From the 18th to 20th centuries, European minds are enlightened by rationalism that develops as an ideological1 extension of capitalism and industrialism. The function of visual arts is now the decoration of the mansions of the aristocracy and of the new rich. Portraits and landscapes are the subjects of most painters. The size of paintings is reduced to adapt to their new architectural destinations.
The enlightenment goes hand in hand with the generalization of the decorating function of visual arts in "white" land. The idea of beautifying living spaces has indeed been adopted by ever larger segments of the populations after adoption of rationalism and today the idea of interior decoration is absolutely generalized.
The development of capitalism in its phase of consumerism forces everyone in industrialized nations into dependance on the offer of goods and services and that leads to deepening individualism. In other words, the market imposes its offers to every single individual in the form of a creation of new needs adapted to the financial capabilities of all. From being reserved for the aristocracy and the new rich who were the only ones who could afford to pay for paintings, architectural constructions, rich furnishings and accessories; visual arts will gradually be offered in cheaper forms in the market. The conception of those cheaper forms has gradually given rise to specialized jobs: designers, marketers, researchers. As illustration of this idea, let's look at how the visual art-form painting will be "democratized".
- In a first phase lithographic limited editions prints serving the same function as paintings will expand the market base.
- Then, following the economic development of Western societies, higher incomes will also allow for an expansion of the customer base for paintings.
- The ultimate expansion of the consumer base for prints will be reached with the advent of offset printing presses that can churn out very large quantities of prints at very low unit cost. Paintings by famous artists are reproduced in unlimited quantities and the sheer size of this market is calling for specialized answers that will take the form of graphic design.
- Finally, paintings themselves will be chain produced for the same market expansion reason. And today, chain production in Western workshops of landscape paintings has been delocalized to cheap wage countries. In Beijing, you can now get a good copy of Picasso's “Boy with a pipe”, that sold in May 2004 for $ 110 million, for far less than $ 100!
It makes no doubt in my mind that, in this maelstrom of a few centuries of economic and technological changes, Western painter artists have been the group of individuals that most interiorized the impact of those changes. Through the effect of such a profound interiorization process they have been reduced to society's margins and have been recognized as special. Notwithstanding that their visions were not understood, they nevertheless were accepted. Van Gogh and others were surely not understood by many of their contemporaries but they have been accepted, their strangeness has been tolerated, only the market had no place for their productions during their lifetime because they themselves had no time or will for marketing or they had no clue how to do it. But again, in finale, the market gradually absorbs that strangeness that makes those works so unique in terms of content and so rare in terms of quantity. I spoke here about people who were searching to put some sense in their paintings who were trying to give a representation of the coming worldview of society at large, in other words about artists. It makes no doubt that they are very few at any given time who can represent in their present what comes next in the future.
Painters artists are now visionaries. They think about their role radically differently with the introduction of new techniques that plunge western societies into cultural shock. Painter artists have adapted their function in society to what they perceive as changed times. All that happens mostly unconsciently for sure.
Landscapes and portraits were the artists' subjects at the start of the modern age. Those were times when the rich wanted to accaparate for themselves the symbolic function that paintings had in churches and palaces. I mean that commoners starting to accumulate richnesses, as merchants, searched to gain “aristocratic airs”, a well known human attitude. The purchase of goods that were symbolic of the “being” of church and aristocracy were an easy short cut to those “aristocratic airs”.
The function of paintings remains decorative, rectangles for wall decoration but their traditional subjects appear gradually out of place in a world that starts to change fast after mid 19th century.
Van Gogh remains a realist in the lines of his subjects but he uses colors as if he wanted to show us the inner working of his landscapes or portrait subjects. Alcohol and drugs allow him to go see inside his subjects but eventually he will have difficulties to come back. The impressionists also remain realists, the changes they introduce are also about how to apply colors, for them it's not the inner working of what they paint that is of interest, it's how to reach a representative image of their subject through the application of pure colors. What they find out is that their images give good impressions of their subjects.
Gaughin as Van Gogh plays the colors. But at the difference of Van Gogh, Gaughin is not really a realist. He is not interested to reproduce an exact visual representation of his subject. He works mostly through memory and influenced by primitive art he renders quasi abstractions that give a feeling of the atmosphere of a landscape or the character of a person.
