success and failure: the life of a painter,artist

wellllllllll. ok. But what do you call that stuff that made them phamous in the first place? is it , too, not art?
Im thinking of Seurat , who, after publishing his mechanical theories of color and doing his paintings,never moved on . and, IMHO, pointillism had to be moved on from, rather quickly. What a thing to devote ones life.

art
I didn't think we were including phame as an essential component of success.
BTW, I am now enduring a painful mouth due to dental work. This makes the sight of your avatar particularly unendurable. Not complaining, just venting.

no i mentioned phame in context of your previous post, as in , what made those artists great bin the first place. It was usually some new way of presentation, then , alas, the artist would forever stay with that, like Monet and Pisarro, once achieving a comfortable life (well maybe not pisarro) , Monet never moved further along, he just did his same stuff till he died in the 1920's

art
I get the impression that this was true also of Braque--at least in comparison to his ever-evolving colleague, Picasso.

oh tsk tsk, farmerman.......Monet did not stay static. He developed from his initial impressionism towards a sort of impressionist/abstraction. I know that since I was completely physically enveloped in his huge canvases in a major NYC retrospective and another in Montreal.

shepaints-Im here to learn. Ive always attributed the later Giverny works as an evolved state , complicated by very poor eyesight. whether he developed an abstract style as a conscious direction or as clemenr greenberg stated, "he was out of favor until a between the wars resurgence in his appreciation"

Im familiar with all his water lilies and pastel scribblies. If you squint and look closely, there is the ghost of impressionism in his splashes of color.
By the way, he was filled with lots of self doubt about his later worth since he felt that, his success was due more in part to his ability to anticipate tastes and from his own marketing genius.im saying his work is undeniably great but i think he didnt break any new ground in his later years.

Farmer......dissatisfaction for Monet is on a whole different plane
to that of the rest of us mere mortals.....

My favourite quote about him is from Sir Kenneth Clark in Civilization....

"In the two rooms of the Nympheas in Paris he expands his sensations
into one continuous form, like a symphonic poem. This poem takes
its point of departure from experience, but the stream of sensation
becomes a stream of consciousness. And how does this consciousness
become paint? That is the miracle. By a knowledge of each effect
so complete that it becomes instinctive, and every movement of the
brush is not only a record but also a self revealing gesture......"


.............................wow!

monet
No doubt Monet is one of the greatest craftsmen in painting history, but I must confess--and this IS a confession of my limitations--his work generally bores me. Perhaps I must follow G.B. Shaw's admonition to look at his work long enough to develop the power to appreciate it.

I spent time last week in the Metropolitan Museum in NY...two days, which in the end doesn't come to that many hours, since I rested my reeling self with lunch at the Met by myself on the first day and met people for lunch on the other. I had almost from first stepping through the front door a sense of being thwarted in seeing all I wanted, and added to it by insistently seeing and reseeing and reseeing and reseeing the Manet/Velasquez...French Taste for Spanish Painting show, which cut down my time to small feathers. I drifted about in other rooms and always came back to be again in the M/V rooms. It is in this context that I will admit I walked right on through the Monet and Degas and Van Gogh display. I have loved those painters for a long time, but I was hungry for paintings I hadn't seen over and over in person and in photos and wanted to at least dwell for a bit in the rooms of art from Cypress and Egypt and Persia. Those other rooms were mostly empty, a matter I saw with some irony as I looked at treasures from Mesopotamia.

I was drawn to a room that had both Rubens and Van Dyck maintaining the walls, and to small paintings by Maes and Chardin and Giovanni Moroni, well, really, I felt as if I just started to inhabit the building when it was time to go.

On the second afternoon, Diane from a2k was with me; all she had time for was the multiroomed Spanish French show, but again, what a show.

This is a digression from the topic of artistic success, sorry. To make up for it, I am hoping to post an article from a local newpaper on a recent juried show in our area of California.

Monet was the master marketer as well as a great artist. jL, what is it about his work that bores you? Im that way about a few artists but my reasons are usually
trite subject matter (any Pre Raphealite)
flat grounds and no dimensions (Matisse)
the Peale brothers because they have those pompous names (thats more a personal dislike than a "bore"
0o

Welcome back to home base Osso. were you on a buying trip or just fun?

monet
FM, I really can't say. It depends greatly on my mood, but I like paintings to smack me between the eyes (what I call the interocular traumatic test). Monet is often too homogenous to pass it. But, like I confess, the fault may be with the test.
It doesn't mean that Monet is not GREAT!!! It is a simple matter of personal taste. For example, I used to find the scribblings of Twombly atrocious, as farces. But slowly my taste has changed to include his work among those that move me. Not for the conceptual notions he's trying to convey, but for the subtlety of his colors and the rhythms and spontaneity of his lines. I never would have thunk it.

