close, but I didn't get the cigar -
http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/a/ashcan.html
I respond heartily to Bellows, and always manage to forget Glackens, whose work I like too. Well, hey, their interests are v. similar to mine.
They may be dead in the water re current art, except for collector value, but I am still interested in what they were doing.
Interesting thoughts, Portal Star, but (to me) Dada was the movement which had the most influence on twentieth century art. I can't see how say, Duchamp's Fountain would have made him much money at the time. Nor the photomontages of the German "branch". It seems to me that Dada had such a strong influence because it was so challenging, the passion of its stance .... such an appropriate reaction to a very changed world after WW1. It struck just the right chord for a very disenchanted world.
I'm interested in your choice of Guernica. Could you tell us more?
Thank you, osso. I have some investigating to do!
Interesting you mentioned Bellows. As I was looking through the first page of the link, his painting really stood out. That painting of the 2 boxers is very strong!
I'm looking forward to finding out more!
interesting
Because I relate more to 'painterly' painting than conceptual art I see some of the ones influencing current painters I admire as:
Remrandt: just look at the globs and trails of paint in his work close up - the freedom of his paint handling is so contemporary, also his invasion of his sitters 'personal space' in many works - very intimate.
Turner: again the brushwork and freedom and above all the obsession with light and atmosphere and place
Bonnard: colour colour colour
Jackson Pollack: for freeing up paint even further and making the painted surface something in its own right
Gwen John: for subtle minimalism
I feel all these feed into the work of the contemporary artists I like and have mentioned on other threads (and my own work though not in their class)
oh - I'd heard of the ashcan school but knew nothing about it so thanks for that link osso
msolga wrote:Interesting thoughts, Portal Star, but (to me) Dada was the movement which had the most influence on twentieth century art. I can't see how say, Duchamp's Fountain would have made him much money at the time. Nor the photomontages of the German "branch". It seems to me that Dada had such a strong influence because it was so challenging, the passion of its stance .... such an appropriate reaction to a very changed world after WW1. It struck just the right chord for a very disenchanted world.
I'm interested in your choice of Guernica. Could you tell us more?
As Vivien pointed out, referencing style is a game you can take back as far as we have art.
Guernica was widely viewed, and most modernists, when talking about art, refer to it at some point.
I suppose I should alter my statement on art follows money to say: art is being made all the time, sometimes unsuccessfully, but art trends follow the money. It is what is being bought and sold that makes it into our visual scope. The reason you have a "movement" and not just a few people reacting to each other is that painters who aren't famous tend to follow the money. Ever been to a grad school painting dept.? They echo trends of people who have made it and are in the NY scene. And, it has been the same throughout history. There are tons of (usually terrible) wanna-be Picassos out there, and for every artist who was famous/successful there is a school of people riding off of their ideas.
Modern Art, as an expression of the grand cultural movement, Modernism, is not the same as Contemporary Art which may very well have begun with Duchamp, and continued with Warhol. But as I see it, modern art began with the likes of Manet and Cezanne. They changed how most people DID art, Duchamp only affected how many people THOUGHT ABOUT art. Modern art fed off the revolutionary movements of Cubism, Dadism, Cobra, etc.. Notice how these three examples expressed their principles in actually making art. They were tangible expressions of its "evolution." The ideas of Duchamp, and his ilk, only contributed to its "devolution." Just a personal perspective.
jln I agree.
When I look at the work of Duchamp I only want to see it once, think 'ok' and that's it. It just isn't sustaining. It's a sort of one trick pony.
I find wrapping islands etc slightly more interesting but again, see it, ok interesting idea, not bothered about seeing it again.
I can sit or stand for ages wrapped up in a good painting and enjoy seeing it again and again.
Vivien, exactly, it's the difference between producing art works and ideas about art. Most conceptual art should just take the form of an essay enunciating its idea. But, then, the ideas might seem very pale in that form. Conceptual art consists--AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED--of a blend of weak aesthetics and weak philosophy. Great art has its mysterious roots deep in the human unconscious; conceptual art has its less mysterious roots in the relatively shallow conscious mind.
Pardon my hyperboly. But it felt good.
