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Posted on 4/1/2014
By Donald Fox
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You can only be yourself. On the face of it, this seems such a simple truth, but today in any bookstore and increasingly online, you can find hundreds of titles and as many or more people willing to help you be someone else: smarter, bolder, braver, more confident, empowered, and ultimately, successful. In short, you will be a new you, perhaps the you you’ve always desired to be. Then again, maybe you’ll just learn to accept who you are. Would that be so bad?
Perhaps you see yourself as creative, but you want to be more original. Maybe you have lots of good ideas, but you don’t have the skill to implement them. Maybe you create lots of work, but you’re not so sure of its value or quality. Maybe you have work to show, but you feel intimidated about putting it out there. Maybe you don’t feel confident in talking about the work that you do. Are we beginning to see a pattern here?
The truth is, many of the greatest artists had doubts about their work or lacked confidence in presenting that work to others. We’re used to thinking about modern angst with painters like Van Gogh, James Ensor, Jackson Pollock, or Mark Rothko. We may know something about the social ineptness of Paul Cezanne or Paul Gauguin, or we might think back to the debauched lifestyle of Caravaggio. What most of these artists did have, though, were the desire to create and the discipline to continue doing so in the face of sometimes daunting odds. And, in spite of whatever personal challenges each may have faced, they created work that transformed the history of painting because they were true to their creative selves.
A lot of study has been done on creativity. Many attempts have been made to define it, to describe it, and to make guidelines that will either promote it or enhance it. However creativity may be described and whatever suggestions might be made to increase it or make it available when called upon, there is no good answer to where that desire to create comes from. Is it part of some sophisticated survival response that is so specialized it far exceeds its basic function? Is it some higher form of evolution that further separated humans from other animals? Did the complexity of the human brain need something more challenging to fill its capacity for doing? Is it the special touch of the divine as a reminder that we can create to a great degree but never to the level of perfection or to the level of creating life itself?
We may never know some of these answers, but on a personal level we do know that the creative spark is a wonderful catalyst that propels us into the most intriguing worlds of imaginative revelry and activity. What any one of us feels is unique to us alone – how could we possibly know what another experiences anyway? It is subjective, internal, and though it might be described or shared, it cannot be definitively delineated or fully corroborated. We agree that there is something called creativity, and we can see its results, but I cannot truly know that my experience of creativity is the same as yours. All I can ever know is my own experience and from that, perhaps, deduce that others may experience something similar. My concern is in utilizing and caring for that which is uniquely mine.
The pundits may continue their punditry, the sophists their sophistry, and the theorists their theories. I will continue to grow according to the design that is me just as you will grow according to the design that is you. Should our paths cross and we exchange information or insight, that may be a good thing, but you cannot grow me any more than I can grow you.
Posted on 3/31/2014
By Donald Fox
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When thinking about ancient art, it is challenging to make general statements because there is such variance in time periods and sometimes large gaps exist between examples that also were separated by great physical distance. Tracing influences in art that is so common today is a much more difficult prospect with ancient art until we approach the era of written language. There are examples of Paleolithic art within certain areas that do have similarities. Ancient cave paintings in the regions which are now France and Spain and which date between twenty-five and forty thousand years ago share some interesting characteristics. One is that figures of animals are surprisingly expressive and naturalistic. When humans are represented (as on a hunt, for example) they are rendered as little more than stick figures. Another shared trait is the presence of hand prints “painted” on the walls by pressing a pigment covered hand onto the surface.
Roughly during this same time period, however, in Europe small carved stone statues of women appear, the most famous of which is the Venus of Willendorf. This very small statue, only four and a half inches high, very likely was crafted for portability. Because of the exaggerated hips, enlarged breasts, and distinctive genitals, archaeologists surmise that she and similar statues were fertility figures used for some ritual purpose. The difference between the rendering of the human form in these figures and those found in caves paintings (always hunters and not any women figures that were painted) is remarkable.
With the rise of the great civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and the Nile valley, we do see female figures in both painting and sculpture. The heavy and rather static figures of this five thousand or so year period influence early Greek civilization, but the Greeks fairly quickly begin to humanize these forms and make them more naturalistic even while retaining some of the monumentality of Egyptian art. The Greeks also form their gods in the likeness of humans even giving them human personality traits (anger, lust, greed, jealousy…).
The budding Christian tradition holds man as formed in the image of God as did the Hebrew texts from which it drew heavily. By the time of the Renaissance in northern and southern Europe, a melding of Classical Greek ideal beauty and Christian man-in-God’s-image produced some magnificent painted images of the human form: the spiritual perfection of Mary, the earthly and the ascendant Christ, and the idealized female nude represented as Venus or Diana or some other classical goddess. Renaissance artists didn’t simply adopt Greek artistic form, though. They began to carefully observe and study the human figure, and even though some of them (Leonardo, for example) attempted to discover underlying harmonious proportions within the figure (that would have suited the made-by-God belief), they also carefully noted discrepancies and aberrations (again reference Leonardo but also Bosch, Grunewald, Durer, and others).
The tension that is often created in some modern painting between an ideal (beauty) and reality (truth) actually has a very long history that may well relate to the psychology of pleasure and pain more so than intuition and logic or spiritualism and rationalism. Given the complexity of human response, however, we should be careful of overly simplifying as we try to understand the amazing array of art that has come to us through the centuries (and millennia).
Posted on 3/30/2014 6:37:13 PM
By Donald Fox
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Painting, like any other form of art, is both present for the viewer and also remains aloof from the viewer. The intention of the artist is to design an experience for an audience; something is communicated to the audience through the painting. Often, however, there is no specific reference to the viewer, that is, the viewer is not acknowledged. In effect, the painting exists but the viewer does not. This is similar to what takes place on stage in a play. The author and the actors ignore the audience. Within the limitations of the dramatic setting, a reality is created on stage that makes no awareness of the audience there to perceive it. To do so would break that barrier that separates the world of the play from the so-called real world. For its part, the audience practices suspension of disbelief and accepts the realm of the play as a world unto itself. The audience is the voyeur looking through the imaginary window of art into another dimension, another reality.
Sometimes, as in plays by Shakespeare and other Elizabethans, a character may make an aside where there is some discreet communication directed specifically to the audience. It is a conceit to enable the audience to enter the character’s (the playwright’s) mind. There may also be tongue-in-cheek expressions by various characters, witty dialogue, or other references built into a play to breach that divide between stage world and audience world. In many modern plays, actors may come into the audience area or audience members be brought to the stage. We call this participatory theater or living theater. Mostly, though, especially with dramatic productions, the separation between audience and stage is maintained.
This aesthetic distance suggests several things. One is that art is a construct and may be a form of reality and can represent aspects of reality, but it is not reality. It has substance and presence as any other object, but this has nothing to do with its purpose as a painting. Super realistic painting or trompe l’oeuil paintings are just as much fabrications as theatrical productions. The term tableau has been used to identify staged living “paintings” (tableau vivant) as well as specific types of paintings like still life. A second idea is that artists may include references or allusions for the audience to decipher. This is in keeping with the concept of art as construct, but now the artist is considering the audience and intentionally attempting to connect with them (acknowledging their presence). Since this is not a dialog, however, the artist does not get immediate feedback unless spoken with at an opening. A third idea is that once the painting is presented to an audience, the artist has no control over how the audience may view it.
Anything the artist desires to be read in a particular way must be presented in such a form that the audience comprehends. To do so overtly, however, would make the painting too simple and less appealing. Art in general succeeds by maintaining a certain amount of ambiguity so that the audience may interpret on its own. This places more demand on the artist to present a work in a balanced way. It cannot be too cerebral and arcane or the audience will not relate and simply ignore it. It cannot be too simplistic, for then it would be dismissed as trite or amateurish. The greatest paintings tend to be those that command an audience’s attention, raise questions about perception and meaning, avoid being didactic or pontifical, can be playful or serious, show something in a new or interesting way, and invite repeated encounters or even intense study. The painting also works best as a stand-alone object rather than as a small part of a much larger whole although added perspective can be gained by considering an artist’s entire oeuvre.
Posted on 3/29/2014 8:45:40 PM
By Donald Fox
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Waiting at Sam’s Club for a prescription while seated on a cushioned lawn chair beneath a tent-like canopy, I hear a multitude of sounds from the PA system, parents yelling at children, TV speaker systems being turned up and down by curious customers, nasal voices of sales associates blasting from their walkie-talkies, and a radio announcer advertising some unrelated product over a car radio system not in a car advertising the system itself. This is a typical Saturday afternoon at one of middle-America’s busiest club-type outlets for various goods. I’ve already sampled different foods and drinks that are offered including Shiner Bock, one of my favorite beers.
The collection of humanity in this one small hub of Houston could easily be dramatized in some way for evening television fare. Should some disgruntled Sam’s employee come bursting in with AK-47 blazing? Should a confused terrorist set off an explosive device in the midst of the lengthy exit lines at the check-out counters? Should a sparring couple lose it among the camping gear and descend into a full-fledged brawl? These are a bit too clichéd.
