Selina Trieff

Selina Trieff
J L Nobody in his last post inferred that perhaps? allowing the 2 dimensional surface of the painting to dominate had integrity. I think JL Nobody has a very good point here...and it is an idea that no painter worth his/her salt would deny, I suspect.
BUT BUT BUT it is quite possible to preserve the integrity of the 2 dimensional surface of the painting, at the same time creating a visual spatial dimension using line, dimension of abstract or real imagery, and most of all color, as was the case in Matisse's work.
Perhaps the best example of success in creating a 3 dimensional spatial image while preserving the 2 dimensional surface of the canvas may be found in the work of Mondrian. He is never decorative. His struggle for a satisfying structure which preserves the integrity of the 2 dimensional surface is evident in the work.
Where I find fault with Trieff's work, where it becomes stale and trite to my eye, is the flimsiness of a spatial concept in her work. That is where J L Nobody is emboldened to apply the term "decorative" to her work...and
bring to mind Klimt.
Whereas good painting is often used as decoration (for most of our history it WAS used as decoration), it is NEVER purely decorative.

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I have no objection to the creation of the illusion of three-dimensionality on a two-dimensional surface (what Nietzsche called lying with a good conscience). And I appreciate Hoffman's use of flat planes but with a "push-pull" illusion of planes moving foward and backward (spatial depth without a vanishing point). To me it is all acceptable, as long as it is done beautifully. I grant that Trieff's mannerism can get stale, but my first view of one her paintings of three figures bowled me over. What works (for me) works (for me). Klimt's work does not work for me, but I can appreciate that it does for many others.

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Hi GS - it's lovely to see you here Very Happy

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JLNobody wrote:

Angelique, thanks so much for the link. Now I like Thieff even more. I hadn't seen the animals before (only two sheep) and think they are beautiful designs. All the faces of her characters look alike, but that seems to be part of her message, somehow. The gold leaf is the only time I've have ever appreciated this "device." Her TASTE is exquisite (so far that is my bottom line regarding this painter). I do not see (and this may reflect my limitations) much depth in her "message." But I could swim in the sensuality of her forms, shapes, compositions (design in general) for hours. But I do see the points made by Osso and Florence. It's just that they do not detract from my aesthetic appreciation of Thieff, even if they should.
I took a design class with a designer (of furniture primarily), William Moore, at Chouinard's in the fifties, and I can see in Thieff's work how much that class influenced my taste, even though my painting fails to reflect it so far..

I think that the important thing here is that you like her work. If her work speaks to you in a special way, and you can relate to her work thats good. Now the question to analyze is, what exactly in her work speaks to you. This only you can answer for yourself.

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Selina Trieff
It seems we have made a complete circle, and the same dusty arguments, mine included here, have joined the circle as we progressed.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder".
There are NO objective criteria upon which art may be judged. If you like it, buy it, and put it up on the wall behind your sofa.
Certainly, there is truth to that.
The only problem with it is that blind people have made serious judgements about art, and have been taken seriously as to the merits of their conclusions.
Do you really believe that there ARE NO OBJECTIVE REQUIREMENTS upon which art may be judged?
I also fear that if we believe that it is enough to like something for it to be good, the belief that art is purely a leisure activity that may be well done by children and gorillas may stay in its prevalence....and artists may continue to be exploited.

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I certainly think there are objective criteria. The value of those seems to vary over time as what is a day old or so last year or so constrained by pictorial needs comes in to question, only to be re-looked at with new enthusiasm some time later.

On the matter of flatness: since depth of field is one of my key interests in putting painting to canvas - in my case, or whatever depicting materials others use - whether the field is very thin or includes intimation of immense space is always of interest to me. Since my own bent is to project depth I have spent much less time thinking about flatness.

I am intrigued by the mention by JL that he finds an effort toward total flatness valid, or whatever his words were to that effect, not trying to get three dimensions out of two, but two out of two. Thus molding of figures and intent to give them weight and heft would not be the point..

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Something more is bothering me about Trieff's work, possibly particular to me - while I might initially like some of them in part for a simple iconic quality, that may be what is most rattling me about them - ease of iconicity..

for me, ease of iconicity (look! new word!), for others, beauty..