Van Gogh, Gauguin and the impressionists reflect on the changes in speed that modify visual experiences with the use of trains. Their visual renderings will be largely adapted by the next generation of painters who by adding their own visions will project painting further from photographic realism.
Seurat and other pointillists experience a specific brush touch but do not go further than impressionism.
Matisse integrates classic realism with the approaches of Van Gogh, Gauguin, the impressionists and abstraction that he shares with gauguin. “What I'am after, above all is expression. ...Expression to my way of thinking does not consist of the passion mirrored upon a human face or betrayed by a violent gesture. The whole arrangement of my picture is expressive. The place occupied by objects or figures, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, everything plays a part. Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner all the various elements at the painter's disposal for the expression of his feelings. In a picture every part will be visible and will play the role conferred upon it, be it principal or secondary. All that is not usefull in the picture is detrimental. A work of art must be harmonious in its entirety; for superfluous details would, in the mind of the beholder, encroach upon the essential elements”.
Matisse conceived of painting as “the art of arranging in a decorative manner all the various elements at the painter's disposal for the expression of his feelings” about the essential, superfluous details had thus to be eliminated.
The pictures of the works of Van Gogh, Gauguin, the impressionists and Matisse are a good illustration about their respect of realism plus a tendancy to simplify and finally their play of “exagerated” colors.
Matisse's conception is announcing expressionism that would come shortly after.
2004-06-15
Global Warming Facts and Our Future, by the National Academy of Sciences
One of the best presentations of the science surrounding global warming-induced climate change I've ever seen
Global Warming Facts and Our Future, by the National Academy of Sciences.
Global Warming Facts and Our Future, by the National Academy of Sciences.
2004-06-11
Art under the gods
The transition to the human creation of gods takes place at different times for each center of civilization. China and Sumer invent their first gods sometime 5-6,000 years ago or earlier. Other centers will follow up later on. Some ethnic groups are even living in animist cultures till today. All that shows us a deep differentiation between the people of this earth in their levels of societal development.
So the historical phase of religious domination of the minds starts some 5-6,000 years ago for the most advanced societies of that time, China and the Middle East. This movement reaches its zenith and starts to decline around 1000-500 BC in China while we have to wait for the 18th-20th centuries in Western Europe. Most other societies remain firmly entrenched in their religious beliefs as of today.
In religious times, art and design over time came to serve as PR, advertisement techniques for the religious powers. Visual arts, in societies under religious ideology, are a non stop succession of images illustrating the content of religion. Architecture and music serve to impress the population, that is largely uneducated, in order to instill fear in the small individual for the power of those representing those grandiose architectural constructions and the music served in them. In other words, grandiose religious architecture has to serve the grandeur of the religious authority. The same kind of reasoning is valid equally when applied to the palaces of the aristocracy. The architectural target was to make individuals feel very small.
In the period that leads to the formation of capitalism in medieval Europe, the Roman church kept the upper hand and the secular power sought to use its relation with the religious authorities to affirm itself. Religious belief during this period appeared in two forms. The educated were studying illustrated latin sacred books copied from Roman golden times and the majority of the people who were illiterate received the message of the little few who were educated in the form of painted and carved images. Such images constituted the exclusive subject of the artists of this epoch who, with the distance of passed time, appear to us today having been a lot more like propaganda craftsmen than artists.
Production by the craftsmen and commerce of their goods was exercised under the principles defined by the church. Each craft was under the supervision of its internal “police”. The “guild” or corporation regulated all aspects related to production and sale in compliance with the edicts of the priests. In such an environment, market competition was excluded. The only area not restricted was the work of the craftsman himself, he had to offer goods complying with the minimum quality standards set by the guilds and as such, the quality of the goods, their finishing touch appeared as a natural way for craftsmen to differentiate themselves from one another. Competition in Western Europe has long been limited to the quality of the goods on offer. Not surprisingly this induced a very deep care for the details in all productions and craftsmanship reached the level of an art.
Click here to view very good religious art in the 'Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry' which is usually referred to as 'the king of the illuminated manuscripts', it is a pinnacle in the entire history of painting. Commissioned by Jean, Duc de Berry in 1413, it was painted by the Limbourg brothers who left it unfinished at their (and the Duc's) death in 1416. The Duc Charles I de Savoie commissioned Jean Colombe to complete the painting of the manuscript between 1485-1489”.