Perhaps the drama will be less intense and focus on a single parent receiving a surprise phone call from the county sheriff informing her that her child has been picked up for buying drugs from an undercover agent. Nope, already been done. Maybe a customer walks past the big screen TV displays and someone speaks directly to him from one of the television sets. It could be a sultry woman inviting him to join her on a deserted isle paradise. All he has to do is reach into the screen. Sounds too much like an old Twilight Zone plot.
In truth it may not matter so much where the story begins or even where it goes. What is most important is how it is developed and told. Many unlikely stories have endured and come to be considered great literature: John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is one such tale presented as an allegory. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is another classic allegory with a most improbable plot. We might consider the Greek classics The Iliad and The Odyssey, either of which is as fantastical and entertaining as any modern day epic. Consider the implausibility of Miguel Cervantes’ Don Quixote; an odd story line for one of the most revered novels of all times but that did not prevent its popularity.
The point here is that odd, unusual, or already familiar material does not guarantee success or failure in the arts. The skillful artist can take an old story and make it fresh and relevant for his contemporaries. Mythic tales can be recast in modern settings with ordinary characters who illustrate the same flawed choices as their predecessors. These possibilities are not only options for writers. Painters also can utilize and have utilized work from the past to convey their pictorial ideas and aesthetics. How many paintings of Venus have been done? Interpretations by Botticelli, Giorgione, and Titian are some of the most favorite from the Renaissance. The two reclining versions (the latter two) are predecessors for Goya’s Naked Maja (along with Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus) and Manet’s famous Olympia. These nineteenth century paintings portray real women rather than goddesses – again, the old made new.
The challenge for the artist comes down to interpretation whether the subject is imagined, observed, or referenced by something in the past. Time and again painters have crafted magnificent works from the lowliest of subjects to the most elevated. The insight and skill of the painter will determine the true success of any work.
Posted on 3/28/2014 7:26:39 PM
By Donald Fox
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At least there are seats. I have to have a new driver license this year – can’t just renew online as I did in the past. The last time I did have to get a new picture license the DPS office was so crowded that all the seats were taken and people were lined up around the walls. Even so, that time the whole process took just over an hour. Some of the people were waiting to take driving tests or had other issues to resolve, and these fortunately made the wait shorter for those like me with less involved tasks to complete.
Dealing with officialdom is an annoyance at best and can be quite challenging in some situations. Bureaucracies can involve absurd complexities and move incredibly slowly. A person can feel like a non-person lost like a chipped cog in the giant wheel that crushes and devours everything over which it rolls. Charles Dickens wrote best about the absurdity of bureaucracies in his many novels. They are systems of inefficiency that soon become caught in a web of narcissistic self-justification divorced from the primary purpose of actually helping the citizens they are supposed to serve. Ask a veteran about the VA. Ask a taxpayer about the IRS. Ask a phone customer about the conglomerate tasked with providing service when there is a mix-up over billing.
We take a lot of goods and services for granted, at least to a degree. Flick a switch and we expect there to be light. Turn a tap and we expect there to be freely flowing water. Turn the ignition key and we expect the car to start, roads to be passable to get us to our destinations, and a whole host of other amenities to provide their promised functions. We have created a very complex social system in our drive to create safety, comfort, and sustenance. Sometimes that complexity is overwhelming and people suffer when they should prosper.
There is a long history of clashes between cultures especially those that are more technologically advanced and those that are not. In high school I remember images of soldiers and the machinery of war encountering farmers living in small villages. These images were broadcast every day into millions of homes in America and Europe. Supposedly, this was a conflict between two systems of government, two sets of beliefs about what is right and proper. In reality, this like other conflicts over thousands of years (including most today) was really about access to resources and the struggle for dominance. Virtually all the major civilizations of the past were built on conquest and dominance. Little has changed over the millennia.
Art has chronicled much of this struggle and sometimes has been part of the struggle in the form of propaganda. Art has also highlighted the plight of the individual as part of some vast and powerful system, subjugated or enslaved by such a system, or has shown a way out of such oppression by focusing on fundamental humanitarian principles and ideals like truth and beauty. Maybe we like to think that philosophy and the life of the mind will rise above the pettiness and abuse. Maybe we like to think that religion will offer respite and answers to life’s great questions. Philosophy and religion unfortunately do succumb to bureaucratic entanglements though they sometimes do shine light into the darkness. Art has also served these institutions and has produced some of the most compelling creative expressions ever manifested. Art remains at the center of that which is most promising even when it is denied or vilified by the system that has spawned it.
Posted on 3/27/2014
By Donald Fox
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Yesterday on the Diane Rehm Show several literary guests discussed the ability of literature to enhance the lives of readers by extending their sympathies for fellow human beings. The stimulus for the conversation was a recent study by David Kidd, a PhD candidate is Social Psychology, who along with others looked at how readers of literary fiction were more adept at identifying emotions of other people than were those that read only light fiction or were given random books to read. One of the other guests, Rebecca Mead, a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of a book titled My Life in Middlemarch, commented that George Eliot (author of Middlemarch) very much believed that “art is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellow men beyond the bounds of our personal lot.” In a sense, we live vicariously through characters’ life experiences that can seem almost as real as those we experience directly. Our ability to imaginatively experience is at the core of art in all forms.
Literary fiction is generally distinguished from popular fiction by several measures. One is that the former tends to focus on character more so than plot. We get to observe how characters behave, how they think and feel, the decisions they make, and how their lives are affected by choice and circumstance. Often there are levels of experience and subtlety of meaning, including ambiguity, that enable readers to perceive and conclude as they see fit. Popular fiction tends to be more plot driven and tends to give neatly wrapped conclusions. There is less concern with meanings beyond the immediate story. I would suggest that we see something similar in certain kinds of painting as well.
The pretty pictures of flowers or fruit or ordinary landscapes and cityscapes might be comparable to popular fiction. The primary point is the prettiness of the picture itself. It is decorative and has no suggestion of anything beyond what it represents. A similar subject in the hands of a master like Chardin or Renoir or even Van Gogh will introduce a level of meaning that goes beyond what is explicit on the canvas. There is a symbolic meaning and metaphorical meaning, which may also contain ambiguities that give the viewer a much richer experience than a straightforward picture will give. For some people, this may suggest a kind of snobbishness in judging one type of work over another, but I think it no different really than the emotional power evoked by a Beethoven symphony compared to an ordinary musical score.
Just as readers may better judge the emotions and feelings of others by immersing themselves in literary fiction, so do viewers respond to the emotional expression in fine art (and I would argue for either representational or abstract fine art as eliciting similar responses). I would be curious to see more studies done on appreciators of art, for I suspect that certain traits would be shared: a genuine sense of curiosity, a heightened perceptive ability, a generally higher degree of intelligence, a broad engagement with life, an ability to tolerate and respond to ambiguity, and sensitivity to subtleties in emotional expression. Art, of course, is a very broad spectrum and one that encompasses the literary and fine art at one end and the popular at the other. Whether we admit to it or not, we do tend to judge and distinguish as we decipher and interpret our experiences. Art can lead us to greater understanding and richer connections in our lives. As individuals we choose the depth of those connections.
Posted on 3/26/2014
By Donald Fox
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On the way from one place to another, one event to another, we have the option to stay connected via phone or radio if driving, although in some areas phone usage is restricted. The other option is to let that go, be in the moment, and focus on whatever is at hand: the driving if one is the driver or the scenery if one is the passenger. The external world can be very demanding when there is heavy traffic or other congestion. Sometimes more than that, though, is what happens in that internal world, what is hidden to the outside observer.
Those internal distractions, the psychological white noise of the mind, can be more distracting than whatever may be on the outside. The internal world after all is the vantage point from which we observe and assess that which is external. Thoughts or images or feelings can take over and become the primary concern in the moment. What occurs in the surroundings is no longer perceived because our attention is now focused on what is happening on the inside.
As human beings, we have a relatively small comfort zone in which our physical selves can survive. We insulate ourselves in varieties of ways with basic amenities like food, clothing, and shelter. We also create cultural ideas or mythologies around these amenities and the ideas themselves become a kind of distraction that may be slight or severe. Much of the time we are at choice about this although we can become so acclimated that we don’t think we do have control or choice. This is the way it is, so to speak. Some of us may experience psychological or physical addictions, the results of which can feel very real and beyond personal choice.
Ideally, we strive to live in a zone where choice is the norm. We create our lives according to beliefs, accepted customs, and favor all things that support us in this endeavor. For many, art is one of those supporting pillars that enhances what we believe to be true and beautiful and helps us to process whatever is uncomfortable or challenging to what we think we know and believe. Sometimes art can also challenge our beliefs, help us to question things outside our realm of experience, and also help us to expand our knowledge, understanding, and tolerance of uncertainty.
Posted on 3/25/2014
By Donald Fox
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One of my favorite films is Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca. I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve seen it, own a video copy of it, but if there were a theatrical re-release, I’d go see it again without hesitation. Each time I have viewed it, I discover some nuance that escaped me before. Even though aspects of the plot are clichéd, the acting overall is superb, and I enjoy watching closely how the various actors embody their characters. Many of these players worked together on other classic films.