I looked at them again, just now, and find something else that may be particular to me - a number of the animals and figures have what I think of as the fifties ashtray look, kind of a pointy amoeba shape happening - and some may find that exhilarating and I don't want to look at it, which is a personal bias.

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Interesting point, Florence, about iconicity and the fifties ashtray look. I did an abstraction of the head of a (resentful) fighting bull that is expressly iconic. This was done with a purpose. I was making a statement about the death of the bull. We all entertain fond memories of the great bullfighter, Manolete, who was killed by my bull, Islero. I chose to memorialize the (sacrificial) bull, and an iconic image seemed the most appropriate way to do so. Otherwise, I would prefer to not make icons, at least not for aesthetic reasons.
The ashtray effect is the result of the "banalization" (another word, Florence) of effects, like Munch's Scream (or was it Anguish?). Anything, even the glorious opening theme of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony can be banalized. Have the images of Thieff's animals suffered such a popularity?

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er, I'm me...

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Well, her imagery is so repetitive it may get banal fast if it wasn't to start with, and it may seem so to start with since it uses some visual elements that some people may be tired of - the reference to ashtray form, say.
I doubt she is referencing ashtray outline, it's my mind's filing that makes the association.

Who knows, I may come full circle and defend the work. I am trying, mostly, to explain to myself, why I would react somewhat negatively to this work and not to some of the others we've spoken about recently, whom I've given a happy pass. Some of why I react to some aspects of her work negatively has to do with traits of the work, or lack of traits in the work, and some has to do with my personal response.

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Selena Trieff
"Iconicity" is ossobucca's great word

One might ask WHY would one respond to Trieff's work negatively.
Let me say that when I am presented with an image that is an icon, I want to spit....BECAUSE...and icon presents itself as the real mccoy and doesn't allow one to disagree with it in any form or fashion. It allows for no imagination, no dancing with, no amending, borrowing parts of it, etc.
It is just what it is, finite, limited, bossy and rigid.One has to be a masochist to like an icon.
Aside....it doesn't look like Trieff made too many paintings. The same icons are on each and every site, over and over again...the same face with the big nose...the animals give some respite to those big nosed chicks...
Now to the heart of the matter....One can hear the heartbeat of young painters, eager to get out there, paint their feelings and thoughts at the deepest level, etc etc. And then there comes, in the latter part of the
20th century...an analysis by intellectuals who cannot paint of the parts of a painting, some of whom reach the conclusion that FLATNESS is THE image of fashion in painting...embraced by painters who make it, dealers who want to be rich...and museum adinistrators who want to set styles.
The truth is, the utter truth...that in a painting which respects 2 dimensionality, BUT which rejects 3 dimensionality, there is NO spatial quality. And it is just THAT spatial quality in which the painter can paint his feelings and his thoughts. So....the whole purpose , the whole meaning, the whole impetus of why he/her became a painter disappears...and like a good part of the rest of society the painter becomes part of a marching band.
The product becomes a piece of decoration....no more....flat and dull, and sometimes goodlooking.

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Re: Selena Trieff

goodstein-shapiro wrote:

"Iconicity" is ossobucca's great word

The truth is, the utter truth...that in a painting which respects 2 dimensionality, BUT which rejects 3 dimensionality, there is NO spatial quality. And it is just THAT spatial quality in which the painter can paint his feelings and his thoughts. So....the whole purpose , the whole meaning, the whole impetus of why he/her became a painter disappears...and like a good part of the rest of society the painter becomes part of a marching band.
end quote

I didn't know that flatness is thought cool - I don't read that many art reviews... but that helps explain much of what I see when I add gallery links from artupdate.com to the gallery update thread. I tend to pick those for the amusement of looking at galleries from different cities and countries, for the amusement of some of the websites themselves, as well as the obvious, the art, and trying to add different types of art. But, you're right, a lot of what is out there is flat.

I'm treating 2 dimensionality for itself as a new concept to me. I admit it doesn't interest me, I like what happens in 3d in 2d formats, for the reasons you mention, GS.

