is important to experience artworks in the real by going to museums and galleries where there are invariably tours or artists talking about their work.
The following are excepts from examples that were found on the web.
JANINE ANTONI
ART21:
Let’s talk about your sculpture, Lick and Lather. How was it made?
ANTONI: I wanted to work with the tradition of self-portraiture but also the classical bust. So, the way I made it is: I took a mold directly from my body. I used a product called alginate, which is the kind of material that you might be familiar with when you go to the dentist, that sort of minty tasting stuff. It’s an incredible product because it gets every detail, every little pore. I even cast my hair. So, I started with an exact replica and then I carved the classical stand. I made a mold, melted down thirty-five pounds of chocolate, poured it into the mold. And when I took it out of the mold, I re-sculpted my image by licking the chocolate. So, you can see that I licked up the front and through the mouth up onto the nose, over the eye and back up over the ear onto the bun, and then down in the back around the neck.
I also cast myself into soap. She started as an exact replica of myself. We spent a few hours in the tub together. I slowly washed her down, and she becomes almost fetal because all her features start to be washed away. So, I was thinking about how one describes the self and feeling a little uncomfortable with my outer surface as the description of myself. And this piece very much is about trying to be on the outside of myself and have a relationship with my image. So, the process is quite loving. Of course chocolate is a highly desirable material, and to lick my self in chocolate is a kind of tender gesture. Having the soap in the tub was like having a little baby in there. But through that process, I’m slowly erasing my self. For me it really is about this kind of love-hate relationship we have with our physical appearance.
IDA APPLEBROOG
ART 21
Ida Applebroog was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1929. Applebroog has been making pointed social commentary in the form of beguiling comic-like images for nearly half a century. She has developed an instantly recognizable style of simplified human forms with bold outlines. Anonymous “everyman” figures, anthropomorphized animals, and half-human/half-creature characters are featured players in the uncanny theater of her work.
Applebroog propels her paintings and drawings into the realm of installation by arranging and stacking canvases in space, exploding the frame-by-frame logic of comic book and film narrative into three-dimensional environments. In her most characteristic work, she combines popular imagery from everyday urban and domestic scenes, sometimes paired with curt texts, to skew otherwise banal images into anxious scenarios infused with a sense of irony and black humor. Strong themes in her work include gender and sexual identity, power struggles both political and personal, and the pernicious role of mass media in desensitizing the public to violence.
RENEE COX
WIKIPEDIA
Yo Mama’s Last Supper is a work of art, made in 1996 by Jamaican-American artist Renée Cox. It is a large photographic montage of five panels, each 31 inches square, depicting photographs of 11 black men, a white Judas and a naked black woman (the artist’s self-portrait)[1] posed in imitation of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper. Cox is pictured naked and standing, with her arms reaching upwards, as Jesus.[2]
In 2001, the piece was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art as part of an exhibition called Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers. New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was offended by the work and called for the creation of a panel to create decency standards for all art shown at publicly funded museums in the city. The work has also been included in other exhibitions about artistic depictions of The Last Supper, in locations such as the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut; a church in Venice, Italy; and a gallery in Jakarta, Indonesia.
ANDRES SERANO
THE ART STORY
Andres Serrano is an American artist notorious for the controversial content of his photographic works. His best-known pieces are large format images of objects (frequently religious in nature) and studio portraiture, often featuring titles that unambiguously describe the process of creating the work. These processes have included submerging a crucifix in (his own) urine, (Piss Christ) taking photographs of recently deceased bodies just brought into a city morgue, and producing portraits of members of the Ku Klux Klan.
In the late 1980s his practice was highlighted as an example of work that was deliberately confrontational and designed to shock the audience. His potent mix of religious imagery, bodily fluids, sex, violence, and death was labelled obscene by conservative politicians and advocacy groups, his photograph Piss Christ in particular becoming a flashpoint in what became known as the ‘culture wars’ of the 1980s and 1990s in America. (Serano was raised Catholic). Serrano has always maintained that shock is not his primary goal, and points to the formal qualities of the images, their relevance to political issues (such as intolerance or sensationalism) and their relation to particular moments in art history as being his key motivation and intention.
DAMIEN HIRST
THE ART STORY
From the outset of his career, Hirst devised a fool-proof strategy for grabbing the attention of the public and critics. Rotting corpses appalled and attracted museum visitors, who saw it as a kind of dare. Critics were equally appalled, not so much by the art as by the sky-high prices (often prearranged) paid for it. This kept Hirst at the center of the art world and augmented the value of his work, which continues to command some of the highest prices on the market.
