Art Quotes

art
OH YES, C.I. by all means. In music the time value of the silences is as important as the pitch, value and timbre of the sound of the notes. It's JUST like in abstract art. The silence (negative space) and the sound (positive spaces) TOGETHER make up the aesthetic product.

...and in literature, perhaps the 'negative space' is found in 'reading between the lines'.....The mistress of that art form (imho)was Isak Dineson who wrote 'Out of Africa'....I forget the exact literary term but it was discussed in "Silence will Speak" a biography of isak/karen blixon written by E. Treblinski.......

'Create like a god, rule like a king, and work like a slave."
Brancusi

I remember the author of "Out of Africa" as Karen Blixen. Been to her coffeee plantation in Nairobi. c.i.

Isak Dinesen and Karen Blixen are the same person. I think it was Isak writing as Karen...

OK, I finally found the article, it was in the NYTimes on May 16th:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/16/arts/design/16KIMM.html?pagewanted=3&th
A New Museum as Unconventional as Its Collection by Michael Kimmelman May 16, 2003

There is a bit at the end in which Mr. Kimmelman discusses the work of Dan Flavin....and that quote relates in part to JLN's quote on Minimalism, and in part to the discussion of negative (or not) spaces, and....ta da, in part to the Art Chat for June, which is supposed to be about works dealing with light. Here goes:

Quoting,

....Awe would be more like it.

Which, if you're in the mood, is also what you can feel in a gallery of Flavins, including an untitled red and white fluorescent sculpture, a work from 1970, propped beside a wall of windows, which is how Flavin originally devised it for Judd's bedroom. The sculpture is a grid of tall rectangles, stepped, diagonally, across a corner of a gallery.

It is like most art here ?- big, improbably simple, bound up with the building. The colored fluorescents mix with sunlight, your interaction with the shifting light and the empty space being the object of the work, the epitome of Minimalist parsimony and insinuation.

"As plain and open and direct an art as you will ever find," Flavin said, which describes Dia:Beacon. end of quote

Parsimony and insinuation...I liked that.

art
Thanks, Osso. Big show, big names, very big direction by car to the museum. Kimmel's review of this minimalist show should have contained fewer words.

osso, You're right, ofcoarse. Isak just didn't ring a bell in my grey matter with all the junk that's stored up there. c.i.

If a picture isn't worth a thousand words, it isn't worth anything. (Author forgotten)

Anything that works -Richard Crumb

I quickly read a book called Tulip Fever, which had lots of quotes, and passed it on to friends. I kept looking at it for sentences to replace my own tired signature, but none were just right. But, there we go, a melodrama about Vermeer....with good quotes.

"I know of two painters in the world," said a newly introduced feminine enthusiast to
Whistler, "yourself and Velasquez." Why," answered Whistler in dulcet tones, "why
drag in Velasquez?"

"Everything is miraculous. It is a miracle that one does not melt in one's bath.." - Pablo Picasso

those are both great quotes. The Whistler and Velasquez rings bells, re the NY show I saw...well should Whistler deny Velasquez, his progenitor.

art
Good point, Osso, but it's possible that Whistler was just enjoying being clever.

Let's see... Picasso said something approximate to:

"As children we are all artists. The problem lies in how to keep it in us until we achieve adulthood."

Close enogh, meanings there anyway.

truth
NNY, I love your "Nihilism or Taoism? Depends on my mood." There is a thread (actually two) on the horrors of nihilism. I think it IS a matter of perspective, as you suggest. In Taoism the Tao cannot be discussed, cannot be understood, it is conceptually empty, but it is profoundly positive. Nietzsche, I think, thought of a positive nihilism as a curative process. A cleansing of the mind (rejection of ideologies and moralities) so that one can get in touch with realities not corraled and generated by concepts. There is nothing negative or disparing about this nihilism. Indeed, Nietzsche considers the Judaeo-Christian corset of Western culture with its denial of physcial life, instinct, and passion a form of negative nihilism.

It is through Art, and through Art only,
that we can realize our perfection;
through Art and Art only that we can
shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.
- Oscar Wilde (1856-1900)

JL: Nihilism has become quite negative hasn't it? Alot has to do with strict definitions of it. People read it, then say, "Whoa! Depressing!" If Taoism didn't have a top to the pendulum it might be held the same way. Anyway, I though it was neat, so similar and yet the proverbial Yin and Yang. Thanks for liking it, I figured it would just be overlooked.

quotes
Here's a good one from Francisco Goya:
Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters, united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels."

"Those who fall in love with practice without
science are like pilots who board a ship without
rudder or compass, who are never certain of
where they are going. Practice should always
be built on sound theory......."

Leonardo Da Vinci from his Treatise on Painting