The artisits intentions: Do they matter?

Art, real art, is very deep, subtle and complex. I have just finished an abstract painting that has possessed me now for four days. In an earlier incarnation, it was a radically different picture which I found "beautiful" in the sense of Stuh's aesthetically "pleasing". Then I screwed it up with shapes that destroyed its fluid character (part of its value). Frankly, I could not save it because I could not reproduce what was beautiful in it. It was too subtle for my conscious mind. So, I stoically gessoed it over and started over again, this time with a very different approach, a semi-conscious intention. This version is a static, structured, highly formalistic abstraction--somewhat reminiscent of a Franz Kline work. It is definitely not pleasing in the sense of having prettyish beauty, but I find it powerful and interesting. But I have had no conscious intentions in either of the two works. Both were almost automatistic in their creation. Moreover, I like this one today but may not like it tomorrow. A very complex situation.
I personally like Francis Bacon's aesthetic, but--like the bloodthirsty French painter, Franta--Bacon does work which is formally powerful in its color, painterliness, composition, etc. But it's often distressing in its content. But doesn't that say as much about me as it does about Bacon's paintings.

I saw a Bacon show once. I am sure I don't understand him and that I responded to the painterly surface sans point of view. Was drawn to that.

Bacon had a really good sense of humour actually. He was a real ham.

Isn't his studio that has been saved whole? Worth tons of money for its accumulated excresence? I think we had a picture on a past thread, sniff, quite untidy, heh.

Vivien,

I never said that art needed to be beatiful. I was very careful to not say that because that was not my point at all. My point was that it is designed to make us want to look at it...for ANY reason which could be beauty or it could be some other reason.

sorry - I misunderstood - we agree then

That's right, Stuh. I was impressed by your choice of the term "pleasing". This includes ugliness if it is aesthetically pleasing. I have always had this problem trying to communicate my understanding that the worst failure of a piece of art is that it is boring, uninteresting or hackneyed. This is usually the case with "mere prettiness." The ugliness of Francis Bacon's paintings is, very often for me, beautiful. I take your statement to Vivien, i.e., "I never said that art needed to be beautiful", really referred to "prettiness." Beauty is a much broader term: aesthetic power.

Agree.

agree 2

I would not want to live, day by day, in Francis Bacon's world.....

Nevertheless, I have painted many paintings instead of
one painting, on a single canvas.....( and have learned to photograph each stage....)...Perhaps the additional paintings are just different, not any better than the initial vision,.....I hope I realize, one day, when to stop..........

actually, i dont feel much affinity to Francis Bacon....

I do. I have many mes.

Shepaints, I have also photo'd paintings along the line, and I even scanned some at work to post here. It is such a hazzerai to transfer stuff from work to here, and then try to figure how to post them via another site - well, perhaps not for some, but I have lots of other calls on my time. And yet I'd love to show those.

Not that they are so good as paintings.. it was an early series of big paintings of old folks in a local park, big as in 4 x 5 foot paintings. But, I enjoy all the steps...

We'll see. I am busy for the next two or three weeks, but then I'd like to get to it.

This painting, 'Flanders' (1934) by Otto Dix is, to me, both ugly and beautiful. It speaks.

Yes, Cav.

Shepaints, I love to hear confessions like that. I repaint my paintings often many times over. I like to think of the process (perhaps to justify it) as the evolution of a painting rather than many paintings on a single canvas. I usually do that with abstract works, but I am currently doing that with a figurative painting of a man and woman dancing. It's a very romantic image, almost to the point of being humorously so And since I do not work with models, I am continuously altering the shapes of the subjects, as well as their environment.

Oh yes, Cav. Flanders is gorgeously ugly.

I am sure if we x-rayed paintings, or were able
to remove layer by layer, many would reveal
changess in positions of the body, different shorelines on a lake, cottages moved here
and there, clouds added or removed, climates
changing....all part of the magic of painting I guess.....

I think the working/reworking/changing is essential - that is what painting is about isn't it? the struggle to get down what you want and the readiness to change things drastically along the way as the painting needs - including covering it all up and starting again jln!

The pentimenti that shows through many old masters shows some of their struggles and changes and Xrays show even more.

cav yes that is a horrifically beautiful painting.

Vivien, it is so comforting to read:

"I think the working/reworking/changing is essential - that is what painting is about isn't it?"

I am now happily out of the closet. I almost felt it was only me...somehow cheating. I knew that Matisse did it. But he was MATISSE; he could do anything. Not me. But you say its "essential" and that is "what painting is about." This is one of the reasons people go to therapists: to get permission to be themselves (it's called validation).

yes, and we could even begin to undress Sargent's painting of the woman in the black dress