Blog
Posted on 9/30/2012 6:37:11 PM
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Summer Storm
This is a repost of a piece I wrote several years ago. I have been thinking lately about Pissarro’s work as I do periodically. He is a very interesting painter to me because of the range and volume of work that he produced including quite a lot of paintings that were destroyed during the Franco-Prussian War. Pissarro had left them behind when he fled to England. Upon his return he discovered that many paintings had been destroyed.
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.
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 air 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, 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 also experimented with the looser style associated with Impressionism as well as 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 9/29/2012 7:36:32 PM
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Downstream
Many books about art tend to zero in on the individual piece, the singular expression that we know as the art object. This can include artwork in a variety of media, but most typically what is referred to is visual art: paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and some ceramics. This may also include certain crafts that are often elevated to art status like quilts, tapestries, art furniture, or other utilitarian derived work that has been made non-utilitarian. For example, a chair could be conceived as sculpture. It may still look like a chair, but because of some design alteration it doesn’t function as a chair, nor is it intended to do so. Typically, we would not include music or theater or other performing art, nor would we include literature since there are no objects per se.
As creative artists we tend to work on one painting at a time unless we are in production mode and then maybe do multiple pieces at once. We aren’t factories, though, and the singular statement is the general focus. Some may disagree if they are thinking in terms of output, but many artists think most about statement – why am I doing this and what am I saying with my work? Over time, a collection of individual statements begins to define a vision.
From an art historical perspective, individual pieces may have particular impact at the time of creation or later in retrospect. Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s David or the Sistine Chapel ceiling paintings, Goya’s The Naked Maja or Saturn Devouring His Children, Picasso’s Les Demoiselle D’Avignon or Guernica are all works with lasting impact, some of which made powerful impressions at the time of their creation. Many more works could be listed here as examples. The point is that an individual piece can be critically and historically important if not become outright legendary.
Retrospective shows of artists create context for their work throughout a lifetime. Viewers can see development changes and shifts in thinking about art and image. Often there are wonderful surprises from work not previously widely known. How one relates to an individual piece may even change when the piece is viewed within the context of a larger body of work. Of course, we generally expect any given piece to stand on its own merits, but with art we tend not to think in terms of one-hit wonders. We want to see longevity and consistency. In one sense, art is a package deal. Yes, it’s the individual piece, the solitary work, which is often the focus of attention. That image, though, when the art is achieving at a high level of expression, is wedded to ideas, experiences, historical and cultural contexts, and the varying responses of the audience that receives it and is affected by it. Neither does it ultimately matter who collects or owns any particular work (unless it goes totally out of circulation for generations). The best art is always for the ages.
Posted on 9/28/2012 7:25:52 PM
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Rembrandt Drawing
Size and scale are interrelated concepts that at certain periods of art history have had enormous impact. Anyone approaching art history for the first time may do so through a survey course or some basic art text like H. W. Janson’s History of Art. Janson’s book has been revised several times since I first used it in an art history course in the mid-sixties. I particularly remember a photograph of the Venus of Willendorf, the prehistoric sculpture of a woman with exaggerated hips and breasts, usually referred to as a fertility figure. No kind of written record of this artifact – or numerous others like it that emerged from various parts of prehistoric Europe – exists, so historians and archaeologists have essentially guessed about its importance and use in the culture of the time.
In reproduction, the scale of the piece is difficult to determine. It could possibly be nearly life size. Surprisingly, it is less than six inches high, and more recent speculation is that it and its sister versions were portable art forms for semi-nomadic people. The sculpture is quite remarkable for its blend of realism and abstraction. It is not a portrait since facial features have been ignored. It generalizes much of the form, and yet it has a kind of personality or expressiveness that differentiates it from other similar sculptures. In reproduction, though, size and scale are difficult to appreciate.
When I first studied art history, many images were shown in book illustrations or projected as slides on a classroom or lecture hall screen. Students might see the Sphinx or Egyptian pyramids on the same size as a Vermeer portrait like The Girl with a Pearl Earring. Sometimes photographs of monumental works might include people or animals that would help the viewer comprehend the scale of the illustrated piece. However, learning from reproductions one could develop a very distorted understanding of many art images from quite different time periods.
I distinctly remember my first view of an actual Vermeer painting in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The experience was quite surreal. I had been expecting a life-size portrait, but what I saw was a relatively small painting much reduced from normal human size. The exhibition room was darkened and the painting illuminated by spotlights, which further removed it from its surroundings. The painting literally became a window into a new reality. The importance of size and scale was dramatically impressed upon me.
Later that same day, I saw a monumental Barnett Newman painting that I only knew from reproduction. The illustration was about eight by six inches in size. The actual painting was larger than eight by six feet. That tiny image made no sense in relation to the actual work even though the proportions were the same and the colors were fairly accurate. Scale, however, created an entirely different experience for me.
Today, we have become used to experiencing television images, computer images, and virtual reality. Scale is continually being reduced with the introduction of I-pods and I-phones. The images may be clear and sharp, but just as with older slide technology, paintings and artwork generally are greatly distorted by the imposed uniformity and the lack of physical texture, depth, and dimension. I’m not a psychologist, but I can’t help but think that these perceptual alterations are affecting our experience and our interaction with art and the world around us in unpredictable ways. How these changes might manifest may not be known for some time to come.
Posted on 9/27/2012
By Donald Fox
2 Comments
In the Shade
Most languages have sets of rules or guidelines, usually referred to as grammar, that control how the language is effectively used. In English, words are organized into different word groupings, either phrases or clauses. Word groups are put together to convey specific meaning in the form of sentences or complete thoughts. Fragmentary speech is often difficult to understand as are written fragments difficult to read. Meaning is either lost, is not fully conveyed, or is easily misinterpreted. Clear communication depends on clear and correct usage of words.
Visual language has its own set of fundamental guidelines that may enable clear communication, but this is not guaranteed in all situations. Artistic work has different purposes usually determined by the individual artist. Clear communication may not be among them. Art also deals with symbols, metaphor, and ambiguity, all of which may not include clarity as a primary goal. Whereas a writer wants to get his or her point across, an artist may be more concerned with the viewer’s emotional experience rather than his logical understanding.
There’s a great line, somewhat humorous, in the film The Big Chill. The character Nick, a wounded, disillusioned war veteran who has become a drug dealer, says, “With art, you just have to let it wash over you.” He says this with deadpan irony and intended hyperbole since he’s referring to a B-grade gangster movie that he’s been watching on late night television. Still, with most art, there is some truth in his statement. There is that suspension of disbelief that accompanies many forms of artistic expression. We, the audience, know that what we’re watching, reading, or seeing isn’t real, yet we connect emotionally and intellectually with the fiction that is before us, sometimes as deeply as we might with real life experience. There may be instances where we relate more deeply to the fiction precisely because of the filter that is there - we feel safe and allow ourselves to respond more deeply. The cleverness of the artist may also draw us in through specific use of symbol, metaphor, and ambiguity.
The psychological and emotional side of art is one that the artist should not neglect. Pretty images are abundant nearly everywhere. Images that contain psychological depth and elicit powerful emotional responses are somewhat rarer and tend to be the ones that affect the greatest number of people over the longest period of time. Their messages resonate through time and across cultures.
Posted on 9/26/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Studio Drawing
Drawing is a dynamic process that requires a great deal of concentration. Countless decisions are made by the artist during the act of drawing which directly affect the end product. The artist makes judgments concerning placement, size, shape, direction, lightness or darkness, position, balance and harmony to name a few considerations. Attention to these elements rather than specific details will create a more powerful drawing.
The organ of intelligence for any visual art is the eye. Everyone who is capable makes innumerable observations and decisions visually within the course of a day. The obvious purpose is to keep ourselves oriented within the world. Yet much of the visual information we take in is never used and in a sense is overlooked. Drawing makes use of some of that overlooked information and helps one to become more visually aware. In fact, in order to draw well, one has to become more visually alert.
Drawing, in the sense referred to here, is seeing. There is intimate connection between the process of drawing and the process of seeing. As the eye moves around a room locating and identifying objects, the artist’s pencil traces a visual path across the page translating those observations into an intricate pattern of marks which in turn are read as a pictorial representation of reality (or segment thereof). The novice will find that seeing for the purpose of drawing is far more demanding than ordinary seeing. And he or she will also discover that the more intently one looks and studies the objects to be drawn the more is actually seen.
In order to perceive space as having both position and shape, there must be a figure on a ground. The figure may be described as positive space and the area surrounding the figure as negative space. Positive space has mass, shape, position. Negative space is given shape by the positive shape which it surrounds. On a flat surface like paper or canvas, the positive space and negative space are both flat shapes that share a common edge (one or more common edges). The positive space becomes positive shape through the viewer’s interpretation of the drawn image. There is a linear or tonal distinction between what is and what is not the image or the object being drawn. The distinction or edge is the contour or outline of that particular object image.
This may sound very abstract to someone not used to the kind of visual thinking that an artist does and is trained to do. However, this understanding is important to grasp for the novice to begin to wean him or herself from the crutch of object-oriented thinking. The recognition and naming of objects is a very different mode of understanding from the insight required to draw an image as a combination of shapes – what Cezanne referred to as the cylinder, sphere, and cone to be observed in nature. Note that these are all three-dimensional shapes that can be highly simplified interpretations, much like an underlying framework, of a tree or limb, a flower, a house, or some other dimensional object.
