National Public Radio can always be guaranteed to provide interesting listening on the most diverse of subjects. This afternoon, in "All Things Considered", there was a piece about the "Behind-the-Scenes Partnership at Apple" between CEO Steve Jobs and head designer, Englishman Jonathan Ive. Apparently, ever since Steve Jobs discovered Ive working in a basement amidst a welter of creative inventions and designs in 1996, when Jobs had returned to Apple and was re-evaluating everyone and everything, the two have formed a very felicitous partnership.
What interested me was the parallel - in truth, hardly surprising - between the concepts espoused by Apple for design and those which an artist follows, ideally. It was apparently regarded as somewhat revolutionary in that industry that design was considered right from the beginning when a new product was being worked on. As Ive said, everything defers to the display, whether in the I-Phone, I-Pod or I-Pad - "getting the design out of the way". The user experience is the only important consideration, everything else is subservient.
In art, the design, or composition, is one of the important sub-structures of the piece. It should ideally be so discreet and integral to the work that it should not be noticed. The art should just look and feel "right". And the skill and experience to achieve this important underpinning of the work comes only with practice, thought and application. Indeed, one of the descriptions of Jonathan Ive at Apple in the NPR piece was "relentless", always working to get the thing "just right". That could, and should, be a description for everyone of us artists as we try to get our work "just right". Often, quite a challenge!
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Art and Play
It is the time of year when we all hear murmurs of New Year resolutions that we should be thinking about.... in the knowledge that most of the good resolutions don't last very long after January 1st has passed.
Nonetheless, one resolution that I think would be good for me to try and adhere to is keeping a playful and enquiring optic about making art. Perhaps almost the attitude of "let's just launch out into space and see what happens in the art", something I often have misgivings about, especially in unforgiving silverpoint. Stephen Nachmanovich, the noted improvisationist violinist and, amongst other achievements, author of Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, said, "Play is the taproot from which original art springs. It is the raw stuff that the artist channels with all his hearing and technique." He could just as easily have said "seeing and technique". He maintains that every time we open our mouths to say something, we are in fact improvising, and that creativity is in the same category, given to everyone.
In truth, when one is about to launch into a plein air painting or drawing, it is very much an act of improvisation. Since weather conditions, light and innumerable other aspects can change from one moment to the next, one has to regard the whole endeavour as play, as a challenge that is fun. In other types of art, the mere act of turning off the left hand side of the brain and ceasing to think turns it all into a much more venturesome affair, where there is indeed a sense of playfulness and a sense of gambling. Perhaps one of the best demonstrations of that type of art is when an artist is creating a painting or drawing as music is performed live. My fellow artist and friend, Lori Gene, epitomises this sense of play in a very sophisticated fashion in her art created alongside musicians as they play.
I always remember Marc Chagall, in his eighties, saying that every artist should retain a childlike optic on life. Indeed, his sense of play was the source of amazingly original art. Perhaps it would indeed be good to resolve to be more playful in art making as the New Year rolls in.
Nonetheless, one resolution that I think would be good for me to try and adhere to is keeping a playful and enquiring optic about making art. Perhaps almost the attitude of "let's just launch out into space and see what happens in the art", something I often have misgivings about, especially in unforgiving silverpoint. Stephen Nachmanovich, the noted improvisationist violinist and, amongst other achievements, author of Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, said, "Play is the taproot from which original art springs. It is the raw stuff that the artist channels with all his hearing and technique." He could just as easily have said "seeing and technique". He maintains that every time we open our mouths to say something, we are in fact improvising, and that creativity is in the same category, given to everyone.
In truth, when one is about to launch into a plein air painting or drawing, it is very much an act of improvisation. Since weather conditions, light and innumerable other aspects can change from one moment to the next, one has to regard the whole endeavour as play, as a challenge that is fun. In other types of art, the mere act of turning off the left hand side of the brain and ceasing to think turns it all into a much more venturesome affair, where there is indeed a sense of playfulness and a sense of gambling. Perhaps one of the best demonstrations of that type of art is when an artist is creating a painting or drawing as music is performed live. My fellow artist and friend, Lori Gene, epitomises this sense of play in a very sophisticated fashion in her art created alongside musicians as they play.
I always remember Marc Chagall, in his eighties, saying that every artist should retain a childlike optic on life. Indeed, his sense of play was the source of amazingly original art. Perhaps it would indeed be good to resolve to be more playful in art making as the New Year rolls in.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Play
As the old year wanes and there are these few final days during which to think about the incoming New Year, I suddenly remembered a little statment that I had caught during the fascinating PBS film, A Murder of Crows. It seems something important to remember - for me, at least - as 2012 dawns.
As artists, it is so important to play, to revert in a way to a childlike mental state, to relax... Every time I remember to do this, I find that the art I am trying to create seems to flow better.
The crows can certainly teach us a lot. So can Matisse!
Happy New Year to all, and joyful play.
"Play allows the mind to develop and thus the crows become more creative." I think that pertains to us all, corvids, humans, and everyone in between.
As artists, it is so important to play, to revert in a way to a childlike mental state, to relax... Every time I remember to do this, I find that the art I am trying to create seems to flow better.Think of some of Henri Matisse's dancers; here, he seems to have distilled his art to a marvellous sense of joyous play. This is a second version of Dance that Matisse did in 1909-1910, the version now in the State Hermitage Museum . But then fast forward to 1947, when Matisse had to ressort to paper cut-outs, papiers coupes, because his infirmities precluded him from painting. He still retained a sense of play, and his creativity was undimmed.
This is Icarus (Jazz)
(image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). How more eloquent an example of play allowing creativity to flow can one get!This is Icarus (Jazz)
The crows can certainly teach us a lot. So can Matisse!
Happy New Year to all, and joyful play.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Creative viewing
Before the glory of Christmas cactus flowers fades on my different Schlumbergera, I have been drawing them in silverpoint, especially the delicate white-flowered ones, (like this one photographed by Cate and posted on her entertaining blog at Hither and Yarn.) As I gazed at the elegant cactus flowers, I could not help remembering a quote I found some time ago by Monet.He said, "To see, we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at." It is almost as if I needed to blank out my conscious mind and just let the rhythms and undulations of the petals and the strange leaves tell me where to go and how to compose a drawing. It is absolutely academic what it is that is the subject of the drawing - only the aspects of it that resonate and excite one are the ones that drive the mark-making. In fact, as soon as the left hand side of the brain begins to get active, defining or thinking consciously, that is when one gets into trouble with the drawing. And in silverpoint, that is a bad place to reach... given you don't erase the marks made in silver.
Claude Monet knew well about the need to view things in a different fashion. His wonderful use of colour and Impressionistic techniques are testimony to this philosophy. When you think of his extraordinary series of paintings of Rouen Cathedral, for example, his was a very creative view of this wonderful structure. Given the very complicated act of painting this immense building, with the light that was ever-fleeting and the unreliable weather of this maritime city, Monet was amazing in his ability speedily to record light, darks, abstract shapes, atmosphere.... This is a painting done between 1892 and 1894, entitled Rouen Cathedral Facade (Morning Effect), belonging to the Museum Folkwang in Essen,Germany.There is another interesting optic on creating a piece of art, whether recording a cathedral's glory or drawing a Christmas cactus flower. William S. Burroughs observed that "Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his (or her!) hopes for other people are that they will also make it exist by observing it." A perfect description of "creative viewing"on the part of artist and then the public. I am sure that most of the French who walked past their looming cathedral did not see it in any way similar to Monet; they probably did not often raise their heads to its soaring facades as they went about their daily lives. Yet after Monet painted his series on Rouen Cathedral, certainly many more people became aware of its massive structure and the extraordinary play of light on it as the seasons turned. Monet has made the Cathedral "exist" for art lovers ever since he began his series of paintings there in the 1890s. They, in turn, validate Monet by observing his paintings and completing the circle of creative existence.
In the same way, an artist who embarks on a painting, drawing or other form of depiction of something "real" is, in essence, bringing that thing to life, creating it according to his or her artistic eye. This gives one wide licence to create, to bring into existence, but it also implies an often revealing personal involvement - assuming that the art is being created with passion. Sobering thoughts, but mercifully, during the painting or drawing, as Monet wisely observed, we need first to turn off our brains.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
The Sistine Chapel
By way of sending good wishes for a wonderful day today to all my friends, I thought I would add a link sent to me that is amazing in its beauty and technological wonder as well.
It is views of the Sistine Chapel that none of us would really have, in today's crowded world, if we were physically craning our necks to see Michelangelo's masterpieces above.
Go to the Sistine Chapel. To view every part of the Chapel, simply click and drag your mouse arrow slowly in any direction you want. You can see every nook and cranny of the place. To zoom in very close, use the plus sign at the bottom left of the screen, and of course, the minus sign to zoom out. The music is a lovely bonus.
Happy viewing and happy holidays to all!
It is views of the Sistine Chapel that none of us would really have, in today's crowded world, if we were physically craning our necks to see Michelangelo's masterpieces above.
Go to the Sistine Chapel. To view every part of the Chapel, simply click and drag your mouse arrow slowly in any direction you want. You can see every nook and cranny of the place. To zoom in very close, use the plus sign at the bottom left of the screen, and of course, the minus sign to zoom out. The music is a lovely bonus.
Happy viewing and happy holidays to all!
Monday, December 24, 2012
Christmastime Beauty
As a small child growing up in East Africa, on the Equator, Christmas caused me considerable perplexity because all the traditional Yule time images were of snow clad lands, twinkling lights, tall fir trees clad in decorations. None of that was believable really because the tropical world was brilliant, un-winterlike and generally very different. Churches were distant, friends as well, and the family was obliged to follow Nature's dictates and care for the farm and its needs, even on Christmas Day.
Think of the ethereal voices of the choristers singing in King's College Chapel in Cambridge (at right) for the Christmas Eve service. Or Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio which was first performed in St. Nicholas' Church in Leipzig in 1734.
Here is another example I found of Christmastime beauties. A red chalk drawing done in sparkling fashion by Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) in the early 1630s, it is the Madonna and Child with an escaped goldfinch (in the Andrew W. Mellon Collection at the National Gallery of Art).
Nonetheless, I learned early of the great beauty that is generated and connected to Christmas, no matter where one is in the globe. Whether one is very religious or not makes no difference to the special feeling to Christmas, because of the beauty of music, art and every other form of creativity connected to the celebration of these days of festivity. When the only sources of patronage, and thus livelihood, were the Church or very rich people, artists and musicians were able to work, creating wondrous works that have endured down the centuries and enriched all our lives. Much of this heritage was also created in and for the remarkable churches, basilicas and cathedrals that we all cherish today. A remarkable synthesis that enriches the Western world even today... as one sees especially at Christmastime.
Think of the ethereal voices of the choristers singing in King's College Chapel in Cambridge (at right) for the Christmas Eve service. Or Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio which was first performed in St. Nicholas' Church in Leipzig in 1734. 
While the music fills our ears, often around one in these churches, the stained glass windows accompany in their glory and the statues in the chapels are graceful and evocative. Imagine listening to a Christmas concert as you are sitting in Sainte Chapelle, in Paris' Ile de la Cite, with these stained glass windows glowing above one's head, (photo courtesy of Ricardo Andre Frantz).
