Ossobuco, Yes! Dan Flavin. Thank you. His art really spoke to me. Dynamic rhythm in both space and hue. And it worked very well in the huge galleries at Dia Beacon.
Lightwizard, I'm not so sure about the street-painting analogy in cave art. Even when I see them in reproduction, they show, to my eye, transcendant power. Also, no one really knows why these paintings are there--as hunting fetishes, signs of great respect, narrative, all of the above, etc. One thing most art historians and anthropologists agree: the art is not merely decorative.
I happen to like some Basquiat, whose early work is akin to street-painting, but I can see no clear link with cave art. The works seem to come from entirely different mind-sets: Basquiat struck quickly--in one's face or heart; the cave artists seem painstaking, meditative--in one's soul.
Vivien, Picasso was definitely influenced by cave painting--he admitted to envying, greatly, the artists at Altamira. I hope this won't try anyone's patience, but here is a short poem about Picasso at this particular cave. The title is Picasso's remark on first seeing these works.
"NOT ONE OF US COULD PAINT LIKE THAT"
An impatient young Picasso,
cursing the heavy smoke which stung his vision,
trod carelessly on the bare heels of the peasant torch-bearer.
Head drawn back full into his thick, brown shoulders,
the corners of his mouth stretched taut,
the painter fought to assimilate the entire progress
of the great herd of bison
still expanding across the dark ceiling of the cave
in an efflorescence of genius.
Responding to the presence of a large female,
Picasso seized the wrist of his guide,
and violently shifted the angle of the flame
until chacoal, siena and ochre
suddenly all ignited,
blazing the creature with vitality.
Standing beast to beast, Picasso
scraped his sandal across the loose stones of Altamira
and sniffed the acrid dampness of her flank;
Looking into her fully open eye,
he knew that the instinct beneath
the extraordinary brilliance of her depiction
was the simplest and most powerful of all--
the imperative of regeneration.
[July, 2000]
Picasso truly did grab hold of the guide's torch-arm. Apparently, Picasso was driven into a sort of frenzy by seeing these artists who, he felt, were so far superior to him. Picasso also remarked that the cave artists had worked their way to finding the spiritual essence of the animals.
I personally like, although can be a bit disturbing like Lucien Freud, Balthus
Balthus images
I also love to stand near (if I go into the Orsay in Paris), it might sound kind of perculiar, but I love to hear the comments of people who stand and look at Courbert's
Origin of the World
I suspect it is too much for them.
Thank you all for pointing out all those different artists...
Vivian, your work is indeed beautiful!
I heard about that young girl making millions basically apeing Picasso's style, and it annoyed me beyond belief.
My brain is not working today... I can see works that I think are very influential and the names float just out of my reach.
We can disagree about the "fluidity of line" in both the cave paintings and Haring. Strickly subjective opinion and it may be harder for some to figure out that Haring was committing images from his soul. Soul is such a bandied about term like "heart." I think heart came out of meeting a person or viewing a piece of art that makes one's blood rush. The mind thinks, the heart pumps blood. I didn't find Haring's work immediately intellectually challenging as it came off more as bold line and color inspired by animation art. However, I believe Haring brought the idea of cartoon art to its antithesis. Aronson included it in History of Modern Art because of its critical and collector impact. Haring is represented in more museums in Europe than in the U.S.
oh dear, I'm so sorry Lightwizard, I remain unpersuaded!
Miklos the poem was vivid and I really enjoyed it. 'Thanks.
glad you like my work Ben, thanks
I must look at Flavin's work Osso/Miklos.
Jo - I've never painted on stone, I think it would be rather interesting to try. did you use a porous limestone type of rock? (my geology isn't good!)
Ben I find Balthus quite disturbing and uncomfortable. There is one in the Museum of Modern Art in Ediburgh, which made me shudder and for me had paedophile undercurrents. I may be reading things into it that weren't there but it was a picture of a naked teenage (young teenage) girl, sitting on a bed and the body language was very very uncomfortable - the friend with me didn't pick up on that at all and just thought it was a great painting.
Vivien, Although I think Balthus is often a very fine painter, I agree with you about the unsettling double-messaging from his (too?) many very young girls. Balthus insists that these children are derived from Poussin's (!) paintings of young women--and that they represent nothing more complicated than "perfect beauty." Hmm. I find, as you seem to suggest, that these "pre-beings," as Balthus called them, are often making adult, erotic gestures.
Here is a remark by Balthus from a conversation with Cristina de Albornoz, a few months before his death:
"I could never paint a nude woman. I find the beauty of young girls more interesting and perfect than women's. They embody becoming, a pre-being, in short they symbolize the most perfect beauty. Woman is a being already situated in the world, whereas the adolescent--from the word adolescere, to grow--hasn't yet found her place. A woman's body is generally too defined; a girl's body is more beautiful. It's precisely this whole matter of young girls that has caused the misunderstanding about my painting. To classify my work as erotic is idiotic. Young girls are sacred, divine, angelic beings. Finally, the only thing poor Nabokov and I have in common is a sense of humor."