Details don’t matter. Size, proportion, location, and shape do matter. These are the building blocks from which space is created and images emerge. The drawings of interiors by Alberto Giacometti or the gestural figure studies by Rembrandt have a lot in common even though they are separated by nearly three hundred years. In both examples we see the artists’ interest in establishing objects or people within a given space. Details are immaterial and would only serve as distractions from what the drawings suggest. With Rembrandt we also see psychological connection between figures, but this is the artist’s personal concern and unique to his work. With Giacometti, as a modernist, we sense attitudes of isolation and alienation, concerns expressed by many twentieth century artists. Psychological expressions result from an artist’s sensitivity to and understanding of the design elements utilized. That is a much longer discussion.
Posted on 9/25/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Plants and Flowers
When I was in the fourth grade, we read in our history book about early forms of writing, specifically tablets made of damp clay into which symbolic cuneiform characters were incised with a stylus. The clay was dried or baked in order to make the writing semi-permanent. The history text was illustrated with watercolor paintings that showed shirtless young men collecting clay from a riverbed, molding it into flat tablets, scoring the tablets with mysterious figures, drying the tablets in the sun, and then later the tablets being read by a scholarly looking tunic-wrapped gentleman by candlelight. This image fired my imagination.
I had the great idea of creating a project that would illustrate exactly the process that these early scholars had followed. I went to the creek that was not too far from our house and collected buckets full of rich brown mud as the primary medium for my project. My first discovery was that the mud did not have enough cohesive properties to be formed into tablet shapes. After some experimentation, I devised a crude mold of wooden strips to contain the mud long enough for it to dry. Any marks I made in the surface of a tablet filled with water that eroded the marks as if melting them. Nothing held its shape. As water slowly seeped under the wood strips or gradually evaporated, the mud turned into rather coarse, gritty sand. As soon as the mold was removed, the tablet lost its shape. I tried other tablets formed on a cookie sheet and fired in my mother’s oven, but that didn’t work either. I really needed clay, but there wasn’t any available in my neighborhood.
I searched through the woods north of our house for the area where the creek widened to the width of a small river. I remembered having seen puddles along an old surveying road that collected sleek brown mud that cracked into hard chunks as it dried. I figured if I could control the drying of that more gooey mixture, I could prevent the cracking and actually form the kinds of tablets I desired. It was a good plan, but that scheme ultimately failed as well. My tablets, just as in the puddles, dried and cracked on the surface. There was not enough clay in the ground to create the kinds of tablets I wanted. I concluded that in my area, at least, writing would have had to evolve in a different medium.
The next week at school, much to my dismay, a girl in my class brought in several clay tablets that looked very much like the illustrations in our history book. She explained that her mother had bought her some modeling clay at a crafts store. She incised them with a stylus carved from a tongue depressor (her mother was also a doctor). She then slowly baked these in the oven until they were hardened. Her finished product looked pretty good and captured the essence of the idea, but I felt she had an unfair advantage. Hammurabi certainly wouldn’t have gone to a crafts store.
Still, the lesson was an important one. I learned that materials have certain properties that enable them to be manipulated in ways that are unique to the material. This led me into new realms of exploration. Some research can be first hand field research but that often has to be wedded with library research as well. There were certainly many books available in the public library that held as much information as I wanted to know on almost any subject. This began a lifelong affair with libraries that still exists in spite of the internet and all its possibilities. I first learned about drawing and painting from the shelves of my public library. My current library card now also gives me access to the extensive databases to which the library subscribes. I have book access virtually anywhere twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. That’s a far cry from a clay tablet.
Posted on 9/24/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Construction
Periodically the concept of change becomes one of those in-your-face ideas that can’t be ignored. Anyone who has lived for any length of time has had to deal with change in one way or another. We can think about change as something longed for and hopeful, it can be dreaded and resisted, or it can be somewhat pessimistically accepted as inevitable. The concept itself is simply neutral; it is neither positive nor negative. We do respond to change, however, as being a plus or a minus because of the consequences that accompany whatever the change may be. Currently, I have concerns about a sick pet. She’s an eighteen year old silver tabby that has developed potentially life-threatening pancreatitis. This raises all kinds of questions about treatment, effects, viability, prognosis, and, of course, choices. There are many consequences to each decision that have to be weighed.
Artists make all sorts of decisions from beginning to end of the art making process. That process may relate to the singular work, or the process may relate to work over a period of time including the entirety of a career. There are creative decisions and business decisions. We would not call these life-threatening, but they certainly can be life-affecting. What is pretty much certain is that every decision will instigate some level of change. The change may occur in the specific work, in a group of works, in the artist as a creator or as a person, in the artist’s career, or perhaps in the direction he or she chooses to take. Sometimes all of the above are affected by change. This can be a good thing when goals are clear, and actions taken are the appropriate steps toward manifesting those goals.
I love the process of painting for the observable change that occurs from beginning to end. Starting with nothing, the blank canvas, and ending with something, the completed painting, includes a remarkable series of transformations that occur over whatever period of time is necessary. The painter may be confident or hesitant, certain or uncertain, but each addition of stroke or color points the way to the next. The image is changing little by little, perhaps a bit faster when the painter is confident and certain. Whatever the attitude of the artist, there is a level of magic in the gradual change as the image grows to reveal the final result. I don’t know any painters who are not captivated by this process of change. They develop an intimate dialog with the idea, the materials, and the resultant image. It is a conversation that sometimes may be halting, and sometimes may lead to unexpected conclusions. It is almost always a conversation worth having, for the change that occurs is startling.
Posted on 9/23/2012 6:07:00 PM
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Breughel's Icarus
There are many ways to think about art and to think about painting. The most successful art and/or painting probably works on several levels of meaning at once. In fact, most artists would insist on that. There are some works, though, that could largely be considered either as paintings of images or paintings of ideas. Some artists may be better known as painters of images or painters of ideas. Whichever direction an artist goes, the painting itself, the technique and execution, should fit the image or the idea.
Looking back into art history, I’d say that much painting for several hundred years is painting of ideas. The images are important, to be sure, but the ideas are what make the paintings what they are. Since most paintings up to the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries are realistic, we could say that the paintings are illustrations of certain ideas. Most religious paintings, for example, illustrate the annunciation, the nativity, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and other episodes from the Bible. Artists interpreted these scenes in quite different ways, sometimes infusing emotional power as in the crucifixions by Matthias Grunewald. Rembrandt’s The Blinding of Samson is a particularly emotionally powerful representation that conveys Samson’s agony through his clenched fists and curled toes as one eye is brutally gouged. The scene is dramatically lighted with deep light-dark contrast and angular shapes. It is a very strong example of how idea and image can fully support each other, but the narrative idea is still paramount.
Paintings that referenced Greek or Roman mythology also basically illustrated scenes from well-known tales and legends. From the Renaissance forward, painters expressed their ideas through these accepted forms of religious and secular subjects. Images became more sophisticated, realistic, interpretive, either intellectually cool (like the neo-classicists) or fervently emotional (the romantics), but in my opinion it was landscape where painters explored image more than idea. Other than representation of place, the idea could take a back seat to the image. Space, color, light, and texture could shine forth without the distraction of a particular narrative or cast of characters getting in the way. Moving into the twentieth century, though, increasing numbers of painters became interested in ideas about art that underlie a painting.
Perhaps because the academies were so successful in defining the rules of painting, images were fairly tightly controlled for generations. Many artists began to question basic assumptions about art, and paintings became expressive of particular ideas to illustrate the artists’ thinking. Classical and religious narrative images in painting were excised. Immediate surroundings were initially explored, so the character of the image shifted to the ordinary and everyday experience. For many painters, even those observations were distracting from what they felt was more fundamental to painting – colored shapes on a surface. The concept of pure painting, which was never really pure from the outset, gave way to the idea of making art as fundamentally personal expression. Painting represented only itself, but what seemed to happen is that painting began to represent the individual ideas of the artists. Abstraction, flatness, expression, process, non-objective were the new buzz-words, and an anything goes attitude became broadly popular. Artists again became painters of ideas but ideas that were self-generated.
Obviously during this shift into so-called modern painting, there were many who continued to explore traditional means although not so much under the auspices of an academy. Some maintained those ties. Thus, today we have art that moves a hundred directions at once. Many find this exciting and others find it disconcerting. Still, it can be interesting to consider a painting from the standpoint of its imagery or its ideas or how skillfully the artist may blend the two together. The possibilities are certainly richly varied.
Posted on 9/22/2012 7:37:21 PM
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Bank Right
Scientists used to think that the infant brain gradually built strong neural pathways that, once set, did not change except to strengthen up to a point. With advanced age, these pathways would gradually decline. Also with age, fewer and fewer pathways would be created. The mature brain, then, was the best it could be. In effect, it was set in stone. Research over the past thirty years or so has led scientists in new directions with respect to the brain.
In western culture, we have many expressions that underline the older view of the brain. We say that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, or we speak of something being set in stone. The Old Testament allusion extends to a person being set in his or her ways. The idea that change is possible is dismissed, not because it might be challenging or difficult, but because it is against the natural order. “I’m too old to learn” is often expressed with a fatalistic tone in the voice emphasized by slumped shoulders and downcast eyes.
