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Posted on 3/31/2011 12:07:17 PM
By Donald Fox
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Sims Bayou
Read any number of blogs today about art and probably most of what you read is about marketing yourself, your work, and making money. Basically, you’re reading about being a business person and marketer. That is okay and perhaps necessary given today’s consumption (almost said consumptive) culture, but before there is a plan for marketing, there has to be something to sell. Even the notorious derivatives traders had to start with something.
We don’t see much in prehistory about sales and marketing. Artists, largely unknown except as roles like shaman, hunter, or healer, weren’t motivated by or dependent upon financial gain. Whatever they did might be tied to survival but not to personal expression. It wasn’t until art became a commodity that art as a business was of much concern.
The nation state was the first great consumer. Art was used for propaganda either to enhance the image of the ruler or to diminish and weaken enemies – in both cases the power of the state was the goal. Perhaps there were some instances where an artist might be elevated above the rank and file craftsman, but mostly the creative types just did what they were told. You might say they were under the thumb of the boss. It would be a long time before personal creative expression was a viable concept.
At some point, though, this idea did come to the fore along with the idea that art forms like sculpture and painting could be appreciated for their expressive qualities unadorned by precious jewels or metals or for portraying a ruler or divinity. The growth of trade, a merchant class, a middle class, and conspicuous consumption all contributed to shifts in attitude toward art and its creation. These weren’t the only factors by any means, but these are the ones that have most affected artists today with concerns of personal survival through plying their craft.
How many artists, on the other hand, create art because they want to be wealthy, famous, or be considered part of the elite? Sure, there may be a few. Talk to artists or read their personal stories, however, and you’ll find them speaking about concerns and interests that have little to do with recognition or wealth. Many will talk about feeling overwhelmed in the presence of natural beauty, of somehow being transformed by a visual or emotional experience and then looking for a way to express something about that experience. Some will use the idea of communication as a motivator. They feel that they have something to say and use art as a way to express it. Others might be strongly affected by something and use the artistic process to explore their thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. Some artists may be particularly altruistic and desire to use their art as a means to connecting with others and somehow contributing to the lives of others. Certain artists may also have deeply held spiritual or philosophical beliefs that are strong motivators for creative expression. A few will go so far as to say that they feel compelled to create and leave it at that.
Probably most any other reason that someone might give for making art would be either a combination of or variation on one or more of the above. Motivations may even change over time just as life circumstances can change how we think about or respond to life itself. Personally, I’ve always believed that keeping a journal is a powerful way to maintain clarity about where I am with my thinking about art and life. I sometimes discover subtle trends that might otherwise have been overlooked. I understand more and see more clearly. This also makes me more receptive to new experiences, especially artistic ones.
Every artist has some particular motivation that gets him or her into the studio on a regular basis. The real question for each of us is what does motivate us artistically? How do we stay in touch with or attuned to that motivation? Answers to this question can be as many and varied as there are artists, but I seriously doubt very many answers will answer money or fame. Making art is challenging, and the life of an artist is not always easy, but the rewards of successful creation can be more real, satisfying, and sustaining than a few dollars or few moments of notoriety. What is your motivation?
Posted on 3/28/2011 9:42:55 AM
By Donald Fox
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Roseland Club
Education is one of those life areas that is rife with disagreement and discord. Generally, though, there is agreement that education is a good thing. In a democracy like that in America, even from the beginning the founders agreed that the success of the system was dependent on an educated and informed citizenry. The obvious part of this would be literacy. How could a citizen be informed if he/she could not read about important issues? That person would become dependent upon the reportage of another whereas the literate person can read on both sides of an issue before reaching a conclusion. Education in this sense is predicated on literacy – most would agree that reading and writing are crucial to clear and continued communication. Once learned, reading and writing themselves become learning tools that enable anyone to expand personal education to the furthest reaches of knowledge.
Most any educator that has spent time with secondary or college level students will at some point lament the lack of basic educational skills exhibited by the majority of these students. Employers often complain about new graduates coming into the workforce because they lack fundamental skills in math and communication. Businesses often spend millions of dollars annually to train new employees in basic communication skills, i.e. reading and writing. Others complain that along with the missing fundamentals is the inability to think critically. The debate over why this situation exists has been raging for generations and has become something of a political football.
