On Art - Voices - An Opening

[D Akey]

Okay, to atone for my previous post, I´ll share this. It´s from Alexander Pope´s Essay on Criticism (early 18th century). He speaks of writing but his comments throughout the essay refer to art in general. Obviously a bit dated in its neoclassical/Georgian stance, but he is one of the best satirists in the English language. This small bit addresses the difference between bad art and bad criticism.

'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill;
But of the two less dangerous is th'offence
To tire our patience than mislead our sense:
Some few in that, but numbers err in this;
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss;
A fool might once himself alone expose;
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.

Ah, Headlining Artist vs the Sidelining Critic.

Like the old Bo Diddley song that goes,
"Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself. . ."

Good one, Scott!

Regarding getting up late, one of the first words in Spanish I learned from a native English speaking professor in class in my community college days right out of the army was 'madrugador'. heh (a noon/midday riser). He was a consummate linguist and into entomology. So he thought this a brilliant word.

English has no direct comparable word that I know of. So madrugador flies through my head all the time. And I even wonder how many Spanish speakers actually employ it. My teacher spent time in Spain and had a bit of a full immersion approach to culture. Never asked, but it may have taken on the meaning of into wine and the good life.

Well, enjoy the End of the Earth. Many of us live as if we were.

[D Akey]

"The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself and carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion. It is the current which he puts forth, which sweeps you along in his passion.
The pain passes, the beauty remains." (Pierre-Auguste Renoir)

Great thread DA!

Here is an interesting link that may fit right in here. Some good quotes and images for those who enjoy coffee with the great ones!

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Art-Truth.htm

THANKS SKETCHISM!!!!

I LOVE the poetic Goya quote and the shockingly candid Picasso quote and will post it here as teasers. I pulled it directly from Sketch's link. Please go there to see lots of cool stuff:

Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels. (Francisco de Goya)

From the moment that art ceases to be food that feeds the best minds, the artist can use his talents to perform all the tricks of the intellectual charlatan. Most people can today no longer expect to receive consolation and exaltation from art. The 'refined,' the rich, the professional 'do-nothings', the distillers of quintessence desire only the peculiar, the sensational, the eccentric, the scandalous in today's art. I myself, since the advent of Cubism, have fed these fellows what they wanted and satisfied these critics with all the ridiculous ideas that have passed through my mind. The less they understood them, the more they admired me. Through amusing myself with all these absurd farces, I became celebrated, and very rapidly. For a painter, celebrity means sales and consequent affluence. Today, as you know, I am celebrated, I am rich. But when I am alone, I do not have the effrontery to consider myself an artist at all, not in the grand old meaning of the word: Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt, Goya were great painters. I am only a public clown - a mountebank. I have understood my time and have exploited the imbecility, the vanity, the greed of my contemporaries. It is a bitter confession, this confession of mine, more painful than it may seem. But at least and at last it does have the merit of being honest. (Pablo Picasso, 1952)

Holy CRAP!!!!

Not sure if this was the part of the link to which you were directing us, but I just got a look for the first time at the notion of Standing Waves (WSM). Blew my mind! I proceeded to follow it up on YouTube, since the little video on Dr Wolff on that site was on YouTube. Forgive me for the digression from painting and drawing type Art, but it's your own fault.
The Art of Reality through the lens of Physics. . .phew!!!

Interestingly, the video on Dr Wolff video title includes the word "Philosophy", which is usually contained in scientific circles to be a bit of a lessening of importance. They use it to refer to things unproven, or at least to categorize it as a theory, something along the lines of a suspicion.

Very cool. Thanks, Sketch.

[D Akey]

DA, a terrific thread idea. I will spend more time with it - have only had a chance for quick peruse. Meanwhile, for the researcher, here, I understand, is the largest assemblage in the world of art oriented quotations. It's quite fun to explore. http://quote.robertgenn.com/

Thanks a million, Byron!
That other site guy is O-R-G-A-N-I-Z-E-D.

When I have sorted my thoughts down to where I know what I'm chewing on, I can go there and see what the quotable folks have said on the subject. Or maybe to just pull something up at random as a 'thought for the day' when I'm feeling sort of cut off from thoughtful artistic conversation.

It's like our little coffee house suddenly got crowded just after they closed for the evening the MORA gallery next door. Now I can see the value of the design of the multi-directional angle of the eyes of the proverbial 'fly on the wall'!!! So many great conversations happening at once!

Good one Byron!

[D Akey]

I quite enjoyed her talk!

"Elizabeth Gilbert On Nurturing Creativity"

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_g...on_genius.html

Hinket!!! What a find!