Brain research is not new, but what is being learned about the brain’s ability to change, what is called brain plasticity, is relatively new to neuroscience. Much has been learned since MRI technology came into being where scientists could actually see the brain functioning rather than only measuring brain impulses. Studies of alcohol and chemically dependent patients with cases of brain damage, visible holes in the brain from cell loss, have shown significant improvement after patients stopped the alcohol and drug abuse. Over time their brains physically changed to heal some of the damage that had been inflicted.
Other studies have shown that specific areas of the brain can be targeted through physical exercise or specific mental exercises to sharpen memory, recall, facial recognition, hearing improvement, and visual acuity. More study is needed and currently continues in many areas related to plasticity, but it is suggested that individuals can take charge of their own brain functionality. Many psychologists and neurologists are utilizing computerized programs to train or retrain certain areas of the brain to help individuals stop habitual negative behavior, increase sensory perception including vision and hearing, improve listening and communication skills, and other types of brain function improvement. This is a large step beyond what New Age philosophers and human potential workers of the sixties were able to accomplish with positive thinking and affirmations. Other holistic technologies like bio-feedback, EFT, acupuncture and acupressure also now have more scientific explanations of their workings.
Working artists may have good supporting habits that help them directly with their creative work and also with their business marketing. They may also have some negative habits that work against their success. Just knowing the concept of brain plasticity can be valuable support in breaking old habits and replacing them with new, positive ones. It is never too late to change. It is never too late to learn new ways of doing. It is never too late to create success.
http://www.positscience.com/?gclid=CJXMrpi3yrICFbKiPAodrnQAcw
Posted on 9/21/2012 7:13:49 PM
By Donald Fox
2 Comments
Emma: Young and Old
Transformation basically means change, but the meaning goes a bit deeper to suggest fundamental change. The dictionary definition refers to change in “form, nature, and function.” I’ve often thought about art as being transformational on several levels at once. For me, this is part of what gives art such power. An experience, often quite an ordinary one on the part of the artist is first felt internally as a transformation. The artist may see or feel something that has been seen or felt many times before, but this one time something is different. Maybe it is the lighting, maybe the visual point of view, or maybe the association is made with something else recently experienced that now resonates with the new experience. As a result the artist sees or feels in a different way, and the ordinary is transformed into something extraordinary.
In turn, the artist takes this new stimulus and transforms it again into the particular language – verbal, visual, musical, kinetic, spatial – that is the instrument through which he or she understands and communicates. From this the artist creates a work of art. The visual experience of a landscape, for example, is translated into a landscape painting. The physical materials of canvas and oil paint are transformed in turn into a painted image. That image may reference the original scene in greater or lesser detail depending on the artist’s style, but something else is transmitted through colored shapes on a flat surface. The educated viewer will see more than just a picture of something. He or she will read levels of meaning that may remind him or her of other visual experiences both real and artistic, and the viewer may also connect to poetic, metaphorical, philosophical, emotional, and psychological meanings through the visual language of the artist.
In essence, a work of art is more than whatever it represents. It does not matter whether the representation is literal as in a realistic painting (or a photograph) or totally imaginative (not literal, not pictorial, not a semblance of anything recognizable) as in what is loosely, and somewhat misleadingly, called abstract painting. In either case there can be deeply felt emotional experience that can be verbally described or not, that might be called enlightening, empowering, or spiritually uplifting. This is quite profound transformation when something that is static and composed of only shapes and colors and textures can create such affective response in the viewer.
Psychologists, philosophers and aestheticians attempt to quantify or at least describe these experiences and how art creates them. These explanations are never quite satisfying, for the coolness of the description leaves the emotional context of the art experience far behind. Obviously, art has to be experienced in order to be effective on any level. And, in the parlance of Gestalt psychology, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Many, I am sure, have had the experience of seeing a remarkable sunset and then tried to capture it in a photograph. The photograph, however, doesn’t quite convey the power of the original. This kind of fleeting sensual experience of nature or anything else in the so-called real world is best experienced in the moment. When a similar experience is transformed into art, on the other hand, the art itself becomes the impetus for response. It is always the same when presented for viewing, but it may reveal itself over time. The viewer changes and gradually observes more within the work almost as though he or she were lifting veils of obscurity from the eyes and understanding. The old adage of the more you look, the more you see is apropos of artwork in general.
People will always have differing views about what affects them and in what ways. They may agree or disagree about the quality of any particular work of art. Sometimes the debate that ensues is very stimulating and educational. How one actually responds to a piece of art is totally up to the individual. When that response is transformational, though, the viewer will not deny that he or she is in the presence of a truly remarkable work of art.
Posted on 9/20/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Painting Class
On my way to and from work and just driving around town, I listen to National Public Radio for their many informative programs and the classical music played through the local affiliate station. This morning one expert guest on a show discussing issues related to hazing was the current president of Cornell University who also is a medical doctor and a heart specialist. I later thought of many people I know who are trained in one profession but who actually work in another. In these challenging economic times, this is not unusual, and it has been a long time practice in higher education. Professors from many different disciplines often become department chairs or part of the college/university administrative leadership. They know how to bridge the gap between students and administration. One very important lesson I have learned in my own tenure in higher education is the value of teamwork.
Any school is obviously focused on education, but it is also a business whether for profit or non-profit, public or private. Its structure and function must be designed to provide an effective learning environment in order to serve the students, its clients, well. Administration, support staff, and faculty have individual areas of expertise and responsibility but also share a single purpose: to serve the clients. Departmental, all faculty, or all staff meetings are part of the modus operandi. Brainstorming, problem solving, and streamlining are standard meetings’ fare. Subcommittees may be appointed to tackle specific issues. Particular individuals may be called upon for their experience or expertise. Bottom line, though, everyone is part of a team and contributes accordingly. There is shared pride during graduation ceremonies when all those students, including the challenging ones, get to walk across the stage to receive their degrees or diplomas.
Many have said that art is a solitary endeavor. This may be true on the creative side for some of the arts. Arts like music, theater, film, and dance are by nature collaborative, so it does not seem odd to talk about them as team oriented. Painters, sculptors, ceramists, and printmakers, though they may be solitary workers, also have teams that they essentially create themselves. All of them become business people as well as artists. They work with suppliers, their internet provider, perhaps a webmaster, possibly assistants, framers, shippers, promoters, venue owners, gallery owners and managers, show organizers, sometimes publicists, art consultants, private dealers, collectors, and customers. I should also mention bankers, city and county tax officials, and the IRS. Even if the artist is personally handling some of these functions, he or she doesn’t handle them all. Certain members may be temporary or may be permanent members of the artist’s team, for there is a team in action here. The artist may be the coach or captain, but these support team members are necessary to the success of the artist’s efforts.
How well does the team function? Well, how focused, well organized, and involved is the team captain?
Posted on 9/19/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Roadside
At the school where I work, one of my jobs is the Test Center Director for a variety of certification tests. The entities that sponsor different tests are referred to as clients by the test agency that administers and coordinates several hundred different certification examinations. Someone registers for a particular exam given at our test center on specified days. They show up at the designated time, and we take them through a sign-in procedure which includes checking two forms of ID and taking their picture. After they are admitted, the exam is automatically downloaded to one of our computers.
The entire process contains many levels of security to insure the proper person is taking the proper exam, and the results reflect that the individual has the necessary knowledge and/or skill set for the particular certification. The process protects the integrity of our school, the individual being tested, and the public when that newly certified person may be in charge of something that could affect public safety. In short, the integrity of the certification process is maintained from start to finish. Many of the client guidelines for specific tests are quite stringent. Our responsibility is to uphold the client’s standards.
There are no standards per se in art. We might say that quality is the overall standard, but the arts and creativity being what they are quality is rather subjective and somewhat nebulous. How do we define quality in art? This is a pretty substantial question since many still argue about what art itself actually is.
We see in past history artists who in their time were successful and highly respected. Many of these artists today are forgotten and their work ignored. Other artists were unsuccessful and may even have died in obscurity, but today their names are revered among the greatest to have ever lived, their works cherished and often found in reproduction on the walls of many homes. Tastes change as do standards.
Inevitably, though, there will be some artists whose work survives and is honored generation after generation. Their names have become cultural icons – Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Leonardo, to name only a few. Generally it is said that these artists pass the test of time. They created their own standard so that even a small and seemingly inconsequential work by one of them is raised to iconic status.
Art schools have tried for many years, for hundreds of years if we include the earliest academies, to create guidelines and standards to which artists should aspire and levels of quality which they should achieve. The results have been mixed at best, and sometimes the best work of a time period has been done in opposition to the academic standards of that time. Certain realists, romantics , or impressionists (Courbet, Manet, Monet, for example) were rejected by their academic peers. And yet, these artists changed the course of art into the modern era. It could be argued that in some ways standards actually impede progress and perhaps inhibit work from reaching a higher potential. Those who reject the standard, with the caveat that their work is good enough, serve to create a new standard.
