Travels and art

In the August edition of Arte, published in Spain, there is an interesting series of articles about travel's transformative power for artists, which ranges from David Roberts (Egypt) and Velaquez (Italy) to Klee (Tunis), Brassai (Paris)or David Hockney (California). Historically, artists have travelled to learn, to enquire, to expand their horizons or sometimes to flee. Think of Albrecht Durer, who so assiduously recorded his 1520-21 trips to the Netherlands in silverpoint journals. Remember Gauguin's trips to the South Seas, with extraordinary results in his art. But in more modern times, journeys have become easier and often swifter. Sometimes, that is all that suffices to allow an artist to make quantum leaps in his or her development. Other times, the results are not so felicitous.

It perhaps all reverts to that issue of a "sense of place". If you are somewhere new and trying to grapple with different conditions of light, topography, culture, colours..., it takes time to filter all that information into one's subconscious. The resultant art often shows up the learning curve, willy-nilly. In the Arte article entitled "Viajes Pintados" (Painted Journeys), the author, Raquel Gonzalez Escribano, posits that in the past, the slower tempo of journeys to other places allowed for a transformative depth and transcendence in work - paintings, architecture or sculpture - that is often absent today. She reminds us that Delacroix made one major trip in his life, through Spain to North Africa in 1832, and that time spent painting and drawing indelibly transformed his subsequent work. Indeed, Delacroix' journey influenced artists who followed him, and consequently changed the way we all view the world to some degree.

Ms. Gonzalez makes a persuasive case for all of us artists slowing down when we travel, allowing ourselves time to absorb and understand new horizons. Then, one hopes, we will be able to produce work of depth and quality. Returning to a place one enjoys and grows to know makes sense, in this context, even if it is travelling from one's home base. (Think of the summer art colonies in the North East for New York artists, for instance, which flourished from about 1900 onwards.) Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme chose... Despite all our technology and speeded-up world, artists today still function mentally in the same way as in previous times. We still need to develop that sense of place.

Art as Witness for Ourselves as Humans

A well-respected and prolific Spanish writer, poet and essayist, Felix de Azua, has just published an Autobiography without Life or Autobiografica sin vida (Mondadori 2010) which sounds fascinating and thought-provoking.

Starting with the book cover which uses an image from the 30,000 year-old drawings of horses found in the Chauvet Caves in France, he traces his own life, that of his generation and, in a wider sense, that of western art in general by images of artwork down the ages. His thesis is that the art we humans create bears witness for us as human beings. For century after century, representative art has reflected our place in the world, showing what surrounds us, and what matters to us. At the same time, that art also acts as a substitution for the reality depicted.

For the people frequenting such caves as Chauvet, Lascaux or Altamira, the magic of the rock face art was potent. Its power still reaches us. (As a confirmation of this, I read this week that the Spanish authorities have decided, despite the chorus of opposition from the scientific community, to reopen the Altamira caves to public visits.) But over the generations, Felix de Azua contends, this magic has been diluted, dissipated, stolen from art - he cites David's Marat, Goya's Disasters or even Rothko's work as having converted art's magical qualities into shadows and undiluted (maybe soulless?) representation culminating in today's performance art. In Azua's opinion, the nuclear bomb unleashed at Hiroshima not only proved to all mankind that our species is capable of total self-destruction, but it also caused a huge rift in the history of art.

Azua feels that we are thus in the early days of a totally new era in art, one that is full of complexities, given man's awareness of his own potential disappearance. Our awareness of the nuclear threat may be only subliminal now, but the threat does influence today's forms of art. Nonetheless, the magic inherent in art-making still exists or can exist. This "communion with the cosmos" is still necessary for us as humans, in art, in literature, in falling in love... As Azua remarks, " ... I also know that we cannot do without art, just as we cannot do without religion or science."