Cy Twombly or Changing One's Mind

yes, to a degree with Rembrandt - I never didn't think he was brilliant, but reproductions in art books don't do them justice, they are murky browns and small, diminishing them. I thought I'd appreciate their quality but not be moved emotionally by them as with many historical painters,

When I first saw them - wow! the painterliness, the free marks, the subtle glazes in places and thick gloopy trails of paint in others that close up becomes abstract and as you step back resolves into intricate lace. The wonderful lost edges. The way he gets under the skin of the sitter, invading their personal space and catching their character.

They knocked me out!

another was a German painting and I can't remember the name of the artist - it's a roundabout with figures - one of whom looks like Hitler. It's an anti war, anti nazi painting, I'd seen reproductions and it again diminishes it - it seemed illustrational, The orignal was much larger than I'd expected and had a real impact and I liked it a lot. I saw it in the Tate at Liverpool. I'll post the name when I remember it.

I've never liked Cy Twombly so would have loved to have seen those canvasses.

Checking in.

Yes, I had the same experience with Twombly. At first I saw him as a scribbling fake. Now I see his work as alive and free, with beautifully subtle palettes. I had the same experience, as you may recall, Florence, with Julian Schnabel. I've never liked his earlier works, but his later works resemble Twombly (and look a bit like they're painted with mops) and are aesthetically sensitive.

A few bits I've run across on looking up Twombly -

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/T/twombly.html

http://home.sprynet.com/~mindweb/twombly2.htm



Twombly studio, brentriley.com




Piece at the Whitney from irishart.com

Oh, yes! With Picasso. I understood that he was good and all, ho-hum, had seen a few of his paintings even I think (I grew up in Minneapolis too, went to the Walker a lot), but was just whapped upside the head when I came up a staircase in the Picasso museum in Paris and saw -- I don't even remember which one. But it was just, unable-to-move, slack-jawed, WOW! Then looked with a bit more attention, and got whapped upside the head a few more times, and a lot of lesser "wow!"s as I spent a couple of hours in the museum. (I was originally there just because it was one of the only ones open that day, became an Experience.)

The fact is that there are many works by Picasso, Matisse, Tamayo, Diebenkorn, deKooning, and Miro (some of my favorite painters) that do not move me aesthetically or emotionally. But those painters have produced some of the greatest works in my opinion.

goodstein, Welcome to A2K. Twombly reminds me of a painting that I once saw called "Little Boy Eating Watermelon on a Hot Summer Day."

Interesting.

I didn't go to the Picasso museum when I was in Paris so can't judge him on a large number of works but I had the opposite reaction to you Soz (sorry again jln!) - the ones I've seen have left me disappointed.

Toulouse Lautrec was a big wow when I saw them at 15 in Albi and again a year or so ago when I re-visited. So incisive and telling and the compositions exciting. I loved the paintings and the posters.

A major virtue of Twombly's work, like that of Picasso's, is its sense of freedom. Picasso's drawing seems to give representation to his unconscious, but it doesn't seem to have the degree of sponanteity seen in Twombly. Twombly's freedom seems to be pure spontaneity, even, perhaps the "psychic automatism" (free association) of surrealism (and Motherwell, another of my favorites).

Ive never been acquainted with any artist's work, where an occasional bad piece isn't a part of the total.
Picasso...I don't know if I could describe his work as likeable. It is almost too direct and honest, makes the statements very clear and penetrating. But like or no, I do believe that if there is any one voice that can sum up the 20th century, in art, it is Picasso...no one comes close...even if there are several who may produce better work.
Must we like a work of art, in order to appreciate its quality?
Thankyou, ossobucco, for the Twombly pictures. Beautiful!
In direct line with my query...I used to admire Jawlensky...actually was somewhat mad about all the expressionists. But after seeing 4 original Jawlensky's in Switzerland two years ago, I came to the conclusion that he was a splendid talent that hadn't been realized. The work was too sloppy, loose, disunited, not pulled together properly.

Ive never been acquainted with any artist's work, where an occasional bad piece isn't a part of the total.
Picasso...I don't know if I could describe his work as likeable. It is almost too direct and honest, makes the statements very clear and penetrating. But like or no, I do believe that if there is any one voice that can sum up the 20th century, in art, it is Picasso...no one comes close...even if there are several who may produce better work.
Must we like a work of art, in order to appreciate its quality?
Thankyou, ossobucco, for the Twombly pictures. Beautiful!
In direct line with my query...I used to admire Jawlensky...actually was somewhat mad about all the expressionists. But after seeing 4 original Jawlensky's in Switzerland two years ago, I came to the conclusion that he was a splendid talent that hadn't been realized. The work was too sloppy, loose, disunited, not pulled together properly.

no, we don't have to like it to respect it for its worth and I do give Picasso his place in history - just - a lot of it doesn't work for me personally.

Following a recent discussion with you and others I now have a little more understanding and respect for Bacon, another that I find it hard to relate to. I enjoy gaining a little more insight into stuff that is a bit alien to me.

Two artists come to mind, Helen Frankenthaler and george Morrison. Frankenthalers work, from my early experiences were like oily sandwich wrappers to me. I then saw some of her theme pieces of blues and Orange and was blown away also.
"Something going on here" was my only verbal response. I remember standing and looking at her work for quite a while.
George Morrison, had always prodeced these large , very thick works of primary spectral colors in blocks. Then I saw his works at the American Indian museum of the Smithsonian. I really connected to his interlacing masses of colors that recreated an abstract vision of the cliffs around the Great LAkes,Also In each painting there is the horizon, which commands attention in everything he paints. He also did some works of interlocked wood slabs, almost like mosaics.

Please note that I edited my previous post.

I love the feeling-idea that my paintings--when they REALLY work--reflect NOT just my conscious mind (my ego), but that they are actually a reflection of an entire context, including the paint, the brushes, the support, my conscious and unconscious aesthetic drives of the moment, i.e., the entire reality in which or out of which the pictures emerge. In other words, the paintings are generated not JUST by "me" but by Reality (which, of course, includes little ego-me). This is the impression I get very clearly from Twombly's work--and of all paintings I respond to the most.

These comments underscore the fact, for me, that ART is, at its core, a matter of "deep subjectivity." Engineering is at the other end of the spectrum. Its objectivity is essential to its effectiveness. But when I hear that someone hates a work of art I love, or vice versa, I'm reminded of the subjective core of art. What else could we want art to be? To be at the center of our being, our heart, our deep subjectivity is where it belongs

Farmerman, I know well those Morrison paintings you like so much. I saw them where they were probably exhibited first, in Grand Marais, Minnesota, on the North Shore of Lake Superior, at the Post Heritage Gallery. Morrison's sense of color and structure, I think, are quite brilliant.
That Gallery in Grand Marais is very unusual. It is a large structure, which sits on the edge of a park which fronts Lake Superior. It is a log cabin structure...very solid, very beautiful.

I like the composition in this goache by Morrison.
http://www.artsmia.org/collection/search/art.cfm?id=6023

The composition is splendid...

I am more stunned by the shapes, as it reminds me of a painting I did, sort of a one of a kind of mine at the time, which was in the early seventies. I saw an article about, I think, Arshile Gorky, which had a photo of a painting that strongly reminded me of mine, in 1987 or so, and kept that clipping.

I don't have either a photo of my painting at hand right now (in any case, I hope I didn't toss it), or the Gorky clipping, to show what I'm talking about.
My composition was not in this ballpark though.

So, I am rather partial to your example, JL.