Did Painting Die?

What is a public steele?

My appologies, it is spelled Stele, not Steele.

steles made for public viewing. They are tall column-like monuments filled with sculpture, and the subject is usually victory in war or attibuting legitimacy to a leader. (For example, I think a Roman ruler claimed legitimacy to the throne by saying he had lineage to Cupid.) I say public b/c that was their function, although I think officially they do not have to be called anthing but stele. I believe they were popular among the Egyptians and the Greeks, possibly Italians and Mayans. My mind is a bit rusty on the details because I took the class a while ago.

Stele:
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/merenphatvictorystele.htm

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PortalStar, as I recall from writings on Maya stele, they are referred to in the singular as stela. You are right, in my understanding. They are memorial tablets designed to commemorate great deeds and individuals, often, in the case of the Maya, with religious significance.

Did painting die?
As long as there is earth underneath and a stick nearby, painting will never die.
What has happened in our culture is that the nature of what we call "art" has vastly expanded. In addition, as the pace of our culture has quickened, we have little time for an "art form" which requires focus and concentration to appreciate. Painting demands focus and concentration; it demands a certain giving of ourselves...our need and appetite for this type of appreciation has dimmed. Rather we like quick sensation, or
visual effect that we can take in quickly.
Painting has not always been the primal art form in all cultures of high
level. i.e. The Chinese considered pottery or ceramics the major form of
art in their culture, as was also the case in Persia (Iran).
Given the nature of our own culture, at this time and given the nature of our culture's development, I cannot envision that painting in its form until the mid 20th century will ever again retain its importance or purpose (except for decoration). There are other means to highlight important
events, tell and teach biblical stories, express one's most intimate emotions, etc. etc.
There is much to be said for what painting has been in the past, what it has and can do for the appreciater, but life and times change. The public's needs have changed. And for those of us, who still love and practise and are challenged by the older form of the art of painting, we can only mourn its passing...and still be vitalized and bettered by its pursuit.

firenze - I don't totally agree about there being other ways of expressing emotions etc - not in quite the same depth anyway.

One of the things that made me start painting again as my family grew up was a need to express in paint what i coudn't with film. A photograph will show a much more limited range of colour, a painting can emphasise the mood of place, show the wind and the feel of it in a way that film cannot.

In the same way a painting can express political or other comments in a way that is so different from more transitory media and encapsulate it in one telling image (Guernica for instance says as much as hours of film or writing).

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Firenze, great to have you back. I agree that painting will not retain the importance it had up to the mid-20th century. But your qualification "except for decoration" is important. We are not likely to tell stories through paintings on the scale of the traditional painters, but what about the "decorations" of abstract art (both representational and non-objective forms). Can't they retain the same kind of purely aesthetic importance that we still see in music? I look forward to your response and other comments when I return in a week.

Vivien, each art form expresses itself in its own language. Obviously, we feel most comfortable and are able to express our-selves in the language we know best. We are also able to understand others who express themselves in that language in which we are fluent.
There are moments I have experienced the greatest passion, the greatest depth in art forms which are not painting, in which I am personally most fluent: i.e. I recall a scene in the film Philadelphia where Tom Hanks is nearing the end of his life and his struggle with Aids. Hanks' mind is strongly affected near madness, and he
walks around his studio lifting his life delivery system uttering a
soliloquy which breaks one's heart. Some of Mahler's works have
affected me deeply, as well, In Nice, I viewed a sculpture of light,
very large, very minimal, very ethereal, which made me feel as if
I were ensconced in Paradise. I could go on and on with these
experiences of contemporary art in other forms than painting, which have touched me as deeply emotionally as possible.
Color IS an emotional vehicle. But Goya's etchings on Disasters
of War are as rich in emotion as any colorful outcry he ever painted. Stieglitz's black and white photos, as are Capa's, are
extremely evocative.(Aside, I consider myself a colorist.)
There is no BEST medium. It is the fluency, power, and depth of the
artist that will cause the effect, in any medium he/she practises.