One central character of interest is the Frenchman, Captain Renualt. He plays a pragmatic head of the French police who uses his position to his advantage both financially and romantically while appeasing the German occupiers. His loyalty is suspect and at one point says that he will go whichever way the wind blows when questioned by the Nazi officer in charge. Currently (in the story) the wind blows from Vichy, at that time the seat of the French government that collaborated with the Germans. At the end, though, his character is redeemed when he makes a genuine commitment to the allied cause and his friendship with Rick, the protagonist.
There are many opportunities in life to take a stand and commit to something important. Most artists have made a commitment to their art and do whatever is necessary to be able to continue making art. The art that they make, however, may not always be the art that they might choose. Do they go with what sells, in which case they essentially are artists for hire, what many think of as commercial artists? Do they go with their core principles and only create work that expresses some deep inner conviction about both life and art, what many think of as Fine Art with capital letters and maybe even underscored. If we pay close attention to the history books, we will see examples of both.
The simple versions will place the academic artists on one side and independent artists on the other. The academicians eventually become representative of redundancy, shallowness, and technical facility at the expense of originality. The independents are often cast as the struggling, starving, unacknowledged revolutionaries whose work will eventually triumph during (if they’re lucky) or after their lifetimes. Sometimes those revolutionaries do triumph and become successful within their own time, and many do so without compromising their artistic principles. Their names become synonymous with certain periods or particular styles, and they appear to have a secure place in the history of art. Compared to the number of active artists at any point in time, these artists are relatively few.
So what about that prevailing wind? For the individual artist, from whence does it blow? Is the marketplace the final arbiter? Is it according to this or that leading critic or magazine or latest art show conquest? Does it depend on acceptance into the best gallery or any gallery? We hear many “authorities” say things like follow your passion, be true to yourself, don’t pay attention to trends, create a niche for yourself, satisfy the market, make something that customers want, and other variants. One set of ideas may not be compatible with another. There are many choices, and some are mutually exclusive.
The individual artist has to make a number of decisions. Basic questions may help in that process. First, why are your making art to begin with? Second, what really excites you? Third, do you have something specific you want to say? Fourth, can you afford to continue if nothing sells? Fifth, who do you want to see your work? How do you propose to show it to them? Answers to these and other questions may help guide you on your artistic path.
Posted on 3/24/2014
By Donald Fox
2 Comments
Art is at once timeless and time bound. Its timeless quality comes from its continual appeal across cultures, languages, and beyond the time period from which it emanated. The art outlasts the artist in most cases, and subsequent generations of viewers can appreciate the ingenuity and mastery of artists and their works completed hundreds or thousands of years before. There will be concepts that remain tied to the time period of a piece: economic, social, political, philosophical, aesthetical, and historical. Historians and curators will place the work within its historical time frame even as they relate it to previous work and to work that may follow it. Certain pieces are defined as seminal pieces for a particular artist or era. Specific artists and their work sometimes serve as links between one generation and another or between one era and another. Some work remains solely identified with its time while other work transcends the time within which it originated.
We speak of certain artists as being specifically of their time, some are ahead of their time, and some appear to be behind their time. We criticize some work as being dated, meaning that the concepts, images, or style are currently out of fashion and therefore are stuck in the past. This can be seen in a lot of modernist art, especially those most associated with particular movements like Fauvism or Cubism, for example. The movements may have had wide reach, but they were short lived. Artists moved on with other pursuits. One might, however, draw inaccurate conclusions from this kind of observation.
When considering the broad scope of art history, one will find that at many times artists looked to the past for inspiration and artistic understanding. The early Greeks were influenced by the Ancient Egyptians, the Romans were influenced by the Greeks, and Roman culture had a strong influence on many of the countries Rome occupied. Renaissance painters and sculptors looked to Classical Greece for their inspiration and wedded that to their general Christian perspective. Later artists looked to the Orient or the Middle East or other exotic cultures beyond their borders. Elements of the past in all cases were incorporated into a contemporary framework. Artists still do this today, and with each successive generation, the possibilities from which to draw inspiration expand. It is the creative ingenuity of artists that can take ideas from earlier work and make them relevant by reinterpreting or reinventing according to a different mindset.
In earlier times, war and conflict often brought disparate cultures together. In some way each influenced the other. Trade and commerce were also powerful disseminating pathways. Migration and diaspora spread cultural ideas as well. The gradual improvement of technology and means of communication also brought people closer together. Today the mix of cultural influences is more far-reaching than ever before because of computers and the internet. This means that influences are more diverse and much more difficult to isolate one from another. Artists no longer have to take the grand tour to experience the knowledge and impact of their predecessors.
What all this suggests to me is that an artist’s creative possibilities are nearly endless. Also, art may resemble more of a pastiche with many styles sharing similar characteristics in terms of images, materials, and expressive concerns as cultural influences continue to interweave and echo each other. Artists working in isolation may become increasingly rare since influences are so broadly felt. The real challenge for artist may well be how to maintain a sense of self amid all this swirling artistic information. Becoming a student of history may be as much a means of self-preservation as a tool for self-education.
Posted on 3/23/2014 7:16:03 PM
By Donald Fox
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A blank page is basically the same as a blank canvas. The writer has to formulate thoughts and shaped them into coherent, organized passages that convey something important and unique to the audience. Similarly, the painter is faced with the blank canvas and by envisioning a design of shapes, colors, and forms creates an imagistic message to the viewer. Writers keep notebooks of observations, thoughts, recounted experiences, encounters with interesting individuals, and critical comments about the work of others. Painters may use sketchbooks or journals to make observations, jot notes, work out designs, and address visual issues that are of concern to their work. The ongoing record of thoughts and ideas help any artist in the pursuit of a long-term vision that serves as a chronicle of that artist’s aesthetic to make the most of exploration and expression. It is worthwhile to read and research how different artists have created their visions, worked through the difficulties and challenges, and ultimately succeeded (or not) in their quest for creative expression.
Not every artist is an artistic philosopher in the traditional sense. Not everyone will diligently work out an in-depth explanation of what art is and what it means personally and how that manifests in the work. Some will approach their work in a theoretical manner, but many will not. Either way, the work will express the underlying aesthetic for the audience to understand. Sometimes this takes repeated viewing and consideration and requires access to more than a few works to see the range that the artist covers. A few artists will create the context for their work through drawings or letters or essays made available to the public.
Today there is a huge amount of conversation related to art via the internet on websites, in blogs, in newsletters, chat forums, and social media. The range of artistic expression is quite amazing, and because the audience is so vast and often well-informed an artist would be wise to put the best work and most coherent thoughts in that public arena. It is still a bit early to tell exactly how this broad accessibility will impact art in the long term (or even what the long term may be since timing also has changed with the instantaneous access of new work). In any case, it is an exciting time to be making art, looking at art, and appraising art.
Posted on 3/22/2014 6:17:07 PM
By Donald Fox
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Syndicated columnist David Brooks often takes a decidedly conservative view of the world in his columns. Like one of his predecessors, William Buckley, Brooks is thoughtful and generally balanced in presenting his views. This I appreciate since as a progressive I tire of extremism on all sides of public discourse but particularly that on the far right.
In today’s column, however, Brooks addresses a non-political issue that touches on the past and its influence on the future. He uses a recent TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talk by rock musician Sting that, uncharacteristic of most TED talks, focuses on the past rather than the future. Sting addresses a fallow period in his creative expression that lasted for years. When he revisited in memory his childhood experiences, he rediscovered a wealth of material that led to an outpouring of new songs some of which became a musical destined for Broadway.
Brooks emphasizes that most TED talks are about the future and innovation and that Sting focused on the past. Brooks reminds us that past experiences both good and bad have led to our present. Sometimes we understand at a later date what was obscure or incomprehensible initially. The seeming inconsequential may have had profound effect. Going back, itself a creative process, enable one to move forward in productive ways. This is not about nostalgia; it is about understanding and sometimes releasing blocked energy.
Wordsworth’s words, “the child is father of the man,” suggest in context of the poem from which they come that a childlike view of the awe inspiring world can also inspire the man. Brooks also states that one looking back has to see through two sets of eyes, the child self and the adult sense. The latter is changed with interpreting and understanding the experience of the former. Part of the process enables reorientation or recommitting to some earlier idea or goal that may have been forgotten or from which one became sidetracked.
We would think that writers more typically might look backwards rather than visual artists, but there are many examples of modern painters that have used introspection and memory as sources for creative expression. Painters as diverse as Georges Braque, Picasso, Marc Chagall, Ben Shahn, and Robert Motherwell have mined these sources for imagery and inspiration. Maintaining connection with one’s roots has a grounding and centering effect. Unlike the suggestion that one can’t go home again, meaning that one can’t relive the past, one can definitely learn from and use the past as a means for moving forward with direction and purpose.