Oddly, we live in a time when access to information via internet, print and news media is unprecedented. The amount of information is staggering, and the rapidity of its dissemination doesn’t appear to be slowing down in the least. Our phones have essentially become traveling computers, and educators have to carefully watch students at test time to ensure that there is no cheating by phone. Many writers lament the negative effects on writing, first through the sloppiness inherent to email and more recently through the advent of texting with its many elisions followed closely by tweeting and its space limitation. One could assume that content focus would become the most essential idea in these shortened frameworks, but the reality is that often triteness and simple-minded ideas are the end products.
Educational philosophy has shifted so many times over the last few generations that it is little wonder there is confusion in the system and confusion among the results. Whether any changes in approach to teaching can have significant effect in the long term is debatable (and has been debated). Psychologists have used terms like self-awareness, self-actualization, self-realization, and others to suggest an individual’s movement to a level of high functionality and adjustment as a mature human being. I’ve seen many students reach a moment of awareness from which they choose to learn those things that before they ignored or were obscure to them. You could say a switch was flipped or a fire ignited, but the student realized that certain basic things were necessary to move forward to higher levels of achievement. Out of choice that student learned those things – even the most basic or mundane aspect of a subject at once seemed new and exciting. Learning became a completely fresh experience because the individual had internalized goals that now were aligned with the learning process. Think of the Aha experience of the young Helen Keller when she realizes that the feel of water and the tapping of her teacher’s hand have a simple yet profound connection. One is the symbol of the other. From that moment, the angry, isolated child becomes that active, engaged seeker of knowledge.
This leap of understanding is often at the core of teaching in the arts. It is not something that is only available to those with demonstrated talent or who may already have a sense of direction. Students learn in many different ways, but the deepest, longest lasting learning comes from inside the student, not imposed from the outside. When that internal connection is made, when the insight flashes, that student will do whatever it takes to continue the process. This doesn’t mean that everything is easy from that point forward. It doesn’t mean that basics can be ignored, but what might have been considered grunt work can now be seen as a viable means to an end. Many painting students have great ideas, for example, but they lack the experience and skills to make the ideas work. The desire to achieve will sustain them through the necessary stages of learning to acquire the needed skills. Along the way they learn discipline and develop fortitude. Whatever short term failures they may experience are opportunities to reflect on what worked as well as what didn’t. Over time we all learn that we are our own best teachers.
Posted on 3/23/2011 8:12:15 AM
By Donald Fox
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At the Dock
Many courtroom dramas on television play out some variation on the idea of the defense counsel presenting a credible witness or the prosecution attacking the credibility of that witness or of the accuser. Was what was seen actually seen or simply remembered as being a particular way? Are the remembered details enough to establish that something was correctly observed? Is there corroboration by more than one person? Does what was observed mesh with other physical evidence? What was the actual truth of the particular situation?
In a way, a visual artist who paints from nature or observed reality is a witness to the visual experience that becomes the painting. Can that observation actually be objective? Is the painted truth an objective truth that anyone observing the same scene would agree that, yes, that’s the way it was? Artists and spectators alike speak of capturing a scene, but to what extent is the result dependent upon verisimilitude? Is there also wiggle room for the artist to subjectively evaluate and render that scene with truth and validity? What is it that the artist is actually portraying that makes the painted scene truthful or not?
There has been much debate about illusionistic art, be it realism, impressionism, photorealism, or any other ism where observed reality is the basis for the painted experience. Many say that this kind of painting is a visual lie; it’s only deception and trickery. Maybe this charge could be hurled at trompe l’oeil painters since their intention is to fool the eye. I suspect, though, that even these painters would say that their painting is about more than the obvious mimicry.
What is it that a painter sees when observing a scene to be painted? I’m not even sure we can say for certain because different painters would give different answers to the question. Yes, most would allow that the basic design elements come into play – one looks for contrasts in shape, size, position, value, color, spatial movement, light and atmosphere. Unless one is painting under artificially controlled light, the natural light that reveals the elements will actually be constantly changing. This in turn can change the relationship of the elements. Since it is a given that a painting develops over a period of time, hundreds, if not thousands, of observations are made by the painter during this process. In effect, that painted result is a synthesis of observation, repeated applications of paint, adjustments of color and texture, and numerous other variations that are based on moment by moment decisions. After a time, what happens in the painting becomes more important than what is happening in the observed scene. The painter increasingly makes decisions based on the painting rather than the observed reality.