So the historical phase of religious domination of the minds starts some 5-6,000 years ago for the most advanced societies of that time, China and the Middle East. This movement reaches its zenith and starts to decline around 1000-500 BC in China while we have to wait for the 18th-20th centuries in Western Europe. Most other societies remain firmly entrenched in their religious beliefs as of today.
In religious times, art and design over time came to serve as PR, advertisement techniques for the religious powers. Visual arts, in societies under religious ideology, are a non stop succession of images illustrating the content of religion. Architecture and music serve to impress the population, that is largely uneducated, in order to instill fear in the small individual for the power of those representing those grandiose architectural constructions and the music served in them. In other words, grandiose religious architecture has to serve the grandeur of the religious authority. The same kind of reasoning is valid equally when applied to the palaces of the aristocracy. The architectural target was to make individuals feel very small.
In the period that leads to the formation of capitalism in medieval Europe, the Roman church kept the upper hand and the secular power sought to use its relation with the religious authorities to affirm itself. Religious belief during this period appeared in two forms. The educated were studying illustrated latin sacred books copied from Roman golden times and the majority of the people who were illiterate received the message of the little few who were educated in the form of painted and carved images. Such images constituted the exclusive subject of the artists of this epoch who, with the distance of passed time, appear to us today having been a lot more like propaganda craftsmen than artists.
Production by the craftsmen and commerce of their goods was exercised under the principles defined by the church. Each craft was under the supervision of its internal “police”. The “guild” or corporation regulated all aspects related to production and sale in compliance with the edicts of the priests. In such an environment, market competition was excluded. The only area not restricted was the work of the craftsman himself, he had to offer goods complying with the minimum quality standards set by the guilds and as such, the quality of the goods, their finishing touch appeared as a natural way for craftsmen to differentiate themselves from one another. Competition in Western Europe has long been limited to the quality of the goods on offer. Not surprisingly this induced a very deep care for the details in all productions and craftsmanship reached the level of an art.
Click here to view very good religious art in the 'Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry' which is usually referred to as 'the king of the illuminated manuscripts', it is a pinnacle in the entire history of painting. Commissioned by Jean, Duc de Berry in 1413, it was painted by the Limbourg brothers who left it unfinished at their (and the Duc's) death in 1416. The Duc Charles I de Savoie commissioned Jean Colombe to complete the painting of the manuscript between 1485-1489”.
2004-06-09
Pining For The Melting Pot
Roger Kimball is Managing Editor of The New Criterion and an art critic for the London Spectator. Let me be very clear, I do not agree at all with Kimball's conclusions, but I respect his work. It is thought provoking and as such it is advisable reading material.
My principal concern, with his arguments against multi-culturalism and his defense of the Euro-centric melting pot, is that this goes against the tide of evolution, against the present tide towards "one world". Kimball is just setting his sight on a too narrow band of the 21st century cultural reality. "Multiculturalism and affirmative action are allies in the assault on the institution of American identity. As such, they oppose the traditional understanding of what it means to be an American..".
Today, the world extends further then the shores of the US Mr. Kimball, your limited vision leads you to debate past perspectives, you are missing the present and thus the future will wipe you out of the intellectual scene.
China, India and the rest of Asia represent nearly 60% of the world population. For the last 500 years, those countries have been largely left out of the workings of our Eurocentric economic system and the world view that it vehiculated. Their societal systems were not wiped out, during these last centuries of European invasions, simply because they were too developped. To put it otherwise, they were drawn in a position of dominated that was then exploited (cotton to opium).
Let's remember that Europe grew out of its medieval backwardness only because it stole from other societies what became the substance of its primitive capital accumulation which gave European nations the substance from which to develop the capitalist system. The result for many societies around the world has been devastating: from pure disappearance (mostly American societies) to total dislocation (mostly African societies). As such the conclusion imposes itself that capitalism is the natural outcome of European violence, brutality and greed.
Asian societies largely subsisted because their very old and refined civilizations were no match for European brutal primitives. But comes the 21st century and the moment of truth. After much observation and analyses, Asian societies are taking on the West frontally at its own game. Playing according the rules devised by the West, Asians are well on their road to beat the West economically. This, unmistakably, has cultural implications.
The brutal encounters of Europe with the rest of the world during the crusades and the 16-17th centuries discoveries conducted Europe to develop the system of capitalist-rationalism. The 21st century encounter of Western capitalist-rationalism with Asia seems leading the West out of dominance and Asia towards command. OK, this is a crude summary. I push the enveloppe a little far or perhaps a little early, my intention is simply to push you, the reader, to think at the implications of what is going on today.
