Blog

            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.