Posted on 3/21/2014 7:57:22 PM
By Donald Fox
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Currently at MFAH an exhibition of photography focuses on images that were specifically made for magazine print, entitled appropriately Made for Magazines. Mostly the exhibit contains what are considered iconic images of fashion, celebrity, screen, and war. Names like Bressai, Diane Arbus, Edward Steichen, Richard Avedon, Robert Capa, and Irving Penn are expected to be found and are included. Aside from stunning photographs, the exhibit illustrates a shift in photography in terms of image and presentation.
My formative years were frequently spent in school or public libraries. There were no computers and there was no internet. Books and periodicals were the mainstay of information sources, which required patience and diligence when searching specific topics, but it was also great fun to browse the shelves seeking something new and interesting. Visiting the library was a planned occasion, and while there the reality of not finding what one wanted was offset by finding layers of information that combined to create understanding of time and place. Periodicals in particular were valuable for this since they portrayed the period with photographs and illustrations.
The wealth of information available via the internet, provided one understands how to effectively search, is phenomenal. What’s missing, however, is the tactile sense of time and place. Old books and old periodicals have different feel, aroma, and visual appeal that are missing from the heterogeneity of information on the internet. The physical format of magazines, newspapers and books cannot be duplicated online no matter how hard some databases may try. Virtual reality will always remain virtual rather than physical.
A printed photograph is also quite different from its virtual counterpart. The experience of viewing a photograph in a magazine or printed for display is much like viewing a painting or art print (as opposed to seeing either in reproduction). Those library adventures gave me a sense of reality of the time even though the images were stand-ins. At least I knew the magazines were of the same era as the information they contained. I could literally touch a part of that time, something that I cannot do in the virtual world. It makes me sad to think that there are young people today who have never had that library experience regardless of how portable and immediate their information access may be.
I suppose this separation between information access in the past and the present is not unlike the difference between someone having had the experience of horse-drawn transportation and access to the automobile compared to someone that only knows the car as a sleek, speedy, and modern form of transportation. If you haven’t lived it, you can only imagine what it must have been like. Change, certainly, can be a good thing, but not all change is for the better. There is much that we can learn from the past, which we can only do when we preserve the flavor and the context along with the information. Museums and libraries help us in that regard.
Just as there are many artists today that continue time-honored traditions in painting, sculpture, or craft, so too are there photographers and magazine publishers that continue the tradition of their forbears. The numbers of each may be dwindling, but hopefully there will be those who will keep certain traditions alive so that we may more accurately know the past and continue to learn from its contributions to our own time.
Posted on 3/20/2014
By Donald Fox
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Yesterday on my way to school, I passed what had been a beautiful large black and white dog on the side of the road. It had been hit by a car and probably run over by several other cars before someone moved it to the road side. The fur was disheveled and dirty, and, most distressing, its internal organs were strewn about its body. This most intimate part of the animal was literally turned inside out. I immediately thought of Loudon Wainright III’s irreverent song “Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road),” which has a line about a dead dog, a dead cat, and a dead frog among other critters that met their demise by an ill-timed road crossing. This rousing country-folk tune is sardonic, sarcastic, and tongue-in-cheek dark humor that brings to mind many possible interpretations beyond the too ordinary description of encounters between unsuspecting animals and cars.
Although this may not count as a high form of artistic expression, the song is within the bounds of a long tradition of art that focuses on less than beautiful subjects, ones that may even be considered morbid. Some of that art is quite powerful, and in its own way, quite beautiful. One such often reproduced sculpture is the bas-relief from ancient Assyria called the Dying Lioness. The animal is roaring in agony and defiance as she supports with her front legs her limp hind quarters that have been pierced by arrows. A later Roman sculpture entitled The Dying Gaul portrays a naked soldier bleeding from a mortal wound in a seated, slumped posture. Hunting and war have given us many images of death and agony through centuries.
The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. contains several examples of potentially gruesome imagery that transcends subject to make powerful universal statements. One is Albert Pinkham Ryder’s Dead Bird, a small oil painting on wood, ca. 1890. The image is keenly observed, delicately and lovingly rendered, and vastly more intense than its small size would suggest. Another example is Henry Varnum Poor’s Dead Crow, oil on hardboard, ca. 1943. This work is interesting and arresting for its directness of painting technique executed on unprepared hardboard with impasto applied with brush and knife along with incising in the paint with the brush handle. An inscribed circle nearly contains the dead bird and may suggest both the containment of death and the cycle of life. One more example from the same collection and same year is Morris Graves’ Wounded Gull, gouache on paper. This painting reduces the bird to skeletal form and a few quickly brushed feathers. To call it a wounded bird is extreme understatement. Nevertheless, Graves makes a memorable and quite beautiful statement about the transience of life in a wondrous world of nature.
We could find many examples that are specifically memento mori, a subcategory of art related to death as a reminder of mortality, or that shows either fascination with the gruesome or finds beauty in it or may express an artist’s obsession with death and destruction. The ones that are most affecting are those that transcend the brutality or negativity of subject and elevate the theme while uplifting the viewer, a rare and remarkable accomplishment given the rawness of the image.
Posted on 3/19/2014
By Donald Fox
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John Updike was one of the best and most prolific writers of twentieth/twenty-first century America (he died in 2009). He studied English literature at Harvard and after graduation went to England where he studied art and painting at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford University. Although he never worked as a painter, he maintained a life-love love of art and wrote extensively about American art in the New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and in two books, Just Looking and Still Looking. His art essays are excellent reading for their insightful views, wonderful literary prose, and mostly because he so fully appreciates the art he writes about. He once said about writing what can also be applied to painting and other artistic expression: "No amount of learned skills can substitute for the feeling of having a lot to say, of bringing news. Memories, impressions, and emotions from your first 20 years on earth are most writers' main material; little that comes afterward is quite so rich and resonant. By the age of 40, you have probably mined the purest veins of this precious lode; after that, continued creativity is a matter of sifting the leavings.”
One might think that visual artists are more attuned to the external world since much of their work comes from what may be observed. This may partly be true, but I also think that writers observe just as closely as visual artists. Writers simply use verbal language and painters use images, but both use their imaginations to conceive and structure the art that they create. Experience is important to both, and mature expression comes from assimilated experience tempered by learning and passion. Interestingly, though, there aren’t that many writers that write their best work late in life. Painters, on the other hand, may create significant work in their later years. As with all generalities, there will be exceptions plus, in our modern age with its cult of personality and vagaries of the art market, any artist can be enhanced or overly burdened by the weight of notoriety.
The individual artist will have specific goals and desires for the work that is done. Some will be like moths to the flame and go out in a flare of glory. Those with the strongest intrinsic motivation will not be swayed by the external distractions but will continue to mine “the purest veins” or “sift the leavings” for as long as they are able. To them it is the act of creation that is its own reward and very often the stimulus for continued creative expression. Updike’s words are a bit tongue-in-cheek, since his own writing continued to deepen in wisdom and breadth, and for a man as cultured and learned as he, it was perhaps excusable to poke fun at the cult of youth and misspent passion.
Posted on 3/18/2014
By Donald Fox
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Today I came across a hand-written beginning of a blog that I posted September 1, 2013. Entitled Looking Within, the blog is about the lighter and darker sides of artistic creation. It references the introduction to Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities that creates a sociopolitical framework that could as easily describe the world today as it accurately did in 1859 (several years prior to the American Civil War). Dickens, of course, lived in London and was more concerned with English and European affairs than American, especially the injustices foisted upon the poor working classes during England’s industrialization.
I think of the current exhibit of Impressionist paintings at Houston’s Museum of Fine Art on loan from the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute in Massachusetts. Just under a third of those paintings were created around the same time as A Tale of Two Cities was published. Only in the 1870s do we begin to see distant signs of industrialization showing up in landscapes by Pissarro, scenes that are almost idyllic and that would have had none of the negative reading I or some of my contemporaries might impose from our vantage of hindsight.
Does this suggest pessimism? Does it suggest that dark undertones are always running beneath the most beautiful and pastoral of scenes? Are we so affected by our environmental fears and seeming incapacity to address them that we sense some impending danger where none appears to exist? The blog posting goes on to connect with a YouTube posting by a photographer that had chronicled damage to birds on Midway Island, animals affected by ingesting plastic debris washed ashore from the great Pacific trash pile that drifts as a floating island where various currents converge way out in the Pacific Ocean, far away from their (the debris) original sources that might even include your kitchen or mine. His photographic art, which is sometimes hard to stomach, nevertheless chronicles dead and dying birds and illustrates one use of art. This art does not celebrate the beauty of nature, rather it points out the tragedy of our unconscious effect on fellow creatures that pay for our selfish addiction to convenience and consumption.
It is because of our awareness and connection to the world that we make art to begin with. Our sense of spiritual connection to life within the universe, that original source that brought us forth and the mysteries that sustain us, tweak our own frail desire for creative expression. We create to admire, we create to praise, we create to understand, and we create to uplift our concept of who we are. Yet all that we make is not in our best interest. Like little demi-gods, we ignore the accumulation that surrounds us because we’re waiting for someone else to come and clean it up for us.