Even small pieces are powerful reminders of the beauty we all inherit, such as Lucca della Robbia's glazed terracotta Nativity Scene, created in 1460 and now in the National Gallery's Samuel H. Kress' Collection. There are so many wondrous paintings that depict the Nativity, the Holy Family, the Virgin and Child and related subjects that everyone is spoiled for choice. It is fun to scroll through the troves of these images now so easily available on the Web, and suddenly, one chances on something totally unfamiliar and captivating.
Here is another example I found of Christmastime beauties. A red chalk drawing done in sparkling fashion by Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) in the early 1630s, it is the Madonna and Child with an escaped goldfinch (in the Andrew W. Mellon Collection at the National Gallery of Art). One could go on and on celebrating Christmas with the extraordinary diversity of beauty previous generations have left us. Even in times of tawdry Christmas commercialism, it is easy to step away from it and lose oneself in wonderful creations. The Web makes this beauty even more accessible to everyone - what a Christmas gift.
Merry Christmas to everyone who reads these lines. May your lives be filled with beauty!
Art as Magic Glue
Christmas Eve is one of those moments in the calendar when each of us stops and thinks of family and friends, an important milepost as each year turns to a new one. As I write holiday messages and receive lovely cards of greeting, I am struck ever more forcibly by the realisation that art has been the magic which has created so many of these friendships.
If one ever doubted the universality of the power of art to communicate and celebrate, then it is at times like this holiday season that that doubt should be dissipated. From the beauty of music, choral or orchestral, to productions of the Nutcracker delighting audiences all over the world at this time, to exhibitions of beautiful art on the walls of museums and - in my personal case - to the sharing of the love of art, the links become a sparkling, complex yet elastic web. Diverse optics and backgrounds, languages and ages can all find common ground in enjoyment of art and - more generally - the arts.
The creation of art takes an interesting trajectory. Most times, the work of art is created as a private, personal expression of one person, a work often created in solitude and thought and often, flat-out hard work. But once created, that work takes wing and is launched into the wider world, where it can find an audience that ranges from totally indifferent to highly receptive and appreciative. Art is defined in Britannica Online as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments and experiences that can be shared with others." Man has been creating art in one form or another since time immemorial, with a diversity of goals that range from self-expression to pure creativity. Art can be used to express ideas, be they political, philosophical or spiritual, to evoke a sense of beauty, to explore perceptions, to generate a variety of emotions from pleasure to solemnity, awe or grief - or none of the above. Art for art's sake is a well-known concept in our times. Art, in any form, is nonetheless a form of communication that everyone can understand.
Today we all regard art as a universal language, irrespective of who exactly has ownership of the actual work of art. Copyright ownership is indeed important, for that forms part of the earning capacity of an artist, but nonetheless, there is a wider philosophical consideration that has been around for many centuries. Who truly "owns" a work of art, once it has reached the level of widespread recognition and appreciation? Many people consider art as an essential ingredient for human life, vital for a quality of life that is uplifting and beneficial. Thus, it is reasoned, art cannot just belong to a privileged few.
The first public museum was founded in 1753, in England, when Sir Hans Soane bequeathed a huge art collection to King George II for the benefit of the nation, a bequest which was ratified by an Act of Parliament for the creation of the British Museum. Another early manifestation of this idea of art belonging to everyone was the creation, in 1793, of the first French public art museum, the Louvre. The King of France's magnificent collection of paintings, drawings, sculpture and other objects became the people's collection of art, housed in the Louvre and available to all for enjoyment and inspiration. Throughout the world, this lofty idea of art as a universal form of enriching communication was adopted. Thus, the great museums we know today, from Madrid's El Prado, (created in 1819), Berlin's Altes Museum, built in 1830 as the first of the collection of art and archaeological museums on Berlin's Museum Island , to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1870) in New York, came into existence. By the 20th century, the idea that art is an essential ingredient of human society was so widely accepted that Diego Rivera could declare categorically, "Art is the universal language. It belongs to all mankind."
Small wonder that on a personal basis, each of us artists find that the art we create proves to be a magical glue that unites us with a wide, diverse and wondrous community of friends, all sharing a love of art. What richness - and what a renewed gift at this time of seasonal celebrations. Happy holidays to you all, my friends and fellow art-lovers!
If one ever doubted the universality of the power of art to communicate and celebrate, then it is at times like this holiday season that that doubt should be dissipated. From the beauty of music, choral or orchestral, to productions of the Nutcracker delighting audiences all over the world at this time, to exhibitions of beautiful art on the walls of museums and - in my personal case - to the sharing of the love of art, the links become a sparkling, complex yet elastic web. Diverse optics and backgrounds, languages and ages can all find common ground in enjoyment of art and - more generally - the arts.
The creation of art takes an interesting trajectory. Most times, the work of art is created as a private, personal expression of one person, a work often created in solitude and thought and often, flat-out hard work. But once created, that work takes wing and is launched into the wider world, where it can find an audience that ranges from totally indifferent to highly receptive and appreciative. Art is defined in Britannica Online as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments and experiences that can be shared with others." Man has been creating art in one form or another since time immemorial, with a diversity of goals that range from self-expression to pure creativity. Art can be used to express ideas, be they political, philosophical or spiritual, to evoke a sense of beauty, to explore perceptions, to generate a variety of emotions from pleasure to solemnity, awe or grief - or none of the above. Art for art's sake is a well-known concept in our times. Art, in any form, is nonetheless a form of communication that everyone can understand.
Today we all regard art as a universal language, irrespective of who exactly has ownership of the actual work of art. Copyright ownership is indeed important, for that forms part of the earning capacity of an artist, but nonetheless, there is a wider philosophical consideration that has been around for many centuries. Who truly "owns" a work of art, once it has reached the level of widespread recognition and appreciation? Many people consider art as an essential ingredient for human life, vital for a quality of life that is uplifting and beneficial. Thus, it is reasoned, art cannot just belong to a privileged few.
The first public museum was founded in 1753, in England, when Sir Hans Soane bequeathed a huge art collection to King George II for the benefit of the nation, a bequest which was ratified by an Act of Parliament for the creation of the British Museum. Another early manifestation of this idea of art belonging to everyone was the creation, in 1793, of the first French public art museum, the Louvre. The King of France's magnificent collection of paintings, drawings, sculpture and other objects became the people's collection of art, housed in the Louvre and available to all for enjoyment and inspiration. Throughout the world, this lofty idea of art as a universal form of enriching communication was adopted. Thus, the great museums we know today, from Madrid's El Prado, (created in 1819), Berlin's Altes Museum, built in 1830 as the first of the collection of art and archaeological museums on Berlin's Museum Island , to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1870) in New York, came into existence. By the 20th century, the idea that art is an essential ingredient of human society was so widely accepted that Diego Rivera could declare categorically, "Art is the universal language. It belongs to all mankind."
Small wonder that on a personal basis, each of us artists find that the art we create proves to be a magical glue that unites us with a wide, diverse and wondrous community of friends, all sharing a love of art. What richness - and what a renewed gift at this time of seasonal celebrations. Happy holidays to you all, my friends and fellow art-lovers!
Sunday, December 23, 2012
HP Computer woes for an Artist
When an computer crashes, I am reminded saliently and uncomfortably of how much I depend on my office computer and laptop to conduct my art business. Alas, the beauteous world of salt marshes and surging tidal creeks is not the best place to find competent people to help one out - in fact, quite the contrary, and it seems that many local computer repair people are the heirs to the Devonshire coast wreckers of yore.
So the inevitable conclusion, when I cannot even print out an exhibition proposal correctly to meet a deadline, is that I need to swallow hard and buy a new CPU. One that will "reanimate" printers, scanners and all the other gizmos one seems to need in this hydra-headed image business. So a careful study of the latest Consumer Reports computer rankings heads me and my husband to the HP (Hewlett Packard) website, a serious mad-maker. Finally, we narrow down choices that we try to tailor and order on the website. After several attempts, which get one almost to the end and then cancel out, we decide to talk to a real live person. Finally, we succeed. Hurray!
We explain what equipment we have, all the accessories we need to connect to the CPU, ask advice and guidance, and eventually select a Pavilion Elite e 9250t. The scrabble soup of 8Gbs, 1TBs, 1GBs, LANs and SDRAMs gets sorted out. Credit card numbers, e-mail addresses and street addresses are carefully given and laboriously repeated back to us. Signed and sealed - with assurances of an e-mail confirmation to come swiftly.
No confirmation... even 24 hours later. So, armed with order number, my patient husband phones again, since the website doesn't want to recognise we exist. Surprise, surprise, the order has not been put through, despite confirmation. So we start again... with a promised additional delay in the delivery date. Not an impressive start and an augury we should have heeded! However, in record time, I meet the doughty FedEx man staggering up the front steps with the bulky box.
We then spend another chunk of change to bespeak the services of an HP technical representative to come and install the CPU, connect up all the other bits and pieces and get the wireless links going. The only trouble is that until a security code and password are delivered with much flourish and more delay, HP won't get organised on sending someone. We are now into a week of HP dances by now.
The very nice gentleman appears to install everything, on time, and efficiently. He gets quieter and quieter in the computer room and the hours go by. My husband and I exchange glances and raise eyebrows - I suggest cups of tea. Eventually we hear him phoning the HP tech support people and spending the next half-hour having a conversation with a well-meaning person yet again halfway around the world. Someone who is clearly out of his depth and of no use at all. More time elapses.
Finally as the afternoon dusk encloses us, we learn that despite all our earnest conversations and asking advice of the original salespeople at HP, we have ended up as the proud possessors of a totally useless piece of expensive equipment! The problem? Windows 7 !! Mind you, "Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit" - not just some humpty-dumpty Window 7 programme. We learn that this oh so superior programme, the guts of the CPU , doesn't like to have any truck with any of the other programmes we have for printers, scanners, even our brand new notebook and fairly new laptop. We go round in circles, almost contemplating buying new printers, a parallel CPU with another programme - until we get satiated.
I pick up the phone to HP to see if we can put on Windows Vista instead and end up with a very nervous young man who thinks I can get a CPU with all the other aspects we chose, but with Vista instead of this Windows 7 problem. But, he implores me, please, please call back in half an hour, because his superior isn't there. Has anyone noticed that no superior, anywhere, is ever available now when you ask to speak to a supervisor?
In half an hour, dinner guests are about to walk through the floor, when I am going through the same ridiculous mating dance of the duck-billed platypus of name, e-mail address, mailing address, when I have already given a ticket number of the whole sorry business. And, surprise, no supervisor is available. So at 10.30 p.m., we bid farewell to delightful friends, and I pick up the phone again. 76 minutes later, I am cut off, having had my ears assaulted by ugly, over-loud music and had parrot-voices of great formulaic courtesy. I succeed in getting a return authorisation number because there is no redemption for HP Pavilions with their Windows 7 guts. The singsong voice instructs me to print out the return label: I point out that it is
because we can't use our printers through this HP computer that we want to return it. Oh!
At well after midnight, I have been transferred to about seven departments, been put on hold interminably, had conversations which verged from near lunacy to constructive charm, and decided that HP was an company whose ethos reminded me of General Motors 25 years ago. I wondered whether - in our speeded-up world - it will take so long for another such company to unravel. Such a return transaction should have required one phone call, an explanation, exchange of identifying numbers, and the rest of the return and reinbursement arrangements should have been conducted internally, within HP. Not over two hours on the phone... with my having to repeat the same items over and over and over again to different people in different departments in distant lands.