The Western Eurocentric cultural worldview is going to be engaged into a cultural shock without precedent. Two factors are going to shape the depth of this shock:
- the scale-population (in the sense of economies of scale). The Western Eurocentric cultural worldview is shared by roughly 15% of the world population versus the Asian worldview that is shared by around 60% of the world population. The economic impact of those figures is not missed by Western big capital that only cares about the "logic of capital" but does not care a damn about the West itself. We should all be conscient about this fact.
- the scale of importance or of refinement of the Asian cultures versus Western cultural primitivism.
The conclusions that one can draw at this point are purely prospective, but an effort at thought shuld be instructive...
Institutionalizing our demise: America vs. multiculturalism
My principal concern, with his arguments against multi-culturalism and his defense of the Euro-centric melting pot, is that this goes against the tide of evolution, against the present tide towards "one world". Kimball is just setting his sight on a too narrow band of the 21st century cultural reality. "Multiculturalism and affirmative action are allies in the assault on the institution of American identity. As such, they oppose the traditional understanding of what it means to be an American..".
Today, the world extends further then the shores of the US Mr. Kimball, your limited vision leads you to debate past perspectives, you are missing the present and thus the future will wipe you out of the intellectual scene.
China, India and the rest of Asia represent nearly 60% of the world population. For the last 500 years, those countries have been largely left out of the workings of our Eurocentric economic system and the world view that it vehiculated. Their societal systems were not wiped out, during these last centuries of European invasions, simply because they were too developped. To put it otherwise, they were drawn in a position of dominated that was then exploited (cotton to opium).
Let's remember that Europe grew out of its medieval backwardness only because it stole from other societies what became the substance of its primitive capital accumulation which gave European nations the substance from which to develop the capitalist system. The result for many societies around the world has been devastating: from pure disappearance (mostly American societies) to total dislocation (mostly African societies). As such the conclusion imposes itself that capitalism is the natural outcome of European violence, brutality and greed.
Asian societies largely subsisted because their very old and refined civilizations were no match for European brutal primitives. But comes the 21st century and the moment of truth. After much observation and analyses, Asian societies are taking on the West frontally at its own game. Playing according the rules devised by the West, Asians are well on their road to beat the West economically. This, unmistakably, has cultural implications.
The brutal encounters of Europe with the rest of the world during the crusades and the 16-17th centuries discoveries conducted Europe to develop the system of capitalist-rationalism. The 21st century encounter of Western capitalist-rationalism with Asia seems leading the West out of dominance and Asia towards command. OK, this is a crude summary. I push the enveloppe a little far or perhaps a little early, my intention is simply to push you, the reader, to think at the implications of what is going on today.
The Western Eurocentric cultural worldview is going to be engaged into a cultural shock without precedent. Two factors are going to shape the depth of this shock:
- the scale-population (in the sense of economies of scale). The Western Eurocentric cultural worldview is shared by roughly 15% of the world population versus the Asian worldview that is shared by around 60% of the world population. The economic impact of those figures is not missed by Western big capital that only cares about the "logic of capital" but does not care a damn about the West itself. We should all be conscient about this fact.
- the scale of importance or of refinement of the Asian cultures versus Western cultural primitivism.
The conclusions that one can draw at this point are purely prospective, but an effort at thought shuld be instructive...
Institutionalizing our demise: America vs. multiculturalism
New MOMA
Designed by the Japanese architect Yoshi Taniguchi, the new museum (MOMA)is an elegantly minimal building of black granite, dark gray, clear and etched glass with about 63,000 square feet of new and renovated spaces on six floors. The exhibition space alone has grown to 125,000 square feet from 85,000 square feet with galleries clustered around a soaring 110-foot-tall atrium.
MOMA reinstals its collection! "You have to think what to leave people with." said John Elderfield, the Modern's chief curator of painting and sculpture,
Making Over the Modern
MOMA reinstals its collection! "You have to think what to leave people with." said John Elderfield, the Modern's chief curator of painting and sculpture,
Making Over the Modern
2004-06-04
Art market obcenity and more
Some good articles today about the art market, technical discipline and policies leading to an aseptic art form.