The idea that inspired the piece often appears to be more important than the artwork itself. I must admit, I do find some of the concepts exciting.
about tte same time that "Impressionism' was no longer a pejorattive, there was a newfound appreciiation of the abilities of tthese artists to
"Paint a moment in Time"
Monets success was example of this. Many later works were inspired by tthe mature impressionists. Picassos "Blue Room" was done, I believe in 1900 and it was , at leaast to my senses, a breaktthrough in the separation of the composition from the standards of acadamies.
All Picassos works till that point (at leaast the ones im familiar witth) were celebrations of draftsmanship not composition , color, or style.
Picasso never was a painter that I would describe as a colourist. His issues are different, more of a draughtman.
Vivien, that's right. I'm infrequently astounded by his colors (unlike Matisse or Gauguin); I am frequently astounded by his drawing, the shapes of his figures and the composition of his paintings. Is that what you mean by Picasso as draghtman?
look at picassos earliest works and you couldntt tell tthem from Acaademie topic. he made a big break in 1901 witth tte B lue Room. most everytthing before that celebrated the normal craft like perspective and ttone and atmosphheric perspective.
but iMHO, it took tthe Impressionists to become popular to promotee the growth of bolder , more "modern" subjects.
Id argue with that toidy bowl "ready made" because Piccabia was a dear friend and boozing buddie of duchamp and is hardly recognized as a pioneer. hHis work predated Demuth by 20 years
Vivien, I would entirely agree with you that, in painting, Picasso's chief issue is draftsmanship. He was brilliant in this area, and he put this expertise and fluency to use in intense exploration of form. Picasso did not like the word "experiment" when applied to his working method, but, as a consequence of his ability to compose and draw so rapidly, he frequently ran through several variants on a work--one supposes until it felt right to him. These variations did not necessarily follow a straight-line evolution. Rather, like an earlier artistic genius, Leonardo, Picasso would discover a form that was part of a work in progress, then take off, cycling that form through a number of lives. Leonardo, for example, would draw turbulence in water; then, he'd incorporate part of the form into a depiction of human hair; then, he'd spin off geometric nests of curved-line segments, etc. Picasso, for example, would draw an animal--a horse, a bull, a goat (all favorites of his); then, he'd spin off centaurs, pans; then related semi-mechanical creatures, etc. I see this as experimentation, but Picasso insisted that he didn't look for things, but found them. A gamester.
There are Picasso paintings in which color is very important--for instance, "Sleeping Peasants" (1919), "Girl with a Boat [Maya Picasso] (1938), and "Rembrandt Figure and Eros" (1969). However, when I study these works, I cannot help but feel that the color, although significant for its own connotations, is still mostly at the service of form.
When Picasso writes--which he did very well, at one point concentrating on writing for 18 months--his prose and verse are suffused with color, and, in this medium the hues seem to have a much more important role than they do in most of his paintings. Exact Change Press (Boston) has just published a nice, thick paperback of Picasso's verse, THE BURIAL OF THE COUNT OF ORGAZ and Other Poems. You might be interested in the uses Picasso the poet makes of color.
Finally, to take us back to draftsmanship and form over color, here is Picasso speaking to Michel Georges-Michel in 1954: "Color? I don't know. Yes, no, yes. Maybe. The same way one puts salt in the soup. No doubt some yellow, a little, some green, very little, they will make the figure look slightly pink. But color interests me less, at the moment than the 'gravity,' not to say density."
To my thinking, Picasso's serious play with form, via his bold imagination expressed through exceptional draftsmanship, is a very large influence on modern art.
Very good, Miklos. I am quite surprised to hear that Picasso wrote....
Thank you, JLN. The French edition of the complete written works of Picasso (ECRITS) is three very hefty volumes--which I cannot afford! Picasso wrote a great deal all of his life--but mostly intensely in the 1930's. As an artist with knowledge of the surrealists, you might be particularly interested in Picasso's
automatic writing.
Miklos that was interesting
- I don't feel that he had a real feeling for colour though in the way that some artists do - there is rarely any subtlety, the colour is used quite graphically and deliberately and tonally.
what sort of work do you do?
Thank you, Vivien. I have a hunch--which will remain forever such--that Picasso saw much more color than reached his canvas. From studying his writing and recorded remarks, I find it almost certain that, everywhere in his life, the colors Picasso observed had both power and myriad connotations--perhaps, to a greater degree than for even most artists. Also, if one looks at his blue period or his rose period, one sees that Picasso clearly develops complicated moods through color.