Eventually, I was the proud possessor of two return authorisation numbers, for the CPU and for the installation fee, with FedEx instructed to pick up one from 7 a.m.-1 p.m., and the second from 1 p.m.-7 p.m. - go figure! FedEx sensibly picks up both packages together. But, and a big but, we await more tracking numbers before the three to five days for reimbursement kick in. Not too marvellous for an artist...
Well, after this saga, I am no further along in conducting my art business that ten days ago. But I am older and wiser as a purchaser of HP computers. Has anyone ever heard of that expression: caveat emptor?
So the inevitable conclusion, when I cannot even print out an exhibition proposal correctly to meet a deadline, is that I need to swallow hard and buy a new CPU. One that will "reanimate" printers, scanners and all the other gizmos one seems to need in this hydra-headed image business. So a careful study of the latest Consumer Reports computer rankings heads me and my husband to the HP (Hewlett Packard) website, a serious mad-maker. Finally, we narrow down choices that we try to tailor and order on the website. After several attempts, which get one almost to the end and then cancel out, we decide to talk to a real live person. Finally, we succeed. Hurray!
We explain what equipment we have, all the accessories we need to connect to the CPU, ask advice and guidance, and eventually select a Pavilion Elite e 9250t. The scrabble soup of 8Gbs, 1TBs, 1GBs, LANs and SDRAMs gets sorted out. Credit card numbers, e-mail addresses and street addresses are carefully given and laboriously repeated back to us. Signed and sealed - with assurances of an e-mail confirmation to come swiftly.
No confirmation... even 24 hours later. So, armed with order number, my patient husband phones again, since the website doesn't want to recognise we exist. Surprise, surprise, the order has not been put through, despite confirmation. So we start again... with a promised additional delay in the delivery date. Not an impressive start and an augury we should have heeded! However, in record time, I meet the doughty FedEx man staggering up the front steps with the bulky box.
We then spend another chunk of change to bespeak the services of an HP technical representative to come and install the CPU, connect up all the other bits and pieces and get the wireless links going. The only trouble is that until a security code and password are delivered with much flourish and more delay, HP won't get organised on sending someone. We are now into a week of HP dances by now.
The very nice gentleman appears to install everything, on time, and efficiently. He gets quieter and quieter in the computer room and the hours go by. My husband and I exchange glances and raise eyebrows - I suggest cups of tea. Eventually we hear him phoning the HP tech support people and spending the next half-hour having a conversation with a well-meaning person yet again halfway around the world. Someone who is clearly out of his depth and of no use at all. More time elapses.
Finally as the afternoon dusk encloses us, we learn that despite all our earnest conversations and asking advice of the original salespeople at HP, we have ended up as the proud possessors of a totally useless piece of expensive equipment! The problem? Windows 7 !! Mind you, "Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit" - not just some humpty-dumpty Window 7 programme. We learn that this oh so superior programme, the guts of the CPU , doesn't like to have any truck with any of the other programmes we have for printers, scanners, even our brand new notebook and fairly new laptop. We go round in circles, almost contemplating buying new printers, a parallel CPU with another programme - until we get satiated.
I pick up the phone to HP to see if we can put on Windows Vista instead and end up with a very nervous young man who thinks I can get a CPU with all the other aspects we chose, but with Vista instead of this Windows 7 problem. But, he implores me, please, please call back in half an hour, because his superior isn't there. Has anyone noticed that no superior, anywhere, is ever available now when you ask to speak to a supervisor?
In half an hour, dinner guests are about to walk through the floor, when I am going through the same ridiculous mating dance of the duck-billed platypus of name, e-mail address, mailing address, when I have already given a ticket number of the whole sorry business. And, surprise, no supervisor is available. So at 10.30 p.m., we bid farewell to delightful friends, and I pick up the phone again. 76 minutes later, I am cut off, having had my ears assaulted by ugly, over-loud music and had parrot-voices of great formulaic courtesy. I succeed in getting a return authorisation number because there is no redemption for HP Pavilions with their Windows 7 guts. The singsong voice instructs me to print out the return label: I point out that it is
because we can't use our printers through this HP computer that we want to return it. Oh!
At well after midnight, I have been transferred to about seven departments, been put on hold interminably, had conversations which verged from near lunacy to constructive charm, and decided that HP was an company whose ethos reminded me of General Motors 25 years ago. I wondered whether - in our speeded-up world - it will take so long for another such company to unravel. Such a return transaction should have required one phone call, an explanation, exchange of identifying numbers, and the rest of the return and reinbursement arrangements should have been conducted internally, within HP. Not over two hours on the phone... with my having to repeat the same items over and over and over again to different people in different departments in distant lands.
Eventually, I was the proud possessor of two return authorisation numbers, for the CPU and for the installation fee, with FedEx instructed to pick up one from 7 a.m.-1 p.m., and the second from 1 p.m.-7 p.m. - go figure! FedEx sensibly picks up both packages together. But, and a big but, we await more tracking numbers before the three to five days for reimbursement kick in. Not too marvellous for an artist...
Well, after this saga, I am no further along in conducting my art business that ten days ago. But I am older and wiser as a purchaser of HP computers. Has anyone ever heard of that expression: caveat emptor?
Black in Art
I remember being firmly told, when I was being taught how to paint in watercolours at school, that black was not something to use straight out of a tube. You achieved a huge spectrum of blacks by mixing other colours, such as reds and greens. Along the way, when learning of oil painters, there seemed to be some who historically used black in generous amounts, while others avoided its use in their work.
One of the most famous artists to be associated with black is perhaps Francisco Goya. His "Black Paintings" are somber indeed in their generous use of black, but, in this case, the subject matter is also associated with very dark themes. Goya painted this series of 14 paintings on the walls of his house, the Quinta del Sordo, outside Madrid when he lived there from 1819-1823. He was deaf by this time, he was afraid of going mad, and he had a very bleak view of humanity, having lived through the savage Napoleonic Wars and having watched the disasters of Spanish government. He painted these works without title, and by painting them directly on the walls, he clearly did not intend others to see them. This image, transferred to canvas from the wall of the house, was later titled Two Old Men eating Soup.
Edouard Manet comes to mind immediately when I think of later 19th century artists who began to use black very effectively. He turned away from subtle modelling and simplified, even flattened, the images he portrayed. Not only did he outline in black, but in such paintings as the "scandalous" Olympia - a painting which seemed to shock everyone when it was first exhibited in 1863, his use of black was extensive. (Image below courtesy of the Musee d'Orsay). Like other contemporaries in France, Manet also was influenced by Japanese woodcuts, where the use of black was widespread and powerful.
He continued his use of black even after he became close to many of the Impressionist painters.
This is one of his three paintings of The Execution of Emperor Maximilian, painted in 1867. Again, his use of black is striking. (Image at left courtesy of the Fine Arts Museum, Boston)
When one thinks of artists in the 20th century who are noted for their use of black, Pierre Soulages is one artist who stands out. He began to concentrate on the use of black after 1979, and pushed the possibilities of black by manipulating the surface of the paint to enhance texture, reflectivity, character... In fact, Soulages remarked that, "There are people who refuse to accept that you can create light on a black canvas." He calls his use of black outrenoir, ultra-black. He talks of black as being like another country, and has commented, "I like the authority of black. It is an uncompromising colour. A violent colour, but one that encourages internalisation. Both a colour and a non-colour. When light reflects on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up a mental field of its own." At 92, Soulages is one of France's most noted artists, now linked inextricably to his huge opus of black paintings, none of which have titles. These are two illustrations courtesy of his website.
Perhaps I have become more interested recently in the use of black in art because of my increasing use of black as a ground for silverpoint drawings. It is certainly a colour that arrests the gaze and transforms - I feel as though I too am straying into a totally different country with my silverpoints on black.
One of the most famous artists to be associated with black is perhaps Francisco Goya. His "Black Paintings" are somber indeed in their generous use of black, but, in this case, the subject matter is also associated with very dark themes. Goya painted this series of 14 paintings on the walls of his house, the Quinta del Sordo, outside Madrid when he lived there from 1819-1823. He was deaf by this time, he was afraid of going mad, and he had a very bleak view of humanity, having lived through the savage Napoleonic Wars and having watched the disasters of Spanish government. He painted these works without title, and by painting them directly on the walls, he clearly did not intend others to see them. This image, transferred to canvas from the wall of the house, was later titled Two Old Men eating Soup.
Edouard Manet comes to mind immediately when I think of later 19th century artists who began to use black very effectively. He turned away from subtle modelling and simplified, even flattened, the images he portrayed. Not only did he outline in black, but in such paintings as the "scandalous" Olympia - a painting which seemed to shock everyone when it was first exhibited in 1863, his use of black was extensive. (Image below courtesy of the Musee d'Orsay). Like other contemporaries in France, Manet also was influenced by Japanese woodcuts, where the use of black was widespread and powerful.
He continued his use of black even after he became close to many of the Impressionist painters.
This is one of his three paintings of The Execution of Emperor Maximilian, painted in 1867. Again, his use of black is striking. (Image at left courtesy of the Fine Arts Museum, Boston)
When one thinks of artists in the 20th century who are noted for their use of black, Pierre Soulages is one artist who stands out. He began to concentrate on the use of black after 1979, and pushed the possibilities of black by manipulating the surface of the paint to enhance texture, reflectivity, character... In fact, Soulages remarked that, "There are people who refuse to accept that you can create light on a black canvas." He calls his use of black outrenoir, ultra-black. He talks of black as being like another country, and has commented, "I like the authority of black. It is an uncompromising colour. A violent colour, but one that encourages internalisation. Both a colour and a non-colour. When light reflects on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up a mental field of its own." At 92, Soulages is one of France's most noted artists, now linked inextricably to his huge opus of black paintings, none of which have titles. These are two illustrations courtesy of his website.
Perhaps I have become more interested recently in the use of black in art because of my increasing use of black as a ground for silverpoint drawings. It is certainly a colour that arrests the gaze and transforms - I feel as though I too am straying into a totally different country with my silverpoints on black.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Frames - more on their history
I was poking about on the Web to learn more about the history of frames, and for anyone who is interested, there is a wonderful website done by Paul Mitchell, an antique and reproduction frame-maker and conservator of paintings in the UK. Entitled "A short history of the Frame", it makes for concise and fascinating reading for anyone who is interested in how a frame can enhance (as well as protect) a work of art, as well as the evolution of frames.
By the same token, the changes in taste that dictate a type of frame on a painting at one point and an entirely different one at another period are wonderfully chronicled by a short paragraph about the framing over time of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece hanging in the Louvre.
It reminds me of a wonderful story told with great glee by my beloved godfather, the late Reverend Richard H. Randolph, SJ. He was standing in front of a painting in London's National Gallery one day, and turning to his companion, he remarked that he felt the frame was entirely wrong for the work of art. He then described how he would re-frame it, and as he was talking, he noticed a distinguished-looking man was standing behind him, listening intently. He thought no more of the incident until, on his next visit to the same Museum gallery, he saw that the picture in question had been re-framed ... exactly as he had described! The gentleman behind him turned out to be the then-Director of the National Gallery, an attentive audience!