Certainly there are many fields where standards are necessary for the protection of quality or for health or safety reasons. Surpassing the standard can become an excellent marketing tool. We certainly also use the word quality in many ways. We speak of quality service, quality education, quality products, quality relationships, and more. There have to be some standards in place by which quality is judged. The wise person, though, will have the motivation to not just meet the quality standard but to exceed it. Intrinsically he or she will feel driven to surpass whatever is the standard because the standard may equate with average. I believe that ultimately artists create their own standard. They do often, at least for a time in their development, measure their own work against the work of those whom they admire. Whether they accept the judgment of others, especially critics, is another question. Just as success may be defined in different ways, so may quality, so may achievement, and so may satisfaction. If one is dedicated to growth and improvement, it is likely, in my view, that one’s standards will be self-generated. I think that often this is the path of the artist.
Posted on 9/18/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Inspiration Point
One of the most powerful lessons that I learned some years ago about seeing the shape and make-up of what I was looking at came after an instructor said to look at the space around something and the space between things. For example, a Breuer type chair with open legs and space between the seat and back actually carves the space it occupies with its elegant linear elements. A standard folding chair does basically the same thing. There is easily observable and measurable space in the openings between the legs and between the seat and the back. If one were to imagine the spaces in between as substantive and focused on drawing them accurately, then the physical elements of the chair would also be created. Admittedly, I didn’t fully grasp the concept at first, but with some serious looking and thinking, it started to make sense. When I saw the same concept in a discussion of figure-ground reversal in a psychology book, I really became excited with the understanding and its application to drawing and/or painting.
We tend to be a word-oriented culture and have made reading and writing a very important part of a child’s learning curriculum. This is good overall because language is so fundamental to clear communication. Still, as infants we also learn to differentiate between things visually before we have language understanding. We sort out colors and shapes. We recognize friendly faces and facial expressions and respond to them much more readily than to words or even the babble that adults are so prone to using around infants. By the time we get to school, the shift is already beginning to move towards words and numbers even though we still do play with images by drawing and painting or cutting out paper shapes. These playtime games become fewer and fewer while reading and writing and working with numbers increase at a steady pace. But I remember nothing from my first half dozen or so years of formal learning that actually taught me about seeing shapes as they are. The focus was generally on identifying objects and naming them.
It was exciting, therefore, when that teacher showed me a different way of viewing that I quickly came to understand as a very natural way of perceiving. The shapes are always there in great abundance and variety, but most people never actually see them. They are too engrossed with identification even though it is such a simple switch from viewing to identify to viewing for what we might call design quality: color, shape, form, texture, or light-dark contrast. Some people seem to intuit this way of seeing without having to be told or, as in my case, without having to verbalize it. By and large, these are the artistic types, the ones who often go on to become expressive and artistically creative. Some do this naturally and some have to be nurtured.
For me, paying attention to the shift between what is called positive shape and negative space or noticing contrasts between light and dark are so fundamental to art making that I’m tempted to call them primal responses. I can easily imagine these as ancient survival tools for the quick recognition of dangerous predators, or the difference between finding lunch and becoming lunch. Art, of course, is not a blood sport in spite of what some critics sometimes make it out to be. The importance of these perceptual concepts, even though they are elementary, has only grown for me through the years. As I’ve explored many different ideas, sometimes rather convoluted ones, it is the fundamental ones that keep pulling me back as if to remind me that truth really does lie in simplicity.
Posted on 9/17/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
The Death of Socrates
An article in the September issue of Wired Magazine looks briefly at the disgust factor that generally protects us from ingesting things that could be harmful. Parents, of course, have to be diligent around small children who usually have not developed aversion to many things. They often use taste as a way to explore their world. In the not too distant future, however, we will have challenges with food and water shortages on a vast scale. Some countries already suffer from these challenges, areas of drought not being the least of these. Singapore is recycling sewage through sophisticated processing to produce nearly thirty percent of its potable water. It is also suggested in the article that we may, as some cultures do already, start eating insects as potential replacement for meat, the production of which is highly energy inefficient and resource wasteful. To the West, in particular, becoming bug eaters could be a significant challenge even though some insects are highly nutritious.
Culturally, we learn many ideas that in cultures different from our own would seem strange or perhaps disgusting. The reverse is also true; some practices in other cultures might offend us. Even within a single culture, there are sub-groups that for traditional, religious, or other reasons have beliefs that may put them at odds with the larger culture. Humans have proved to be fairly adaptable through many generations, but humans can also be very rigid and strongly opposed to change. So many of the ideas that we accept as being right or true or “the way it is” are only ideas among a shared group. As soon as we reach out to a larger audience, we must make adjustments so as not to offend or alienate others that may not share our views. Business people are challenged with this every day in international business. We also see the results of spiritual conflicts where misunderstanding and misinterpretation come from insensitivity, or in some cases, intolerance for another’s beliefs.
Historically, art has illustrated some of these conflicts in varieties of ways. In ancient times there were many depictions of one group subjugating another, of practitioners of a set of beliefs being punished for those beliefs, or of a system of beliefs being raised above others to the level of governance and required obeisance. We also see practices that might be anathema to one group being praised in the art of another. For example, there are many cases of eroticism in art that are rarely, if ever, discussed or portrayed in art history literature. Ancient Greece, Rome, India, South America, Native America, China, Japan, and other Asian cultures all contain examples of eroticism that were normal to the time and culture. Christianity and Islam, however, generally took exception to these kinds of expressions, either labeling them sinful or heretical or antithetical to their doctrine. America still struggles to clearly define what is permissible and what is not with respect to publishing, public display, or distribution of erotic material.
Many today find challenges in certain characters or themes in television shows – excessive violence, nudity, sex, homosexuality, terrorism, religious irreverence – we could make a lengthy list. I use television as an example since this is probably the common denominator of cultural expression. We could just as easily apply this to visual art, music, theater, or dance. Fine art is not the common denominator although the community standard (to determine pornography) is applied in the arts as elsewhere. Personally, I’m not interested in community standards. A lot of idiocy passes that test too easily. Neither am I offended by much in the arts whether in the form of satire, irreverence, or outrage. I, and I suspect many artists as well, have developed my own critical system by which I judge whether to view or not to view anything artistic, cultural, religious, whatever. I definitely do not want others making judgments for me even though much is pre-judged before I even get to consider it. Such is the way of culture.
Posted on 9/16/2012 7:03:29 PM
By Donald Fox
3 Comments
Manet - The Railway
Recently I replaced an old television set, one that had to be connected to a converter box or cable to even work since the digital shift, with a Smart TV. The old one still worked fine, but its heavy box construction was getting to be too much to move around for cleaning, and, truth be told, I wanted one with a larger screen. With cable, the old analog set got a few extra years of use, but the one I bought cost less than the one I replaced. The new one is much larger screen-wise, about a third the weight, and is, well, smarter. I now have internet access via the TV, which includes a variety of apps.
My cell phone is still a flip phone with no camera, no internet, and no apps. Everywhere I go, and especially at school, people are glued to their I-phones or phone clones. I get a lot of emails sent via phone, but I feel no need to be that connected. I don’t even always answer the phone when it rings. Sorry, but if I’m busy, I don’t want to talk with you. We can do that later at a more convenient time for me – then it will be your problem. I’m not exactly a Luddite. I make frequent use of the computer and am pretty good at researching most anything on the internet. I’ve learned a lot as a librarian and a writing instructor. I can spot plagiarism without having to do internet searches or use turnitin.com. All the bells and whistles that are marketed for phones, pads, and computers hold little interest for me.
I understand about change. I’ve paid attention to the economic swings since the sixties. I’ve observed the shift from tubes to solid state to digital. I’ve seen cars grow big, then small, move from station wagons to vans to SUVs, engines change from timing that could be set yourself to those monitored by computers. We went from propellers to prop-jets to jets, launched satellites and walked on the moon. I’m grateful for all these innovations, but I also know they won’t make paintings any better. They might influence some new art forms; certainly many of those are interesting – video and digital animation, for example.
So far, though, there is no art app. There are no paintings that have improved beyond the paintings of the Dutch Golden Age. Images and subjects have certainly changed. Art philosophies have moved in different directions, and the value of some artwork has questionably been raised beyond reason. Art conservation has reached heights unimaginable to Renaissance painters. New materials have emerged, and the image has been fractured, deconstructed, reconstructed, split and recombined, reduced to nothing and divided into pixels. Some have tried machine-produced art, but these have not been very successful. There is no art app nor is there likely to be as long as there are painters interested in painting. Let’s hope that will continue into the far future.
Posted on 9/15/2012 8:11:22 PM
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Cool Morning
This morning was a perfect morning, which is saying a lot for Houston in late summer, early fall. We had rain showers last night, and the temperature dropped about fifteen degrees. That’s practically a cold spell. This time of year is usually hot and humid, especially after it rains. Last night, though, a small front moved through, and the temperature cooled nicely. It was great walking in the park today, still slightly overcast, just a bit of blue peeking through now and then. There was a soft breeze, and the light was a cool yellow-gray. Two egrets and a Great Blue Heron patrolled the bayou tracing mirror images across the surface of the brown water. You get used to that on Texas. Every major river and every bayou is brown rather than blue. The water stirs up a lot of mud that colors it more than the sky. It’s not brackish, just brown. At certain angles, though, there will be a hint of blue on clear days. That makes for an interesting transition where the water changes according to viewpoint from blue to brown, almost an adobe shade rather than chocolate or umber. The air did not feel humid even though it had that post rain clarity as though someone sharpened the focus of a giant lens.