Welcome back, Firenze. I am realizing that I failed to post this topic as the topic for art chat in August...although many art forum folk can't get there conveniently at the time it's scheduled (sundays at 8 - 10pm ny time, too late for England, and maybe we should change that.) JL, are you going to be around today?

J L Nobody, thankyou, it is good to be back.
In my comments, I did not mean to infer that abstract art could not be decorative, or that it did not convey powerful emotion. Of course, it can, and, to those who understand and appreciate its language, which requires attention, it does speak, sometimes
powerfully.
But I think it fair to say that it had its heyday in the 50's and 60's.
After that, one saw tremendous repetition in the composition of abstract painters, sometimes wearying to the viewer. It was not only repetitious within the oeuvre of one painter, but in the oeuvre of many.
One may blame this result not only on the fact that somewhere, we, as human beings, may be very similar in the makeup of our psyches...and abstract art is in part an attempt to abstract our
own thoughts, structure and feeling...but that the movement itself had reached its ultimate logical end.
Yes, abstract art is closest to music of all the forms painting has taken(I think Kandinsky alluded to this)...but it is NOT music, it holds on to a concreteness that music is freed from.

Could be the onset of dementia, but I'm finding it harder and harder to separate art forms from each other -- in the sense that each informs the other.

When I listen to music, I sometimes fantasize about how I would "choreograph" to the music. Last night during one of those fantasies, it hit me hard how closely allied sculpture and choreography are. I remember (and am trying to get inside of the old memory) when each art form seem so distinct. Difficult to imagine now.

Maybe the first time this alliance among forms became clear to me was watching one of Bertolucci's earliest films -- it was so painterly. Was it maybe "Prima della Revoluzione"? I'd have to see it again to be sure.

I know some of us have talked in the past about painting with music on, or not, while we paint...

I do remember sometime back in the seventies drinking and drawing (somehow I remember them as gin and tonics), thinking what a wonderful thing making the marks to the passion of the music was, how I was developing this and that aspect of the drawing with such...perspicacity, only to awake on the morrow with apparent sludge on paper. Still, in concept, I can see marks to music and marks as music, unaided by influence of thirst.

firenze - I didn't mean to say that painting was the one and only 'best'
means of expression but that it would always be a valuable one. For me it is a particularly powerful one.

Painting music can be very challenging and fun - just reacting to the sound and pattern and emotion/mood in an abstract way, trying to put down in paint an equivalent of the sound.

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Hi, Nobody's home again. Interesting exchange. It's my feeling that art cannot "copy" or mimic music. Its time dimension will always be apart from the more "concrete" expressions of painting. But I DO think that painting can have the lyrical qualities of musical expression. Colors might approach the "tone" of musical sounds. But the time dimension which was approached by futurists was only a characature of music's temporal movement. I like to justify abstract art by comparing it to the abstract virtues of music, but I do see them as FUNDAMENTALLY different. Their similarity is that they both--in their distinct ways--create aesthetic imagery (auditory and visual).
How nice to have the three of us talking together.

I do this too, especially if the music is good. Of course, I was in dance for awhile so that may explain part of it. I picture the stage with everyone running around on it, usually doing jazz or ballet.

Hmm, or the canvas with everything running around on it... I know, I know, no time factor, usually, but that is partly why I am attracted to the idea of movement in painting. Composition is a bit like still choreography..

when i painted to music it was sort of smoky jazz and i painted the ripples and repeated sounds and rhythms and the colours that it felt - abstract marks responding to abstract sounds - I was painting the music

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Yes, Osso the composition of a painting or drawing IS like "still choreography." It is also like a melody which has an aesthetic shape or pattern transcending any figurative meaning. And does not "texture" and "tone" cross the line of mediums?

However we are describing it, a lot of us have similar associations here, with dance, music, and painting.

JL, you seem to have cleared your screen problem...

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Yes, Osso. Apparently it was a "mind problem" not a "screen problem"--as usual.

Aha. Well, computer difficulty makes you appreciate it when things run smoothly..