Francis Picabia and Formalism

Francis Picabia, 1917

According to Kit White, "Formalism refers to judging a work of art based on the elements of its visual language: form, line, color, and composition."  In my art history classes, several times I have been required to write a formal analysis of an artwork.  Doing no research on the context or cultural style of the painting, just looking at the formal elements of the work, which include, line, shape, color, composition, perspective, texture, and etc.  Francis Picabia once stated, "A free spirit takes liberties even with liberty itself."  The picture posted here is from Picabia's Dada period after World War I.  Wikipedia states that, "Many Dadaists believed that the 'reason' and 'logic' of bourgeois capitalist society had led people into war. They expressed their rejection of that ideology in artistic expression that appeared to reject logic and embrace chaos and irrationality."  Picabia did not call this art, but anti-art.  Enjoy!

Shout Out to Kazimir Malevich

Kazimir Malevich, 1915

I first encountered Malevich's artwork in my modern art history class.  His non-objective artwork was breathtaking and deeply moved me as I stared at the screen.  According to Wikipedia, "Kazimir  Malevich (23 February 1879 – 15 May 1935) was a Russian painter and art theoretician. He was a pioneer of geometric abstract art and the originator of the avant-garde, Suprematist movement."  Suprematism is based on the "supremacy of pure artistic feeling" rather than focusing on depicting objects.  In the artwork pictured here, the meeting of the four squares creates a felt tension.  As the eyes flip from seeing the two black squares touch, then the two white squares touch.  Enjoy!

An Intuitive Oil Painting

Alice Cook, 2014

Intuitive is "using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive."  This current picture, finished about a week ago, is what I call a "gut" painting.  Without planning, without reasoning how the painting will develop, I just started painting.  I started in left upper corner with short brushstrokes.  I did lay out the six colors I was going to use, burnt umber, cobalt blue, raw sienna, burnt sienna, Payne's grey and white.  I did not premix the colors, but allowed them to mix on the canvas.  Once the painting was one-third done through intuition, I realized a pattern was developing.  The next part of the painting I consciously followed the pattern and completed the painting.  The painting was done over a few days.  With this "gut" painting, I feel I was truly being true to myself and that made me happy.  Enjoy!

Susan Rothenberg and Color Mixing

Susan Rothenberg

For a recent oil painting, I decided not to mix the colors on the palette, but to mix them on the canvas.  It created an interesting effect as the colors blended with each other, creating new colors.  According to Kit White, "Premixing color completely on a palette or table before application can lead to a flat or paint-by-number effect.  Learn how colors react to each other when mixed...This will give the image a more spontaneous and fresh aspect and add to the dimensionality of whatever is depicted."  In my opinion, premixing color on a palette is a fine technique, depending on the type of effect you want from the paint.  I would disagree that premixing leads to flat or paint-by-number effects.  Artists have been premixing for hundreds of years and quite successfully.  To premix or not to premix, that is the question?  Enjoy!

The Slow Movement and Slow Art

Tim Slowinski, Baby Eating TV Dinner

The Slow Movement, especially Slow Art is new to me.  I have never heard of this philosophy that applies to life, as well as making art.  Carl Honore states, "It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting."  This reminds me of mindfulness and living in the present moment, rather that living in the past or future.  As the saying goes, haste makes waste.  Slow Art was coined by Tim Slowinski and he states, "Under Slow Art, art is created very slowly and deliberately.  The act of creating art is a meditation and devotion."  Interesting point of view, but it would be difficult for me to implement due to the fact that I am a fast painter, slow doesn't go with me.  Enjoy!

Chaim Soutine and Facture

Chaim Soutine, Houses of Cagnes, 1924-25

I learned a new word today, facture, which means "the quality of the execution of a painting; an artist's characteristic handling of the paint."  Chaim Soutine is a dynamic painter form the early twentieth century, whose landscapes writhe and twist.  Unfortunately, I have never seen one of his works in person, so I am unable to truly see the brushstrokes and texture of the surface of the painting.  He was involved in the Expressionist movement in Paris, which favored emotions in their paintings over direct representation.  The warped buildings and landscape in his paintings give a sense of tension and anxiety throughout.  In my opinion, one cannot look at a Soutine landscape with feeling something.  Enjoy!

 

Shout Out to Paul Klee and Intuition

Paul Klee, At The Core, 1936

Intuition can mean, "a keen and quick insight."  Lately I have been working with the idea of using intuition and spontaneity with my artwork.  I am certainly not the first to think this way.  Paul Klee's method was to use his keen and quick insight as he did his artwork.  According to H. H. Arnason, "Paul Klee would begin to draw like a child...He let the pencil or brush lead him until the image began to emerge.  As it did his conscious experience and skill came back into play in order to carry the first intuitive image to a satisfactory conclusion...Because he placed such value on inner vision and the intuitive process of drawing, Klee's methods and theories had affinities with the automatist techniques of the Surrealists, who claimed him as a pioneer and included his work in their first exhibition in 1925."