Posted on 3/17/2014
By Donald Fox
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For hundreds of years, the development of art and painting had been mainly Eurocentric. This is interesting on several counts for artists at different times have been strongly influenced by other cultures including Ancient Greece and Rome (before there was a Europe, per se), Egypt and Mesopotamia, Asia, especially China and Japan, and northern Africa. There is little evidence of European culture spreading to the orient even though Spain and Portugal sent priests and established trade with China and Japan. The west was definitely the late bloomer.
The famed Delft ware from Holland owes a large debt to Chinese and Persian ceramics (and the Persians to the Chinese). Painting was a different story since much European painting focused on Christian subject matter or looked to Ancient Greece for pointers on grace, form, and proportion. Renaissance painters also borrowed mythical subject matter, which sometimes was given Christian thematic transformation and sometimes not. An interest in exoticism began to show up in western painting in the late 1700s (Greek goddesses became odalisques with a North African and Arabian flair), and this continued into Neo-classicism and Romanticism in the nineteenth century.
Colonial America and the early United States looked to England first for painterly influence and ultimately looked to France. As Japonisme influenced many European artists, especially the French, new approaches to composition altered the traditional window on reality developed in the Renaissance to far more casual and asymmetrical points of view. During this several hundred year influence of the west by the east, there is no reciprocity of west to east. Perhaps the eastern cultural traditions were too entrenched, but I suspect that the eastern painters thought the west somewhat barbaric and crude. Painting in the east was often seen as a spiritual lifestyle and not just inclusive of spiritual imagery. Eastern spiritual philosophy was far older and radically different from that of the west, especially Christianity.
In the modern age, some of the mature traditions still survive though in altered form (the addition of contemporary surroundings). Eastern artists are now reinterpreting their traditional art in light of western artistic concepts. Several world wars no doubt contributed to this shift – as one studies one’s enemy in order to outdo him, there is inevitably some cross-cultural influence due to initially begrudging respect turned to admiration. Post-war increase in communication and commerce brings more influence, and now the internet continually brings people together. Images are freely communicated twenty-four hours a day.
If all this sounds somewhat truncated, consider that several hundred years is still gradual change when compared to what has occurred in the past fifty years or the past twenty-five.
Posted on 3/16/2014 6:11:08 PM
By Donald Fox
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Hans Hofmann - Pulsating Heart
Hans Hofmann painted Pulsating Heart the year I was born. Hofmann would have been almost 66 years old, slightly younger than my present age. The work is far more organic than much of the painting normally associated with him: rectangular and planar abstractions of floating warm and cool colors vying according to his infamous “push-pull” means of composition. This particular painting has more the feel and look of a Kandinsky free-form abstraction, but Hofmann’s is not as lyrical or poetic or musical. It is more childlike in its exploding forms that seem like a flower bursting open from the pulsating energy Dylan Thomas captured so eloquently in his modern-day verse (“the force that through the green fuse drives the flower,” for example). This painting also is quite small in scale compared to most Hofmann works, only 16” x 12.” Still, my personal association of coming into being and as yet being ignorant of most everything including painting, much less abstract painting, connects me with this piece.
All things have a birth of sorts, a moment when they become manifest. We always celebrate our birthdays (most people, that is), but probably most of us don’t remember the initial event no matter how dramatic it may have been. Awareness comes at some later stage, and what we would consider conscious awareness or understanding comes even later. As I near another birth date, I am grateful for everything that is in my realm of experience even that which may be challenging. One thing I have learned is that all of that stuff is grist for the mill, as the saying goes, and will in some way wind up in one or more pieces of art for it is my strong belief that art is more than pictures of things.
I don’t know the stimulus behind Hofmann’s painting, but I am grateful for it and to have found it and to relate it to my own existence and my own experience. For that is what art often does for us, takes us to some place of insight and illumination. It is very much like a doorway or window into some alternate reality, rather a parallel universe, where new possibilities exist for us to learn and grow and perceive the world, or us, with new understanding. This is a core principle that all art shares regardless of subject or style. It (art) is a potent means for transcending the ordinary and giving us a glimpse – and when we actively participate, far more than a glimpse – of what is possible for human expression.
Posted on 3/15/2014 9:17:02 PM
By Donald Fox
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Hispanic poet and writer Federico Garcia Lorca wrote that no artist works in a fevered state. “One returns from the inspired state as one returns from a foreign country. The poem is the legend of the journey. Inspiration furnished the image, but not the investiture.” This suggests to me that inspiration is nothing without the required work to make something of that inspiration. The creative fire may be lit by inspiration, but the fuel is supplied by the artist who bends will, experience, knowledge, and skill to shape these elements into the work of art. That work becomes the “legend of the journey,” and as such it is the record of the fusion between inspiration and expression.
What elevates art above the mere picture, the image, the story is the artist’s crafting of his or her vision. There is an interpretation of experience which may be intuited, reasoned, and ultimately shaped into a form that is filled with possibility. It often encompasses more than the artist’s vision, for the viewer or reader will add associations from personal experience and knowledge. Thus, in a way the art is a kind of sounding board. The art work is the artist’s legend of the journey, and then becomes another journey for the audience. The physicality of the work will remain unchanged, but its virtual essence will continue to grow as understanding expands through many shared perceptions.
Posted on 3/14/2014 8:34:33 PM
By Donald Fox
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In art, sometimes truth is a major issue. Critics (not professional ones) may say that art, most any art, is a kind of fiction or fantasy or outright lie. It may represent reality, but that representation is never real. Characters are imaginary, live in imaginary settings, and do imaginary things. We are drawn into a literary world because the writer gives us believable people, settings, and actions. The presentation is interesting and even intriguing. We are given problems that seem like real world problems unless the work is fantasy or science fiction, but even those have to have a level of believability for them to be engaging and entertaining.
We can say similar things about plays and other works in the dramatic arts. Here, too, as in literature, there are certain conventions that we accept as part of the art form, and we suspend our disbelief in order to enter the world of the artist. There are exceptions when the work is not well realized or is inconsistent or implausible. Mostly, we will accept the limitations of the medium and focus on how the story develops, how characters are portrayed, and whatever cleverness or symbolic emphasis the artist has included.
Similarly in the visual arts, viewers are attracted to the artistry of presentation and how the creator has manipulated his or her medium. Work is judged according to its type: realism, abstraction, or hybrid works like collage, assemblage, or other mixed-media. Viewers understand generally the limitations of the medium just as in literature or theater. In spite of this, realistic works are largely judged by their verisimilitude. The greatest works as evidenced by those done by past masters are those that incorporate other elements besides realism: symbol and metaphor, narrative, philosophy, emotion, or universal values. This is true whether the subject is people or nature.
When the art demonstrates some aspect of life, then it is said to be truthful. We overlook that the work is a fiction based on observed reality. We praise a particular artist’s interpretation of the world (or we condemn it), and we build philosophical arguments to support our interpretation of the artist’s interpretation of reality. We may also include in our argument that the art work is its own reality – it is a physical object designed to evoke certain responses from viewers. A larger fiction then grows around the art work that overlaps and interconnects with other work by the same artist and similar works by other artists. Soon there is a wealth of information arguing for the reality of the art, the validity of the artistic experience, and the enhancing effect that art has on the real world in which we live and on us the inhabitants. We even compare real world experience to experience as portrayed in art. Consider the cliché, for example, “truth is stranger than fiction.”
Fiction or not, art gives us a way to stand back from everyday life and experience existence from a different perspective. This perspective allows certain control and malleability that is not always accessible in reality. The outcome of art can be predictable whereas the outcome in life, except for its end, is not so predictable. Through art, we can investigate many aspects of life that we may not experience directly. We can broaden our horizons and enhance our understanding of life experience. Art often provokes thought in ways that are more profound than we might ordinarily share. Overall we are better for our experience of art whether through the making of it or the appreciation of what others have created for us.
Posted on 3/13/2014
By Donald Fox
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Underpass
Bob Dylan’s early seventies song “When I Paint My Masterpiece” is a somewhat enigmatic poetic reference to the popular artist dreaming that everything will be resolved – artistic struggle, estrangement, artistic isolation, fleeting notoriety – when the masterpiece is completed. The suggestion, perhaps, is that this is a coming into legitimate power, creative fulfillment, or a personal milestone that when achieved will solve all of life’s issues. It is a dreamer’s lament in a way, a recognition that mastery is elusive but not out of reach, so maybe it has a certain optimism.
Originally, masterpiece was a particular piece of craft – painting, sculpture, stone craft, etc. – that was created by an apprentice for admission into a guild, i.e. to be recognized as a master craftsman. Gradually the term was applied to a particularly outstanding work of art by an artist, possibly even the best piece produced by that artist (a magnum opus). The artists that we call the old masters produced many master works, which generally don’t include work considered to be immature. Often everything considered mature work is classified as a masterpiece. Typically, then, there would be more than only one masterpiece by these past masters (and even some modern ones) although some lesser artists might actually reach a high point of expression and produce a work that is acclaimed as a master work. This would usually be done late in life rather than early.
I may be wrong, but I doubt that many artists think about creating masterpieces. Most think about developing a mature style and may even consider much of their output as master works, but it is not likely that they would consider only one or two works to be masterpieces. It certainly is not unusual for an artist to be partial to one or more pieces, but that’s a different issue.