By the same token, the changes in taste that dictate a type of frame on a painting at one point and an entirely different one at another period are wonderfully chronicled by a short paragraph about the framing over time of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece hanging in the Louvre.
It reminds me of a wonderful story told with great glee by my beloved godfather, the late Reverend Richard H. Randolph, SJ. He was standing in front of a painting in London's National Gallery one day, and turning to his companion, he remarked that he felt the frame was entirely wrong for the work of art. He then described how he would re-frame it, and as he was talking, he noticed a distinguished-looking man was standing behind him, listening intently. He thought no more of the incident until, on his next visit to the same Museum gallery, he saw that the picture in question had been re-framed ... exactly as he had described! The gentleman behind him turned out to be the then-Director of the National Gallery, an attentive audience!
More on frames for art
Back on 20th September, I was blogging about framing my art. I mentioned the marvellous riches of historical frames in various museums, especially in the Budapest Fine Arts Museum.
Now I read of a special exhibition of art frames going on display at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich from the Art Daily brief from 19th December. Many years ago, when I spent hours of marvelling at art in the august Alta Pinakothek, I remember being impressed at the diversity and richness of the frames surrounding their very wonderful collection of paintings. I am not surprised that they should have thus curated an exhibition to highlight the art of frame-making.
Apparently they sorted through some 4000 frames and paintings to find the 92 which are on display. They span four centuries and many types, from 16th century case frames to Rococo types, with Classicist and Empire styles in between. Inlaid frames, miniature frames, Dutch cabinet frames and Lutma frames - they are apparently all there to be marvelled at, with additional explanations on frame-making and techniques. For example, Lutma frames were called thus because they were initially made by the leading Dutch silversmith in the 1630s, Johannes Lutma. He would place a cartouche on an elaborate gilded frame at the bottom, with a coat of arms or an inscription in it.
For anyone going to Munich in the near future, this could be a fascinating insight into the complement of art that can so often make or break the initial impact and impression of a piece of art.
Now I read of a special exhibition of art frames going on display at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich from the Art Daily brief from 19th December. Many years ago, when I spent hours of marvelling at art in the august Alta Pinakothek, I remember being impressed at the diversity and richness of the frames surrounding their very wonderful collection of paintings. I am not surprised that they should have thus curated an exhibition to highlight the art of frame-making.
Apparently they sorted through some 4000 frames and paintings to find the 92 which are on display. They span four centuries and many types, from 16th century case frames to Rococo types, with Classicist and Empire styles in between. Inlaid frames, miniature frames, Dutch cabinet frames and Lutma frames - they are apparently all there to be marvelled at, with additional explanations on frame-making and techniques. For example, Lutma frames were called thus because they were initially made by the leading Dutch silversmith in the 1630s, Johannes Lutma. He would place a cartouche on an elaborate gilded frame at the bottom, with a coat of arms or an inscription in it.
For anyone going to Munich in the near future, this could be a fascinating insight into the complement of art that can so often make or break the initial impact and impression of a piece of art.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Apres Copenhagen
Sadly, the results of Copenhagen do not surprise - the interests of too many powerful industries seem to take precedence over the future health of many parts of our world. I wonder what Goethe would say about such situations. He remarked once, "Science and art belong to the whole world and before them vanish the barriers of nationality."
I am not sure that Copenhagen bore out the first part of his observation for the barriers of nationality seemed to have been stronger than the collective science presented. So I am left wondering about the validity of his thought about art being deemed universal and breaking down barriers. I think that it is becoming more accurate insofar as Chinese, Indian, Indonesian or many other non-Western artists are gaining more and more success in the Western world, while high-profile Western artists are highly esteemed throughout the world. Whether it is because art is a more universal language or whether the highest profile artists are being skilfully promoted - by their representatives or by themselves - time alone tells, decade by decade. It is strange because science would seem to be much more cut and dried as facts, not needing the same dialogue as a viewer and a piece of art. Yet scientific facts seem to become much more politicised when it comes to issues like climate change/global warming.
Clearly Goethe regarded both science and art as valuable tools for banishing national barriers. Perhaps we still need collectively to deepen our respect for both, especially when it comes to a Copenhagen-like forum.
I am not sure that Copenhagen bore out the first part of his observation for the barriers of nationality seemed to have been stronger than the collective science presented. So I am left wondering about the validity of his thought about art being deemed universal and breaking down barriers. I think that it is becoming more accurate insofar as Chinese, Indian, Indonesian or many other non-Western artists are gaining more and more success in the Western world, while high-profile Western artists are highly esteemed throughout the world. Whether it is because art is a more universal language or whether the highest profile artists are being skilfully promoted - by their representatives or by themselves - time alone tells, decade by decade. It is strange because science would seem to be much more cut and dried as facts, not needing the same dialogue as a viewer and a piece of art. Yet scientific facts seem to become much more politicised when it comes to issues like climate change/global warming.
Clearly Goethe regarded both science and art as valuable tools for banishing national barriers. Perhaps we still need collectively to deepen our respect for both, especially when it comes to a Copenhagen-like forum.
Curiosity
One of the aspects of the Telfair Museums' exhibition, Modern Masters. American Abstraction at Midcentury, that I found very stimulating was the quotes from each artist on the labels beside their paintings or sculpture. They were not only well-chosen, but in of themselves, they are thought-provoking and insightful.An example of these quotes is one that accompanies the painting, Sea Image, (reproduced here courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum) by Theodoros Stamos (1922-1997).
This early Abstract Expressionist New Yorker wrote, "Nature is so vast, with so many moods and the ocean is so large and every wave is infinite. And as long as we have the curiosity of children (and sometimes we have to be children), discovery is not only possible, but indispensable".
The need for curiosity is, I am convinced, absolutely central to life for everyone, but especially for an artist. Not only is it rewarding to find out about how something works, or is put together, or what it is made of, how it smells and feels, but also, this knowledge gives depth and distance to everything in life. Such insights help us determine what we want to paint or draw, how we want to portray things (whether realistically, abstractly, in two or three dimensions, in film, paint, video, whatever...) and why we are moved to do so. Every single day - ideally - should bring new knowledge, fresh enrichment and stimulation, more possibilities for fun and fascination.
Watching a kitten explore its world is a perfect metaphor for this curiosity. Everything is new and worth investigating, exploring, evaluating... We artists can be as bright-eyed and curious as any feline. It pays off too!(Two curious kittens sniff out a tortoise. Image courtesy of Life.com)
Simplicity in Art
It is thought-provoking for every artist to see Albrecht Durer's statement that "Simplicity is the greatest adornment of art". In some ways, it is a bit ironic for Durer was perfectly capable of making complex, crowded works of art, especially his woodcuts.Nonetheless, the image that of course comes first to mind when I read his remark is his super-famous Hands of an Apostle, a grey and white drawing on his favourite blue paper (image courtesy of Graphische Sammlung Albertina). This drawing was done in preparation for the Frankfurt church altarpiece that Jakob Heller commissioned him to paint in 1508. This is indeed a devastatingly simple drawing in one sense, but look at the rendering of the skin texture, the way Durer conveys the gentle meeting and touching of the finger tips, as well as the effort of keeping the hands together, despite their weight. The blue paper used, "carta azzurra", was a new enthusiasm for Durer; he learned about it when he went in 1507-08 to Venice. Artists in Northern Italy had been using it since 1389, and Venetian artists favoured it because it allowed them to use wonderful chiaroscuro effects.
He was using this paper again for this study of the Twelve-year Old Christ, an extraordinary, sensitive and yet very straightforward drawing (image at right courtesy of the Graphische Sammlung Albertina).
Durer continued to use this paper and took a goodly supply of it back home to Northern Europe. I remember reading somewhere that when he ran out of it, he went to great lengths to find alternative blue papers. This drawing on the left (image courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art) of the Arm of Eve was again, a very simple, powerful drawing Durer did on blue paper in 1507.
I think that it is a real discipline for each of us, as an artist, to try to simplify our work, to distill it to its essence, not to dilute and maybe obscure the message. There is always the temptation to add in more detail, more complexity... When you think of it, however, that a simple study, drawn 503 years ago on a small piece of blue paper, can remain so memorable, so vivid, so powerful is a total confirmation of Durer's statement about simplicity being the greatest "adornment of art".
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
When the weather gods decree otherwise!
There are definitely times when plein air yields to the weather gods - my eagerly anticipated sojourn on Sapelo Island is off, victim of the steady downpours we have all been - or will be - experiencing along the Atlantic coast. Ah well! Maybe in January...
Meanwhile, in between battling with computers to prepare art exhibition proposals (when the main computer gives up the ghost, courtesy of local inept computer "experts"), I am being constantly reminded of the elegant circularity of events in life. The links that come around, even fifty years later, to make a coherent, constructive addition to present life, always surprise and delight me. They are frequent enough that they require exploration in silverpoint drawing(s), I think. And the important theme running through all these is longevity - you have to live long enough to see the links and re-links happening. The Chinese symbol of longevity is the bamboo - how suitable and elegant. The bamboo family is amazingly diverse, but universally beautiful. The Chinese and Japanese brush paintings and prints of bamboos come always to mind as somehow the light and shade, delicacy and strength and the restraint in foliage have been so wonderfully recorded over the centuries by their artists. An image, for instance from the amazing collections from the Ten Bamboo Studio, shows bamboo leaves drawn with a single line with fine, fine branches. It is so remarkable that you can almost hear the wind rustling through the leaves.
The Studio of the Ten Bamboos produced an album of woodcuts, images engraved on wooden plates and then printed, which is regarded as the most successful example of printing in the 17th century in China. The master engraver, Hou Yue-ts'ong, turned to art after serving in government in Nanking. He gathered a group of painter friends and together, they composed an album of the works of famous artists.Working in the Studio of the Ten Bamboos, they started work probably in 1619 to create this album with its eight parts. Printing the images in one, two or three colours, they grouped up to twenty images in each section, under the headings - fruits, birds, bamboos, stones, etc. Poems were paired with the images too. The first complete opus of more than 180 illustrations and the same number of pages of text apparently appeared in 1643. Alas, no complete editions remain but those that do are regarded as marvels. The publisher himself described the books as "a marvel of calligraphy... The paintings are poems, and the poems are paintings. They bear the spirit and the reflection of nature..."
The Manchu invasion of Nanking saw Hou Yue-ts'ong's workshop burned and many of the album's plates destroyed. Plates were re-engraved and the album was later reprinted in both China and Japan, but never again were the woodcuts of such high quality in the later editions. Thus the early editions, such as the one I alluded to of the bamboo, are held in very high esteem. Some of the prints are held at the British Museum, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and others in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Having planted bamboo myself and watched them grow - slowly and majestically - it seems only appropriate if I can use them in silverpoint drawings exploring longevity and the magical circularity of life. Now, if I can get the time...