Bloody bodies (martyrs and the death of Christ) and mothers and children (the Madonna and Child) are iconic themes in Western religious painting. Hirst, who was raised Catholic, cites this as an important dimension of his aesthetic sensibility.
Controversial as it is, Hirst’s approach is firmly rooted in historical and contemporary sources. In its focus on death, it hearkens back to the memento mori (reminders of mortality) images in European still life. In using biological materials, he joins other contemporary artists of the late-20th century, among them Robert Rauschenberg, with his taxidermied animals, Carolee Schneemann, who covered herself in raw meat, and Joseph Beuys, who constructed Fat Chair and other sculptures made of fat. Where Hirst differs from his historical and contemporary predecessors is in his display of entire corpses as visual spectacles.
NOTE: Mother and Child Divided. a cow and a calf cut in half— lengthwise—in two glass containers of formaldehyde you can walk between. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living ... is a shark in a glass case filled with formaldehyde.
TRACY EMIN
WIKIPEDIA
In 1997, her work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995, a tent appliquéd with the names of everyone the artist had ever shared a bed with was shown at Charles Saatchi’s Sensation exhibition held at the Royal Academy in London. The same year, she gained considerable media exposure when she swore repeatedly in a state of drunkenness on a live discussion program called The Death of Painting on British television
In 1999, She was a Turner Prize nominee and exhibited My Bed – a readymade installation, consisting of her own unmade dirty bed, in which she had spent several weeks drinking, smoking, eating, sleeping and having sexual intercourse while undergoing a period of severe emotional flux. The artwork featured used condoms and blood-stained underwear.
ANDREA FRASER
WIKIPEDIA
In her videotape performance Untitled (2003), 60 minutes in duration, Fraser recorded a hotel-room sexual encounter at the Royalton Hotel in New York, with a private collector, who had paid close to $20,000 to participate, “not for sex, according to the artist, but to make an artwork.” According to Andrea Fraser, the amount that the collector had paid her has not been disclosed, and the “$20,000” figure is way off the mark. Only five copies of the 60-minute DVD were produced, three of which are in private collections, one being that of the collector with whom she had had the sexual encounter; he had pre-purchased the performance piece in which he was a participant. The contractual agreement, arranged by Friedrich Petzel Gallery, outlining the performance posed as a medium questioning male power in the art world connecting it to female prostitution and art making. (Consider the "Me Too"' movement of today).
MARINA ABRAMOVIC
WIKIPEDIA
A pioneer of performance as a visual art form, Abramović has used her body as both subject and medium of her performances to test her physical, mental, and emotional limits—often pushing beyond them and even risking her life—in a quest for heightened consciousness, transcendence, and self-transformation.
Characterized by endurance and pain—and by repetitive behavior, actions of long duration, and intense public interactions and energy dialogues—her work has engaged, fascinated, and sometimes repelled live audiences. The universal themes of life and death are recurring motifs, often enhanced by the use of symbolic visual elements or props such as crystals, bones, knives, (twenty knives that viewers were asked to stab between her splayed fingers) tables, and pentagrams. While the sources of some works lie in her personal history (the circumstances of her childhood and family life under Communist rule in the former Yugoslavia), others lie in more recent and contemporary events, such as the wars in her homeland and other parts of the world.
VITO ACCONCI
W MAGAZINE
Far and away his most famous work, (Seedbed) Acconci lay beneath the angled, raised ramp in Illeana Sonnabend’s New York gallery, masturbating while staring up through the floorboards. Speakers broadcasted his autoerotic fantasies about each gallery visitor as they walked overhead. It was in part an early theoretical inquiry into the nature of architecture—what does it mean to become part of the gallery?—but, as always, sex overshadows everything else. r.
LAURIE ANDERSON
WIKIPEDIA
Anderson is a pioneer in electronic music and has invented several devices that she has used in her recordings and performance art shows. In 1977, she created a tape-bow violin that uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow instead of horsehair and a magnetic tape head in the bridge. In the late 1990s, she developed a talking stick, a six-foot (1.8 m) long baton-like MIDI controller that can access and replicate sounds.