A masterful work could also be in a secondary medium like drawing or mixed media. This could include drawings that may be little more than sketches as in many of Rembrandt’s small figure drawings that are immaculately expressive and seemingly monumental although they are in small format. Perhaps this says more about the usage of the term and how it has become rather imprecise if not simply overused. We might say that the term can apply to works that are exceptionally crafted, but we’re still stuck with defining what constitutes exceptional.
When we do talk about an artist gaining mastery over a particular medium, don’t we usually mean that the artist can produce desired effects with little effort even though that little effort has taken years to perfect? He or she can basically produce whatever he or she intends. It is not that a work comes about by accident or serendipity. The artist has control and exerts that control at will.
Perhaps, then, mastery is the goal and not specifically a masterpiece. Or, as some have said, the journey is the important thing rather than the destination. In American literary criticism there used to be a lot of discussion about the great American novel (in some quarters this may still be discussed). Books like Moby Dick, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, or The Cather in the Rye would be examples that stand as masterpieces that depict the character of a particular time and place. We could list other great works of literature of exceptional achievement as master works also. Great symphonies, great poems, great plays – all could be considered masterpieces. These works stand apart from others – in a class by themselves, we might say. We understand the concept; we admire the works. As creative artists, the real question then might be to what do we aspire? Is it that ever elusive masterpiece, or is it the magnificent journey?
Posted on 3/12/2014
By Donald Fox
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Generally there is no direct correlation between one art form and another. If there were, we probably wouldn’t distinguish between one and another. Artists, however, often do think about one form using terminology from a different form, or using one form of expression as an analogy for expression in another form. Painting and music, for example, have been linked together by many different artists. Conductors and composers speak about instrumental sounds as having particular colors. They conceive of orchestral pieces as creating spatial effects, which can be quite dramatic and easily heard or imagined. Painters sometimes talk about rhythms among shapes and lines, or certain passages within a painting being melodic or even symphonic. Dancers interpret musical sound with the movements of their bodies, and composers that create ballet music think in terms of dramatic movement to tell a story with the music. With dance and opera, music can be quite narrative even without a libretto, but all of the elements of voice, music, body movement, and stage setting blend together in the creation of the piece. These are not stretches of the imagination but very natural responses that one medium might elicit from a viewer or listener.
Museums and galleries, of course, are generally silent places where patrons move through rooms of mute paintings and sculptures with only the sound of shoes on floor or perhaps the rustle of a notebook page. Yet the paintings will speak in their silent language and one viewer may comment to another. If there is music here, it is generated internally as viewers respond to different works. Some of those works will seem to have synesthetic qualities even if their titles don’t overtly reference other sensory responses like Whistler’s Nocturnes, for example.
Some say that film is the most realistic of the arts in that it can recreate most closely the naturalism of everyday experience, the terror and drama of war, or the lyrical romance of love and human bonding. We are very much swayed by this realism even when it may become magical and fantastical. Yet even the most dramatic and gritty and realistic film usually has a musical score that amplifies or conveys emotional content appropriate to the story. This music, however, is not what we experience in our everyday lives, at least not in the same way. We may listen to music or choose to have music playing in the background as we do other things, but we don’t have every scene of daily life accompanied by music. Still, we accept this as a part of the film experience even as we note how some film or other is dramatically realistic in its portrayal of life.
Doesn’t this touch on the mystery, the enigma, the power, and the seductiveness of art? It draws us in by numerous means, appeals to our array of senses, delights us, entertains us, teaches us, and confounds us all at once. We may feel inspired and elated or we may feel inspired and dismayed. We respond with associations from our own experience that may have nothing to do with artistic intention and yet fits so well that it seems absolutely right to the point that even the artist might agree should he or she hear of it. The many facets of our lives are mirrored in the many facets of art so much so that our lives sometimes take on the look of art. In a sense we become the art that we consume.
Posted on 3/11/2014
By Donald Fox
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In contemporary art, a term that can conjure a wide range of meanings, we find singular works, serial work and multiples, variations on a theme, subjects repeated over a period of time but not necessarily considered serial, multiples or variations – perhaps we could call these reconsiderations, re-imaginings, reinterpretations, or reiterations. The possibilities are many, and depending on an artist’s experience, learning, and bias, the general style may be representational or abstract. The proliferation of styles, subjects, and approaches, not to mention the hybrid forms that have developed along with new media, creates confusion at best when one tries to understand what is currently happening within the art world. Gone are the times when one or two major schools of thought seemed to dominate artistic output.
Critics still attempt to exert influence over artists, the public, and the art market, but that influence has been greatly weakened since the internet has made accessibility to art and artists so widely available. With essentially no major trends in art other than accessibility, it is likely that there will be some period of time during which art will continue to be eclectic, broadly focused, and tend towards incorporation of new media and new materials rather than follow the path of traditional forms. This is not to say that traditional forms will die out, for a large number of artists still work in traditional media and strive to keep that tradition alive. This will likely continue into the distant future. Multi-media and performance art are still relatively new to art history and are therefore also likely to continue to develop.
We might use film as an example of artistic development tied to technology. Film is little more than a hundred years old, yet the comparison between early silent film and the CGI-based films of today with their magical, stunning, and seemingly limitless scope of visual possibility is hardly a fair comparison by any means. No one could have predicted in 1910 the direction film would take by 2010.
In many of the arts there is some historical precedence for later work since artists often look to the past for inspiration and understanding. One could argue that ancient Greek theater still influences theater and film today, but that is only at the most superficial level. We could say that all storytelling has a beginning, middle, and end, and that would have to embrace any linear narrative including those that contain flashbacks and flash forwards. With modern film, however, the suspension of disbelief is hardly an issue since the viewer is immediately all but transported into an altered reality seemingly more real than everyday reality outside the theater. Perhaps these convincing fantasies begin to alter our conception of who we are, but maybe this is not so unusual since science has already dramatically altered our understanding of reality from microcosm to macrocosm.
It should not be so surprising, then, that artists look within as well as without for their inspiration, that many are not satisfied only with the external world, that the boundaries of the traditional and accepted are constantly being challenged and pushed, or that the curious nature of artists leads them to investigate every new possibility that manifests. We live in an exciting time of exploration, creative expression, continual redefining of what it means to be human, to be alive, to think and to act, and artists continue to help us understand these experiences as they have for many generations before and likely will for many generations hence.
Posted on 3/10/2014
By Donald Fox
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Architectural space is like a walk-in sculpture. Air is blocked off in strict rectangularity or more accurately, in large cubes or other shapes to accommodate some form of human activity. The space can feel confined, which could be either comforting in that one can feel secure or it could feel restrictive and claustrophobic. A vast space like the inside of a gothic cathedral or a modern airplane hangar can feel uplifting and put one in a spiritual mode or it could express the enormity of a particular business operation. We relate to space not only as an architect might intend but also according to personal experience from the past that might be positive or negative. This would be beyond the architect’s control.
Similarly, space in a painting may suggest a number of possible responses according to the artist’s intention. Space here, however, is an illusory space although some heavily textured paint surfaces might possibly build layers that can be measured in inches. Mostly, space in a painting comes from the interplay of color with the advancement or recession of warm and cool color contrasts. Depending on the specific subject, a painter may also utilize design elements like overlapping planes, position, size variations, linear or aerial perspective, and value contrast to suggest shallow or deep space. In reality, the painting is composed of multiple layers of paint that, again depending on thickness, can create some amount of literal space.
In much twentieth century painting, space was a big issue especially with certain styles of abstract painting. I emphasize certain styles because abstract painting itself is a massive category that encompasses hundreds of variations from very personally expressive to quite cool and cerebral. Think of Abstract Expressionism as demonstrated by Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning compared to the serene squares of Josef Albers or the geometric constructions of Kazimir Malevich. There are vast differences among these four artists, but they give only a tiny glimpse into the world of abstract imagery.
For a period of time in the sixties and seventies in the United States, the art market seemed to focus on the large-scale abstract work of a relatively few painters whose goal appeared to be to flatten paintings as much as possible; i.e. they were concentrated on their version of truth in art, which meant that the flat surface of the painting could not be violated by any sort of implied illusory spatial depth. The Renaissance concept of a painting being a window on reality was anathema to them and a false doctrine. Some differentiated between what they called tonal painters (those aligned with traditional painting) and the color field painters who dripped, spread, or bled colors onto and into the surface of the canvas. Color exerted itself by expanding across a surface. A few exceptions, however, Mark Rothko notable among them, saw the painted canvas as unlimited space – the painted curtain was simply a veil in front of a limitless expanse that had nothing to do with real-world perceived space. He and they were defining spiritual space.