This would have been a great day for painting plein air, and I’m sure there were many painters out and about. Unfortunately, I had plans that occupied me the entire day, My morning sojourn in the park was the closest I got to translating vision to canvas. I just had to do it with observation and memory. That’s a good exercise too, and I appreciate the years of training that have taught me to look well and closely, to register the nuances of light and shadow, warm and cool, bright and dull. Even when not painting, I can still have the experience of appreciating potential subjects and commit them to memory for later access. Tomorrow, though; that’s another story.
Posted on 9/14/2012 3:49:28 PM
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Flammarion Engraving
In my early teens I began to read a lot of science fiction and fantasy literature. I loved the imaginative creation of alien worlds, life on other planets, fantastic creatures, and powers beyond the ordinary, whether intelligence, extra-sensory, or physical strength. Horror stories held little appeal although I did read Poe and a host of ghost stories, but these never stimulated my own imagination the way that science fiction did.
Sometimes the boundary between science fiction and fantasy is a slippery one. Comics were in their heyday when I was a kid, and DC comics in particular introduced a number of super-heroes that often straddled the fantasy-science fiction fence. Others of my generation were perhaps more profoundly influenced by these genres and went on to create similar expression of their own in film, notably George Lukas and Steven Spielberg.
Science fiction and fantasy in painting were mostly illustrational, and if they fit at all within the history of art, I’d locate them as offshoots of surrealism. The roots of the latter in western painting could be traced to the religious visionary paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Breughel as well as a few lesser known masters of the Dutch Golden Age. Later work by Henry Fuselli and Francesco Goya plus the visionary paintings of William Blake added psychological depth and philosophical inquiry suggestive of alternatives to visions not strictly associated with religious experience.
Many science fiction and fantasy stories are set in worlds that have unique properties. They are governed by different natural and physical laws. One could argue, consequently, that these stories are a kind of wish fulfillment for artist and audience alike. Artists can also present human foibles in symbolic form without directly confronting any real-life counterparts that may have been the inspiration. In some ways this is not unlike the Classical Greek pantheon of gods and mythical heroes, or those tales and legends of many other cultures.
Come to think of it, it might prove interesting to study contemporary society, especially within the U.S., and its penchant for spin-culture and sound bites that often create an alternate universe coinciding with the ordinary everyday lives of individuals going about their business in their version of the real world. Political parties certainly do this regularly in their attempts to gain the upper hand through their interpretation of a set of facts they claim represent a particular reality. Yet, with two or more factions vying for power, there are at least two alternative realities at any given point in time. One or both of them may well be fantasies.
Art tends to reflect our view of ourselves and of the world. The image in the mirror cannot be any more real than what it is reflecting. It is interesting that in a time when real science is contemplating parallel universes and multiple realities, we see cultural expressions that continue this same thread with powerful visionary statements particularly in film by artists like James Cameron and Ridley Scott. Fiction spills into reality, and the spin-meisters attempt to impose versions of that reality to suit their own purposes. If art is a fiction that reflects that which supposedly is real, what are all these economic, political, and religious fictions reflecting? It used to be that the worlds of art were places of respite and refuge from the stresses of reality. Now reality often seems like a fiction that is darker than the most horrific fable. Can art show us a way out of this labyrinthine construct?
Posted on 9/13/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Magnolia
I was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the site of the beginning of the American Civil War. My father’s family was from a small rural community about fifty miles west of Charleston. There is a lot of swampy country along the Cooper River as it winds inland, and it is partly in this area that Francis Marion, known as the Swamp Fox, lived and fought against the British during the American Revolution. His legend came alive for me whenever we visited this state (we had moved to North Carolina not long after my birth). His story and other dramatic stories of America’s past were very important influences on my love of history and art, both visual and literary.
One of my uncles, from whom I obtained my middle name Martin, married one of my dad’s older sisters. Uncle Danny was an avid woodsman and hunter. He created a career as an overseer and caretaker for various plantations, most of which were no longer productive but had become summer homes or investment properties of wealthy out-of-state owners. My aunt and uncle lived on different plantations for years at a time ensuring that the grounds were kept safe. In a few cases they supervised other staff. My uncle also served as a hunting guide when the owners would visit for recreation.
Two of the plantations. Mulberry and Poco Sabo, still had the original manor houses intact and livable. In fact, my aunt and uncle lived in the manor house on Mulberry plantation. Visiting these homes was like stepping back in time to the era of Gone with the Wind. The Mulberry house contained many original furnishings including four-poster beds with canopies, chifferobes, chandeliers, fireplaces in all bedrooms up and downstairs, and lots of portraits of former occupants, landscape paintings, hunting scenes, and floral paintings. Flintlock rifles and pistols were mounted on walls along with military swords and various heraldry. Even at a young age I knew about museums, but this was alive and daily accessible. My uncle could tell stories about the surroundings, the houses, and the belongings.
I quickly began to understand that the past is not so far removed and that the events or personages we read about in school history books were more than just facts and figures. I could see these people, or those like them, in the many portraits. I could touch the same beds, walk the floors (and hear them walk the floors at night), handle the guns and swords that may have defended the honor of a southern belle or thwarted the plans of the British. I understood that these were my forbears and that I was breathing the same air as they as I might open a long-closed chifferobe or chest. I often sat at a writing desk and imagined what it might have been like to write with quill pen by candle light. The past was real and alive and all around me in every moment.
I also learned, although I could not have expressed it at the time, that our imagination is the key to understanding not only the past but also the present, and especially the experiences of others who may live, think, or do differently from what I had learned to call the normal world. When I began to read about the lives of others, other countries and other cultures, it was no great leap to identify with the experiences that the writer might describe. Neither was it strange to see images quite different from what I was used to seeing depicted in paintings. In fact, I began to explore new possibilities through local museums and the local library. Art is such a great gift whether as utilitarian craft, historical chronicle, or personal/cultural expression. We get to see some other aspect of ourselves, like seeing ourselves from a new perspective. The more we look, the more we learn.
Posted on 9/12/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Cloud Study
Yesterday I meditated at length on 9/11, something I do every anniversary of that sad event. It was with added sadness that I learned of the incidents in Libya and Egypt on my way home last night. I often listen to BBC news to get a different perspective from what is offered via American airways. The difference in content can sometimes be subtle and sometimes pronounced. Generally, to my way of thinking, the wider the view, the greater the understanding, and the clearer the picture that can be rendered.
Americans are often seen abroad as being ignorant of other cultures. The great American writer and satirist Mark Twain in his The Innocents Abroad, sometimes pokes fun at his fellow American travelers and sometimes at the people and cultures they encounter, often for the notable differences in attitude and perception. Throughout much of American history, isolationism has been a theme – we’ll do what we do; let the rest of the world go its own way. This concept has not worked well in the 20th century and certainly not in the digital age. In spite of the accessibility of information (and perhaps because of disinformation), the attitudes of Americans vis-à-vis the world have not seemed to change much. Many Americans simply do not take the time to learn about other cultures. This seems odd for a nation that has been built by immigrants. The assumption always is that those who come here must assimilate. If and when they become citizens, they sever ties with their parent country but not necessarily the culture. Ironically, one of our strengths is in our diversity.
There are those today, however, who would keep us at odds with the rest of the world, especially the Islamic world, while also sowing discord at home. For much of the 20th century, American foreign policy centered around anti-communism. America clandestinely propped up numerous suspect regimes simply because they were anti-communist. Many of these regimes were quite repressive and corrupt, from the Philippines to Iran to Nicaragua to Viet Nam. As long as America could do business with those in power and those in power resisted communism, the regime could count on American aid and, often, American weaponry. These political games made us hated by many in those countries and in other countries in the world. The most vehement hatred came from the fundamentalists who were often at the bottom of the political power scale but who often were in greater numbers than those who held power. Add to this the long history of conflict between Christians and Muslims and between Muslims and Jews, and the stage is set for seething fundamentalism to cast us as the Great Satan.
Unfortunately, religion plays a strong role on all sides. Fundamentalism of whatever stripe is based in ignorance and arrogance. It categorically rejects any compromise with any doctrine outside its own. Anything other is anathema, heretical, blasphemous, and to be condemned. There is great fear that any counter doctrine or variant doctrine will weaken the faith and weaken the power of those who call themselves guardians of the faith. This is true for fundamentalist Christianity, fundamentalist Islam, fundamentalist Judaism or any other fundamentalist faith expression. As a result, the proponents of the faith strike out at those outside the faith, especially those they perceive as the greatest threat whether they understand that other faith or not – usually it is not.
We have been involved with a so-called war on terror for some years now. Mostly it is in response to major events like 9/11, the earlier Trade Tower bombing, various embassy bombings, and other acts of international terrorism. We are not at war with Islam, but there are those in this country who would frame the conflict in this way. They are fundamentalists, and they do not make distinction between peaceful practitioners of the ancient religion of Islam and the fundamentalist Islamists represented by Al-Quaeda, the Taliban, and others. They make the basic argumentative error of stereotyping. They create inflammatory, defamatory, and derogative claims against not only their perceived enemy – to them all of Islam – but also our own leaders who try to distinguish among the diverse expressions of faith and uphold those American tenets of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Freedom of speech, of course, has never meant defamatory and derogative speech. We have laws against libel and slander.
