the work and ideas behind a painting

I wrote on an earlier blog about the way I had studied Cezanne's Vase de fleurs as a prelude to making my own painting. I also wrote about the creative process. I did a lot of drawing as background for the flower paintings that I make. I am not sure how many such drawings I've made. Some were copies of Paul Cezanne's painting; some, studies from still life set ups.
Even in making copies of an old master painting, one finds myriad occasions for invention as can be seen here. I was drawing the same image over and over, yet look how different the various iterations are.

Daring to be traditional (what ever that is)

I love to draw. Look at the works of artists past, and you find a whole world of things that somebody decided to draw. Some of the subjects fit into categories, by which I mean, that one observes a kind of hierarchy about what things artists were expected to draw (by others), or needed to draw (in order to meet the requirements of their paintings, regardless whether the requirements came from within or without), and things that they drew because other artists had drawn them earlier on and made them iconic.
Among that list of categories, one doesn't have to look long before discovering "drapery." Well, of course you draw drapery so that you can cloth the world. The people in your pictures will be wearing something, and in earlier times the chances were quite good that the something would be rather flowing and formally interesting and complex.
Mme Moitessier, in Ingres's famous portrait, wears the most amazing dress, both in regard to its exquisite floral design as well as for its wonderful folds and forms. The Nike of Samothrace, in turn, showed how in antiquity the figure could be mostly revealed, practically nude, and still require the assistance on innumerable, lyrical and dreamy rippling folds. In mediebal art, even a woman's head dress could provide the occasion for mountainous folds. And for the 19th century still life painter, Paul Cezanne the folds become an end in themselves and will later rematerialize in a new guise as Mont Ste Victoire.
So I draw drapery sometimes. Just because. [drapery study by moderationsmuse]

Being an artist

I've been thinking about some of the cliches associated with art, and contrasting them with lesser known realities. I was just reading Kimberly Brooks blog about the creative process. (Ms. Brooks writes occasional pieces for the Huffington Post.) In this particular blog she talks about having a large canvas sit blank in her studio for several weeks while she tried to summon the bravery to work on it. Finally, to overcome her fears, she randomly applies some bright colors to it. And this much, her "painter's block" and her emotional resolution of it are what many people today would identify as the essential character of creative endeavor. It is one of the cliches.
Cliches such as this one gain force by their repetition and by a generally lax approach to art education -- lax, I mean, on the part of artists. A little research independently done into the process behind truly great works of art reveals a very different sort of process.
To cite one example, the great British landscape painter Joseph Mallord William Turner drew incessantly from childhood onwards. Once he seriously chose to become an artist, he as quickly began angling for ways to sell his works, inspired by his humble circumstances which made earning his keep an urgent necessity. And his marketing efforts found early success, not the least because even his early works showed a remarkable fluency with visual forms. In short, he practiced his art assiduously and became exceedingly skillful at it.
He also apparently felt a reluctance to tackle a large canvas, but for reasons quite different from those typical of today's artists, as Ms. Brook's piece relates. Canvas was expensive and Turner was loath to waste money on material resources. So his early works tend, for the most part, to be small drawings and watercolors. And it was only after Turner had become an accomplished creator of images that he even turned his attention to large painting, and did so for the money, the prestige, and probably also to demonstrate that his skills were as large as those of various famous masters (such as Aelbert Cuyp). When Turner began his first large painting (and it was really large), he did not indulge a case of blocked creativity. Quite the contrary, he worked out the essential elements of the composition in drawings and other small images and then transferred the idea to the larger tableau. The creativity of the project did not reside in staring at a void and trying to imagine something, anything, with which to fill it. The creativity arose from having a motif, a subject, a particular landscape he wished to depict, and then blocking in the large forms of that image onto this new larger format.
His creativity certainly did not end there, as anyone familiar with the painter's works knows. Turner would eventually become renowned for his experimental uses of paint, imagery, and scale. Certainly in his first large scale works he would repeat ideas that had been first developed on a smaller scale. But the artist's sensitivity to the potentialities of scale would readily become a feature of monumental works. In short, he just painted.
The artists that we now call the old masters suffered fewer qualms about making images than do today's artists. They were not unwilling to just paint something. They were aware that, through making images, they were gaining not only sharpened skill, but were gaining experience, sensibility, and new ideas, ideas which they might store away for future things. They did not need to just fill the blank void with anything in the hopes of getting an idea. They had specific aims in mind that they pursued. It's a good lesson for anyone trying to make art today, a lesson in humility as well as daring.