Meanwhile, in between battling with computers to prepare art exhibition proposals (when the main computer gives up the ghost, courtesy of local inept computer "experts"), I am being constantly reminded of the elegant circularity of events in life. The links that come around, even fifty years later, to make a coherent, constructive addition to present life, always surprise and delight me. They are frequent enough that they require exploration in silverpoint drawing(s), I think. And the important theme running through all these is longevity - you have to live long enough to see the links and re-links happening. The Chinese symbol of longevity is the bamboo - how suitable and elegant. The bamboo family is amazingly diverse, but universally beautiful. The Chinese and Japanese brush paintings and prints of bamboos come always to mind as somehow the light and shade, delicacy and strength and the restraint in foliage have been so wonderfully recorded over the centuries by their artists. An image, for instance from the amazing collections from the Ten Bamboo Studio, shows bamboo leaves drawn with a single line with fine, fine branches. It is so remarkable that you can almost hear the wind rustling through the leaves.
The Studio of the Ten Bamboos produced an album of woodcuts, images engraved on wooden plates and then printed, which is regarded as the most successful example of printing in the 17th century in China. The master engraver, Hou Yue-ts'ong, turned to art after serving in government in Nanking. He gathered a group of painter friends and together, they composed an album of the works of famous artists.Working in the Studio of the Ten Bamboos, they started work probably in 1619 to create this album with its eight parts. Printing the images in one, two or three colours, they grouped up to twenty images in each section, under the headings - fruits, birds, bamboos, stones, etc. Poems were paired with the images too. The first complete opus of more than 180 illustrations and the same number of pages of text apparently appeared in 1643. Alas, no complete editions remain but those that do are regarded as marvels. The publisher himself described the books as "a marvel of calligraphy... The paintings are poems, and the poems are paintings. They bear the spirit and the reflection of nature..."
The Manchu invasion of Nanking saw Hou Yue-ts'ong's workshop burned and many of the album's plates destroyed. Plates were re-engraved and the album was later reprinted in both China and Japan, but never again were the woodcuts of such high quality in the later editions. Thus the early editions, such as the one I alluded to of the bamboo, are held in very high esteem. Some of the prints are held at the British Museum, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and others in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Having planted bamboo myself and watched them grow - slowly and majestically - it seems only appropriate if I can use them in silverpoint drawings exploring longevity and the magical circularity of life. Now, if I can get the time...
Sunday, December 16, 2012
"Discovering the World"
Working through the ever-extending list of daily chores that take one away from creating art makes me think often of Sisyphus rolling his boulder up the hill, an exercice in frustration. However, I am due to spend a weekend as Artist in Residence, with my wonderful artist friend, Marjett Schille, on Sapelo Island, courtesy of the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve staff. Despite weather forecasts that are making me think of digging out my long johns, I can't wait to be a full-time artist, even for a couple of days.
I think that the leitmotif of the weekend is going to be a quote I found by Frederick Franck about drawing: "Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly discover the world." Pencil, pen or silverpoint stylus in hand, the act of drawing is the ideal way to get back into the art world, by exploring and learning about the wonderful complexities of Sapelo's barrier island world.
Franck also talked of the meaning of life being to see, and indeed, there is an absorption, a forgetfulness of everything else, when one starts really looking hard at something. This in turn leads to an understanding and an enrichment of life for the person who has been looking. No wonder that creating art is akin to other forms of meditation. Getting lost in the act of looking, in order to transmute that vision into an image on a piece of paper and gain understanding of the world around one - not a bad way of spending time on Sapelo!
I think that the leitmotif of the weekend is going to be a quote I found by Frederick Franck about drawing: "Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly discover the world." Pencil, pen or silverpoint stylus in hand, the act of drawing is the ideal way to get back into the art world, by exploring and learning about the wonderful complexities of Sapelo's barrier island world.
Franck also talked of the meaning of life being to see, and indeed, there is an absorption, a forgetfulness of everything else, when one starts really looking hard at something. This in turn leads to an understanding and an enrichment of life for the person who has been looking. No wonder that creating art is akin to other forms of meditation. Getting lost in the act of looking, in order to transmute that vision into an image on a piece of paper and gain understanding of the world around one - not a bad way of spending time on Sapelo!
Saturday, December 15, 2012
"No duality, everthing is nature"
There is a wide-ranging and fascinating exhibition currently on show at Savannah's Telfair Museums, at the Jepson Center, entitled Modern Masters. American Abstraction at Midcentury". With works from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the explosive diversity of art made during the mid-20th century in America is celebrated with forty-three key paintings and sculptures. The exhibition is travelling the country for four years, and it will remain on display at the Jepson until February 6th, 2011.
It is a show worth visiting several times, because of its diversity and density. Not only are there canvases by stellar artists to contemplate and appreciate, but there are some fascinating sculptures that I found most arresting.
One of them, "Banquet", shown courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, stopped me in my tracks with its multi-layered knobbly forms and metal alloys that evoke stalagmites or primitive corals. It is by an artist with whom I was unfamiliar, Ibram Lassaw (1913-2003). (As an aside, I find that being a permanent newcomer to every place I have lived in Europe and North America since I had to leave my home in East Africa, I am constantly having to "catch up" on art, law, history, society in general... It is a humbling but exhilarating situation!)
But back to Ibram Lassaw. He too was an immigrant, from Egypt, working in New York as an artist from the 1920s; he became an active participant in the avant-garde art world and was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists. He learned to weld while serving in the US Army during World War II, and continued experimenting with ideas and materials for the next two decades. He fused his ideas on art-making with concepts derived from extensive and catholic reading to reach a philosophy about the holistic nature of the universe and all that is contained therein. He suddenly had an artistic breakthrough in the 1950s, and began to create complex structures that evoked nature in many forms, cosmic and microcosmic.
He said that everything is nature, "every atom that makes me up is nature". He wrote, "I am constantly absorbed by things that are going on around me, the motion of people in the streets, the movement of clouds, the patterns of branches. There is no duality, everything is nature."
It was obvious from the work, "Banquet" that he was fusing ideas about many aspects of life and nature in this work, to achieve a delicate complex work that rewards with careful inspection and contemplation. What I found so interesting, however, was one of those delicious coincidences that occurs: soon afterwards, I saw a re-broadcast on PBS of Hunting the Hidden Dimension. The Most Famous Fractal about the late Benoit Mandelbrot's wonderful mathematical way of describing the "roughness" he saw all around him in nature. Before Mandelbrot, artists had indeed seen the "self-similarity" and "roughness" in nature, but mathematicians had considered these jagged, self-repeating shapes unmeasurable. Mandelbrot introduced fractals, the concept of another dimension, a fractal dimension, that lay between two and three dimensions. This dimension allows for mathematical measurements and thus, amongst other things, a deeper understanding of self-similarity - the endless repetition of stalks of broccoli, trunks to branches to twigs on a tree and its leaves.
As an example, the image on the right is that of a high voltage dielectric breakdown within a block of plexiglass - it creates a beautiful fractal pattern called a Lichtenberg figure. The branching discharges ultimately become hair-like but are thought to extend down to the molecular level. (Bert Hickman. http://www.teslamania.com/)
Lassaw's "Banquet", created in 1961, was in many ways an early evocation of the same wonderful complexity that nature offers, everywhere, all the time.
These happy coincidences are what I love about seeing an art exhibition. There is always some work of art that makes one more aware, more able to make connections and add new, rich dimensions to life. What fun!
It is a show worth visiting several times, because of its diversity and density. Not only are there canvases by stellar artists to contemplate and appreciate, but there are some fascinating sculptures that I found most arresting.
One of them, "Banquet", shown courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, stopped me in my tracks with its multi-layered knobbly forms and metal alloys that evoke stalagmites or primitive corals. It is by an artist with whom I was unfamiliar, Ibram Lassaw (1913-2003). (As an aside, I find that being a permanent newcomer to every place I have lived in Europe and North America since I had to leave my home in East Africa, I am constantly having to "catch up" on art, law, history, society in general... It is a humbling but exhilarating situation!)But back to Ibram Lassaw. He too was an immigrant, from Egypt, working in New York as an artist from the 1920s; he became an active participant in the avant-garde art world and was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists. He learned to weld while serving in the US Army during World War II, and continued experimenting with ideas and materials for the next two decades. He fused his ideas on art-making with concepts derived from extensive and catholic reading to reach a philosophy about the holistic nature of the universe and all that is contained therein. He suddenly had an artistic breakthrough in the 1950s, and began to create complex structures that evoked nature in many forms, cosmic and microcosmic.
He said that everything is nature, "every atom that makes me up is nature". He wrote, "I am constantly absorbed by things that are going on around me, the motion of people in the streets, the movement of clouds, the patterns of branches. There is no duality, everything is nature."
It was obvious from the work, "Banquet" that he was fusing ideas about many aspects of life and nature in this work, to achieve a delicate complex work that rewards with careful inspection and contemplation. What I found so interesting, however, was one of those delicious coincidences that occurs: soon afterwards, I saw a re-broadcast on PBS of Hunting the Hidden Dimension. The Most Famous Fractal about the late Benoit Mandelbrot's wonderful mathematical way of describing the "roughness" he saw all around him in nature. Before Mandelbrot, artists had indeed seen the "self-similarity" and "roughness" in nature, but mathematicians had considered these jagged, self-repeating shapes unmeasurable. Mandelbrot introduced fractals, the concept of another dimension, a fractal dimension, that lay between two and three dimensions. This dimension allows for mathematical measurements and thus, amongst other things, a deeper understanding of self-similarity - the endless repetition of stalks of broccoli, trunks to branches to twigs on a tree and its leaves.
As an example, the image on the right is that of a high voltage dielectric breakdown within a block of plexiglass - it creates a beautiful fractal pattern called a Lichtenberg figure. The branching discharges ultimately become hair-like but are thought to extend down to the molecular level. (Bert Hickman. http://www.teslamania.com/)
Lassaw's "Banquet", created in 1961, was in many ways an early evocation of the same wonderful complexity that nature offers, everywhere, all the time.
These happy coincidences are what I love about seeing an art exhibition. There is always some work of art that makes one more aware, more able to make connections and add new, rich dimensions to life. What fun!
Shipping art for a show
For every artist who is having a show, there comes the moment of having to deal with packing and shipping the artwork. If luck is with one, the museum will pick up the work and arrange all the logistics - a delight. But more often than not, things are not so easy.
Bubble paper - with thinner and thinner bubbles that pop more easily, it seems, these days - is a first priority for me, and then come the choices. If there are just one or two framed pieces of art, my first choice is always for the padded, hard-sided cardboard reusable cartons from Air Float. I have owned their cartons, in various sizes, for years and years, and the boxes could have their own frequent mileage accounts. By protecting the art by nesting the pieces in dense foam, and by having non-pierce sides, the art travels safely.
The choices then become more difficult. I used to scurry around to find sturdy cardboard boxes, more bubble paper and lots of strong tape. Now, I find that it is extremely difficult, in coastal Georgia, to find the right-sized boxes, so I opt for UPS and their versions of packing cartons. I know that all art venues absolutely hate styrofoam peanuts - so do I - but when it comes to packing up a large number of pieces of art, it gets complicated to make them padded, safe and tightly packed without those little bits of styrofoam. So ... pace, galleries... However, all these exercises in shipping art are not cheap these days, when insurance, drop charges, extra fees and the like get gently added, and added, and added some more....
The total costs of shipping art, over and above fees to enter juried shows, must be having a considerable impact on exhibitions these days. Shipping multiple pieces of art for a solo exhibition, or one with another artist, is indeed costly, but at least there is not the initial jury fee, hanging fee or any of those additional costs. In this economy, most artists must be very carefully considering how many shows they want to enter competitively and how far afield they may want potentially to ship artwork.
