tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post804453367120228568..comments2024-03-18T07:23:32.809-04:00Comments on Gurney Journey: Harold Speed on Modern Art, Part 2James Gurneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01870848001990898499noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-15647242912745799022015-11-29T14:13:29.267-05:002015-11-29T14:13:29.267-05:00Great anecdote, thank you, Rich!Great anecdote, thank you, Rich!James Gurneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01870848001990898499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-13262269362335695362015-11-29T13:10:54.309-05:002015-11-29T13:10:54.309-05:005. I will have to add this little anecdote in Cez...5. I will have to add this little anecdote in Cezanne's favour:<br /><br />It must have been during the turn of the century: Cezanne's "Young Man with a Red Waistcoat" was up for purchase by the Duesseldorf Art Museum, which aroused the vehement protests from a prominent art critic of the times. He especially disliked the "distortion" of the painted boy's right arm. The purchase was prevented, but still the picture was on exhibition for some time. One day, in front of the painting, the critic happened to meet Max Liebermann (20.07.1847 - 08.02.1935), the accomplished realist painter who in his later years had turned impressionist. A hot debate between the two developed, with Liebermann full of praise for the painting's composition and mood of color. The upset critic finally asked: "And what about that unendingly long right arm?!"<br />"Well", Liebermann replied, "it is so beautifully painted - it just can't be long enough."...Richhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14233420155151875249noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-76275733078607082582015-11-28T11:35:16.589-05:002015-11-28T11:35:16.589-05:00Thrift Store Test; perfect!
For me the biggest ta...Thrift Store Test; perfect!<br /><br />For me the biggest takeaway from this chapter was Speed's criticism of poorly executed work of any genre or "ism" whether one considers it fine art or not. Summed up in a couple of statements; "Pictures so shoddily put together that they prevent all but the few from perceiving that they have an aesthetic at all, underlying their obvious slovenliness of execution. And then "...such diagrams are not works of art but exercises in the anatomy of composition. And that is all that abstract drawing unassociated with anything but itself, can arrive at."<br />Louhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10440653272870285260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-25432336721673797412015-11-27T22:33:48.113-05:002015-11-27T22:33:48.113-05:00Ha! I like it. I'd like to think I'd pass ...Ha! I like it. I'd like to think I'd pass the test when presented with such an opportunity :)seadithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13052851423700566814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-77172874161491163042015-11-27T20:58:32.509-05:002015-11-27T20:58:32.509-05:00@seadit: "...would not fetch much at an antiq...@seadit: "...would not fetch much at an antique store..." <br />We call that the Thrift Store Test. Take a painting from a museum, erase the signature, and put it in a bad frame at a thrift store between the hockey skates and the yogurt maker. How much would someone really pay for it?<br />James Gurneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01870848001990898499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-89258159265711454432015-11-27T20:16:52.550-05:002015-11-27T20:16:52.550-05:00At the core of everything Speed is concerned about...At the core of everything Speed is concerned about is art: what is it and how does one create it. As in his book about drawing, he’s pretty adamant that things like composition and technique are simply the necessary tools used to express whatever it is that is driving the artist. This is a book about oil painting, and the introduction is setting up the interested reader (student?) how to best go about expressing oneself through this medium in part by understanding and appreciating the past. I think his arguments against Modern, abstract and even impressionists were that too often these tools are either lacking or not used correctly. <br /><br />His discussion about art reflecting society and the changes they were experiencing prior to and during his lifetime are pretty interesting, and I see similarities to our own society and culture. A good example is in point #8: “I am inclined to believe that every age has the art it deserves”. Speed argues that because of economic pressures ‘art is suffering from…a proper place in the social economy’ and that ‘the mass of people do not easily recognize ability superior to their own…but they do recognize superior wealth, hence wealth tends in democratic countries to become the standard of values by which alone ability is recognized.” And then the kicker, which hit close to home (I work for a corporation doing graphic design and art direction): “Art, that should be directing the quality of our machine-made productions as it formerly directed the hand-made, is thrust aside in all the commercial rush, except in so far as it may, by attractive advertisements, aid the unloading of indifferent wares upon unsuspecting public.” Pretty much sounds dead on to me and my participation in it (no, I’m not terribly proud). We might deserve better James, but at the same time, maybe we’re getting (collectively) what we desire most (think Kardashians and Real Housewives of _____).<br /><br />#6. On a related note, there is currently an exhibit in Seattle at SAM called ‘Intimate Impressionism’ - a collection of Impressionist work on loan from the the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.. I’ve seen less reverence shown in the great churches of Europe than I did the 2 times we went to see the exhibit, and yet I would argue that some of the works on display, were it not for who painted them and to some extent their age, would not fetch much at an antique store let alone a gallery. So what is it that makes them so endearing and delightful to see and experience? Maybe the best quote of the chapter sums it up best: “Great works of art still remain outside the world of pure intellect, and are best comprehended by the simple attitude of mind that drinks in the impression with only a long Oh! to express appreciation.”seadithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13052851423700566814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-90058493033331502152015-11-27T19:31:04.974-05:002015-11-27T19:31:04.974-05:00Agree with Gr ia. The Modernists, at least the cr...Agree with Gr ia. The Modernists, at least the critics and establishment, were dealing in dogma. Exclusion is not valid if your business is to honestly assess any work of art. Yet exclude they did, anything that looked like any specific something. This smacks of a cultural/political agenda at play, such as destroying the old cultural values to make way for the new world envisioned by the self-proclaimed masters of the universe. Facilitate the isolation and thus control of peoples by un-mooring them from their traditions. At any rate, they stifled artists' freedom as much as they claimed academic realism did. What sense does that make?