However, when Picasso starts to paint, the importance of color usually seems to drop away--particularly in his work after the early 1920's. He seems to have particular hues in mind before his brush touches the canvas, but, once he's underway, the colors become almost accidental. Perhaps, as we were noting yesterday, his working mind becomes fascinated by form--and, then, his original intentions about color become relatively unimportant.
"How often haven't I found that, wanting to use a blue, I didn't have it. So I used a red instead of the blue." (Picasso, in conversation, 1932)
"At the actual time that I am painting a picture I may think of white and put down white. BUT I CAN'T GO ON WORKING ALL THE TIME THINKING OF WHITE AND PAINTING IT [My emphasis. Sorry about the screaming caps; my machine tends to foul up italics!]. Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions. You've seen the sketch I did for a picture with all the colors indicated on it. What is left of them? Certainly the white I thought of and the green I thought of are there in the picture, but not in the places I intended, nor in the same quantities..." (Picasso, in conversation, 1935)
I agree with you that, usually, there is not much subtlety apparent in Picasso's use of color. However, the word "apparent" may be important here, as we are dealing with a very complex mind. I also agree with you that Picasso tends to use color graphically. Again, color seems to follow the lead of form.
Do you know the small paperback PICASSO ON ART: A Selection of Views, edited by Dore Ashton? I find lots to think about there, especially when I take into account the fact that Picasso loved being enigmatic and enjoyed putting people off-balance. The most infuriating pose that Picasso assumes is that he is not in the least an intellectual. He then proceeds, in maddeningly short remarks, to show you that he is highly intellectual. A great friend of Picasso's later years was the French Minister of Culture--and, according to him, the two men did not talk about the weather!
What sort of work do I do? Theoretically, I am retired--but that is only from full-time teaching (English Lit and Creative Writing). In the last seven years, I have continued my own writing, adding a book called ART NOTES to earlier volumes of poetry (two) and essays (one, titled BLUE LINE, about the interrelationship of narrative and landscape). Most recently published is a childhood memoir, done in the form of 36 chronologically arranged prose-portraits of people who, on a particular day, changed the way I looked at my world.
I do work for an hour a week, one-on-one, with a maximum of three other writers, who bring me their works in progress for evaluation and, the best part, discussion. Several times a year, I'll accept a pre-publication editing job, but I try to be careful with these, because they take time away from my work.
Also, as a board member, I raise money and write program notes for two classical music series. And I am a trustee (and twice-yearly group facilitator) in a local organization called Colloquy, which is devoted to small groups of intense discussion about issues artistic and scientific.
My wife and I are avid hikers (a passion, alas, on hold for her right now, as she has just had a hip replaced), and I spend a great deal of time outdoors, sometimes photographing leaves and flowers (our younger daughter and I share a fascination with plant morphology, so we constantly swap images by e-mail), often just wandering the woods with our standard poodle. I used to do wildlife rehab, so I study animals, too.
My reading is very slow--I am mildly dyslexic; however, this wiring problem means that I savor what I do read, and my memory is almost exact. I read mostly poetry, novels, art history, anthropology and books on maths--especially those that intersect with philosophy.
Enough about me!
wow! you've certainly done a lot! no I haven't read the book you mention - I did a certain amount of reading and writing about Picasso during my degree - but (much to jln's horror!) I'm not a fan.
He certainly made many contradictory statements and loved to keep people jumping and guessing, I can't remember the exact quote but he told one interviewer that he'd fooled a lot of people - any little doodle he did was hailed as sheer genius and he knew that it wasn't but cynically sold and pocketed the money.
His colours being unimportant to him is exactly what I mean - and for instance in his blue period - there aren't subtle things happening with the blues, simply tonal values. A colourist painter shows the interest and feeling for colour in everything they do, it is innate and isn't switched on and off. It may develop as they grow in experience but is always there. I don't mean just the bright colours of the Fauves and Expressionists but the soft subtle paintings of Gwen John and Morandi or the experiments of Rothko. I find Picasso's colours often loud and garish. I prefer Braque's work in the cubist era.
Do you paint?