If we consider that art is a construct, an expressive one to be sure, but nonetheless a constructed form intended to communicate ideas and provide personal experiences for viewers, then to my way of thinking it doesn’t matter what the resultant object may emphasize, at least not in competition with some other construct. The artist’s intention defines the work as he or she sees fit. A design is conceived that encapsulates a particular aesthetic philosophy and some form of human expression. One art form is just different from another. We see many kinds of trees in nature – tall, slender, triangular, round, irregular, bright green, dull green – the variations are many – but all of them are trees and all do essentially what trees do, absorb carbon and release oxygen. One tree doesn’t deny the existence of another (though sometimes they may be in competition for sunlight, water, or nutrients). Art is more multifaceted now than at any other time in history. The emergence of one form of art, though it may gain dominance in a particular time frame, doesn’t demolish another however different it may appear. There is room for many trees within the forests of the world.
Posted on 3/9/2014 6:20:47 PM
By Donald Fox
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Recently, at a museum exhibition, I overheard a statement made by another patron, “I don’t think we have time to look at the whole thing.” The question immediately arose in my mind – but, do we ever see the whole thing?
The forensic investigator, made popular today by a host of television shows, focuses on minute details for the purpose of solving crimes. Many of us remember, and perhaps still read about, the exploits of the famous Sherlock Holmes whose powers of observation and deduction made him appear to see so much more than the often astounded Watson or the dumfounded criminal. Does the investigator, or Holmes, see the whole thing?
In painting classes and in writing classes, I am continuously amazed how little students see. That one shape is larger than another, or one object more distant or located higher or lower in the picture plane, should be readily noted. That a word is missing from a sentence should be obvious by its absence like a hole in an otherwise pristine surface. Yet these seemingly apparent and easily observable facts or omissions are missed with frequency and regularity. Why is this so?
Perhaps there has been a missing ingredient in the educational process. Or, perhaps there have been other educational factors at work that interfere with paying attention, focusing, and seeing what is right there in front of the viewer. We are taught lots of facts and learn many rituals to perform in response to one situation or another. What we often are not taught is how to observe. In the sciences there is a point where observation becomes important to application of basic principles. In order to make successful experiments or to do field research, scientists must be observant. Doctors and health care workers must observe their patients and look for clues that produce ill health. Accountants must be alert to details and keep accurate records. And of course criminal investigators must be particularly observant at crime scenes.
It is obvious that observation is fundamental to many endeavors, and we would assume that learning to observe would be part of the basic educational process. However, we also create many distractions that misdirect us from the present moment and our connection to sensory input that would turn into cogent perceptions. This short-circuiting of the observation process becomes habitual to the point of detriment. We look but we don’t see.
Artists train themselves to see what they are looking at as shapes, colors, textures, and variations in light and dark. It becomes clear early on that these elements must be observed and understood in order to make a successful work of art. Additionally, artists learn to think symbolically in order to elevate their perceptions to a higher form of communication. They give their observations greater meaning by forming them into symbols during the creative process. Often it is the simple observation that initiates this process and from which the symbolic context grows. Drawing and making color studies are two effective ways to continually develop observation skills.
Posted on 3/8/2014 8:33:06 PM
By Donald Fox
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John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent’s watercolors are one major facet of his work that stood apart from his successful career as a portrait painter. It is said that after 1900 he turned increasingly to watercolor as a means to escape the pressures and confinement of portraiture. He also used landscape painting as another means of exploring aspects of art that interested him as an expressive painter. Sometimes he did similar scenes in both watercolor and oil, and although the two mediums are quite different in technical demands, he handled both in ways that complement each other.
Sargent’s watercolor subjects are interesting for their personal relationship to the artist and for the unique perspective that he often used to portray both people and scenes. His paintings chronicle his many journeys to various parts of Europe and Africa that he visited with friends, family, and fellow painters. Many settings include family members at rest within spectacular landscapes. While they rested, Sargent painted. Some paintings, however, were more contrived in that he might use one person in several poses and different dress to portray several characters within a single scene as though there were three or four people interacting with each other. These paintings are as lively and freely executed as the spontaneous scenes he observed directly.
Beside family, friends, and fellow painters, Sargent also painted scenes that tourists might see in Venice, Paris, or other European destinations. His paintings are unique since he observed from unusual perspectives – painting from a gondola, for example, many scenes in Venice. In some you can see the bow of his own gondola in the lower portion of the painting. He often also cropped his compositions in unusual ways making them seem almost like painted photographs. The exquisite handling of washes, dry brush, and added touches of opaque watercolor make these paintings quite advanced for the time, sometimes verging on abstraction in terms of design. The inventiveness displayed in these works is one hundred eighty degrees counter to the restrictive demands of the portraits that made him wealthy.
Add to all of this that Sargent also was good friends with many of the outstanding painters of his day including quite a few of the Impressionists, and we find an artist who was on the cutting edge of art while also firmly grounded in the traditional painting that buttered his bread.
Posted on 3/7/2014 8:49:59 PM
By Donald Fox
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Durand-Ruel by Renoir
The French art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel was a major champion of the Impressionists even before the artists were known for their work. He had taken over the picture business from his father, a business that represented many of the Barbizon painters including Camille Corot. When the younger artists who became the Impressionists were struggling in their early days, Durand-Ruel often commissioned work from them (which frequently he never got), bought their works, or loaned them money. Some historians have said that without Durand-Ruel there would have been no Impressionism.
During the Franco-Prussian War when many painters had left France for London, Duran-Ruel also went there and established a gallery that showed their works for the first time in 1870. This included Monet and Pissarro. Some years later Durand-Ruel introduced the Impressionists to America, and, interestingly, these painters became instantly popular without the prejudices they had faced from the academics in France.
There have been a few princes in the past that sustained the arts while often dictating what was created. The Catholic church did much the same for hundreds of years, again with something of a heavy hand. It is rare, however, that someone has the foresight to recognize something new, and even rarer for that person to almost single-handedly support the new vision and bring it to a wider public. In modern times we think of critics that champion particular artists or movements, but often these writers are focused on building their own reputations through the artists. Paul Durand-Ruel was a uniquely singular figure that encouraged, supported, and proselytized for art in which he believed. All of us are in his debt.
Posted on 3/6/2014
By Donald Fox
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It is obvious that painting is a visual medium and resides firmly at the center of the visual arts. Whatever message viewers may derive from a painted image is dependent on the visual elements first being seen and then understood. Neither process can be taken for granted since much depends on how the work came into being, what the painter did or did not do in the process of creation. An interior scene painted by Rembrandt, for example, may have a certain moodiness because of strong light contrasting with areas of strong dark. Vermeer’s interiors, on the other hand, are light-filled, with clarity and detail that define every surface as crisp and clean. It’s probably fair to say that Rembrandt is more emotive and Vermeer more rational in their respective approaches. Each painter uses a setting for a specific purpose, and the meaning of each is fairly obvious.
Matisse’s painting The Red Room creates a unique interpretation of the well-established subject matter. Compare this compressed space to that depicted with jewel-like intensity in any dining table painting by Pierre Bonnard. It is clear that each painter is not simply rendering an interior scene in order to illustrate it. Each is telling us something about the room and the reality of experiencing it. The various parts of the painted design become important elements in how the painter’s message is received. It is up to the viewer to properly decode the message while simultaneously acknowledging his or her emotional response.
Abstract images may present more challenging problems because there is no recognizable skeletal structure (a room, a table, or other objects) on which viewers would tacitly agree. Shapes or colors or textures may be interpreted in numerous personal ways which can easily vary from viewer to viewer. We might say that the visual experience is more fluid or at least less fixed than recognizable imagery. As an artist’s visual vocabulary becomes increasingly known, perhaps it becomes easier for viewers to respond in reasonable ways to the intentions of the artist. There is a sub-text that can be deciphered with some degree of certainty rather than the viewer having to respond as to a Rorschach ink blot.
Acknowledging that paintings have meanings is at least a first step in the process of deciphering them.
Posted on 3/5/2014
By Donald Fox
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I remember a teacher many years ago suggesting placing a clear plastic film over a window pane and with a marker trace the outlines of whatever can be seen through the window. The challenge is to keep one’s head perfectly still so that the viewpoint is consistent; otherwise there would be distortions introduced into the traced drawing. Ideally this process would produce a line drawing that would illustrate a concise set of observed relationships among whatever objects could be seen through the window. The drawing should incorporate accurate perspective and the suggestion of space, again if the head is held absolutely still.
The idea here is that whatever is traced onto the plastic film should in theory coincide with what a draftsman would create on paper when making a drawing of something observed. Because the experienced artist understands perspective, placement, size and shape relationships, and the effects of distance, he or she will make a drawing that is accurate and true to life. The inexperienced observer may have difficulty with any of the above design issues as well as problems with eye-hand coordination. The image may reveal problems with proportion, spacing, or coordination of one side with another. The artist will likely succeed and the novice not, but a novice might learn something about observing from doing the exercise.
As a long time teacher of art and design, I understand the importance of careful observation. When we can observe accurately, we understand what we are observing. The ultimate purpose need not necessarily be only to make accurate drawings. As students we learn from observation what it means to see, but seeing alone does not guarantee good art. The artist builds on basic understanding of the world, the discipline learned from engaging with that world at a physical level, and translates observation and engagement into personal expression. We see incredible accuracy in the paintings of Vermeer, but it is the poetry in his handling of light that makes his paintings ring true to life. Lesser painters may also display accuracy but not the poetry.