<br /><br />But you know, the Royal Academy was dogmatic in its own way. Maybe Modernism was karmic retribution. I place a share of the blame for the "death" of painting on Academic art. Would abstraction and photography have been so easily able to supplant artists as idiosyncratic as Brueghel the Elder* or William Blake? <br /><br />I believe that Impressionism was a positive for painting, but it seems/seemed to be limited to the depiction of prosaic subject matter, of which I'm not interested outside of exploring technique. <br /><br />*I'm aware of the film 'The Mill and the Cross." Close, but no cigar. Because just like a Frazetta (of which you can see many unintentionally hilarious photographic recreations on Flickr), a large part of the aesthetic of Brueghel is in his figures, and good luck finding models with those traits.Chris Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11931414857801867456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-62333618343469555902015-11-27T13:15:38.929-05:002015-11-27T13:15:38.929-05:00Rubysboy, I think it is a matter of opinion as to ...Rubysboy, I think it is a matter of opinion as to the style one likes to paint in. Abstract artists have helped to marginalize realism and take away artistic freedom from those who do appreciate realistic art. I think this is wrong. Abstract artists seem to think that their way of painting is THE way. That's wrong. Let's allow INDIVIDUALS to be who they really are and maybe there will be more artistic freedom for all of us. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05569250247210654987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-48180441923250146552015-11-27T12:51:16.735-05:002015-11-27T12:51:16.735-05:00Fascinating perspective, Rubysboy, thanks for that...Fascinating perspective, Rubysboy, thanks for that. Yes, I never liked framing the debate as being Modernism vs. Realism, because there are so many kinds of modernism and so many kinds of realism, and so many forms of synthesis between the two. There are so many ways of painting realistically or representationally that don't look the least bit like photography. <br /><br />And there are so many kinds of fascinating modern or contemporary works that fall outside the standard narrative of art history (for example, 1960s illustration, '30s animation, or underground comix). My love for all those truly modern, often abstracted works make me resistant to sign onto the "Realism is the Only Way" mantra of some recent art organizations and website.<br /><br />James, I think you've got something there. The file I posted must have been boosted in saturation somewhere down the line. Other paintings by Cezanne of the same subject have a different and more subtle color range:<br /><br />https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Paul_C%C3%A9zanne_107.jpgJames Gurneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01870848001990898499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-49237810771116441042015-11-27T12:26:29.651-05:002015-11-27T12:26:29.651-05:00The arguments justifying traditional realism as ag...The arguments justifying traditional realism as against any of the avant garde movements like impressionism in Speed's time, seem to me to have been settled pretty definitively by the notion of codes. When viewers process a work of art they 'read' patches of paint as standing for things that might exist in a possible world. The elaborate code developed in the West, culminating in 19th century academic painting involved perspective, a systematic treatment of the way light falls on forms, and several other subsystems useful in specific situations, such as atmospheric perspective for landscapes. In its heyday this set of codes was taken to be natural, THE best way to represent scenes of all kinds in paint on a flat surface. This is the way the world really looks, so this is the one true code for representing the world in painting. (Color was not strictly determined by the code. Depending on lighting, colors could take on quite a range and still seem natural and right. Also, people disagreed about whether marks could be left visible on the painting's surface.) The camera confirmed that the Western way was the true way to picture the world.<br /><br />What the impressionists began and the subsequent avant garde movements extended was to challenge the hegemony of this set of codes by exploring others: color chosen for emotional effect, brushwork taking on interest for itself, replacing curved surfaces with flat planes, various kinds of distortion of shape and form, and on and on and on. At first, these new codes were taken as intentional flouting of accepted norms, but gradually viewers, artists, and critics came to see value in these other ways of showing things in paint. Eventually the pendulum swung so far that inventing new codes was seen as the artist's highest calling. Following the old conventions was seen as old-fashioned and perhaps cowardly.<br /><br />Studies of human perception showed that we don't see like a camera. Our eyes are in constant motion, tiny involuntary saccades that project a flickering light pattern on our retinas which our brains then use for many different purposes. We CAN use these cues to build a picture that looks like it was taken by a camera, with great effort, but in going about our daily business we see quick glimpses that we take as cues for constructing a stable, partial, 'good enough' mental model of our surroundings. Some parts of the model we make have great amounts of detail, other parts slur over most detail. We have focal vision which takes in more detail and peripheral vision which takes in less, and then our brains store some of that detail and discard the rest. So the Western code is not THE way we see, but applies only to our focal vision and to the parts of that that we choose to notice and recall.<br /><br />Representational painting can now be seen as a matter of choosing codes to stand for things in the world, there being countlessly many possible codes, conforming more or less or not at all to the Western traditional consensus. Many of these codes seem to work to express qualities people value, and people are free to choose among them and take their chances with public acceptance. Clearly traditional realism has much to recommend it, but claims that it is THE way or the REAL way to represent the world in paint can no longer be taken seriously. And claims that it is the BEST way have to be seen as matters of taste and opinion.Rubysboyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18297283241233455330noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2999230124118604245.post-82033518262294137192015-11-27T11:49:10.386-05:002015-11-27T11:49:10.386-05:00Hi James,
The Cezanne doesn't look right.It se...Hi James,<br />The Cezanne doesn't look right.It seems to be a copy or version of the Mont Ste Victoire in Edinburgh from the 1890s.That painting is based on blue/grey and ochre contrasts.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />james hollandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17687634042721426443noreply@blogger.com