Art market 'a cultural obscenity'
Drawing is a vital part of every creative process
Why Does Government Prefer Bland Art?
Today Lund University launched Phase 2 of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). From the press release: "The new version of DOAJ now includes records at article level and a search functionality allowing users to search articles in potentially all Open Access Journals. The directory now contains information about more than 1100 open access journals, i.e. quality controlled scientific and scholarly electronic journals that are freely available on the web. As of today 270 of the 1100 journals are searchable on article level and both numbers are growing. Researchers can now search almost 46,000 articles through the Directory of Open Access Journals and be sure to get access to the articles". By By Peter Suber in Open Access News, Fri, 4 Jun 2004
DOAJ launches article-level searching
"Around 540 million years ago, life on the earth underwent a profound growth spurt: during the Cambrian explosion, the planet�s multicellular life diversified rapidly. Scientists writing in the journal Science say that they have identified in rocks from China what may be the beginnings of this revolution. According to the report, the fossils are the earliest evidence of animals with a two-sided body plan (as opposed to a radial one) and date to around 55 million years before the Cambrian explosion".
Tiny Fossils Could Be First Complex Animals
Generally speaking I don't like to post here about politics but those 2 are must reads. Frightening eye-opener...
27-Year CIA Vet Ray McGovern On George Tenet's Surprise Resignation
Before 9-11, al-Qaida trainee told agents of terrorist plan to hijack passenger planes
Art market 'a cultural obscenity'
Drawing is a vital part of every creative process
Why Does Government Prefer Bland Art?
Today Lund University launched Phase 2 of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). From the press release: "The new version of DOAJ now includes records at article level and a search functionality allowing users to search articles in potentially all Open Access Journals. The directory now contains information about more than 1100 open access journals, i.e. quality controlled scientific and scholarly electronic journals that are freely available on the web. As of today 270 of the 1100 journals are searchable on article level and both numbers are growing. Researchers can now search almost 46,000 articles through the Directory of Open Access Journals and be sure to get access to the articles". By By Peter Suber in Open Access News, Fri, 4 Jun 2004
DOAJ launches article-level searching
"Around 540 million years ago, life on the earth underwent a profound growth spurt: during the Cambrian explosion, the planet�s multicellular life diversified rapidly. Scientists writing in the journal Science say that they have identified in rocks from China what may be the beginnings of this revolution. According to the report, the fossils are the earliest evidence of animals with a two-sided body plan (as opposed to a radial one) and date to around 55 million years before the Cambrian explosion".
Tiny Fossils Could Be First Complex Animals
Generally speaking I don't like to post here about politics but those 2 are must reads. Frightening eye-opener...
27-Year CIA Vet Ray McGovern On George Tenet's Surprise Resignation
Before 9-11, al-Qaida trainee told agents of terrorist plan to hijack passenger planes
2004-06-02
About complexity theory.
Short report on the Fifth International Conference on Complex Systems. The theory of complexity is the ultimate in interdisciplinary scientific approaches.
About complexity theory
How do we view the complexity of our world? I think we fail to integrate the China factor in the equation. Here is an article helping to do just that.
Great Wall of Unknowns
About Visual complexity in the Santa Fe Institute Bulletin.
Picasso and Perception
As illustration of the content of this article see Lao Tze' text n#11:
Chapter 11 The thirty spokes unite in the one nave; but it is on the empty space (for the axle), that the use of the wheel depends. Clay is fashioned into vessels; but it is on their empty hollowness, that their use depends. The door and windows are cut out (from the walls) to form an apartment; but it is on the empty space (within), that its use depends. Therefore, what has a (positive) existence serves for profitable adaptation, and what has not that for (actual) usefulness.
Tao Te Qing
About complexity theory
How do we view the complexity of our world? I think we fail to integrate the China factor in the equation. Here is an article helping to do just that.
Great Wall of Unknowns
About Visual complexity in the Santa Fe Institute Bulletin.
Picasso and Perception
As illustration of the content of this article see Lao Tze' text n#11:
Chapter 11 The thirty spokes unite in the one nave; but it is on the empty space (for the axle), that the use of the wheel depends. Clay is fashioned into vessels; but it is on their empty hollowness, that their use depends. The door and windows are cut out (from the walls) to form an apartment; but it is on the empty space (within), that its use depends. Therefore, what has a (positive) existence serves for profitable adaptation, and what has not that for (actual) usefulness.