She became more widely known outside the art world when her single O Superman reached number two on the UK pop charts in 1981. She also starred in and directed the 1986 concert film Home of the Brave.
IDA APPELBROOG
ART21
Applebroog has been making pointed social commentary in the form of beguiling comic-like images for nearly half a century. She has developed an instantly recognizable style of simplified human forms with bold outlines. Anonymous “everyman” figures, anthropomorphized animals, and half-human/half-creature characters are featured players in the uncanny theater of her work.
Applebroog propels her paintings and drawings into the realm of installation by arranging and stacking canvases in space, exploding the frame-by-frame logic of comic book and film narrative into three-dimensional environments. In her most characteristic work, she combines popular imagery from everyday urban and domestic scenes, sometimes paired with curt texts, to skew otherwise banal images into anxious scenarios infused with a sense of irony and black humor. Strong themes in her work include gender and sexual identity, power struggles both political and personal, and the pernicious role of mass media in desensitizing the public to violence.
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
WIKIPEDIA
Basquiat first achieved fame as part of SAMO, an informal graffiti duo who wrote enigmatic epigrams in the cultural hotbed of the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the late 1970s where the hip hop, punk, and street art movements had coalesced. By the 1980s, he was exhibiting his neo-expressionist paintings in galleries and museums internationally. The Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective of his art in 1992.
Basquiat’s art focused on “suggestive dichotomies”, such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience. He appropriated poetry, drawing, and painting, and married text and image, abstraction, figuration, and historical information mixed with contemporary critique.
Basquiat used social commentary in his paintings as a “springboard to deeper truths about the individual”, as well as attacks on power structures and systems of racism, while his poetics were acutely political and direct in their criticism of colonialism and support for class struggle. He died of a heroin overdose at his art studio at age 27.
On May 18, 2017, at a Sotheby’s auction, a 1982 painting by Basquiat depicting a skull set a new record high for any American artist at auction, selling for $110.5 million.
BANKSY
WIKIPEDIA
Banksy is an anonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist and film director. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. His works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world. Banksy’s work grew out of the Bristol underground scene, which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. Banksy says that he was inspired by 3D, a graffiti artist who later became a founding member of the English musical group Massive Attack.
Banksy displays his art on publicly visible surfaces such as walls and self-built physical prop pieces. Banksy does not sell photographs or reproductions of his street graffiti, but art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder. Banksy created a documentary film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, billed as “the world’s first street art disaster movie”, which made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The film was released in the UK on 5 March 2010. In January 2011, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary for the film. In 2014, he was awarded Person of the Year at the 2014 Webby Awards.
THE FOLLOWING UNEDITED OVERVIEW WILL PERIODICALLY BE UPDATED.
Please scroll down to view more detailed extracts from a number of chapters devoted to Impressionism, Cubism, Abstraction and a number of later movements.
CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
An unkempt bed, stained and littered with condoms and other memorabilia of sexual encounters—an artist having sex with her a collector—a nude black woman
as Christ surrounded by black disciples, with a white man as Judas in a recreation of da Vinci's Last Supper—a cow cut in half and displayed in two glass cases you can walk between, a small sculpture of the crucified Christ submerged in a glass container of the artist’s urine?
How did art get to this point? Why make it? Is it art?
What do you think each of these means, illustrates or communicates??
The question is “Why have there been so many changes in the approaches to making art?” The answer lies in the fact that it is the changing philosophies, religious beliefs and zeitgeist of a period within which artists develop new ways of expre
WHY AND HOW ARTISTS DEVELOP NEW IDEAS
The following are introductions to some of the chapters that
will have content added in due course.
APPLYING THE CREATIVE PROCESS
This section will give non-artists an insight into the gyrations artists have to go through to achieve their aims and serve as a guide for artists who wish to develop a personal vision and new ideas. Once again it must be pointed out that it is not a matter of “finding a style” but a matter of becoming aware of something to say or do, and using the means most appropriate to communicating an idea.
The work of some former students from the Johannesburg College of Art, who were students at the time I designed and taught the Perceptual Studies Course, exhibit internationally (e.g. the Venice Biennale, Smithsonian Institution) and teach in prestigious schools in the United States, Canada and South Africa may be viewed at:
Willem Boshoff http://www.willemboshoff.com
Majak Bredell www.art.co.za/majakbredell/
Trevor Gould http://www.trevorgould.ca/
Paula Louw http://www.art.co.za/paulalouw
Johann Moolman http://art.co.za/johannmoolman
Jo Smail http://www.josmailartist.com/
Paul Stopforth www.paulstopforth.com
Google: Willem Strydom Artist South Africa
Google: Berna Thom Artist South Africa
These former students from the small Johannesburg College of Art (currently, University of Johannesburg, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture) are to be commended on their talent, tenacity and success in working in areas that have at times been considered controversial.