By contrast, a painting by Cézanne may at first appearance seem clumsy when compared to Vermeer. Cézanne’s still lifes and interiors create a different poetical rhythm. His observations of the world around him translated into painting have more to do with shape and form than with the play of light on surfaces. He gives us a very different interpretation of the world as represented on canvas. The viewer is now tasked with observing distinctions between one artist and another. The viewer must try to understand what the artist is saying by decoding the artist’s vocabulary.
Beginning around the mid-nineteenth century, many artists began to consider what a painting actually is along with learning to use painting to express something about the world. They questioned what had become a tightly controlled set of ideas defining what a painting is supposed to be. They began to ask new questions. What does it mean to paint? Is it the job of the painter to represent the world as it appears to the eye? Is painting primarily about recording observations? Does the painter make objects to be observed for their veracity? Is the difference between one painter and another simply a matter of style? Is a painting a form of visual poetry? Is it visual music? How real is the accurately observed and rendered image when that image is frozen in time? Is the painter not also a philosopher?
In the twentieth century, artists continued to ask questions about the nature of painting and the nature of art. Whether painting has been more accurately defined is still open to question. The definition of painting certainly has expanded along with the possibilities for how a painting may be conceived. There may be no definitive answer regarding painting, for as a process painting continues to grow and change. There now are over a hundred years of modernism added to the hundreds of years preceding it. Modernists have incorporated lessons from the past while attempting to forge new directions. Looking forward and looking back are nearly as old as the history of painting itself.
Posted on 3/4/2014
By Donald Fox
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When I was in graduate school during the early seventies, Pop art, Op art, and early color field painting were the movements of interest to many students. There was a lot of very flat color in huge abstract paintings by Ellsworth Kelly and others, the billboard-size pop paintings of James Rosenquist, and the jazzed-up, eyeball popping optical paintings that could easily give one a headache. Many of these paintings could be impressive on scale alone. As a student, I studied a variety of artists, and a rather eclectic group soon captured my interest. I was particularly enamored of Joan Miró, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, Robert Motherwell, and the color work of Josef Albers. I did say this was an eclectic group. For my own painting at the time, I looked most closely at John Constable, especially the plein air studies.
Art is such an incredibly rich field of endeavor. Sometimes it is difficult to grasp that an artist will narrow his or her focus so intently to a specific theme or style. There is so much to experience, but I understand why artists do choose to follow a direction of inquiry as I have done myself. I’ve also allowed myself the option to explore different directions when opportunities arose to do so. An actor doesn’t always want to play the bad guy (though some have done that masterfully time and again). Neither does a writer always write the same kind of book.
Picasso was one of the first early modernists to explore a variety of styles. His work is categorized in specific periods. Most people that know something about Picasso’s work will recognize the Blue or Rose period paintings, the cubist and synthetic cubist periods, and the many variations that came in the many years following. Add to those the sculpture, the ceramics, the drawings and other graphic works, and it is easy to see why many considered him the most prolific artist of the twentieth century. Whether this is true is another question. Certainly no other artist comes to mind, but ignorance doesn’t mean that there aren’t others.
The German artist Gerhard Richter may ultimately prove to be more prolific than Picasso was in his ninety-four years, and Richter is in his mid-eighties. His work has spanned multiple expressive forms, dozens of stylistic changes from representational to abstract, combinations of representational and abstract, combinations of painting and photography, watercolor, drawing, and other graphic media. To say, however, that Richter (or Picasso) couldn’t stick to one subject or a singular style is to miss the complex themes that run through the work of each artist. In one sense, the unifying factor is the quest for diversity.
There may be artists that change style frequently because of impatience or lack of skill to create a consistent style. They move on to other forms while searching for one that will provide a continuous outlet for creative expression. Neither Picasso nor Richter is that kind of artist. There is consistency within diversity, and I am very grateful for the expansive vision of both.
Posted on 3/3/2014
By Donald Fox
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How an artist develops a painting can be as diverse as the styles in which paintings are made. It may take years for any particular artist to develop his or her stylistic approach, which includes not only how images may be rendered but also the subject matter the artist chooses to paint. Retrospective exhibits are usually quite interesting for how they reveal an artist’s progression over time. A large retrospective of Jackson Pollock’s work I saw some years ago began with very early work, mostly drawings, that looked somewhat like the representational style of Thomas Hart Benton, a painter he studied under when he was young. Pollock later began to explore a form of abstract surrealism that included references to Jungian concepts like archetypes and dream images. This gradually gave way to an all-over style of painting that ultimately became his noted drip-technique paintings. Seeing the work laid out chronologically and progressively, one could observe that there was not just an abrupt change from one style of working to another. Sometimes there would be reference to something earlier in a later work while in between there might be works that foretold the mature works of the action painting period.
It makes sense that an artist’s ideas may reference what has come before, and the artist may pull ideas from the past into present work. Art is not science and may not have an empirical progression in the way that scientific experiments may develop. The artist’s emotion can have as much or more sway than the intellect, and many artistic actions are done intuitively rather than rationally. Reason often assesses after the fact rather than before. It can be interesting and instructive to see a large body of an artist’s work, and sometimes it can validate one’s own experiments that may veer from an expected path.
Posted on 3/2/2014 4:51:48 PM
By Donald Fox
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Miriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines oil painting as 1) the act or art of painting with oils and 2) a picture that is painted with oil paints. Further information follows in paragraph form: “Painting in oil colors, a medium consisting of pigments suspended in drying oils. Oil paint enables both fusion of tones and crisp effects and is unsurpassed for textural variation. The standard consistency of oil paint is a smooth, buttery paste. It is applied with brushes or a thin palette knife, usually onto a stretched linen canvas. Finished oil paintings are often coated with varnish.” A bit of historical information follows but doesn’t elaborate on the definition of an oil painting or the process of oil painting.
As with many dictionary definitions, only a brief general statement is made that would not give a reader much information about or understanding of what an oil painting actually is or can be. One can say, well, this is why we have art history courses or art books. These resources help anyone interested to learn more and better understand what is meant. Anyone choosing to read about art history, specifically the history of painting, will soon find that questions of complexity, artistic skill, creative intention, historical context, and philosophical mindset among others will inevitably develop. We could say the same thing about literature, poetry, music, dance, or any other art form. True understanding of these forms comes from in depth studying, questioning, evaluating, and judging in order to fully appreciate the art that we experience.
One can casually approach art as many people do, but what art can teach us about life and can add to our enjoyment of our own lives through the enjoyment of the work would be missed. The “fusion of tones and crisp effects” mentioned above, for example, cannot be fully appreciated without understanding something about the process of oil painting. What is it that makes the paintings of Rembrandt far superior to the paintings of other Dutch masters of the seventeenth century? What is it that places Picasso or Matisse at the forefront of modern masters? The more one learns, the deeper the understanding and appreciation. The same is true for appreciating gourmet foods, fine wines, sports, writing, or other human endeavors that are refined by practice, invention, and craft over many years. An oil painting is far more that simply “a picture painted with oils.”
Posted on 3/1/2014 7:35:41 PM
By Donald Fox
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Think of it as a marketing gimmick or think of it as a real interest in the integrity of the work. John Singer Sargent did watercolors mainly as a way to explore art in a manner he couldn’t as a much in demand portrait painter. His great success with wealthy and aristocratic patrons led to more commissions with the elite including nobles and royalty. Increasing success also meant that his artistic expression was extremely limited since he had to conform to the restrictions of client demands and formulaic protocol.
Sargent painted landscapes for his own pleasure and increasingly turned to watercolor in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He painted scenes from his travels with family and friends and often used them as subjects. It is interesting to consider that while they were lounging on holiday, he was busy working and painting them as they enjoyed their leisure.
For many years Sargent did not sell or even exhibit his watercolors. This was not because he thought less of them; rather it is because they were so special to him. It was not until his friend Edward Darley Boit, whose daughters Sargent had so masterfully painted in his painting The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit in 1882, convinced him that an exhibit in New York would be worthwhile. Boit also was a watercolor painter and reasonably accomplished. After lengthy persuasion by Boit, Sargent finally relented and an exhibition was arranged at Knoedler Gallery in 1909. Interestingly, the works by Sargent were not for sale. He did not want the paintings to be separated from each other and even suggested that he might consider selling them as a group. It wasn’t long before the Brooklyn Museum of Art sent a representative who purchased all of Sargent’s paintings in the show.
The Museum of Fine Arts Boston was miffed that it had been beat out. When a second show had been arranged at Knoedler in 1912, the Boston museum bought the entire collection before the show opened and before seeing all the paintings. This speaks to how highly regarded Sargent’s watercolors were. Seeing the paintings first hand will convince anyone that Sargent was arguably the finest watercolorist of his time (unless one is more inclined to the watercolors of Winslow Homer). The two artists were peerless masters each in his unique style.
Currently at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston an exhibit of ninety watercolors from the Brooklyn Museum collection and the Boston museum collection is on view. The exhibit runs through the 26th of May.