In a time when we all are extremely conscious of our global connections, it seems ironic that shipping art is becoming so very expensive and complicated. Ah well!
Bubble paper - with thinner and thinner bubbles that pop more easily, it seems, these days - is a first priority for me, and then come the choices. If there are just one or two framed pieces of art, my first choice is always for the padded, hard-sided cardboard reusable cartons from Air Float. I have owned their cartons, in various sizes, for years and years, and the boxes could have their own frequent mileage accounts. By protecting the art by nesting the pieces in dense foam, and by having non-pierce sides, the art travels safely.
The choices then become more difficult. I used to scurry around to find sturdy cardboard boxes, more bubble paper and lots of strong tape. Now, I find that it is extremely difficult, in coastal Georgia, to find the right-sized boxes, so I opt for UPS and their versions of packing cartons. I know that all art venues absolutely hate styrofoam peanuts - so do I - but when it comes to packing up a large number of pieces of art, it gets complicated to make them padded, safe and tightly packed without those little bits of styrofoam. So ... pace, galleries... However, all these exercises in shipping art are not cheap these days, when insurance, drop charges, extra fees and the like get gently added, and added, and added some more....
The total costs of shipping art, over and above fees to enter juried shows, must be having a considerable impact on exhibitions these days. Shipping multiple pieces of art for a solo exhibition, or one with another artist, is indeed costly, but at least there is not the initial jury fee, hanging fee or any of those additional costs. In this economy, most artists must be very carefully considering how many shows they want to enter competitively and how far afield they may want potentially to ship artwork.
In a time when we all are extremely conscious of our global connections, it seems ironic that shipping art is becoming so very expensive and complicated. Ah well!
Artists' Antennae
While listening to the BBC World Service on the radio today, I heard an interesting interview on The Strand programme with South African composer Kevin Volans. He was discussing the multiple influences on him and sources of inspiration for his compositions.
Durer painted this study in watercolour in 1523, many years after he painted the turf, but he was still looking very carefully at nature. In fact, Albrecht Durer was so noted for his studies of plants and animals that in the years after his death in 1528, those were the aspects of his art that were most admired and emulated by fellow artists and subsequent generations of artists.
He made the remark that a musician needs to have his ears open at all times to all the sounds around him, because he is thus "fed" and inspired - I am paraphrasing. I thought it was the perfect reminder to me, as a visual artist, that artists' antennae should be up at all times, our eyes open and registering actively and our senses receptive to the world around. No one ever really knows what will stimulate some new creative idea.. that is perhaps what makes being an artist so endlessly interesting and exciting. Volans was talking of living in South Africa and listening to Zulu being spoken on the street all around him. When he went to Germany and heard German being spoken, it made him very aware of the differences in sound and in fact, drove home to him his links to Africa.
I relate to that statement, because I grew up with melodic Kiswahili being spoken all around me, and somehow those sounds still mingle with brilliant African light and tropical colour in my mind. Antennae, for artists, don't just register visually; rather, we all should be aware of sounds, light, colour, motion or stillness... the world around us in multi-dimensional form. Sharpening one's powers of observation always brings rewards, because whatever the artist is seeking to create comes across more powerfully and authentically when there is knowledge behind the creation.
Thinking about artists' antennae being up and registering actively makes me think of those wonderful examples of Albrecht Durer's work, the watercolour studies of humble aspects of nature that became great art because of Durer's keen attentiveness. Perhaps my favourite example of this is his Great Piece of Turf, on the right (image courtesy of the Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna), done in watercolour and gouache on paper. How many artists, then - in 1503 - or now - would think of painting a small sample of the grasses in a field, let alone be so aware of the exquisite details in the turf? In the same way, Durer's awareness of the beauty and intricacy of this Muzzle of a Bull is amazing. (Image courtesy of The British Museum.)
Thinking about artists' antennae being up and registering actively makes me think of those wonderful examples of Albrecht Durer's work, the watercolour studies of humble aspects of nature that became great art because of Durer's keen attentiveness. Perhaps my favourite example of this is his Great Piece of Turf, on the right (image courtesy of the Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna), done in watercolour and gouache on paper. How many artists, then - in 1503 - or now - would think of painting a small sample of the grasses in a field, let alone be so aware of the exquisite details in the turf? In the same way, Durer's awareness of the beauty and intricacy of this Muzzle of a Bull is amazing. (Image courtesy of The British Museum.)
Durer painted this study in watercolour in 1523, many years after he painted the turf, but he was still looking very carefully at nature. In fact, Albrecht Durer was so noted for his studies of plants and animals that in the years after his death in 1528, those were the aspects of his art that were most admired and emulated by fellow artists and subsequent generations of artists.Perhaps part of being an artist, in any discipline, is to have one's eyes and ears really working. Certainly all the great artists confirm the need for these well-honed antennae.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Jigsaw puzzles and art
I was reading a thought-provoking article in a copy of The Spectator (21st November, 2009) by Matthew Parris today about jigsaw puzzles and religion, a train of thought induced by hearing a talk by Dame Margaret Drabble on her book about her aunt and jigsaw puzzles. This led me in rather a different direction, I suppose because of being an artist.
Dame Margaret advised starting to do a jigsaw puzzle by getting the outline sorted out first, because the one side with a straight line helps. Parris reflected that if one regarded life's experiences as pieces of jigsaw puzzle, there are no helpful edges that can serve as a delineating frame for putting order and coherence to such situations as religion. However, if one thinks about the jigsaw puzzle analogy for matters artistic, it can be of possible help.
First, of course, a delineating frame is always wonderful to use - even by using one's fingers as a frame - to compose a scene if one is trying to decide what to depict. Second, and more intangibly, I suggest that finding the straight-sided pieces first - in art - really is equivalent to sorting out basic technical considerations first before doing any artwork. By that, I mean deciding what medium to use for a work, then what surface - paper, canvas, etc ... - what size of image. Composition, the "atmosphere" and, above all, deciding what one wants to convey in the artwork are other aspects of the puzzle frame.
The content of a piece of art, as symbolised by the jigsaw puzzle frame, is really the summum of one's experiences in life, one's skills in matters technical, the impact of what moves one to create that image, realistic or abstract. In essence, within that frame, can be contained one's persona as an artist, for good or for bad. Selecting out the "straight-sided" aspects of oneself as an artist can therefore perhaps help in mapping out what one wants to do and achieve. From that frame, the inside, odder-shaped pieces of life and experience can be better organised to make a powerful piece of art. Even the analogy of coloured pieces of jigsaw puzzle can pertain: the artwork can be made more coherent by the choices we make when beginning to work on the frame of the puzzle first. For a realistic artwork, of course, even the source of inspiration - landscape, still life, person, etc. - can help us assemble the jigsaw puzzle pieces within the frame of the conceived artwork.
Ultimately, fitting together all the pieces of the puzzle that we artists deal with on a daily basis is just as much a fascinating challenge as any box of complex jigsaw puzzle pieces.
Dame Margaret advised starting to do a jigsaw puzzle by getting the outline sorted out first, because the one side with a straight line helps. Parris reflected that if one regarded life's experiences as pieces of jigsaw puzzle, there are no helpful edges that can serve as a delineating frame for putting order and coherence to such situations as religion. However, if one thinks about the jigsaw puzzle analogy for matters artistic, it can be of possible help.
First, of course, a delineating frame is always wonderful to use - even by using one's fingers as a frame - to compose a scene if one is trying to decide what to depict. Second, and more intangibly, I suggest that finding the straight-sided pieces first - in art - really is equivalent to sorting out basic technical considerations first before doing any artwork. By that, I mean deciding what medium to use for a work, then what surface - paper, canvas, etc ... - what size of image. Composition, the "atmosphere" and, above all, deciding what one wants to convey in the artwork are other aspects of the puzzle frame.
The content of a piece of art, as symbolised by the jigsaw puzzle frame, is really the summum of one's experiences in life, one's skills in matters technical, the impact of what moves one to create that image, realistic or abstract. In essence, within that frame, can be contained one's persona as an artist, for good or for bad. Selecting out the "straight-sided" aspects of oneself as an artist can therefore perhaps help in mapping out what one wants to do and achieve. From that frame, the inside, odder-shaped pieces of life and experience can be better organised to make a powerful piece of art. Even the analogy of coloured pieces of jigsaw puzzle can pertain: the artwork can be made more coherent by the choices we make when beginning to work on the frame of the puzzle first. For a realistic artwork, of course, even the source of inspiration - landscape, still life, person, etc. - can help us assemble the jigsaw puzzle pieces within the frame of the conceived artwork.
Ultimately, fitting together all the pieces of the puzzle that we artists deal with on a daily basis is just as much a fascinating challenge as any box of complex jigsaw puzzle pieces.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Leonora Carrington
A really wonderful book on Leonora Carrington has just helped me fill in all sorts of blanks in my knowledge about this high-voltage Surrealist painter, who died earlier this year at the age of 94. The book, in Spanish, is simply entitled "Leonora", in the form of a novel, but clearly hewing very close to reality, because the authoress, Elena Poniatowska, knew Leonora well in Mexico City.
A rebel from the very start, Leonora Carrington spent her privileged youth in Britain in a series of acts of defiance against her father, Harold Carrington, the then powerful and very wealthy head of Imperial Chemical Industries. She soon developed a very lively imagination and fascination with Celtic folklore, as well as a deep love of horses, a motif that appeared frequently in her paintings.
Her love of art helped sweep her into a world where she met Max Ernst, the Dada and Surrealist German painter. Ernst influenced her way of painting, hardly surprising for they had a passionate love affair in Paris and the South of France until Ernst was arrested and interned after the Germans invaded France. Their circle of friends included most of the artists and celebrities of pre-World War II who spent time in Paris, from Picasso to Andre Breton, Dali, Paul Eluard and Miro.
After Ernst was arrested, Leonora suffered a horrific nervous breakdown. She escaped to New York after so-called treatment for the breakdown at an expensive clinic in Spain, an escape from war-ravaged Europe that was only possible because she married Renato Leduc, working at that time in the Mexican Embassy. Peggy Guggenheim was also awaiting passage to New York and the whole group of Surrealist authors, artists and their entourage continued to see each other in New York, where Peggy Guggenheim helped secure exhibits for the Surrealists.
Leonora painted but she also wrote a large number of books that garnered her a loyal following, especially after she moved with Leduc to Mexico City. There, she and Leduc separated and she married the Hungarian refugee Surrealist photographer, "Chiki" Weisz who had been the darkroom manager for his friend, the photographer Robert Capa.
The painting on the right is entitled Chiki Ton Pays.
Leonora's life in Mexico City was enriched by friendships with other artists, such as Remedios Varo, as they explored Mexican folklore, pre-Columbian art, alchemy, Jungian and Freudian thinking, Gudjieff's writings... in wonderfully diverse intellectual questings. All these strands showed up in some form or another in Carrington's paintings, and she became one of the most celebrated artists in Mexico. The mythical worlds she created on canvas (and in sculptures) wove magical beings and animals together, literally (for she would turn cobras into goats or transform blind crows into trees...) and metaphorically.