Tao Te Qing
2004-06-01
Where has freedom of expression gone in the US?
Lori Haigh, San Francisco owner of the Capobianco gallery was threatened, spat upon and, most recently, punched in the face after May 16 when East Bay artist Guy Colwell made an addition of a painting of torture to his monthlong showing.
When people are punched in the face for showing a painting it is an attack on the princip of art itself. The 19th and 20th centuries saw art emerging, in Europe and then the US, as the lightning rod of creativity in total liberty. This came both as a reaction against past illiberties (commissionned art) and present economic needs of free consumerism.
What happenned in San Francisco is a sign of the times in the US. Such acts do not bode well for freedom of expression, for creativity in general. Today the victim is a gallery owner, yesterday it were hospital doctors what about tomorrow? Will scientists be attacked because of the topic of their research activities? Will everyone who accesses specific internet sites (not only pornography but also news) be suspected of god knows what?
Are we really going back to illiberties of old times?
Are we going to accept this or are we going to bow our heads down and wait for ... Just imagine for what.
Attacked for art, S.F. gallery closes
When people are punched in the face for showing a painting it is an attack on the princip of art itself. The 19th and 20th centuries saw art emerging, in Europe and then the US, as the lightning rod of creativity in total liberty. This came both as a reaction against past illiberties (commissionned art) and present economic needs of free consumerism.
What happenned in San Francisco is a sign of the times in the US. Such acts do not bode well for freedom of expression, for creativity in general. Today the victim is a gallery owner, yesterday it were hospital doctors what about tomorrow? Will scientists be attacked because of the topic of their research activities? Will everyone who accesses specific internet sites (not only pornography but also news) be suspected of god knows what?
Are we really going back to illiberties of old times?
Are we going to accept this or are we going to bow our heads down and wait for ... Just imagine for what.
Attacked for art, S.F. gallery closes
2004-05-31
Playing god creating your own universe.
"Was our universe created? That is, was it brought into being by an entity with a mind? ... It is the fundamental issue that separates religious believers, ranging from Deists to Gnostics to Southern Baptists, from nonbelievers."
Read the amazing creationist theory of Andrei Linde, physicist at Stanford University but attach your neuronal seatbelts... and discover that nonbelievers can also be creationists.
playing god
Read the amazing creationist theory of Andrei Linde, physicist at Stanford University but attach your neuronal seatbelts... and discover that nonbelievers can also be creationists.
playing god
2004-05-28
Painting is back
Here is an excellent article about painting. It goes around the arguments developed in this blog.
"We're living in an extremely fruitful and exciting time for those captivated by contemporary art," says Dan Cameron, senior curator at New York's New Museum of Contemporary Art. "I've been in the trenches for 20 years, and there's more good art being produced in more places than I can remember at any one time. We're in a sort of Golden Age."
Yes that's it. We seem to enter the first marches of an artistic renaissance. Painting again is at the forefront of "making sense out of it".
I'am presently deeply engaged in the painting of 30 works and I can't thus spend much time writing but I'll be back at it intensively sometime during the coming fall. My project is to terminate a book based on what I have written as of today in this blog, a book that will act as an introduction to the paintings I'am working on presently.
Can an art form that's been around for centuries still express the zeitgeist? Or "Is it a vampire, feeding off the blood of its history?" as John Weber, curator of education and public programs at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, puts it.
In other words, is the new painting more about nostalgia - a throwback to a time of greater stability - or is it vital and original, shaking up one's assumptions and forcing the viewer to feel and think about the present?
This question is of the uttermost importance and is the reason why this blog is titled "Crucial talk". It makes absolutely no doubt to me that human perception is foremost visual. In one of the last articles that I recommended a scientist was expressing how scientific thought was as flowing along visual representations in the head of the scientist. Visual representations are behind the values and thinking of all of us, most generally unconsciently for sure. Thus goes my personal thinking: visual arts are about making or giving sense to our reality. Presently, to grasp some sense out of our reality, the brush has to follow a brain that is aware simultaneously of 2 forms of knowledge: traditional philosophies and modern sciences of complexity, there is no escaping this in painting. And this is the secret to leap over the following observations:
"They are not tackling very difficult issues, although they are first-rate stylists," Robert Storr, professor of modern art at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, says of the new painters.