She succinctly covered all the ground I have had rattling around in my disorganized creative mind. . . and heart. Definitely falls under the category of "I wish I had said that." And I think perhaps the reason why I didn't was in the body of her brilliant talk.

We all have access. Just a matter of being aware of what to do with it when the time comes, no?


Wonderful contribution. Thanks for coming and for bringing your wonderfully articulate and beautiful friend!!!!

Bravo and Ole' to you!!!!!

[D Akey]

And when I wake and run to paint what's dreamed
Will it come out the way I thought it seemed,
Or will the dream take shape in its own eyes
And be for me some other shape and size?
Who guides the hand that guides the brush in line
And form and brilliant colors, is it mine?
It's hard to say from whence its spark arose.
It seems in doubt that anybody knows,
Where fountainheads of inspiration start
To craft eternal dreaming into art.

Byron Callas, 02/16/10

Never suspected that you had the ability to pull it into verse so well, over and over. Great poem. Expressed like an artist up and down the line.

[D Akey]

Hinket posted a great site and resource. Here's another conceptualist from the platform of the Comic Book, Scott McCloud.

He gets past the slower set up stuff after a point at which he gets going with some interesting notions about moving past the constraints of the linear. I found that part particularly expansive beyond comics into Art and so on.

As I took it, he's providing an example to be of thinking outside the box as a way to come up with how to discern a place to leap forward. One needn't be into comics to get some value out of this. I personally see this as an example of someone who observes and thinks and suspects there's something beyond. It's a little like a creative hint. IQ tests might call it pattern recognition where when given a sequence of several steps, we can extrapolate the next one using that logic.

Anyone interested in personally growing their vision might take what he's saying in principle and apply it to what they're doing. Looking for a distinct personal style or voice? This may suggest an approach. That's what I walked away with anyway. Not what he specifically did with it, but how he got to where he got. I can use that.

http://www.ted.com/talks/scott_mccloud_on_comics.html

[D Akey]

D Akey, I'm not sure that I understood correctly, but I want to share my collection:
Raphael Lacoste
Shaun Tan
THOMAS WOOD
Craig Mullins
Wojciech (Voytek) Nowakowski
Zdzislaw Beksinski
(and I have a great collection of Zdzislaw Beksinski, something which is not on the site(do not know why), but I respected the most.Because all his work - it is Auschwitz, not submitted at the this site)
SOAMO
Ryan Church
Эдуард Назаров
Alex Dukal
zalibarek
~uxorious

Why not?
I was basically talking about sharing philosophy and inspiration and the kind of things that fill the artist's soul.

These are pretty great links. And if one considers the old saying "A picture is worth 1000 words" then you have offered a lot of ideas.

One of the wonderful things about the visual arts is that they are not restricted to any one language. Great art is great art. And we are artists. That works under any circumstances for us.

I believe in using visual aids to make one's point. So you brought "an art book" to our coffee house discussion. Wonderful.

Being artists, I think we all can universally communicate in "pictographs", so to speak. (I hope I am clear. Online translators are sometimes confusing.)

In other words, thank you! Yes. If you can say what it is about your contribution, so much the better. But whatever works for you. We're all sharing the Art journey. Describe the view from your window.

[D Akey]

. . .
I would like to discuss with you about these aspects of contemporary trends.
Take for example this trend photographers do their work most similar to the picture,
and efforts of artists to make photographic film.

Forgive me in advance if that is not so. Possible translation errors (I do not know much English and I use on-line interpreter). . .

Hi McKlay,

I'm curious. What language do you normally speak? Again, it's a delight to have you here!

Photographers and painters trying to look like the other? Interesting.

Photographers have been trying to look like master painters from the beginning because it lends a credibility and stature and artfulness to a machine centered mechanical process (or so goes the argument of the time).

In the early days of photography, people looked at it like a fad, perhaps for keeping records. But it was not accepted in the area of Art. . .by artists, presumably. It was so easy to make a photograph that it was not considered worthy of the designation of "Art".

So in answer, and considering that was the objection, many photographers tried to make photos appear like paintings.

Nowadays, I think photographers do it to show that they can recreate the essential mood that classical paintings have - old, artistic, aristocratic, coming through human skill almost entirely. Something that took a lot of skill and time to produce. Needless to say, they use quick tricks for the most part - lighting, tints, even added strokes. And to look like old photos, they add flaws like dust and scratches.

It's all about mood, and range and delivery, like a superficial quick scene, disconnected shot actor in a modern soap opera, or a stage actor doing Shakespeare. Like a pop star concert like Michael Jackson vs. a Verdi opera. Each has a different flavor. If you are in a restaurant and you order Mexican refried beans, and they send you Israeli hummus, it's wrong. Depends on what the customer wants to buy. And why you are producing your work.