The recent events in Libya are the result of ignorance in action – ignorance on the part of the filmmaker who created the inflammatory film denigrating aspects of Islam and ignorance on the part of the mob that misdirected its response against representatives of the United States. In the U.S. today there are huge numbers of hate spewing individuals and groups on both the left and the right of the political spectrum. Currently, it seems more weighted to the right, for there we find the most extreme. Ironically, many of these individuals present themselves as family-oriented Christians, but their language is as vitriolic and sometimes violent as the Islamists they target, even when it’s not directed at the Islamists but at fellow Americans. Their ignorance blinds them to the damage they do to the efforts of those working at home and abroad, like Chris Stevens and colleagues who were recently killed, and to the broader image of the United States. The filmmaker in this instance and others who create defamatory, abusive propaganda are as much responsible for the attacks in Libya as those who perpetrated the attacks. Many faiths teach that violence is not the way, whether violence with words or violence with deeds. Christianity teaches this and so does Islam.
Posted on 9/11/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Sims Bayou
There have been different times in my life when I’ve been an avid gardener. I grew vegetables mostly although some flowers were also grown, especially nasturtiums and marigolds, whose insect repellant properties are utilized by many vegetable gardeners. The soil needs to be prepared by digging, tilling, or plowing, depending on the size of the plot. Those who eschew chemical additives will make use of organic matter like straw, grass clippings, compost, manure or whatever can be obtained that will enrich the soil. Raised bed gardening is particularly good in my area’s gumbo soil since it creates a deep area for plants to establish strong roots in aerated soil with good drainage. This is a variation on French intensive gardening that is sometimes also called biodynamic gardening. There is no substitute for good, fertile soil. Lots of water won’t make much difference if the water simply washes away the nutrients or the plant roots have nowhere to go.
Life in the city, a hectic schedule, and commitments outside the studio all have made gardening take a back seat for some time now. My wife and I shop for the freshest produce that we can find, but there’s really no substitute for the home grown variety, especially when care is taken in the growing process. A different sort of rhythm evolves when attuned to the cycle of plants. I’m sure those who have the good fortune to live in the country know what I mean. Natural rhythms have a sensible order and timeliness that puts our current lifestyle to shame. We have to make our own order and sense out of the demands with which we contend. There will come a time, though, when external commitments are resolved, and the luxury of a more natural order will again be available.
Painters can learn a lot from gardeners. Gardening is a great metaphor for creative expression that is unforced, conceived at the most fundamental level, and then nurtured through growth and maturation. As I understand the process of nature as represented by plants, I can apply its principles to the development of a piece of art. Being attuned to the process of the developing work is most important and perhaps the easiest part for the artist since the connection to the initial idea is usually a strong one. What also has to be remembered is that the artist, me, has to take care of himself. I have to be conscious of those activities that provide creative stimulation and nurture for creative thinking. Writing is one activity that keeps me connected, and obviously doing as much drawing and painting as is possible is fundamental. Listening to music, watching film, and reading are also important sources of inspiration and connection. They stimulate my thinking in varieties of ways. Being in nature has often been very nurturing, but these days that is less an option with the exception of several trips to the park and along the bayou close to my house several times a week.
Artists, like plants, often have to adapt to circumstances in order to survive. Awareness of strengths and weaknesses can be most helpful. Sometimes an internal inventory must be taken to raise awareness. Whereas plants can only adjust to what is available, artists have more options and can self-adjust by providing their own nurturing environment. We get to add our own fertilizer, do our own weeding, and supply our own source of life-giving sustenance. In a sense, we are our own greatest creative potential and the gardeners of our own wellbeing.
Posted on 9/10/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Streetlights
I am guessing, although I don’t really know, that most artists have some sort of artistic philosophy that they follow. In time past, certain groups of artists very consciously worked out elaborate ideas that were written in the form of manifestos or public statements. Sometimes these were reduced to catch phrases that had a deeper underlying philosophy behind it. One of those phrases is the infamous “art for art’s sake” that showed up in mid-nineteenth century France and ultimately became the reasoning behind so many artistic movements in the twentieth century. When we look at the variety of art that this phrase has been applied to, it sort of dazzles the mind what it might actually mean. Ironically, many of the manifestos or claims that artists and groups of artists made seem to do exactly what the original concept protested.
I think it safe to say that all art created before 1850 had some didactic purpose, some moral (usually religious) purpose, or some utilitarian purpose. Even ancient cave paintings were done for more than casual pastime, but we don’t know for certain why they were created. We do sense, however, from their evident skillful rendering and powerful depiction that they had deep motivation behind them. They may well have had some moral or utilitarian purpose and less likely didactic simply because of their remote and difficult accessibility, if not outright secrecy. The major ancient monuments definitely were often utilitarian, didactic, and moral statements all rolled into one. The rulers and/or the state demonstrated power and elevated position over others through the art that they commissioned and dictated. Likewise, many religions, including Christianity and Islam, used art as one way to get the message out as well as to enhance the worship experience.
In the nineteenth century, though, some artists were dissatisfied with having others dictate the content or purpose of their art. Thus, the concept of art for art’s sake spread fairly quickly. The idea was to make art that was not solely to teach, nor to preach, nor to set some kind of moral example. Art could be appreciated for itself alone. Initially, no doubt, this would have been a foreign concept to the academicians and those who had labored so long to create guidelines for what made acceptable art. A number of artists began looking inward for inspiration and, in a way, to separate themselves from the conventions of society. Paintings like Gustave Courbet’s monumental The Painter’s Studio: a Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in My Artistic (and Moral) Life or Édouard Manet’s The Luncheon on the Grass were far more revolutionary in their time than seem to us today. Both paintings could be said to represent the concept of art for art’s sake although in each the artist definitely has an agenda and is making a definite statement, perhaps even a didactic one.
Frankly, I’m not sure the idea of art existing for its own sake makes sense. The art may not have a didactic, moral, or utilitarian purpose in the conventional understanding, but don’t artists express ideas, feelings, and emotions through their art? How can they not help but do that? Are they not teaching the viewer, in a way, how to view and appreciate their work? Is not the making of art a kind of moral stance in the world, and isn’t this part of the artist’s motivation? Isn’t giving the viewer – for what is art without the audience – a unique experience through the art a kind of utilitarian purpose? All those manifesto makers of the twentieth century certainly had very specific purposes in mind for their art. Perhaps we should amend the art for art’s sake idea to art for the artist’s and viewer’s sake. That would make more sense.
Posted on 9/9/2012 2:49:17 PM
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Spare Parts
Art has changed dramatically through the centuries. Much of what we know of early cultures is through the art that remains, but these earlier forms were not the very personal kinds of artistic expression we have become used to and tend to expect. Today, one can have a personal artistic agenda and still make work that reflects a broader cultural attitude and perspective. If it does not, then the artist is seen as very special and possibly more universally appealing. We might assume that art from Western culture would be different from that of Eastern culture, and generally this is true. Occasionally though, an artist’s work transcends cultural boundaries and becomes what might be called world art. The Persian poet Rumi is one such artist. Frequently we see this broader appeal in written work, especially in novels but also increasingly in film. Novels by Ha Jin or Graham Greene may have the distinctive flavor of China or Britain respectively, but the stories and characters easily cross cultural barriers and are readily accessible as stories of human beings. The same could be said of the uniquely Scandinavian films of Ingmar Bergman that have influenced so many filmmakers worldwide – they deal with universal themes of love, spirituality, doubt, life and death.
Perhaps words have broader appeal than images and maybe they are more portable. It is easy to imagine reading a poem or novel high in the Andes or the Himalayas or even in the Sahara Desert. How would it be to experience a painting in any of these locations, especially a large scale landscape painting by Church or an abstract one by Pollock? They would seem quite out of place. To imagine reading Rumi in any of these places is hardly a stretch at all.
I don’t tend to think of painting as being elitist art, but maybe it is a bit less universal than literature. All cultures tell stories, but not all cultures have forms of painting. For some societies, the painting that does exist is of a decorative nature rather than stand-alone fine art. Come to think of it, maybe it’s the concept of fine art that is less universal. This concept, however, is very likely rapidly changing as access to computers and the internet themselves become more universal.
Just a hundred years ago travel was becoming easier although air travel was still some years away. A hundred years before that the Grand Tour was one of the ways artists educated themselves beyond what was available in local museums. The publication of art books greatly expanded accessibility to art information and art images, and those determined enough or lucky enough still made pilgrimages to Venice or Rome or Florence or Paris or Madrid to see firsthand the great works. Now one can take a virtual tour of many of these museums, and digital photography provides astonishing detail of paintings that still may never be seen firsthand. Perhaps in another hundred years many of the cultural differences that distinguish certain art forms will themselves disappear. It would be interesting to leap that far forward in time to peek at what has survived and to learn what people think of us as revealed in our art.