Professor Storr sees none of the younger generation attacking social injustice like the established painters Gerhard Richter or Leon Golub. "New narrative paintings by younger artists are not addressed to large world problems. The new work is much more antiheroic or deliberately modest in ambition."
In the meantime, see the following article.
Painting is back
"We're living in an extremely fruitful and exciting time for those captivated by contemporary art," says Dan Cameron, senior curator at New York's New Museum of Contemporary Art. "I've been in the trenches for 20 years, and there's more good art being produced in more places than I can remember at any one time. We're in a sort of Golden Age."
Yes that's it. We seem to enter the first marches of an artistic renaissance. Painting again is at the forefront of "making sense out of it".
I'am presently deeply engaged in the painting of 30 works and I can't thus spend much time writing but I'll be back at it intensively sometime during the coming fall. My project is to terminate a book based on what I have written as of today in this blog, a book that will act as an introduction to the paintings I'am working on presently.
Can an art form that's been around for centuries still express the zeitgeist? Or "Is it a vampire, feeding off the blood of its history?" as John Weber, curator of education and public programs at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, puts it.
In other words, is the new painting more about nostalgia - a throwback to a time of greater stability - or is it vital and original, shaking up one's assumptions and forcing the viewer to feel and think about the present?
This question is of the uttermost importance and is the reason why this blog is titled "Crucial talk". It makes absolutely no doubt to me that human perception is foremost visual. In one of the last articles that I recommended a scientist was expressing how scientific thought was as flowing along visual representations in the head of the scientist. Visual representations are behind the values and thinking of all of us, most generally unconsciently for sure. Thus goes my personal thinking: visual arts are about making or giving sense to our reality. Presently, to grasp some sense out of our reality, the brush has to follow a brain that is aware simultaneously of 2 forms of knowledge: traditional philosophies and modern sciences of complexity, there is no escaping this in painting. And this is the secret to leap over the following observations:
"They are not tackling very difficult issues, although they are first-rate stylists," Robert Storr, professor of modern art at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, says of the new painters.
Professor Storr sees none of the younger generation attacking social injustice like the established painters Gerhard Richter or Leon Golub. "New narrative paintings by younger artists are not addressed to large world problems. The new work is much more antiheroic or deliberately modest in ambition."
In the meantime, see the following article.
Painting is back
2004-05-27
About anarchy.
Take away all the rules and let people behave.
"This surprises many people, although mathematically it's not surprising," Hamilton-Baillie says. "The reason for this is that your speed of journey, the ability of traffic to move smoothly through the built environment, depends on performance of your intersections, not on your speed of flow between intersections." And intersections, he says, work much more efficiently at lower speeds. "At 30 miles per hour, you frequently need control systems like traffic signals, which themselves mean that the intersection is not in use for significant periods of time. Whereas at slower speeds vehicles can move much more closely together and drivers can use eye contact to engage and make decisions. So you get much higher capacity."
Well it seems to me that anarchy is nice when few people are present but becomes a headhache when you are among a crowd. If you want to experience what I'am speaking about, no need to refer to mathematics, go to Beijing and drive a car...
"Woonerf" - Anarchy the Key to Safe Streets?
"This surprises many people, although mathematically it's not surprising," Hamilton-Baillie says. "The reason for this is that your speed of journey, the ability of traffic to move smoothly through the built environment, depends on performance of your intersections, not on your speed of flow between intersections." And intersections, he says, work much more efficiently at lower speeds. "At 30 miles per hour, you frequently need control systems like traffic signals, which themselves mean that the intersection is not in use for significant periods of time. Whereas at slower speeds vehicles can move much more closely together and drivers can use eye contact to engage and make decisions. So you get much higher capacity."
Well it seems to me that anarchy is nice when few people are present but becomes a headhache when you are among a crowd. If you want to experience what I'am speaking about, no need to refer to mathematics, go to Beijing and drive a car...
"Woonerf" - Anarchy the Key to Safe Streets?
2004-05-23
Where to Get a Good Idea: Steal It Outside Your Group
Creativity, creation are becoming fashion subjects for sociolologists nowadays. A few days ago I gave a link to an article about MIT's take on invention versus innovation. This time it's a link to an article by Ronald S. Burt, a sociologist at the University of Chicago about innovation through stealing the ideas present in other groups.