The painting on the left is from an untitled series done in 1969, whilst the painting on the right is done the previous year, 1968, and is entitled Lepidoptera.
Leonora Carrington's life is an inspiration to us all as artists. She dared defy traditions and pre-conceptions. She drew on such diverse sources for inspiration, from childhood, from fairy stories and folk art, from religions.... She was endlessly creative and inventive, in her writing, in her art and in her relationships with friends and acquaintances.
When Elena Poniatowska's book, "Leonora", is translated into English, as it surely will be, I highly recommend it. It is a fascinating way to learn more about this remarkable Surrealist artist.
A rebel from the very start, Leonora Carrington spent her privileged youth in Britain in a series of acts of defiance against her father, Harold Carrington, the then powerful and very wealthy head of Imperial Chemical Industries. She soon developed a very lively imagination and fascination with Celtic folklore, as well as a deep love of horses, a motif that appeared frequently in her paintings.
After Ernst was arrested, Leonora suffered a horrific nervous breakdown. She escaped to New York after so-called treatment for the breakdown at an expensive clinic in Spain, an escape from war-ravaged Europe that was only possible because she married Renato Leduc, working at that time in the Mexican Embassy. Peggy Guggenheim was also awaiting passage to New York and the whole group of Surrealist authors, artists and their entourage continued to see each other in New York, where Peggy Guggenheim helped secure exhibits for the Surrealists.
Leonora painted but she also wrote a large number of books that garnered her a loyal following, especially after she moved with Leduc to Mexico City. There, she and Leduc separated and she married the Hungarian refugee Surrealist photographer, "Chiki" Weisz who had been the darkroom manager for his friend, the photographer Robert Capa.
The painting on the right is entitled Chiki Ton Pays.
Leonora's life in Mexico City was enriched by friendships with other artists, such as Remedios Varo, as they explored Mexican folklore, pre-Columbian art, alchemy, Jungian and Freudian thinking, Gudjieff's writings... in wonderfully diverse intellectual questings. All these strands showed up in some form or another in Carrington's paintings, and she became one of the most celebrated artists in Mexico. The mythical worlds she created on canvas (and in sculptures) wove magical beings and animals together, literally (for she would turn cobras into goats or transform blind crows into trees...) and metaphorically.
The painting on the left is from an untitled series done in 1969, whilst the painting on the right is done the previous year, 1968, and is entitled Lepidoptera.
Leonora Carrington's life is an inspiration to us all as artists. She dared defy traditions and pre-conceptions. She drew on such diverse sources for inspiration, from childhood, from fairy stories and folk art, from religions.... She was endlessly creative and inventive, in her writing, in her art and in her relationships with friends and acquaintances.
When Elena Poniatowska's book, "Leonora", is translated into English, as it surely will be, I highly recommend it. It is a fascinating way to learn more about this remarkable Surrealist artist.
Artists and Copenhagen
As I listen to the complex issues and concerns that the thousands of climate change delegates are grappling with at the on-going Copenhagen Conference, I keep thinking of all the art that has been done over the past centuries that is, in essence, a record of the world as we have known it.
From John James Audubon, with his masterful opus recording America's bird life, to the myriad wonderful botanical artists working today, like Australian Margaret Saul, or wildlife artists like British David Shepherd or American Timothy David Mayhew, there is an important role for art in the discourse on our planet's health. Photography has become the vivid adjunct to this discussion. Each of us artists who dedicates many hours to recording and celebrating aspects of our natural world, on land, under water or in the air, is a witness to the complex, vital web of life that sustains us. In reality, this vast body of artwork about the natural world is an urgent sub-text to the Copenhagen debates. If mankind chooses to continue jeopardising the survival of countless species, then the records of artists will be a beautiful but very sad testimony to what is being lost,
Every time I do a silverpoint drawing of a fragile spring flower, for instance, I find myself wondering how many more springs will be graced so predictably with these flowers. I am sure that Audubon would be appalled to know the status of many of the birds he depicted. I suspect that David Shepherd finds the East African flora and fauna he celebrated so wonderfully in the 1960s, for instance, to be sadly changed and diminished. When artists of all descriptions find themselves recording endangered species and reminding their viewers of vanishing beauty and complexity, it is a situation of sounding the tocsin.
I hope that the politicians gathered in Copenhagen are art lovers.
From John James Audubon, with his masterful opus recording America's bird life, to the myriad wonderful botanical artists working today, like Australian Margaret Saul, or wildlife artists like British David Shepherd or American Timothy David Mayhew, there is an important role for art in the discourse on our planet's health. Photography has become the vivid adjunct to this discussion. Each of us artists who dedicates many hours to recording and celebrating aspects of our natural world, on land, under water or in the air, is a witness to the complex, vital web of life that sustains us. In reality, this vast body of artwork about the natural world is an urgent sub-text to the Copenhagen debates. If mankind chooses to continue jeopardising the survival of countless species, then the records of artists will be a beautiful but very sad testimony to what is being lost,
Every time I do a silverpoint drawing of a fragile spring flower, for instance, I find myself wondering how many more springs will be graced so predictably with these flowers. I am sure that Audubon would be appalled to know the status of many of the birds he depicted. I suspect that David Shepherd finds the East African flora and fauna he celebrated so wonderfully in the 1960s, for instance, to be sadly changed and diminished. When artists of all descriptions find themselves recording endangered species and reminding their viewers of vanishing beauty and complexity, it is a situation of sounding the tocsin.
I hope that the politicians gathered in Copenhagen are art lovers.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Back to Basics
Reading an article in this month's Art + Auction about "Artists - Back to the future" about a recently-noted trend of artists and their collectors returning to simpler, more personally-executed and handcrafted creations, I was struck by the statement: " Just because there is a simplicity in means does not mean the process or results will be simple. ... It's this question of how do we get back to basics by going a very, very long distance. It's a balance between immediacy and complexity" (Massimiliano Gioni, curator of the New Museum, New York).
I started thinking about how I personally would define basics and the balance between immediacy and complexity. I realised that for me, the answer was very simple - I only have to look at Japanese or Chinese art of past centuries, woodcuts or brush paintings in particular. Perhaps I should initially admit to a predisposition to Japanese art: I grew up with Japanese woodcuts on the walls of my home in East Africa. They were part of one set of a huge series of woodcuts that were commissioned after the 1923 earthquake by foreigners living in Yokohama. They were copied from traditional woodcut images, and the objective of this wide-ranging commission was to help the artists get back on their feet after the devastating earthquake and fire. The set with which I lived was very varied but of great beauty and, of course, of especial meaning for me since my grandfather had been one of the people commissioning the Japanese artists.
That said, I have later learned that the essence of simplicity in art does indeed require enormous skill and sophistication of mind and hand. I find that some of the hand scrolls, paintings and screens of the Momoyama and Edo periods in Japanese art (1573-1615 and 1615-1868 respectively) are the essence of aesthetic simplicity and oh so utterly beautiful. Many years ago, there was a truly wonderful exhibition and Harry Abrams catalogue publication, "Birds, Beasts, Blossoms and Bugs. The Nature of Japan". I frequently dip back into this publication because I find it of enormous inspiration and nurture, reminding me, particularly for silverpoint drawing, that as long as I really, really know the subject matter I am drawing, less is really, definitely more.
An example of such basic mastery is, for instance (and very a-propos with our autumnal migrating flocks of crows streaming noisily past our windows), a series of three ink paintings with wash on paper of crows, "Snow, Moon and Flower". One, " Crow in flight before the Moon", by Maruyama Okyo (1733-1795), is just a deftly detailed crow silhouetted in flight with the moon half delineated in white behind him - so minimalist it is breath-taking. And one has to remember this is a brush painting in ink - no room for hesitations, erasures, or even running out of ink at the wrong moment... Certainly one definition of "immediacy". Another of these paintings is "Crow on a Plum Branch" by Matsumura Goshun (1752-1811): the bird perches on the branch in simple, believable reality, yet he is pared down to only the essential detail. The plum branch is reduced to a shorthand suggestion which, nonetheless, is entirely complete in its depiction.
Another wonderful six-fold lacquer screen in the same show was of crows in flocks and gatherings of raucous intensity, just their silhouettes against the gold leaf on paper. It was executed by an unknown artist in the Edo period of the early 17th century, but done by someone who had studied this emblematic bird intensely, in all its attitudes and stances - at a time when there was no photography to freeze flight or movement. It is yet another wonderful example of back to basics ... knowing your subject matter thoroughly, having a mastery of your technique and compositional intentions, and just following the age-old tradition of an artist using hand and eye to create images that convey messages of beauty,, angst, joy, whatever....
I started thinking about how I personally would define basics and the balance between immediacy and complexity. I realised that for me, the answer was very simple - I only have to look at Japanese or Chinese art of past centuries, woodcuts or brush paintings in particular. Perhaps I should initially admit to a predisposition to Japanese art: I grew up with Japanese woodcuts on the walls of my home in East Africa. They were part of one set of a huge series of woodcuts that were commissioned after the 1923 earthquake by foreigners living in Yokohama. They were copied from traditional woodcut images, and the objective of this wide-ranging commission was to help the artists get back on their feet after the devastating earthquake and fire. The set with which I lived was very varied but of great beauty and, of course, of especial meaning for me since my grandfather had been one of the people commissioning the Japanese artists.
That said, I have later learned that the essence of simplicity in art does indeed require enormous skill and sophistication of mind and hand. I find that some of the hand scrolls, paintings and screens of the Momoyama and Edo periods in Japanese art (1573-1615 and 1615-1868 respectively) are the essence of aesthetic simplicity and oh so utterly beautiful. Many years ago, there was a truly wonderful exhibition and Harry Abrams catalogue publication, "Birds, Beasts, Blossoms and Bugs. The Nature of Japan". I frequently dip back into this publication because I find it of enormous inspiration and nurture, reminding me, particularly for silverpoint drawing, that as long as I really, really know the subject matter I am drawing, less is really, definitely more.
An example of such basic mastery is, for instance (and very a-propos with our autumnal migrating flocks of crows streaming noisily past our windows), a series of three ink paintings with wash on paper of crows, "Snow, Moon and Flower". One, " Crow in flight before the Moon", by Maruyama Okyo (1733-1795), is just a deftly detailed crow silhouetted in flight with the moon half delineated in white behind him - so minimalist it is breath-taking. And one has to remember this is a brush painting in ink - no room for hesitations, erasures, or even running out of ink at the wrong moment... Certainly one definition of "immediacy". Another of these paintings is "Crow on a Plum Branch" by Matsumura Goshun (1752-1811): the bird perches on the branch in simple, believable reality, yet he is pared down to only the essential detail. The plum branch is reduced to a shorthand suggestion which, nonetheless, is entirely complete in its depiction.
Another wonderful six-fold lacquer screen in the same show was of crows in flocks and gatherings of raucous intensity, just their silhouettes against the gold leaf on paper. It was executed by an unknown artist in the Edo period of the early 17th century, but done by someone who had studied this emblematic bird intensely, in all its attitudes and stances - at a time when there was no photography to freeze flight or movement. It is yet another wonderful example of back to basics ... knowing your subject matter thoroughly, having a mastery of your technique and compositional intentions, and just following the age-old tradition of an artist using hand and eye to create images that convey messages of beauty,, angst, joy, whatever....