He doth protest too much!
I find these comments disingenuous; pretty clearly, Balthus enjoyed some kind of frisson from his frequent creation of erotic angels. Also, I find in LOLITA, though it is a very well written novel, a similar quality, despite Balthus's protestation that his paintings have nothing to do with nymphets. I am not in the least prudish, but I cannot fully enjoy a work of art, either visual or written, that seeks to cast me in the unwanted role of a semi-voyeur.
Until about 25 years ago, I spent every Sunday morning with an elderly Swiss friend talking about art. She and her younger sister, both very sophisticated women, had supported Balthus when he was a young artist. The younger sister kept their Balthus paintings in Switzerland, because she hoped they would look more comfortable in Europe than in Maine--but she told me, "In too many Balthuses, there is a very young girl, and one has the feeling that something dreadful is about to happen." She was hanging on to the works out of sentiment for the past, but, eventually it became too much, and she gave them to her niece. I could understand!
it is disturbing indeed... but I think that is kind of the attraction. I recall, your reference to paedophilia, that they used one of his painting on the cover of the book "Lolita" before they decided that a film still was much better... the painting was better in my opinion.
Balthus can justify himself all he likes, they may be "angels" but they are in some pretty provocative positions. Still kind of intriguing though...
On this topic of Keith Haring, I am kind of in the camp of Lightwizard, I find it dull and same, same. Maybe I haven't seen enough, but even
Ken Done is more interesting than he for me... and I think his work is schlock. All very pretty, but made for tourists, and mass produced.
Miklos, what moves me most in the Picasso poem is the phrase, "Standing beast to beast...." This suggests something to me: the cave paintings are obviously "sophiscated." But what can that mean in a situation where there probably was no sense of "art" as we know it. The masks and other "artistic" expressions of Africa that also influenced Picasso quite consciously were made by artisans who did not have our notion of art. Those "art objects" had ritual functions. But why, then, we must ask, are they so beautiful (or aesthetically powerful and interesting), as are the animal cave paintings? It occurs to me that people everywhere and throughout time follow the principle: If it's important it should look good. I say "good" instead of artistic, aesthetic and beautiful in order to not beg the question of whether or not they had a notion of art. This "looking good" may exist apart from the idea of art. It may be very primitive, existing not only among people who do not have the notion of art but also among those who do. The primitive, basic, almost instinctual nature of the appreciation of what looks good, is what I saw in "Standing beast to beast...."
ahhh Miklos... we wrote our posts at the same time with Lolita in our heads.
they found some cave paintings in Australia fairly recently that they claim are extremely beautiful... obviously they have not disclosed the location, but cave had not been visited for hundreds of years. I am waiting to see them, replicated. Although I am sure it will do them little justice.
The 1980 Picasso Retrospective at the MoMA along with one or two other art exhibits over the years that have increased what I call my knowing. But it was Picasso though that first opened my eyes.
It would seem pure expression whether it is abstracted or just an impression is an explanation of what the world is all about is only obtainable by children and some artists.
Year ago I took several neighborhood (ages 7-10) children to the Hirsch horn in Washington, D.C. I was over whelmed with their ability to appreciated and be subsumed by even the most minimal of minimalist exhibits along with over artists that some would say are unskilled.
Their favorites - Rothko, Barnett Newman, DeBuffet, and Pollack. In addition to Picasso of course. I remember it so well because they were so excited and I could almost feel the neurons bouncing around it their heads.
Before we left we went to the museum shop and I bought them all "Fear No Art" buttons which they all wore proudly for days.
benconservato wrote:
On this topic of Keith Haring, I am kind of in the camp of Lightwizard, I find it dull and same, same. Maybe I haven't seen enough, but even
Ken Done is more interesting than he for me... and I think his work is schlock. All very pretty, but made for tourists, and mass produced.
Lightwizard
likes his work
I had a look at Ken Done - nice illustration rather than Fine Art to me - pretty but empty
that piece about Balthus was interesting - I've never studied him particularly, it was merely an instinctive repulsed feeling - more
abused children with the body language of the one in Edinburgh than nymphets. Certainly he doth protest too much.