Where to Get a Good Idea: Steal It Outside Your Group
About cubism and the new look at reality that cubist artists brought to their societies. "Habits of perception and assumptions about the nature of things that had been stable since the 17th century were falling away. ... Picasso was a very physical, emotional man, and his cubism is not an attempt scientifically to account for the world so much as to experience it more fully."
Fragments of the universe
Where to Get a Good Idea: Steal It Outside Your Group
About cubism and the new look at reality that cubist artists brought to their societies. "Habits of perception and assumptions about the nature of things that had been stable since the 17th century were falling away. ... Picasso was a very physical, emotional man, and his cubism is not an attempt scientifically to account for the world so much as to experience it more fully."
Fragments of the universe
2004-05-21
Debates about art.
Realism versus conceptual, an old debate that still rages.
In the 20 May 2004 edition of the Independant Tom Lubbock addresses the question of Real Painting at the occasion of an exhibition by eight young British artists who persist in painting from life. Lubbock's central argument goes as follows: "this kind of figurative painting is indeed old hat, and what old hat means is that not only has someone done it before, but that someone has done it much better before and there really is no point in doing it again worse. And whenever someone speaks up for Real Painting it always means painting that's a pale and wonky imitation of something else".
The argument is right I guess but what a pale reasoning.
The real point of debate is not realism versus conceptual but what is art: content + technique. Content is the subject of an art work. Is a portrait or a landscape still worth the act of painting in the 21st century? Honestly I don't believe. Other techniques are better adapted to this kind of content than the brush. Also portraits and landscapes as message of a painter about his vision of reality, well a pale vision indeed. The 21st century is all about knowledge, understanding of reality. Science and philosophy are at the forefront of our understanding and they analyse our reality as being a global and complex system reaching from the macroscopic to the microscopic. Portraits and landscapes seem vain for the least in such a complex system.
Is The Tide Turning Against Conceptual Art?
Are the very well to do out of opportunities in the world of business? Or is art part of their business?
Irrational Exuberance
In the 20 May 2004 edition of the Independant Tom Lubbock addresses the question of Real Painting at the occasion of an exhibition by eight young British artists who persist in painting from life. Lubbock's central argument goes as follows: "this kind of figurative painting is indeed old hat, and what old hat means is that not only has someone done it before, but that someone has done it much better before and there really is no point in doing it again worse. And whenever someone speaks up for Real Painting it always means painting that's a pale and wonky imitation of something else".
The argument is right I guess but what a pale reasoning.
The real point of debate is not realism versus conceptual but what is art: content + technique. Content is the subject of an art work. Is a portrait or a landscape still worth the act of painting in the 21st century? Honestly I don't believe. Other techniques are better adapted to this kind of content than the brush. Also portraits and landscapes as message of a painter about his vision of reality, well a pale vision indeed. The 21st century is all about knowledge, understanding of reality. Science and philosophy are at the forefront of our understanding and they analyse our reality as being a global and complex system reaching from the macroscopic to the microscopic. Portraits and landscapes seem vain for the least in such a complex system.
Is The Tide Turning Against Conceptual Art?
Are the very well to do out of opportunities in the world of business? Or is art part of their business?
Irrational Exuberance
2004-05-17
The impact of technological change upon our response towards visual arts.
An article that illustrates the impact of technological change upon our response towards visual arts.
"It gives consumers access to a wide number of images from around the world that would otherwise only be available on their screen [on a museum's Web site] or in a book. It engages the viewer directly by giving them something they can make their own."
Having a famous painting at home might be as simple as hitting `print'
"It gives consumers access to a wide number of images from around the world that would otherwise only be available on their screen [on a museum's Web site] or in a book. It engages the viewer directly by giving them something they can make their own."
Having a famous painting at home might be as simple as hitting `print'
2004-05-11
Invention versus innovation.
The May issue of MIT Technology Review is all about invention and the distinstion between "invention" and "innovation".
" 'invention' is the creation of radical new ways of saying and ways of seeing; 'innovation' is the preparation and packaging of those ideas to connect to an audience; 'diffusion' is the final delivery of that innovation and the economic models that keep it flowing. "
Invention, innovation, and the arts
" 'invention' is the creation of radical new ways of saying and ways of seeing; 'innovation' is the preparation and packaging of those ideas to connect to an audience; 'diffusion' is the final delivery of that innovation and the economic models that keep it flowing. "
Invention, innovation, and the arts
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