Beautifully put, Colorific. Not only can you paint but you sure can
write too.
Virginia Woolf wrote of those extraordinary transcendental moments which you describe as separate from the "cottonwool"
or the humdrum routines of everyday life.
thanks SP and JL; Woolf, I believe is right; I always am trying to get away from the "cottonwool" so I can see better .
purpose of art
Consider the following (provided by Osso on another thread):
www.gsart.com/essay911.htm
Gwen John's paintings are beautiful and subtle, her brother Augustus John always said she was the better artist - she was far more orginal.
hi colorific - i agree with the previous comments - you certainly can write well!
Different artists have different agendas - some aim to make a statement/tell a story and have no interest in creating beauty. Some do both.
My work is largely about beauty - colour, light, seasons, time...
A friend's work is about people, personality, hidden depths - she brings out hidden characteristics in her portraits. She works from old photographs and film stills - if you look up Mary Byrne on the net you will see her work - it isn't primarily about beauty though. Mary is also a writer and her work has a story to it.
I on the other hand am an 'eye' most of the time, translating what i see into marks and colours that will show the wind, the cold/warmth whatever.
I think it was Cezanne who said of Monet that he was 'only an eye .... but what an eye'. I might be wrong it might have been someone else, can't remember for sure.
But if I have other issues i want to work on, then my work has a story behind it - i did a series of work on my boredom with a routine job, involving quotes from poetry and an underlying storyline.
Another friend, Ruth Sumner, is going along a more conceptual track, about how the paint is layered and playing with space - what is behind/in front of what? She too is on the Axis database.
I remember that Cezanne said something like "One must reflect. The eye is not enough, reflection is needed....".
Thanks, btw, to all the wonderful responses to this thread!
Well, might be. I got it as quotation in a book about Post-Impressionism.
Welcome to A2K, btw, simple simon!
simple simon
was it Cezanne who said that Monet was just an eye, but what an eye????
Dear Colorific,
I was just rereading your long and fully loaded explanation of ArT.I think your rather dead on here.I have finally come to this conclusion myself.The sprit of art cares for nothing of this material world and it's concerns. It truely is like a MUSE that can enter you and have some wonderfull affect on the art created at that time. I'd love to read more of your erudite explanations. Hope your having a good summer as well as everyone one else reading this.
art
And where is Colorific? Havn't heard from him for a long while now.
The four humors
The act of creating art is too complex to pigeon hole. When you think about the first cave man who took a hunk of clay and scraped a drawing on a rock wall, it was perhaps desire to communicate, to explain what he had seen (a wooly mammoth!) or to record an event, or perhaps simply to let out of himself or herself something in the soul.
As centuries pass, the creation of art becomes more complex, as media becomes more complex, images are more complex and the senses are bombarded every day with images. Going back 500 years, the main purpose as someone has stated, was to record the appearances of the patrons, nobles, or to paint for the churches. Had paint and canvas been available cheaply to the common person, what might we be viewing on the walls of our museums now? However, as I reviewed a book on Da Vinci i bought this week, the author in questioning whether a particular work was Da Vinci, stated that it "lacked vitality" of some other work, the "Ermine" work. Thus, it seems to me, that the purpose of art, is different for the artist, and those who "see" art with a discerning eye, than it is for most people. Many people appreciate a work of art because they have observed someone else appreciating it. That elusive vitality and spirit, which does not necessarily mean representational quality and hte attempt to capture it, is what is sought by many. The purpose of art is to catch some spark of the essence of life, some metaphysical essence, the soul of that which you are taken with, whether it be a pear, a gazing expression, a fierce battle, a blast of color, a graphic division of shapes, or an abstract expression of what the artist sees in the mind. And as life becomes more complex, the soul, or the essence, changes. The media changes, to the end that art becomes a mirror of society. I believe that art has for decades reflected society. However, now, "art" can modify tastes, and change what you may pick up off the shelf at the local grocery, therefore, now art does push the direction of society, while reflecting it also. We now have at our disposal the means to create "quickly" and get immediate feedback and send our image in to the world and influence with art, albeit commercial or graphic art, (which is sometimes amazing work) when before the 20th century, the great works of art we now see plastered at Posters.com were seen by a small percentage of those in the world. That also, I believe, supports my position that art, has until recently reflected society and not the other way around.
I am amazed when I sit in my son's room and watch the graphics on his video games, and the complex nature of these moving images, while he controls their movement and thinks nothing of it, I am watching the zooming around of the images, the violence or drama in the game, adn then I realize that art now influences society too. Some of you may be offended by my calling a video game image "art" but I am thunderstruck by some of the "new art", digital art, installation art (which I mostly detest) but nevertheless, what is the purpose of art, is changing, has changed, and I know I must just keep my eyes open.
I think Da Vinci's hands are so characteristic, I can't see Ermine being by anyone else, except maybe his teacher, Verrocchio, (a sculptor) who had a very similar style. what were the points they made about why Ermine is not characteristic of a Da Vinci work?