As was said about monet
"he is just an eye, but what an eye" The tonal variations hes acjieved with just the mixture of certain colors together create an stmosphere that one isnt even aware of his great skill as a visual manipulator. Ive learned from his work that the juxtaposition of lavendars to bright yellow whites, make the light even brighter. Or his subltle uses of greens in sunsets , colors that reflect natures pallette.
Twombly, hes good, but his graphos style was well developed before he made his work. the use of handwriting and pencil was well used even by Kathe Kollwitz (see other post0

one of my teachers , as a kid, was a very old William Baziotes. He taught adult classes at an art institute in his hometown of Reading Pa. I was allowed in the adult class and was blown away by his work, but as Ive matured I gradually take away points for baz's colorist styles and appreciate more , the works of turner or Manet.

I guess my point is ,Monet sticks in my mind as the patriarch of the Impressionist media (no matter what the books say of Pisarro)

Two friends both heirs no longer paint. One spends all of his time on his stock port-folio. He equates art with money and since he no longer can sell his work or at least for a lot of money he no longer paints.He says that art school was his salad days. Money ,a lot of it is more of a hindrance than a help ,if you want a career as an artist.The other rich guy: his money is keeping him out of a nursing home so far.

...apparently one of Monet's friends would come by and literally
beg him to take up his brush and paint when he (Monet) was
losing his eyesight towards the end of his life.......I think the world would be a sadder place if we hadnt had the gift of his later works...

painting
Speaking about personal taste, Farmerman. Baziotes and Stamos have always held a special place in my heart of artistic appreciation. I wish I could have seen Baziotes working. One of the few surrealists I like.

Just found this Great Link!
Like artistic expression, one seeks *something* that is elusive, yet they will know it when it is seen.

It may have been stared at numerous times, and yet not *seen*.

This is such a topic, for me.
I am not even finished the first page, and, yet, I am compelled become a part of this?

About juried shows, exhibits, being a featured artist for a gallery....has anyone here every been a <cough> judge?

Has anyone ever witnessed the process of judging for these juried events?
I have the good <disillusioning, though> experience of both.

It cured me of any wishfulness of being accepted.
It cured me of believing the judges cared.
It cured me of believing the judges were, even, 'adequate' to the task.
It cured me of equating the piece not being selected, to its qualities/merits.

The most prestegious juried exhibits, can be also the most guilty.
Juried exhibits, where one has exhibited before and is invited to exhibit again.
Particularly!!! when there is $$,$$$,$$$ involved.

However, I am not painting {excuse the unintended pun} all exhibits, judges and galleries with the same tarred brush.

There ARE still THE TRUE BELIEVERS!

Yet, if one was to see how haphazard or fickle the judgments are made, in many instances...one would never give their work a second thought of doubt, because it was not selected to adorn the walls. Or, in the case of sculptures, the honour of standing amongst the selected.

Remember, it STILL is a business.
It STILL can be used as eager~boosters.
The juried exhibit can be a venue for social politics.

But, when a juried event has all the right ingredients meet in an enchanted juncture, we are the recipients of magical wonders!

<In my cynical?, humble opinion>

fatima10

Farmerman, my trip was a treat for myself since I haven't been to NY in decades and wanted to see the museums and galleries. Barely got started in my five days...

On that article I wanted to add here, as it was quite apropo: it is last week's column by local woman who has start discussing the local art scene on a weekly basis. Unfortunately the column is not available online yet, and I don't want to type the whole thing...I will see if I can get an email of the article from her and then cut and paste it. Might be a while, but I think you would all enjoy her take on being there at a musuem judging hour..

Monet certainly did develop over his lifetime - his early works were much more formal and representational.

His later works are explosions of light and colour and can be very abstracted - the Marmattan and Orangerie museums in Paris have wonderful huge canvasses that wrap around you - Monet needs to be seen in the orginal - reproductions 'tighten up' the images and you don't realise just how expressive they are.

re: Picasso/Braque - Picasso was talented - but also a cynical showman, who produced a lot of very mediocre work alongside his more serious stuff - he admitted in interviews that he exploited the naivety and of buyers eager to own a Picasso and was quite happy to take their money and run! laughing all the way to the bank

Braque was a very much more subtle painter - his late works are incredible and he plays with perspective and movement in very different ways from Picasso or from earlier work (look at the series of Billiard tables), some paintings are abstract/impressionist - seascapes/fields. Braques colours are more sensous and subtle and his handling of paint/visual expression, more interesting.

Whoa some big time digressing going on in here.
The gallery I was showing some carvings in has closed.Sad sad sad.

Ay, sorry about that, Hebba, for them and for you.
Hang in there.