Where, then, is the truth in the observation of the painter? Isn’t what is happening on the painted surface the observation that becomes most important? The painted reality is a new reality in its own right. It no longer depends on that original experience of the observed reality, for that is only a distant memory. The painting is now where the artistic truth resides. If the artist has captured anything, it is his or her experience of the original scene filtered through accumulated knowledge and skill, emotion and sensibility, and whatever artistic intentions are of most concern to that individual. The truth is elusive and subjective rather than objective. It is most relevant to the artistic interpretation of the painter, which is then filtered through the lens of the intelligent viewer.
Posted on 3/17/2011 5:59:52 PM
By Donald Fox
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Urban Reflection
When I visit museums, I enjoy the first look at a painting unadorned by title or date or other information that may be placed alongside. I want that first impression to be mine alone. What’s my gut feeling? What sort of image am I seeing? What do I think the artist is trying to communicate to me? What else am I reminded of? Eventually I will read the title and date, and sometimes I’ll read the notes if the curator has provided them. Occasionally these will include a short narrative that relates an experience or event from the life of the artist at the time the work was painted. I shouldn’t have to be reminded that there is always a story behind the painting if not within the painting itself.
At one time the narrative was the core of the painting. Paintings had big themes that were illustrated in historical, religious, or mythical narratives of varying complexity that besides telling great stories also often conveyed philosophical treatises in visual terms. Tintoretto’s Last Judgment or Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Hunters in the Snow are two very different examples of both Italian and Northern Renaissance paintings respectively that depict narratives for specific purposes. With the rise of art academies and their emphasis on standardized teaching of artistic techniques and principles, narrative paintings became the accepted form. With few exceptions this so-called grand manner dominated painting well into the 19th century.
The seeds of modernism, though, an interest in ordinary things and everyday experiences, were sown early by painters not particularly attracted to the grand manner. Genre painting and landscape painting (not that in service of a narrative) became more popular among painters and a growing art public. By the late 19th century, the grand manner was all but extinct except within the academy. Artists were increasingly interested in their own experiences of the world as subjects. What remained of the narrative was now more of an anecdote as depicted in scenes of daily life set in both urban and rural locations. Eventually, narrative was considered unacceptable in visual art except in the newer form of illustration for publishing. This, though, was not the end of the story (so to speak).
Any student of art history knows the importance of the narrative that is history itself. The story can be sweeping in scale and encompass hundreds or thousands of years of people, events, and movements. The story can be narrowed to focus on a single point in time or a single artist’s life. The story could also be that of a single painting – its origin and development, its revelation of its time, and its effect on other artists.
Although any painting can be approached singularly, appreciated for its own sake according to what is contained within it, a wise viewer may also want to consider the context of its creation – in short, what is the narrative behind the painting? How did it come about? Who is the artist and what is known about him or her? How does the painting relate to other paintings done by the same person? Is there a text or subtext for the painting (just as in some classical music)? What can be understood by comparing the painting to others by the same artist or to others of its kind? Asking and answering these and other questions may not change the painting as a work of art, but the viewer will broaden his or her understanding and may even appreciate the work in a totally different way. That appreciation, more often than not, will take us beyond the single canvas before us and may lead those of us who are painters to new ways of considering our own work.
Posted on 3/14/2011 9:56:07 PM
By Donald Fox
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St. Mary's Glacier
Recently I’ve read a number of blogs about why artists do what they do. As would be expected from those who express themselves visually in such varied ways, there also are many expressions of why one does this thing called art. Basically, though, these boil down to two reasons: one feels compelled to make art or one chooses to make art. Which side do you fall on, and does it really matter? If art is the outcome, maybe the motivation matters only to the individual concerned.
Psychologically, compulsions are often attributed to some sort of disorder. Something is missing and must be satisfied, what psychologists label compensation. Or, because of a deep seated need – emotional, chemical, or physical – the behavior seeks to provide wholeness. This tends to suggest an unconscious process that bypasses the ego and therefore any question of conscious action.