Paul Klee, Signs and Symbols

Paul Klee, 1926

Henri Matisse once stated, "The importance of an artist is to be determined by the number of new signs he introduces into the language of art."  Paul Klee (see picture) is an excellent example of how art can be a language of signs and symbols.  New is what the artworld seeks and what collectors look for.  Artists who redeploy old symbols in new ways or invents something completely different are considered avant-garde in the artworld.  People like new, whether it is new technology or new art, new is in.  Art is constantly changing due to people constantly pursuing the new.  Personally, I love avant-garde art and hope to pursue that also.  Not all artists are pursuing the new, and they don't have to.  Artists must listen to their gut and go where that leads them.  Enjoy!

Watercolor Techniques, Wet in Wet

Wet In Wet Technique

Using watercolor paint can produce exciting effects, especially using the wet in wet technique.  According to Wikipedia, "Wet in wet includes any application of paint or water to an area of the painting that is already wet with either paint or water. In general, wet in wet is one of the most distinctive features of watercolor painting and the technique that produces a striking painterly effect.  The essential idea is to wet the entire sheet of paper, laid flat, until the surface no longer wicks up water but lets it sit on the surface, then to plunge in with a large brush saturated with paint."  The paint will flow where the water is on the paper, creating soft edges.  When using multiple colors with this technique, the colors merge and create fascinating effects that cannot be gotten any other way.  So have some fun, and wet some paper and drop some color into it and watch it do all the work.  Enjoy!
 

Sarah Hall and Renewable Energy Sculpture

Sarah Hall

I am all for "green energy."  Using the sun, wind, and water to create electricity is a great benefit to our world.  Recently artists have jumped on the band wagon and have made beautiful art that also helps the planet.  According to Wikipedia, "A renewable energy sculpture is a sculpture that produces power from renewable sources, such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric or tidal.
Such a sculpture is functionally both a renewable energy generator and an artwork, fulfilling utilitarian, aesthetic, and cultural functions."  Sarah Hall is a glass artist (see picture) that incorporates solar cells in her stained glass that provides electricity for the building.  Her use of sunlight to display her beautiful stained glass and help the environment is a forward thinking way of using art.  Enjoy!

Embrace The Happy Accident

Vincent van Gogh, The Sower, 1888

Accidents happen when making artwork.  A cut in a sculpture is off the mark, the carving tool in a relief slips or paint goes where it was not intended.  I have made some happy accidents and some not so happy accidents.  When carving a relief and the tool has slipped, I have had to make the best of it.  In watercolor the paint can often make a happy accident and give an interesting effect that I wasn't intending.  According to Kit White, "All modes of nonmechanical production produce unintended results...Exploit the unexpected consequences of experimentation and process."  But some accidents prove to be deadly for an artwork and require one to take drastic measures to eliminate the accident or just start over.  We are all human and accidents will happen, sometimes it is best to just let yourself off the hook and go with it.  Enjoy!

Shout Out To Art History Videos

Henri Matisse, Dance (II), 1910

Art history has a reputation of being boring.  Even artists can find art history difficult to sit through.  I have watched many art history videos, ranging from great to extremely boring.  Art history has enough to overcome without people making boring art history videos.  Today in my modern art history class, we watched a video on Henri Matisse.  Love his work,which is colorful, passionate and dynamic.  So the question is how does one take such dynamic work and make it boring?  By showing painting after painting, stating title and date, without any commentary, without enough time to take the painting in.  Just title, date, picture, title, date, picture and on and on.  The entire 1920's, 30's and 40's of his work are given no commentary, just a relentless slide show that changes pictures every few seconds.  Bored with Matisse is not how an art history video should leave the viewer.  Enjoy this groundbreaking work of Matisse (see picture) and give art history a chance.  Enjoy!
 

Watercolor Technique, Glazing

According to Wikipedia, "A glaze is the application of one paint color over a previous paint layer, with the new paint layer at a dilution sufficient to allow the first color to show through. Glazes are used to mix two or more colors, to adjust a color (darken it or change its hue or chroma), or to produce an extremely homogeneous, smooth color surface or a controlled but delicate color transition (light to dark, or one hue to another). Painters who use this technique may apply 100 glazes or more to create a single painting."  With an artwork for class last semester, I had the opportunity to do several layers of glazing in watercolor.  It was the first time I truly employed this technique.  With each additional layer of paint I was careful that the dilution of the paint was enough to let the underlying color to show though.  The result was a richer density of color throughout the painting that could not be achieved with only one layer of paint.  Glazing is a technique that can be done in watercolor, as well as acrylic and oil paint.  Enjoy!

Wassily Kandinsky and Intuition

Wassily Kandinsky, 1912

According to Kit White, "Work from your intuition, and analyze with your intellect.  To keep your work spontaneous and inventive, try to draw upon what lies beneath normal cognition in an uninhibited way...Intuition draws upon subliminal knowledge and allows the unfiltered, unfamiliar, and unknown to enter your work."  Currently I am working on two pieces that involve little planning and much intuition.  A pencil drawing I am working on evolved from some doodling I did the other night.  The drawing covers a 18 by 24 inch paper.  Planning is minimal, I just sit down and go.  A oil painting I am currently doing is also being done with little planning.  I planned the color palette that I wanted to use, but other than that I just sit down and go.  I must admit, it has been freeing and enjoyable to just let the creativity out without filtering it or judging it.  I will be posting these pictures after completion.  Enjoy!