Posted on 9/8/2012 5:00:36 PM
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Blue Heron Yosemite
Yesterday, Friday, was a make-up day at school, which meant I didn’t get to go to the local park as usual for my walk and run. My wife and I did go today, and on the mile that we walk together, we were deep in conversation and perhaps a bit less observant than normally. The park is close to Simms Bayou, which is visible from the south side of the jogging track. We often see beautiful white egrets with their wonderfully slow, rhythmical flapping of wings and silent gliding above the water. On occasion there will be a Great Blue Heron, a much larger and equally as graceful bird that I’m sure patrols the bayou much more often than we see it.
Today, though, a neighbor who brings her dog Heidi to the park every day asked if we had seen the green parrots. I thought she said green herons, and she may have, since a lady with her asked if she meant blue heron. She said, “No, these are much smaller birds.” Green herons are quite a bit smaller than blue ones. They have shorter, stockier bodies and necks and nowhere near the wingspan of Great Blues that can easily reach five or six feet. The next time around the track I scanned the trees for green herons. As I came down the stretch parallel to the bayou, I could hear a cackling conversation that seemed to be bouncing off the water. It wasn’t until I got closer to an isolated pecan tree that I could see two animated shapes in its top branches. Sure enough, there sat two large green parrots intently engaged in aviary gossip.
I immediately thought of the wonderful film shown some years ago on public television and in a few art cinema theaters, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. This is an independently produced documentary about a man, an unemployed musician at the time, who rescued and rehabilitated parrots that had escaped their owners but had fallen on misfortune while trying to survive in the “wilds” of suburban San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill. He discovers a feral colony of birds that today number several hundred.
The film is entertaining, informative, and heartwarming but a bit disturbing with the undertone of neglectful mistreatment of animals kept as pets. The man is remarkable for his growing dedication to the birds and the relationship he builds with them. The real stars of the film, of course, are the parrots. Their battle to survive in this alien jungle is quite moving. They build their own wild community and fight disease, starvation, and predatory birds, mostly hawks.
In the Houston area where I live, apparently there are quite a few feral parrots as well. The most populous are Monk Parakeets, AKA Quaker Parrots, which grow to about a foot long and often build quite elaborate communal nests sometimes referred to as parrot condos. The two I saw could have been this kind although the birds I saw I thought were larger. I could not see them clearly enough to observe distinctive markings, but they definitely were green. Certainly, they were an unexpected pleasure and added greatly to my day. I’m grateful as well for the artistic statement from The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill that has given me a different understanding of birds like these that have become accidental immigrants, naturalized citizens even, in our neighborhood. They are most welcome.
Posted on 9/7/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Early Evening
There is a Chinese proverb that says, “If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.” This is similar, of course, to the Biblical proverb about a man being as he thinks. Another popular saying emphasizes doing or action over saying or words, but essentially all are suggesting the same basic idea. Someone can speak the truth, speak positively, speak openly, and speak honestly. One can also speak with humility and concern for others. Then there are those who speak negatively, critically, sometimes in manipulative ways, and dwell on the darker side of what may be in the world. What is on the inside is usually expressed outside, and whether it is expressed with words or actions, the individual becomes known by the content.
The arts are fundamentally about expression, but it is expression that is heightened by carefully chosen and crafted thoughts or actions. For the expression to ring true and have the power to connect with others, it must resonate first with the artist. If the artist doesn’t truly feel it, then no matter of craft or skill will create that feeling in the work. The artist is a kind of sensor that is alerted to something of import or substance and then can translate that sensation into form that can be appreciated by others. It is not solely an intuitive response on the part of the artist although there may be strong intuition involved. Reason is utilized as well by the artist applying the knowledge and skill learned over many years of study and practice.
Personal expression as manifested in art does reveal the mind of the artist. Critical appreciation, especially of earlier artists, often places emphasis on the context of life circumstance and cultural effects on the artist’s development including his or her thinking around issues both aesthetic and philosophical. Whether artists today are any more self-conscious in their approach to art and career is hard to say. Certainly the majority of them are aware of the art world and its demands, and sometimes those demands may affect the work that is created. Even so, most artists will find a way to make their work relevant and also expressive of their particular vision that makes them who they are as individuals and as artists.
Posted on 9/6/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Metro Stop
There are times when I feel that flash of inspiration and paint for hours without interruption. At other times, I may feel the urge to paint, but inspiration is slow in coming. In these times I may choose to work on unfinished work or just paint something in order to be painting. The most serious artists don’t wait for inspiration to strike; they paint as frequently as they can manage. This can mean that painting takes precedence over other tasks related to home or family. It becomes a balancing act. Those who may be most challenged are the ones that also work another job whether teaching or possibly work that is not even art related. The stress of finding time to paint may put added burden on the muse, but, as the saying goes, where there’s a will…
I often remember an interesting discussion in a graduate English course from many years ago. The course was in the New American novel and focused on the writers of the so-called Lost Generation, expatriates like Hemingway and Dos Passos, travelers like Fitzgerald, and stay-at-homes like Faulkner. With respect to F. Scott Fitzgerald, who had relatively early publishing success and who with his wife Zelda moved among the beautiful people of the roaring twenties, they were jet-setters before there were jets. Anyway, the topic of discussion shifted to an artist’s dedication to his/her craft. Hemingway was the macho adventurer who frequently incorporated his adventures into novels and stories. Faulkner created his fictional Yoknapatawpha County based on what he knew of the rural American South. Fitzgerald wrote about characters in the midst of the Jazz Age. Perhaps more than any of the others, Fitzgerald lived the life of the celebrity. Thus the idea was introduced in discussion about whether someone wanted to write or to have written – and this applied to artists in general.
Today our culture seems even more enamored of celebrities than in the twenties and thirties, although at that time there certainly were many, especially in the budding movie industry. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were the quintessential celebrities and among the original beautiful people. Both struggled with alcohol and Zelda also with mental illness, but it was the celebrity status that made their lives interesting and also challenging. Being celebrated was not the best thing for Fitzgerald’s artistry. Somehow he could never bring himself to finish that last novel. The distractions just became too great for him to overcome. Success and notoriety may seem like blessings and for some are goals, but often there are unexpected consequences. The artist, however, who creates a strong work ethic, most likely will not be fazed as much by the success and whatever glamor may attend it. For the dedicated artist, often the work is its own reward.
Posted on 9/5/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
El Capitan
From a sociological perspective, these two weeks, this one and last week, are quite interesting. We are into the second day of the second political convention that is the official beginning of the presidential race after a year of primaries for the Republican nomination. Whichever side of the political fence one sits, the process has to be appreciated for its seriousness and for its distractions. The seriousness of course is because of current economic conditions throughout the country and throughout the world. Pundits opine on both sides of the issues, and, unfortunately, many reduce the opposition to cartoon figures with demonic agendas. There is a long history of political cartooning and the use of art for editorializing. Some of the artists have been noteworthy: Francisco Goya and Honoré Daumier immediately come to mind. Art that criticizes the brutality of war as in Goya’s work, that of Käthe Kollwitz, or the work of German Expressionists, is dealing with universal themes in both serious and satirical terms. Political expression, though, that dehumanizes an opponent simply because he or she espouses a different opinion is quite another matter.
It is interesting that the process designed to choose a set of national leaders so quickly deteriorates into a mud-slinging contest and a very high dollar one at that. Simultaneously there are calls for unity, emphasis placed on family, integrity, and upbringing that has instilled basic American values – these on both sides. It’s as though the two conventions are mirror images of each other. No one seems willing, though, to tell the whole truth because each side is concerned with the uncommitted voter. We get expressions of faith and belief, which often seem genuine, yet no one will admit honest mistakes even though all seem ready to point out the errors of the other. It would be easy enough to complain that money is the corrupting factor, for this has certainly played out in previous elections. As stakes get higher, the money flows more freely. This is an historic trend that has been repeated in many past civilizations.
I wonder about the influence of money in the arts. Artists think they should be paid fairly for their work. Many people do not understand or accept the value of art. At a certain level, prices become outrageously inflated. Some artists prosper, and the majority of them do not. As in the past, some who may be popular and successful today will be forgotten tomorrow. Perhaps, as well, some who are little known today may be well known and highly respected after they are gone. Just as the winds of politics shift with the whims of the voting public, so does artistic favor seem to rise or fall according to unseen factors not appreciated until well after the fact. It has often been said that the only real test of artistic quality is the test of time. We can know that with any certainty solely with respect to the past. What comes tomorrow in art or politics is anybody’s guess. Some may guess right and some won’t. Either way, there will be winners, and there will be everybody else.
Posted on 9/4/2012
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Cool Morning
Working with images is more than just creating a picture of something. Visual artists are also making statements about something that may be emotional, sensual, intuitive, reasoned, symbolic, or metaphorical. The image carries a lot of information beyond verisimilitude if it is realistic or beyond basic design if it is abstract. Most artists have an aesthetic or artistic philosophy out of which they create their work. If they chose to, they could talk at length about the why and how of what they do. They can discuss their message that lies behind the work. A lot of artists may also feel uncomfortable discussing their work, and they might say simply that the work should speak for itself. Even the ones who would say that, however, if pressed, would be able to speak eloquently about their idea of art and what it is or can be.