Still, if folks want to explore very flat flat...

edit because I messed up the quote...

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Link to the gallery update thread -
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=47918&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Folks are welcome to add links for shows of interest to it too... or comment!

I have some more to add...

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Back when I first started to draw, in the days after a heartwrenching breakup of a love affair, sniff, I began by copying Brunhilde cartoons on the back pages of one of my lab notebooks.
I advanced to copying things I liked in the paper. I think I copied some bits before I took a beginning drawing class. I must have gone and bought a quill pen and some ink and some paper.

I copied a two page spread in the LA Times Home section, or whatever the magazine was called then, by an artist I don't remember the name of, of various fruits and vegetables drawn in ink. Looking back, that was quite flat, both the original in my memory, and my own long wrought copy - although probably not entirely, having some lines re molding..
I remember counting the hours - it took me two hundred, a good half of which involved cleaning the ink pen since I had bought the wrong paper and stuff kept accumulating on the nib, which would absolutely ruin a line, and I managed to not ruin the lines (I was crazy then as now).

I also copied David Levine editorial drawings of Nixon and some other people. Well, I think his weren't entirely flat.

That was all part of learning hand eye control. But I am now getting interested in the question of whether art can be flat-flat. Woodcuts, and so on... some are pretty damn flat. Or are they?

Was it here that one of us brought up Chinese painting and all the space in it? Was that Coluber?

edit to change not to now

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Flat or with depth, it makes little difference to me. Not even comformity with the "objective" principles of design. I like the flat works of Robert Motherwell but not those of Hans Arp. And both do not seem to comform mechanically with principles of design. Thieff's work does, and that helped her to "bowl me over", at least for a while. At the same time such principles, as I learned them, seem to be consistently "transcended" by Miro, whose work I love. I do not think that comformity (with the objective criteria of art production) necessarily results in great art. I see very "pretty" expressions of such comformity in art classes all the time. And sometimes I can explain (to myself at least) why a painting is unpleasant (or at least not exciting) to look at in terms of principles of design, composition, color theory, etc.. But I think you agree, Osso and Florence, that deviant work can be great--deep--work, just as "correct" work can be superficial.
So, let me just say that Thieff's work "works" for me in the sense that it exemplifies the effective comformity with "objective" artistic criteria. This is not to say that it is artistically deep, but only that it works at a certain level. And there is, of course, work that seems to comply with no "objective" artistic criteria, but the paintings of Wols, and even the later Phillip Guston are wonderful to behold.
Ultimately, I'm sure you agree, the process is mysterious. It is not a matter of comformity with objective Laws of Beauty. If it were we would be mere mechanics.

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Oh, you got me with Guston. I am the one who worked with a cousin of Guston, not in art, but doesn't know his work past a slight look. I know, I know, I am a slug. I am much the self taught one here on a2k, which might be freeing and might be sloughofdespond.

I am talking off the top of head here, as usual, but principles of design I learned had to do with space, after the first one or two.

Sigh, what were those first one or two, my books are packed. Line might have been up there at the top. Well, let's assume they include two dimensionality.

I don't think any of us talking here are for art production - whether there are criteria or not. I mentioned that there are criteria, but they are slippery.

Hmm, a tangent, there was a theater in Evanston called the Criterion...

In the meantime, I'll agree to mystery.

It seems that GS and I (and where are you, Vivien and Angelique) agree on lots of points but that GS is more adamant.

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To be entirely obnoxious, I mentioned inkdrawings with no intimation of space as possibilities for 2d in 2d. Motherwell is too, or is he. Let me not be the judge.

Ellsworth Kelly? (okay, don't crucify me...)

Never mind Kelly, who I like, who did the gas stations? They had perspective lines and little space, in my humble opinion, at least until someone brings a link and I take it back. But in effect, by the flattish painting, whether or not the perspective lines worked, space got short
by the icing of it.

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On objectives, I've already posted that they are mutable.

But I think some of them thwack back into place.

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Yeah I like Kelly and...and Patrick Heron and Al Held. Flatlanders both, but very good.

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I refuse to use google, who did the gas stations...

all right, see ya manana.

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