There are many processes within the body that are unconscious and automatic: breathing, the pumping action of the heart, and the reaction to pain, to name a few obvious ones. I doubt that artists who say they feel compelled to make art would lump that creative action with these autonomic responses of the body. These artists, I feel sure, would still claim to actively shape their artistic experiences rather than submit to unconscious creation like the automatic writing of the surrealist writers (who often edited their creations afterwards anyway). Some art may spring full blown from an artist’s unconscious like a rising Venus, but most art, especially the really good art, comes through the blending of inspiration with old fashioned perspiration.
After a specific time without food or water, the body will shut down and a person dies. The artistic personality may feel deprived if not allowed to create, but it is doubtful that one would die, at least not directly, from this deprivation. I suspect, though, if an artist were not allowed to create as usual, that he or she would find another way to express that creative energy, perhaps even develop a new form of art. Such is the ingenuity of artists as well as the strength of their desire to create. However, I wouldn’t call desire, no matter how strong, the same as compulsion. So, perhaps if the artist who says he feels compelled to create is giving way to hyperbole, he may really mean he has a strong desire to create, which I believe to be an altogether different experience.
Other artists may say that there is nothing they want to do except make art. I do think this is basically the same as choosing to do art. Though our bodies may function as biological machines, we as conscious creatures have the power to choose our actions. Unless we abdicate that power through unconscious choice or by malfunction, we create our experience on a daily basis. Choosing to make art and to express one’s self artistically is a powerful affirmation of creative life force. What one does with that energy expressed through individual sensitivity testifies to the great variety of life itself.
Posted on 3/10/2011 6:05:39 PM
By Donald Fox
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NHC International
The late Denis Dutton’s book The Art Instinct is a learned argument for Darwinian psychological interpretation of human artistic development. The book is an engaging and intriguing read that can underscore with clarity what most artists already know intuitively: the arts are necessary to life. Mr. Dutton demonstrates from a Darwinian perspective how our tastes and predilections for the beautiful are bound up with our need for survival. This is not to say that artistic expression is a life or death matter, but it apparently derives from the same kinds of survival mechanisms that have enabled us to thrive and build cultural traditions of great complexity and depth.
We can find and respond to beauty even in a harsh, violent, and threatening landscape. The sights, textures, sounds, and rhythms of the natural world influence our thoughts, choices, and actions consciously and unconsciously. Psychologists speak of the propensity to seek pleasure and avoid pain, and most of us probably do this, yet artists have often experienced pain, even embraced it – isolation, deprivation, uncertainty – in order to produce personal interpretations of beauty and her companion, truth. Some artists have sacrificed their relationships, their well being, and their lives in order to express beauty and truth. The wisdom of those actions may be questioned, but there is enduring gratitude among those who are heir to the artistic expressions left behind.
The arguments for what may constitute beauty or truth may continue for as long as humanity exists. Were it otherwise, there would likely be no art of consequence to speak of. Why should art evolve with any less complexity or variety that anything else within the world? The concept of natural selection has never been about singularity. Variety is more than just a clichéd spice.
Whether we fully embrace any theoretical explanation of the arts, we can certainly expand our understanding and deepen our experience of art and the natural world by opening ourselves to broader perspectives. Art, after all, is a human undertaking that is intended for other humans. Just as we may marvel at the wonders of nature while avoiding as best we can its dangers, so do we marvel at the results of artistic expression while recognizing our own humanity within it.
Posted on 3/7/2011 10:02:10 PM
By Donald Fox
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Monarch Paradise
There are many painters whose work I admire. They may represent a vast range of visual experience as expressed stylistically. My short list would contain names like Robert Motherwell, Paul Cezanne, Camille Pissarro, Giorgio Morandi, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Pablo Picasso. I could easily name dozens more, each one appreciated for specific qualities, but certain painters I return to again and again for new lessons and inspiration. Foremost among these is Pissarro, for he teaches me not only about painting but also about the process of being a painter.
Sometimes represented as the old man of Impressionism, since he was older than the majority of painters who are gathered under that banner, I think of him as a painter first and Impressionist by default. Many paintings from his Pontoise period are some of the most majestic achievements in the history of painting, but their bucolic landscape scenes often lead them to be overlooked or underappreciated, especially by those drawn to flashier paintings by Monet and others.