I’m not speaking so much here about explaining one’s art, or even defending it for that matter. In different historical periods, dialog about art took place within the confines of the studio, within the walls of an academy, or out in the street among the cafes and bistros where artists tended to congregate. Sometimes there were champions of art among the intelligentsia, the philosophers or academicians. People like John Ruskin in England, Emile Zola in France, or Ralph Waldo Emerson in America are noteworthy examples. They discussed art in general and humanistic terms mostly, but sometimes pointedly, as Ruskin did when he took Whistler to task over his semi-abstract nocturnes.
Much of our thinking about art in the west derives from Greek philosophers such as Plato, Socrates, or Aristotle. Renaissance artists in particular looked back to these philosophers for reasoning behind concepts of beauty and truth. Tension between religious and secular interpretations of beauty also became prevalent during this time. Philosophers, being inquisitive and argumentative by nature, tended to disagree through the years with what actually constituted beauty or truth. Dozens of philosophers tackled aesthetic questions, and most have left Platonic ideals in the past.
Artists may not question their beliefs with the rigor of philosophers, but artists do work from philosophical viewpoints that inevitably are expressed in the work. Just as personal style becomes important for the execution of paintings and other artwork, so is the idea with which the artist is working in any given piece also important. This is influenced by the general philosophy as well as the specific statement that the artist chooses to make. The clearer the artist can be about this idea, the more effectively he or she will communicate that idea to the viewer. Though an artist may not actively study philosophy, it might be a good idea to clarify one’s thinking about art in general so that the visual language may be best utilized in the process of artistic creation.
Posted on 9/3/2012 4:53:28 PM
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
David: The Death of Socrates
A successful painting creates a harmonious whole. Colors, shapes, and other design elements work together to create and support the image. The painting is unified, not unlike a good paragraph that is a group of unified sentences. In writing, everything stated should support the main idea, and when this happens, the writing is said to preserve unity. Any extraneous elements or thoughts would break the unity. The same is true for a painting.
The concept is easy enough to grasp, but often in practice the harmony (unity) of a painting may be disrupted by elements that draw too much attention to themselves. Color is one area where mistakes can easily be made. The painter is adjusting color by manipulating value, intensity, and temperature. Is it too light or too dark, too bright or too dull, too warm or too cool? Practice with color mixtures, especially focused color charts that enable the painter to easily observe changes according to value, intensity, or temperature, can be most helpful.
Another area where harmony can be disrupted is in adding details. Novice painters in particular tend to think that adding detail will make the painting better. Experienced painters know that selecting detail is far more effective. Details are largely suggested by the interplay of dark and light values. Get the colors and values right, and most so-called details take care of themselves. Are there painters that include a lot of detail successfully? Yes, there are. Seventeenth century Dutch painters like Jan Steen or Pieter de Hooch, the French painters Jacques Louis David and J.A.D. Ingres and many other classical painters are good examples, but a close inspection of their canvases will reveal less detail than thought from first observation. Their highly refined technique creates a strong illusionistic effect.
A third area where harmony can be compromised is in the handling of edges for different shapes. If everything has a clear, crisp edge, those objects intended to appear dimensional, especially rounded ones, will look flat and dimensionless instead. If flatness is the intention as in Matisse’s The Dessert: Harmony in Red or The Red Studio, then don’t differentiate the edges. On the other hand, where dimensionality is desired, the painter should pay particular attention to edges and soften those where roundness or recession is required. Quite a few painters refer to this effect as lost and found edges.
Good painting is something of a balancing act. Many elements are in play simultaneously, and the painter must consider their importance, create a hierarchy, emphasize what is necessary and minimize or eliminate what is not. Harmony or unity is a major goal that when created and maintained will help make a successful painting.
Posted on 9/2/2012 6:18:27 PM
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Docked
The term Art is one that is incredibly broad and multidimensional. In some ways art may be more inclusive than exclusive, and it may or may not require distinction between Art with a capital A (high art, Fine Art) and art with a lowercase a as in popular or low art. We utilize categories to better understand a complex subject, and certainly art would qualify as a subject with great complexity and many parts.
As an artist, when I speak about art, I use the lowercase term as a matter of convenience, but I’m thinking about Fine Art rather than popular art. The latter in my mind is only art by the loosest of definitions. To speak of Jennifer Lopez, for example, as an artist as she is sometimes referred to in the press, seems a stretch. She is a performer and quite a good one. The same could be said of many singers, dancers, musicians, and other performers.
There are exceptions, though; performers that by their extraordinary achievement as creators who happen to work in the popular domain, achieve a level of artistry that ranks them as artists of the highest order. Singer-songwriter Paul Simon immediately comes to mind. For decades he has penned songs whose lyrics are consistently high poetry filled with rich imagery, symbolic language, and ambiguity. He addresses subjects that are personal, topical, and that achieve the level of universality that makes art become Art.
Many people will have favorite performers that they might also argue in favor of elevation to artist status. Granted there is always the subjective in artistic assessments. This has been true for hundreds if not thousands of years. With ancient art we are generally looking at fewer examples and at what are the remnants of a particular culture. Perhaps it was the ancient Greeks who first tackled the question of art and attempted to define it. Prior to that time, other cultures had certain principles and guidelines in place that governed the style of representation. Without some system, there would not be the consistency that is obvious in ancient Sumeria, Egypt, or Persia, but how they defined art, if they did, I don’t know.
It also becomes somewhat problematic to address the idea of development in realistic representation. Again the Greeks are given credit for moving sculptured figures from the blocked and rigid Egyptian influence of the early kouros and kore figures to the contrapposto figures of the Classical period. There is written evidence that they also achieved an unparalleled realism in painting, but not enough painting survives to verify this. It would be more than 1500 years before naturalistic realism shows up in Renaissance painting in Northern and Southern Europe. This certainly doesn’t mean that there wasn’t art during this interim period.
But what makes any of that art, art? Great skill and consistency are exhibited in ancient Egyptian sculpture and in painting. Creative imagination is also employed in these works. Today we consider these works examples of Fine Art of the period. The dictionary definition of art is met. The same could be said for Greek art from the early period through the Classical period, or of Roman art, or of Byzantine art, and so on up into current time.
The Dadists and Surrealists added a twist in the early part of the 20th century by stating that art is whatever the artist says is art. Thus, we get a urinal being proclaimed art followed by ripples in all directions that in some cases remove the artist from the center of the creative process. Art becomes an idea, a concept, an ephemeral expression, or art becomes a machined, mass-produced object that is given the stamp of the artist and sent out into the world. Art can still be found in galleries and museums, but it is also on shelves in Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and other discount venues.
It is my belief that the artist decides for him or herself what is appropriate, and what is art. Not everyone will agree on the definition, its parameters, or its applications. This might easily contribute to a muddled mess, but in some ways it democratizes the experience and its availability. Whether this is a good thing is yet to be determined.
Posted on 9/1/2012 5:36:25 PM
By Donald Fox
Comment on this
Crosswalk
At times in the past, science and art have been seen as vastly different disciplines. Art has to do with emotion, feeling, and intuition. Science is the rational one, proceeding with logic and reason to prove hypotheses through duplicable experimentation. Still, we speak of the art of science and the science of art. Adherents in either discipline can be rigorous and dedicated in their pursuit of perceived truth. In spite of fundamental differences, there are similarities.
I tend to think of art as open ended. There may be particular styles or trends that influence groups of artists for a time: certain imagery, aesthetic understanding, philosophical viewpoint, or technological change in medium or material. Most artists are inquisitive by nature and will explore an idea for its possibilities. When the idea has been exhausted, the artist moves on to other inquiry.
Sometimes in the arts there are those who are so unique in perception and expression that they and their work stand apart from that of others. There are few, if any, emulators since any copies just can’t capture the uniqueness of the original. Occasionally, the opposite is true. In early 20th century France, for several years Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso made cubist paintings that were nearly interchangeable. Sometimes it was difficult to tell which painting was by which artist. The convergence did not last, and each went on to create new work in quite different styles, ones recognizably his own. They weren’t exactly collaborators, but each was aware of the other, and they did tend to dialogue through painting.
Science is a collaborative field, and the complexity of instrumentation practically demands it. Funding is always an issue whether in medical technology, astronomy, or physics. Giant radio telescopes may be located in a particular country because of ideal geographical features, but the project is created, funded, and operated by international cooperation. The same is true with large scale projects like the supercollider. Medical scientists and doctors collaborate as well through training, consultation, and joint projects. It is not at all unusual for university scientists to take sabbaticals to other countries for research purposes.
In the arts, collaboration is most often for an individual artist to complete certain projects. A sculptor working in large-scale metal will partner with a foundry or mill to fabricate portions of a piece or even to build an entire sculpture. Artists like Christo and Claes Oldenburg rarely fabricated their own pieces. Many painters have collaborated with master printmakers to create original prints, from serigraphs to cast paper reliefs. There is great similarity to scientific endeavors in much artwork that is more technologically dependent.
Artists often draw upon the applied sciences for new materials and improvement in technical applications. Areas of pure science like theoretical physics and astrophysics may also inspire artists to explore new concepts and new ways of thinking about perception and understanding. We live in exciting times where traditional artistic forms continue to flourish, and new ways of thinking about the world around us give birth to novel forms of artistic expression that move away from the gallery and museum. Art and science cross paths again and again.