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Art and Oxygen...
Yesterday, I was listening to a doctor talk about the value of oxygen for someone who is suffering from heart problems and resultant breathing difficulties, even if it is just creating a "bubble" of enriched oxygen around the mouth and nose of the patient. Better breathing, a heart that feels more functional and thus an increased feeling of well-being... a simple, but important path to an improved quality of life. But of course, in order to have the supply of this extra oxygen, you have to set up either a tank or machine, and take the time to get the oxygen treatment...
Today, I was reading the December edition of ARTNews, with a feature article on Marina Abramovic and her upcoming presence at MOMA, New York. She was quoted as saying, "Artists have to serve as oxygen to society..." Her objective is to get people to stop and gain a sense of time through her performance art, and thereby alter their perspective and perception of their surroundings, world and life in general. In essence, she becomes the oxygen tank...
I think that just about every form of art - visual, performance, musical, whatever - can have this intrinsic value of causing people to stop, even momentarily, and thus alter their perception of the world around them. Perhaps that is why people have created "cabinets de curiosités" and then museums full of wonders... they provide the oxygen to allow societies to breathe deeply, reflect, learn and enrich life. A beautiful photograph, a wonderful painting, a drawing, a piece of music - I know that my life has been made rich beyond belief by seeing or hearing such art, and that frequently the image or the sound has stayed with me long after.
No wonder Ms. Abramovic used such a metaphor of how to maintain or engender a healthy life or a healthy society.
Today, I was reading the December edition of ARTNews, with a feature article on Marina Abramovic and her upcoming presence at MOMA, New York. She was quoted as saying, "Artists have to serve as oxygen to society..." Her objective is to get people to stop and gain a sense of time through her performance art, and thereby alter their perspective and perception of their surroundings, world and life in general. In essence, she becomes the oxygen tank...
I think that just about every form of art - visual, performance, musical, whatever - can have this intrinsic value of causing people to stop, even momentarily, and thus alter their perception of the world around them. Perhaps that is why people have created "cabinets de curiosités" and then museums full of wonders... they provide the oxygen to allow societies to breathe deeply, reflect, learn and enrich life. A beautiful photograph, a wonderful painting, a drawing, a piece of music - I know that my life has been made rich beyond belief by seeing or hearing such art, and that frequently the image or the sound has stayed with me long after.
No wonder Ms. Abramovic used such a metaphor of how to maintain or engender a healthy life or a healthy society.
Friday, December 7, 2012
The Highs and Lows of Artists
I have a suspicion that every artist, writer and other creative person knows that there is an inevitable pattern to life. By pattern, I mean that there is an excitement, almost euphoria, when there is an event to prepare, such as an art exhibition. Then, after everything is over, there is a let-down, a flatness and almost, sometimes, a short depression, before life reverts to a more even keel.
This has certainly been the case for me over the years, especially with my Art-Tasting events. Lots of work to prepare, hang, exhibit the art, and ensure that the wine-tasting and party are organised... a week of steady preparations before the date. Then the day of the Art-Tasting comes. This year, the weather was perfect, the marshes were magnificently golden and wide-flung and the garden still unaffected by freezing temperatures. Lots of people came, at a steady tempo, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, the main objective of the party.
The hours fly past, the table empties of food, artwork disappears out of the house under people's arms... and then it is all over.
Clearing up is made easier by wonderful help, and in the subsequent days, I put the house back together, and take the art down from display. Slowly, slowly, the world returns to its more peaceful rhythm, and I recognise that I feel flat and devoid of creativity. Luckily, this is only a brief period, I now know, and suddenly, I will get excited again about something I see or think of. Then I become a practising artist once more, and life will flow into other channels. The period of highs and lows passes once more.
I wonder if this happens with writers who launch a book, composers who hear their music played for the first time, ballet dancers in a new performance... a hundred versions of launching one's creativity into the public arena.
Putting one's creative soul out into the wide world is exciting, challenging... but then there is the counterpoint, the emptiness, the let down. I suspect that everyone learns with time about the yin and yang of creative life, just part of the whole process of being an artist.
This has certainly been the case for me over the years, especially with my Art-Tasting events. Lots of work to prepare, hang, exhibit the art, and ensure that the wine-tasting and party are organised... a week of steady preparations before the date. Then the day of the Art-Tasting comes. This year, the weather was perfect, the marshes were magnificently golden and wide-flung and the garden still unaffected by freezing temperatures. Lots of people came, at a steady tempo, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, the main objective of the party.
The hours fly past, the table empties of food, artwork disappears out of the house under people's arms... and then it is all over.
Clearing up is made easier by wonderful help, and in the subsequent days, I put the house back together, and take the art down from display. Slowly, slowly, the world returns to its more peaceful rhythm, and I recognise that I feel flat and devoid of creativity. Luckily, this is only a brief period, I now know, and suddenly, I will get excited again about something I see or think of. Then I become a practising artist once more, and life will flow into other channels. The period of highs and lows passes once more.
I wonder if this happens with writers who launch a book, composers who hear their music played for the first time, ballet dancers in a new performance... a hundred versions of launching one's creativity into the public arena.
Putting one's creative soul out into the wide world is exciting, challenging... but then there is the counterpoint, the emptiness, the let down. I suspect that everyone learns with time about the yin and yang of creative life, just part of the whole process of being an artist.Trees
It's funny - when you are scrolling though masses of art images, there is sometimes one that stops you, grabs you and makes you investigate carefully. This happened to me the other day when I was trying to find out more about the Iranian poet and artist, Sohrab Sepehri, who lived from 1928 to 1980. His poems are beautiful, but it was his paintings that interested me.
He apparently had a love affair with trees all his life and did the most wonderful renditions of their trunks. (At left, Trees, 1970, image courtesy of the Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection.) He spent time in the early 1960s in Japan and was very much influenced by Japanese art, especially woodcuts, and Japanese haikus. He later had a very successful international career in art, and spent time working on a series that he called The Tree Trunk Series.
Apparently shy and retiring, Sepehri found a means of expression, as a painter, in his renditions of trees and landscapes, using soft brush strokes and a restrained palette to create these semi-abstracted portraits of trees that are very arresting, yet somehow very specific to place and implying great space beyond the canvas. On the right is a huge canvas, painted in 1978-79, is called House of Kashan and on the left, below, is an earlier work in the Tree Series. As was commented in an auction catalogue on Arcadja, "To him the tree was a symbol of benevolence and stability in a world corrupted by ignorance and malice, his majestic portrayals capture absolutely the quiet grandeur of ancient forests and harbour an undeniable mystical quality." Painting trees kept him anchored in a world in which he felt very comfortable, particularly when he had to deal with places like Manhattan, in which he felt very alien.
I suppose these paintings and the commentaries I have been able to read about Sepehri's optic on trees, both in his writings and in his art, all resonate with me, because I too love depicting trees. I find each one to be utterly individual, powerful and very much worth of a portrait. I realised that I keep returning to trees as subject matter, especially for my drawings in graphite and especially silverpoint, because I was selecting work to put up on another website to which I was invited this week. Since one travels in hope in life, this site is apparently aimed at designers and decorators - who knows! Nonetheless, my making a selection of art led me to posting a series of tree images.
What is always so interesting is to see how each artist approaches interpretation of trees. Since we all bring our life experience to the art-making, that is logical. The main point is to celebrate trees!
He apparently had a love affair with trees all his life and did the most wonderful renditions of their trunks. (At left, Trees, 1970, image courtesy of the Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection.) He spent time in the early 1960s in Japan and was very much influenced by Japanese art, especially woodcuts, and Japanese haikus. He later had a very successful international career in art, and spent time working on a series that he called The Tree Trunk Series.
Apparently shy and retiring, Sepehri found a means of expression, as a painter, in his renditions of trees and landscapes, using soft brush strokes and a restrained palette to create these semi-abstracted portraits of trees that are very arresting, yet somehow very specific to place and implying great space beyond the canvas. On the right is a huge canvas, painted in 1978-79, is called House of Kashan and on the left, below, is an earlier work in the Tree Series. As was commented in an auction catalogue on Arcadja, "To him the tree was a symbol of benevolence and stability in a world corrupted by ignorance and malice, his majestic portrayals capture absolutely the quiet grandeur of ancient forests and harbour an undeniable mystical quality." Painting trees kept him anchored in a world in which he felt very comfortable, particularly when he had to deal with places like Manhattan, in which he felt very alien.
I suppose these paintings and the commentaries I have been able to read about Sepehri's optic on trees, both in his writings and in his art, all resonate with me, because I too love depicting trees. I find each one to be utterly individual, powerful and very much worth of a portrait. I realised that I keep returning to trees as subject matter, especially for my drawings in graphite and especially silverpoint, because I was selecting work to put up on another website to which I was invited this week. Since one travels in hope in life, this site is apparently aimed at designers and decorators - who knows! Nonetheless, my making a selection of art led me to posting a series of tree images.What is always so interesting is to see how each artist approaches interpretation of trees. Since we all bring our life experience to the art-making, that is logical. The main point is to celebrate trees!
Another health benefit from art
Not so long ago, I was writing about the different ways art could help heal people. I was therefore fascinated to read in yesterday's ArtDaily.org about a programme at Britain's National Gallery called Ageing Creatively. It is designed to involved people who may be isolated, unable to get out much and generally in need of mental stimulation and companionship, including - at present - people suffering from aphasia, difficulties in communicating in any form, a situation often brought on by suffering a stroke.
By learning ways of painting that, for instance 17th century artists used, the participants are creating art work, and then turning to more modern art to do the same sort of thing. Apparently, all these sorts of activities are hugely helpful and the art is the pathway to a lot of healing.
The National Gallery Outreach Officer, Emma Rehm, describes the many faceted Ageing Creatively programme thus: “Participatory projects which use art as their starting point bring clear benefits for people with disabilities in terms of physical stimulation, sociability, creativity and enjoyment, and this can have a positive effect on health and general well-being. Participants will be able to share their thoughts and use the National Gallery paintings as inspiration for their own work.” Newham Council’s Executive Member for Health, Councillor Clive Furness, said: “When people suffer a serious or debilitating condition, there is the fear that their useful and creative life is at an end. Projects like this enable people to discover and develop new skills, and to do so in the company of a group of friends."
I can't think of a more constructive endorsement for the role of art in daily life for everyone, no matter what the situation.
By learning ways of painting that, for instance 17th century artists used, the participants are creating art work, and then turning to more modern art to do the same sort of thing. Apparently, all these sorts of activities are hugely helpful and the art is the pathway to a lot of healing.
The National Gallery Outreach Officer, Emma Rehm, describes the many faceted Ageing Creatively programme thus: “Participatory projects which use art as their starting point bring clear benefits for people with disabilities in terms of physical stimulation, sociability, creativity and enjoyment, and this can have a positive effect on health and general well-being. Participants will be able to share their thoughts and use the National Gallery paintings as inspiration for their own work.” Newham Council’s Executive Member for Health, Councillor Clive Furness, said: “When people suffer a serious or debilitating condition, there is the fear that their useful and creative life is at an end. Projects like this enable people to discover and develop new skills, and to do so in the company of a group of friends."
I can't think of a more constructive endorsement for the role of art in daily life for everyone, no matter what the situation.
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