tradition verses life

I used to paint little still lifes of flowers. In recent years, however, my paintings have tended toward hard to categorize images like the "tree" above. I wish I could explain to people why "tradition" is not only important but essential. I also wish I could explain why most times people easily mistake what "tradition" actually is. The idea of the past is so misunderstood that one is hard pressed to know where to begin setting people right about it. Conservative "traditional" artists don't understand the past, and avant garde "edgy" artists don't understand it either (neither do they understand the tyranny of the present).
But necessity is the mother of invention, and I find it nearly impossible to market my "innovative" paintings like the Tree picture. It is not weird enough to suit the hipster crowd, nor familiar enough to be readily understood by a large public. So it, and I with it, fall between the cracks.
Consequently I've been thinking of turning more of my attention to "traditional" subjects -- like vases of flowers again. I can hide as much modernity in them as I like, and still appeal to an audience that wants subject matter to be transparently meaningful.
Sometimes I've wondered if this decision represents a retreat. But I am just beginning to understand the ways in which it's an advance. It's a way into a more modern painting than what I was doing. It is a way of shaking off the last vestiges of "modern art" and just making an art about life (in this case about my life).
And nothing really is more removed from tradition, convention, fashion and so forth than plain ol' life.
"Study life" has always been the credo of the old masters and for good reason. It is the most misunderstood and most profound, most deep and most difficult bit of advice to do!

Details

I made studies related to my painting of the flowers. And so, of course, did Cezanne. Above is a detail of a Cezanne watercolor and a pastel detail of a study I did for the painting in the previous post.
Each time you revisit a subject in this way, you see it somewhat differently. All the small spaces have changed. Your attention has changed. Your tools are different and lend themselves to other uses. To redraw the same subject numerous times is itself a form of innovation. {To see some related drawings, click here.)

art of the museums

[Above, vase of flowers by moderationsmuse, vase of flowers by Paul Cezanne]

I visited the museum today to draw. Actually it was my daughter's idea. She drew too. Haven't been there in a while, so it was interesting to reconnect with this once very extremely familiar place. I wasn't there long before visiting a favorite painting of mine by Paul Cezanne.

Some years back I made my own painting that is, in ways, indebted to it. Today I was drawing a small version of Cezanne's great painting, using Derwent drawing pencils (which are actually a form of dense pastel). When you copy a great master's image, you come close to his thoughts. It's rather like having a conversation with him. What you are copying is what he noticed and considered important. He is saying, "notice this, notice that." And a little contemplation of what has been eliminated from the picture, tells you also what he decided to ignore or subordinate. One finds out these lacunae by studying the same motif from life.

While we were there, we saw some copyists at work. One was taking pain-staking long spans of time and concentration to make the most cursory, initial lines of drawing after a Monet landscape of Camille outdoors holding a parasol. Monet had 85% of the painting finished in the time this woman spent carefully trying to sort out the drawing in a very pale ochre wash. If you're going to study old masters, you need to find out something of how they worked. If one isn't confident with drawing, it's better to just have at it anyway, make some mistakes and correct them later in the copy or in other pictures.

However, I don't wish to parody this copyist. She was doing the "traditional" thing. It was heartening to see. In the "art world" she would not be considered an artist at all, would be totally written off as an amateur and daubber. And perhaps she is. Her hesitance before the canvas was not encouraging. But it was delightful seeing her there trying out these gestures of painting.

"Serious" artists have been so frightened off these days by the shame that purportedly attaches to making museum copies, yet it was long the practice of artists -- great artists -- to copy. Rubens made copies of other artists works when in his 50s. Delacroix, Degas, Van Gogh, Matisse and Cezanne were all copyists. What experience have so many artists forsaken in abandoning this unique silent conversation with the past?

It's a timid artist, quite frankly, who is unwilling to go shoulder to shoulder with the great artists of the past. It's an avenue for learning, yes. But it's also a challenge. "Beat this," they say. Or try to equal it. Or come close. Or at least contend as well as you're able.

I really admired the pluck of the reluctant copyist I saw today. No, she is not a real artist most likely. But all that should bother the objective viewer is the fact that no "serious" artists were there to join her.