The Kitsch Movement, But Is It Kitsch?

Odd Nerdrum

According to the dictionary, Kitsch is defined as art that is "tacky or of low brow quality."  But the art movement called, The Kitsch Movement, which started in 1998, really has nothing to do with the above definition.  According to Wikipedia, "Kitsch painting is an international movement of classical painters, founded in 1998 upon a philosophy proposed by Odd Nerdrum and later clarified in his book On Kitsch incorporating the techniques of the Old Masters with narrative, romanticism and emotionally charged imagery."  Kitsch as defined is more like a ceramic teapot in gaudy colors in the shape of a cottage, not necessary what Nerdrum defines as Kitsch artwork (see picture).  So I guess that Nerdrum is using the word Kitsch to separate his artwork from the established artworld.  So be it.  Enjoy!

Cynical Realism and Fang Lijun

Fang Lijun

According to Wikipedia, "Cynical realism is a contemporary movement in Chinese art, especially in the form of painting, that began in the 1990s. Beginning in Beijing, it has become one of the most popular Chinese contemporary art movements in mainland China. It arose through the pursuit of individual expression by Chinese artists that broke away from the collective mindset that existed since the Cultural Revolution. The major themes tend to focus on socio-political issues and events since Revolutionary China (1911) to the present. These include having a, usually humorous and post-ironic, take on a realist perspective and interpretation of transition that Chinese society has been through, from the advent of Communism to today's industrialization and modernization."  I think it is important to recognize artwork from differing cultures than just our own.  As history has proven, the creation of art is seen across all cultures, whether it is utilitarian or not.  Art always finds a way.  Enjoy!

Senufo Bird and Pattern Recognition

Senufo Bird

According to Kit White, "The brain looks for what it knows...To make an image different enough to bypass the brain's pattern recognition and force it to reassess the meaning of an image is a challenge for every artist.  To make the familiar unfamiliar is a large part of making new visual language."  I would partly agree with this statement.  While the brain does try to recognize images, disrupting image recognition in not really a challenge for every artist.  Many artists are happy to create artwork that is recognizable, even Picasso didn't completely obliterate the recognizable in his cubist artwork.  Creating a new visual language appeals to only some artists, not every one wants or needs to be avant-garde.  The Senufo culture created artwork that was recognizable, but truly unique.  Enjoy!

Henri Matisse and Fauvism

Henri Matisse, The Open Window, 1905

According to Wikipedia, "Fauvism is the style of les Fauves (French for "the wild beasts"), a loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism."  The art movement, Fauvism, was short lived and went from 1904 to 1908.  Henri Matisse's The Open Window (see picture), 1905, was typical of his early Fauve compositions.  According to H. H. Arnason, "Matisse flattened all facets and planes of the painting, suppressing all sense of atmosphere and physical depth.  Rather than allowing the viewer to enter pictorial space, the viewer's eye stays on the picture plane...and the ships appear to advance rather than recede."  Fauvism took colors to the extreme and challenged the viewer with new ways of seeing.  Enjoy!

Watercolor Technique - Washes

Today begins a series of posts on watercolor techniques.  When I first started painting I began with watercolors.  At the time I did not know it was one of the most challenging mediums, more so than oil painting.  I worked in watercolor for awhile, but eventually gave up and switched to oil.  Yet I still long to practice and improve in watercolor, hence this series of posts.  I hope you find them interesting.  According to Wikipedia, "In watercolors, a wash is the application of diluted paint in a manner that disguises or effaces individual brush strokes to produce a unified area of color. There are many techniques to produce an acceptable wash, but the student method is to tilt the paper surface (usually after fixing it to a rigid flat support) so that the top of the wash area is higher than the bottom, then to apply the paint in a series of even, horizontal brush strokes in a downward sequence, each stroke just overlapping the stroke above to pull downward the excess paint or water (the "bead"), and finally wicking up the excess paint from the last stroke using a paper towel or the tip of a brush."  Enjoy!

Allan McCollum and Simulacrum

Allan McCollum

According to Kit White, "Simulacrum refers to a likeness or simulation that has the appearance but not the substance of the thing it resembles...The disconnect between what we know as image and what we experience, materially or actually, constitutes a large part of what must be the description of the world we know."  Paintings are often a representation of some actual object or place.  Through the artwork we experience indirectly the object or place.  Art can make the world smaller, by bringing the world to the gallery wall.  Yet we can not disregard experience, for in seeing the actual object or place we develop a deeper awareness of the world around us.  So I hope that you can experience life and allow artwork to bring you closer to those things that are just out of reach.  Enjoy!

John Marin and Watercolor

John Marin, 1926

According to Wikipedia, "Watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Durer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium."  John Marin reinvented the way watercolor paint was used in fine art.  The Art Institute of Chicago states that, "During his lifetime, American modernist John Marin was the country’s most celebrated artist. His improvisational approach to color, paint handling, perspective, and movement situated him as a leading figure in modern art and helped influence the Abstract Expressionist movement."  Enjoy!