If you are a commercial photographer doing an advertisement for vacation in a mountain retreat with fine wine, flowing stream and wooded ambiance, you would shoot it very differently from something for the fast pace excitement of a Las Vegas gambling casino.

-----
With painters looking like photography, there are a few reasons for that.

1) it sells and many people think it shows skill. Who wouldn't want to be able to paint realistically? Whether it is their actual choice to do so is another question. But having skill and flaunting it makes for a commonly appreciated picture.

2) Many people see realistically. So it fits how they think. Many have not been educated to other stylistic possibilities. Many combine realism with an artistic look in the same painting, for example, painting loosely in unimportant areas and tightening up in the key places, where it counts -- like the face and hands, and going looser on the hair and background for example.

3) if they are using a picture for fantasy, it shows something that does not exist in the real world as if it did.

4) It's easy for artists to target a realistic look. It doesn't need to be developed other than getting better at making it look like the source. So one can measure progress. A personal artistic style is sometimes elusive. It's riskier and you could look bad on your way to that new style often because there aren't people with examples showing you how to get to your own style. That disorientation can be daunting.

5) there are so many tools right now that make it easy to paint digitally. So it is a boon to many who have not spent a long time developing their skill. But these lesser skilled people may have great visions just looking to get out. Now they can much easier. And naturally, the more they do, the better they get. So speeds up the evolution.

And there's a lot more that one can consider. This is just to name a couple ideas I have on it. I definitely think the most important thing is getting one's vision out where others can enjoy it. Art tends to be a lonely, solitary process. And while it is personally fun and rewarding to do, it's seems better when shared.

Since you posed the question, what do you think?

[Bob Row]

A brief searching:
"According to The Spectator, NATO allegedly encouraged Papini, in 1951, to publish a fake interview with Pablo Picasso, to dramatically undercut his pro-Communist image. In 1962, the artist asked his biographer Pierre Daix, to expose the fake interview, which he did in Les Lettres Françaises."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Papini

I doesn't like everything Picasso did but he was surely well versed in academic painting before exploring new ways. This paragraph struck me from the start as unusual to known Picasso's testimonies. Plus, I'm very dubious he gave such kind of confession to a very well known fascist as Papini, who is the sole source for this fake statement. Don't believe everything that is reproduced in the net; do a check in.

In another note: "madrugador" is a fair beautiful word but it's precise meaning is "early riser", who get up with dawn (madrugada) as opposite to a lazy who stay in bed until noon (like myself).

[D Akey]

A brief searching:
"According to The Spectator, NATO allegedly encouraged Papini, in 1951, to publish a fake interview with Pablo Picasso, to dramatically undercut his pro-Communist image. In 1962, the artist asked his biographer Pierre Daix, to expose the fake interview, which he did in Les Lettres Françaises."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Papini

I doesn't like everything Picasso did but he was surely well versed in academic painting before exploring new ways. This paragraph struck me from the start as unusual to known Picasso's testimonies. Plus, I'm very dubious he gave such kind of confession to a very well known fascist as Papini, who is the sole source for this fake statement. Don't believe everything that is reproduced in the net; do a check in.

In another note: "madrugador" is a fair beautiful word but it's precise meaning is "early riser", who get up with dawn (madrugada) as opposite to a lazy who stay in bed until noon (like myself).

Well, I'll be. . . all these years. . . that lying sack of . . . hahaha

I have a pretty sharp recollection of my teacher saying that, but the mind plays tricks with memory. He may have said it, he may not. But I looked it up and you are quite correct. The translation IS in fact "early riser".

I have lost my standing as a madrugador <sigh>. There's something counter productive about a 7:30am foreign language class. I am, how you say, NOT a madrugador in the correct meaning of the word. Hahah.

--------
About that Picasso quote:

I'm glad you brought that up about Picasso. And with you being in the newspaper business (I think you are, right?), I am sure that your life's work has taught you to be cautious about what people say, and more so about what other people say that other people said. That's a survival skill in journalism where you get nothing but people quoting and making claims of all kinds.

Credibility of the source is a prime key to buying what they say. And it sounds like you don't regard Papini above misleading or even lying?

I'm not aware of the other than English speaking world all that much, so this is all news to me.

As to the Picasso quote, I will endeavor to look it up for my own edification and see if I can find a reliable source. Otherwise, I will categorize is under "cautious maybe".

I know Picasso is a venerable icon to many, for good reason. As such, one is never comfortable in hearing such people changing their position. But he was also human. And I would like to think that people change opinions when presented with something that could very well shine a different light on a topic.

Your comment has really got me to thinking. I wonder where that website found that quote and if it's at all traceable.

Thanks Bob!