Well, take that back. One was. I was there with my notebook!

New artists

I have been thinking a lot about the new artist, the one who perhaps hasn't been born yet. I am, like Durer, wondering about the art of the future. I am quite certain it is nothing like the stuff being palmed off as "art" today. This real artist who might be a teenager now, or might be a newborn, who is a genuine artist, is not someone who will even be tempted by today's trends (or tomorrow's either), yet the trends will be there to make his or her life difficult.
This artist of the future is more interested in the life before his eyes, has ideas about things that he wants to make tangible.
This artist that I have in mind doesn't really need an education in art since everything worth knowing is plainly visible in the works of great masters -- all their ideas being visual ideas, they are right there to see. However, with a profusion of junk always around, such an artist probably most likely needs encouragement, needs to hear that what he is doing, does matter.
I realize now that this is the person I want to address.

Rethinking what art is

Well, this is all very nice for Rachel Mason. I don't wish to sound mean-spirited, but Mason is another instance of the pompier art that one sees everywhere. That she is light-hearted about it is to her credit. Given the better angels of her nature (the fact that she counts Velasquez, Rodin, Picasso, Daumier among her heros), perhaps she will make real art someday when the Yale School thing has worked its way out of her system.
Tout ca change, tout c'est la meme chose. The chic art lauded by the official "art world" rarely has much in common with real art or real life. So, for instance, Mason ought not be surprised at the offer to show her sketches. However, she should have turned the offer down. The sketches are neither exceptionally bad, nor particularly good. The only reason they were included, one supposes, is -- well, why not include them? How are they substantively different from the photos/videos of her miming a candiate posture?
What I personally would look for "as art" within them is definitely not there. I cannot really see anything in them that speaks to life, that would stand as uniquely Ms. Mason's idea. I see lots of conventional ideas about image making as well as about sociology. Mind, this has nothing to do with their being "representational." It's just that the graphic means of describing things is all secured in advance of her actually looking at her subject. I see them as potential demonstrations for a "how to draw cartoon figures" book. Similarly, the figurine of Hussain is not something I would have recognized as such without its caption. Whatever idea it holds relies completely on its presumed subject. And ANY "light" depiction of Saddam would have been equal to the task.
Ooh, la, la -- contrast to this the dynamic power a little Degas bather. We don't ask the identity of the figure. It isn't even relevant that the figure is a "bather" -- so much is just pretext. All that really matters is the figure is of a woman, and a Degas figure is filled with FORM. Today people doing "sculpture" are hard-pressed to understand what form IS. They might suppose that simply making something that is three dimensional means that perforce it has "form." And what a mistake!
People need to relearn the very notion of art -- the people who most need to learn this are "artists." Well, perhaps. Actually a real artist isn't taught. Once you realize that a particular artist needs to be taught ideas which ought to be obvious, then you are not dealing with a true artist. Real art is not the thing that can be taught. It just happens because it's a natural product of the self.
It may sound elitist to talk about in terms that can evoke "great art." But people need great art. Even Ms. Mason acknowledges that her heros include Velasquez, Rodin, Picasso, Daumier. My advice (though it would be bad advice as regards her "career") would be study your heros. This is not the "conservative" advice that it might seem. Oh, but that's another topic.
[Picture: by moderationsmuse]

Definitions

There's a big difference between artists and the idea of "being an artist." An artist is someone who "creates upon a flat surface, any visible object whatsoever." Whereas the "artist," can be someone of real ability (like Picasso) or it may be a trendy poseur (Damien Hirst) who is without ability and who will eventually go by the wayside.

The "art world" is hardly something that even exists. There are all manner of businesses, some large, some small that sell "art." But one would be hard-pressed to find one characterization that fits them all.Anyone who wants to paint would be wise to learn fundamental skills, study the history of art, have an open mind, and follow one's heart.

It's rather like learning a musical instrument. A violinist doesn't expect to master the instrument without playing some scales. Music develops through a process of both serious and inspired work. And so does real painting. But many people are actually enamoured of "being an artist" and have no interest at all in making pictures of things.

As to innovation, nothing could be more challenging than to take ideas that have captured the attention of generation after generation of human beings and to make those ideas come to life again. The greatest and most "revolutionary" art is really the most traditional -- when ideas that participate in a perpetual present tense have real life in them.