JLNobody wrote:Miklos, what moves me most in the Picasso poem is the phrase, "Standing beast to beast...." This suggests something to me: the cave paintings are obviously "sophiscated." But what can that mean in a situation where there probably was no sense of "art" as we know it. The masks and other "artistic" expressions of Africa that also influenced Picasso quite consciously were made by artisans who did not have our notion of art. Those "art objects" had ritual functions. But why, then, we must ask, are they so beautiful (or aesthetically powerful and interesting), as are the animal cave paintings? It occurs to me that people everywhere and throughout time follow the principle: If it's important it should look good. I say "good" instead of artistic, aesthetic and beautiful in order to not beg the question of whether or not they had a notion of art. This "looking good" may exist apart from the idea of art. It may be very primitive, existing not only among people who do not have the notion of art but also among those who do. The primitive, basic, almost instinctual nature of the appreciation of what looks good, is what I saw in "Standing beast to beast...."
yes. the looking good theory makes sense -bower birds and their bowers etc so the idea is present in animals in some cases
....but I think the cave art we have is of such a high order that it transcends that level. I am sure the first cave art was at the level you describe but this has long been overpainted and lost - in the caves the paintings frequently overlap previous works.
Some very early scratched drawings were discovered not so long ago in Derbyshire in England and appear to be less sophisticated.
The skill with materials (they blew powder for some marks and drew with sticks of pigment for others) and the beautiful use of line and masses of colour and the very sophisticated use of the swell of the rocks - and one in the Font de Gaume where a back leg was actually a stalagmite and separated from the wall, and the swell of the chest the rock - argue to me that they are the result of
many generations of development - intellectual, artistic - and possibly ritual but there is no proof of this and no clues.
I like the looking good thing as it fits in with my personal set of 'fit' as a window...but then I know how badly looking good can be skewed over time.
Still, it is how I look.
Elaine De Kooning produced many abstract paintings incorporating the cave paintings and began with drawings and prints she produced early on:
http://www.crownpoint.com/html/dekooning.html
Unable to find any visuals of the later oil paintings.
JLN, The quality of Looking Good is, perhaps, a valuable concept for thinking about so-called primitive art. Surely, there is some kind of ur-aesthetic sense that was at work 40,000 years ago, and I'll bet you're right that it had a lot to do with a work's Looking Good to the viewer of the time.
Picking up from your good idea, I would suggest that part of Looking Good has to do with the imitative quality of representation. Today, unsophisticated viewers of photographs often express approval by saying things like, "That looks just like Uncle John"--a reflex that may be a carryover from your idea of Looking Good. I would further suggest that another part of the ur-aesthetic would be that, beyond what Looks Good, there is a quality to the art which allows us somehow to animate what Looks Good, giving it a larger presence. Even though I probably don't think exactly like a prehistoric cave dweller (except for when I am very hungry or cold), the meditative or spiritual quality that I perceive in cave art may be an echo of a different kind of "beyond" that animated a cave person's view of a bison that already Looked Good.
Vivien, Are there any on-line images of the Derbyshire drawings? I'd love to see them. I agree with you entirely that what one sees at a place like Altamira is already highly evolved--to the point where there is much more going on than just beautiful representation.
i had a job to find any images but here is an article on Cresswell Crags. The images were carved in line into the stone and so the lines drawn on the illustration are simply to pick it out and hide the real thing
link to article
these are very simple and not the sophisticated images that you find in the Dordogne.
Thank you very much, Vivien! This find appears to be petroglyphic art, which, because of the medium, if nothing else, is far cruder in appearance than the works in France and Spain. As they (the British and European) are made in entirely different ways, it's hard to know if the Cresswell Crags art is less developed than that of, say, Altimira.
The reference to triangles makes me think of shamanic petrogylphs, which have a similar look and a world-wide distribution. They tend to look similar--the geometric forms--because this is what homo sapiens "sees" in drug- or meditation-induced visions, no matter where he lives. What does change from place to place in petroglyphic art is the animals--local animals are mixed with ubiquitous trance-induced designs, which are heavily geometric in character.
If this interests you, look at:
http://www.questorsys.com/rockart/links.htm
Again, many thanks for going to the trouble of finding the Cresswell picture!
Oops! Sorry about that rock-art link. I tried to visit it again right after I posted the address, and it was gone.
This one, based in Italy, I have just now rechecked, and it will give you a world-wide perspective on petroglyphs--and other forms of rock art:
http://www.rupestre.net/rockart/
The links from this site are also excellent.
the explanation of the geometric shapes was interesting - thank you for the link, there were several really interesting links from it - El Gilf Kabir with its multitude of human figures was fascinating
- in the caves in France the only human figures shown are stick figures (whereas the animals are beautifully muscular and 'correct') and have animal heads - they feel there may have been a taboo on showing the human figure, obviously not present in the African rock art.
I think animals have a shape that is easier to depict with these ancient artist's obviously limited skill in modeling figures. They did not entirely understand highlights and reflected light nor perspective. Their charm is in their lack of sophistication and how a primitive artist working with very limited color media was able to execute the work. I find even the animals as still lacking as far as showing any accurate muscularity. Artists were still painting rather flat looking figures up until Titian. So why did it take so long?