Many paintings by the Impressionists have a sketchy, airy, light-filled quality that typifies the popular understanding of what makes a painting Impressionist (notwithstanding the signature). Monet’s cathedral facades suggest perspective, but the massive stone structure practically dissolves in flickers of light. The same could be said of the paintings of haystacks, poplars, lily ponds, or gardens. However, more than a few of Pissarro’s landscapes of Pontoise are solid creations with carefully designed and composed elements that seem to deny the plein aire execution of them. Space is often flattened, and the natural forms of the landscape suggest more about the underlying geometry than biomorphic representation. These paintings are far from the feathered edges of Renoir.
Pissarro’s work from this period, in my opinion, often has more in common with Cezanne’s structuralism than Impressionism. Considering that the two men knew each other and sometimes painted together, it shouldn’t be surprising that the younger Cezanne might be influenced by the elder master. Cezanne’s formalism may be an extension of Pissarro’s pictorial investigations. These highly structured landscapes, on the other hand, were not the only paintings Pissarro did at that time. He experimented with the looser style more associated with Impressionism while also making paintings executed in pointillist techniques. This suggests to me an active mind curious about what his friends and colleagues were doing. It also suggests an open-minded inquiry into painting in general, not the provincial, conservative figure as Pissarro is sometimes portrayed.
The modern tendency to label and pigeonhole artists is a disservice to the artist and a handicap to any viewer who attempts to understand art from that perspective. Art is much richer than that. Artists are more complex and inquisitive than they often are represented. Serious painters don’t simply crank out clones of their own work. They keep observing and thinking and rethinking as they continuously express through their creative process.
Posted on 3/2/2011 8:28:37 PM
By Donald Fox
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Spare Parts
“There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.” – Dostoyevsky
Generational conflict isn’t specifically a modern trait. Evidence exists at least as far back as biblical times of the jealousies and rivalries that spur some of one generation to long to supplant their elders. It has taken modern sensibility, however, to transform this Oedipal rivalry to the level of cachet. Perhaps nowhere has generational conflict been more adversarial than in the arts. At least, it depends on who you read and how you read art history.
For people of a certain age in America, the fifties were a time of youthful rebellion in the form of rock and roll music, drag racing, cigarette smoking, and occasional drinking. This era would seem tame to the drugs, sex, and rock-n-roll of the sixties. These generations of youth, however, often had little understanding of the twenties, big bands, and jitterbug, or of Prohibition, bathtub gin, or white lightning. Such is the way of youths to often think themselves the first to overthrow the mores of their parents.
The history of painting sometimes shows generational conflict, especially as the time moves nearer to the twentieth century. For several hundred years the accepted way for artists to learn their craft was through apprenticeship in the studio of a master. The Caracci brothers in Italy planted the seeds of academic training that eventually led to the academy becoming the primary way that young painters learned to paint. I suspect that this more broadly available and codified form of instruction also instilled rebelliousness among certain students. Romanticism and Impressionism were two movements rooted in rebellion, and as the 19th century rolled to a close, a plethora of artistic isms grew up throughout Europe. These launched us into the more radical rebelliousness of many 20th century artists. Rebellion became the “in” thing to do, almost as though it were expected of any new and coming artist.
The up side to younger artists rebelling against the work of their elders is expressed in new ways of seeing, new developments in technique, and broadening of the understanding of what constitutes art. Though it may take time for the newer work to be understood and accepted by the art world and the general public, once it does become mainstream its influence may last for generations – that is, until another generation rebels against it. The downside is that sometimes the newer work is so radical that it becomes disruptive and even destructive as has been seen in several movements of the past century. The ‘anything goes’ attitude following Dada and extreme forms of expressionism has led to a variety of anti-art aesthetics and much in-your-face expression that is much more about rebellion and egomania than any worthwhile artistic concern.
Interestingly, though, things often come full circle, and the masters of the past, including the recent past, are re-discovered and become an even greater influence on perceptive younger painters eager for something of substance in artistic expression. In my opinion, there is no substitute for studying the history of art along with study of the craft. When paid attention to, history can teach us the errors of our ways. It can also teach us new ways to see the familiar as well as the old.