I cannot claim that the success of these former students is wholly the result of my ideas about teaching. Teachers such as Phil Botha, Noel Bisseker, Joyce Leonard, Malcolm Payne, Andrew Todd, and Nico van Rensburg are among those who contributed to the individuality of their work.
Any former students I have overlooked who would like to be included in this list, please send an e-mail to meyerton31@gmail.com.
FINDING YOURSELF
It may be argued that artistic creativity does not follow a pattern, but is a matter of “expressing yourself” (a concept left over from the Abstract Expressionist period). This begs the question, “What is YOURSELF?” We are so bombarded with different influences—by what is in or cool, by peer pressure, by styles, and what we have been taught, seen in magazines and exhibitions—that we tend to lose our true selves in the cacophony.…
DEVELOPING A PERSONAL VISION
So, what is the answer to developing a personal vision? One of the first steps…
A STRUCTURE ON WHICH TO BUILD
The results of going through this process may lead to an approach for a lifetime of work or be applied to a series, or even a single piece…
BECOMING AN ARTIST
There are so many difficulties in becoming an artist, and the following are some thoughts that will help in overcoming some hurdles.…
SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING IDEAS
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
FORMER STUDENTS PROVE THIS WAY OF THINKING WORKS!
Please leave a comment on the TO ENTER COMMENTS PAGE CLICK HERE on the right at the top of this site. Thank you.
This section will give non-artists an insight into the gyrations artists have to go through to achieve their aims and serve as a guide for artists who wish to develop a personal vision and new ideas. Once again it must be pointed out that it is not a matter of “finding a style” but a matter of becoming aware of something to say or do, and using the means most appropriate to communicating an idea.
The work of some former students from the Johannesburg College of Art, who were students at the time I designed and taught the Perceptual Studies Course, exhibit internationally (e.g. the Venice Biennale, Smithsonian Institution) and teach in prestigious schools in the United States, Canada and South Africa may be viewed at:
Willem Boshoff http://www.willemboshoff.com
Majak Bredell www.art.co.za/majakbredell/
Trevor Gould http://www.trevorgould.ca/
Paula Louw http://www.art.co.za/paulalouw
Johann Moolman http://art.co.za/johannmoolman
Jo Smail http://www.josmailartist.com/
Paul Stopforth www.paulstopforth.com
Google: Willem Strydom Artist South Africa
Google: Berna Thom Artist South Africa
These former students from the small Johannesburg College of Art (currently, University of Johannesburg, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture) are to be commended on their talent, tenacity and success in working in areas that have at times been considered controversial.
I cannot claim that the success of these former students is wholly the result of my ideas about teaching. Teachers such as Phil Botha, Noel Bisseker, Joyce Leonard, Malcolm Payne, Andrew Todd, and Nico van Rensburg are among those who contributed to the individuality of their work.
Any former students I have overlooked who would like to be included in this list, please send an e-mail to meyerton31@gmail.com.
FINDING YOURSELF
It may be argued that artistic creativity does not follow a pattern, but is a matter of “expressing yourself” (a concept left over from the Abstract Expressionist period). This begs the question, “What is YOURSELF?” We are so bombarded with different influences—by what is in or cool, by peer pressure, by styles, and what we have been taught, seen in magazines and exhibitions—that we tend to lose our true selves in the cacophony.…
DEVELOPING A PERSONAL VISION
So, what is the answer to developing a personal vision? One of the first steps…
A STRUCTURE ON WHICH TO BUILD
The results of going through this process may lead to an approach for a lifetime of work or be applied to a series, or even a single piece…
BECOMING AN ARTIST
There are so many difficulties in becoming an artist, and the following are some thoughts that will help in overcoming some hurdles.…
SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING IDEAS
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
FORMER STUDENTS PROVE THIS WAY OF THINKING WORKS!
Please leave a comment on the TO ENTER COMMENTS PAGE CLICK HERE on the right at the top of this site. Thank you.