How delightful this reply of yours. You haven't persuaded me! But you make some wonderful points. Let me see if I can be persuasive. I agree that we depend on society -- so, okay, in that sense politics pervades everything. But that isn't a helpful definition of politics -- not if we want to understand distinctions between political parties, or what motivates voters, or even broader questions like different kinds of political order (democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, tyranny, etc.)

Art benefits similarly by some narrowing of definitions. True that formal questions of how things are ordered visually, line, form, color, etc. are part of every kind of design from old master paintings to business cards. But there is a huge difference between your work as a graphic designer, trying to put visual information into the format dictated by your boss or your customer and you making a drawing for no other purpose than to satisfy your curiosity.

"Fine" artists have customers too, of course. Michelangelo had to answer to the Pope. But certainly there is no way that Michelangelo's customer could have dictated anything of the essense of what Michelangelo was doing. On a very high order of skill like that, he's thinking in formal ways that kind of defy rules. The Pope might have said "add more angels" or something, but none of a tampering with subject matter really touches what is happening formally -- and the formal structure underlying the subject matter conveys more of its meaning than people typically realize.

Well, we're not Michelangelos so maybe that doesn't apply to us .... But no. If you just begin looking at something and draw it. After a while you lose yourself in it. Your attention is captured in various ways by what you see and want. You may not know yourself why various features of the world capture your notice and others don't. This is what "art" is really about. Politics has no relevance to it.

The "political" realm of people interacting with each other is separate from this. Granted your being an artist (as I agreed) has political elements, but not the art.Art comes from within the mind, from aspects of the self, from your visual cortex, from degress of skill (or lack of skill) with which you are born -- over which you have practically zero control. Think of Paul Cezanne, French 19th c Impressionist painter. Cezanne's hero was Peter Paul Rubens. Cezanne would spend hours in the Louvre making drawings after Rubens. Rubens is one of the greatest draughtsman the West has ever produced. Cezanne -- not the greatest draughtsman. But Cezanne's not being able to draw like Rubens did not prevent Cezanne from becoming a great artist also. One of art's wonderful mysteries, this sort of thing.

People have private lives. Artists are perhaps more aware of this than others in our politically saturated world. What transpires when you hold a pencil and draw whatever common object catches your notice has nothing to do with society. The pencil, various conventional ideas about art, perhaps the object might all have various tenuous connections with the political -- but not the drawing. The drawing is more like a dialog between you some "reality" "out there."It's an amazing thing.

Shouldn't say this to someone who is tired from working all day in a graphic design studio, but I'll say it anyway. Draw. Pick something of no significance whatever except that its visually appealing for you. Then draw.Nothing could be further from politics. There are no rules for the order in which your senses notice the features of visual reality.

Politics: the antithesis of art

You are not really talking about colors in a visual way. You are talking in color words. Poor vilified Phthalo blue, for instance, is not one unitary color at all. How could it be? But as with any pigment it appears in slightly subtle forms depending upon the colors surrounding it, the character of the light source and the perceptiveness of the viewer. Color is nothing more than the photons that reach your eye, there to be interpreted by your optic nerve and your mind. Photons, my friends.I paint with Phthalo blue and with the Phthalo greens rather a lot and find them to be amazingly true and durable pigments.

Depending upon the formulation they come either cool or warm from the tube (there is a Phthalo blue "red" shade that's closer to Ultramarine except for being darker). Mixed with other dark colors, Phthalo can be blended into rich darks that can contrast with either Mars or Ivory black.

I think it's unfortunate that even the art blog has to bow to politics. It demonstrates how unimportant art has become to the hipster class. Lots of people blogging over there. Hardly anyone blogging over here.

One has to discover what in art really speaks to people in genuine ways. I think in our time there's a kind of unacknowledeged hunger for real art, for that which is true to life, personal, that reveals life to us. It is contemplative and serious yet filled with delight. It's not a brand, any more than a rose is a brand, or a jonquil.

I have loved the paintings of Pierre Bonnard for a long time. It's surprising to look at them with attention to the dates. He painted things when France was split in half by World War II. Yet the paintings are filled with a timeless, enduring life. They are not "about" the war. They are not "about" anything so transient as political change. Instead they are about food, the bath, an open window, the outdoors coming indoors. They are about a dachshund lying in a chair or on a mat, the artist's faithful companion.