The Ten Top Art Books guardian.co.uk Jean McNeil's, whose latest novel is Private View, set amid the contemporary London art scene rates her 10 favorite art books.
Art: Not a pretty picture philly.com Stylistically, Chuck Connelly might remind you of several famous expressionists, beginning with Vincent van Gogh, who also drank to excess
Cook Painting Fetches Record Sum BBC News A painting by one of Devon's best-loved artists has been sold for a record price at auction less than two months after her death. The oil painting by Beryl Cook - Granny with her Pet Mouse - sold for Å69,600 which was more...
Is time an enemy or a friend? It all depends on you use it. Or should we say misuse it?
 by itsderek23 |
|
 by JPeterman |
|
 by MissIve |
|
July 29, 2008
Vincent Van Gogh had already failed at being an art dealer. And when he failed to follow in his father's ministerial footsteps at 27, he began to study art.
He poured himself obsessively into this newly found talent and completed thousands of sketches and oil paintings before he died just ten years later.
“How rich art is;” he said in a letter to his brother Theo, the central figure in his life. “If one can only remember what one has seen, one is never without food for thought or truly lonely, never alone.”
Perhaps he forgot what he had seen, or maybe those conflicting emotions were just too much for him. Because a self-inflicted gun shot wound put him out of his misery, some 140 years ago to this day.
Most of his best-known works were produced in the final two years of his life, when he cut off his left ear following a breakdown of his friendship with Paul Gauguin.
He painted Starry Night strictly from memory, in a 2 X 2 room, when he was committed to the asylum in that tumultuous final year. He didn’t like the painting much, telling Theo, “I think there's nothing at all good about it save the field of wheat, the mountain, the orchard, the olives with the blue hills and the portrait and the entrance to the Quarry, and the rest says nothing to me, because it lacks individual intention and feeling in the lines."
His own favorite was the Potato Eaters, widely regarded today as his first masterpiece.
It may be trite to say his art will live on forever, but it’s also true.
It’s unfortunate some of that living couldn’t happen in his lifetime, where it might have done him some good.
Amazingly, during his short and turbulent life, he sold only one painting for 400 francs, just four months before his death, entitled The Red Vineyard.
Madame Ginoux recently sold for over $40 million in auction.
In Theo's letter to their sister Jo, he was prescient as usual about his brother.
“That head of his has been occupied with contemporary society's insoluble problems for so long, and he is still battling on with his good-heartedness and boundless energy. His efforts have not been in vain, but he will probably not live to see them come to fruition, for by the time people understand what he is saying in his paintings, it will be too late.”
Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin were either not known or ridiculed by the critics, while they quietly changed the course of art history.
And what of the art scene today?
Great artists make us see things differently; like Van Gogh, they touch us in a deep emotional place.
Each generation has a few. Who do you think are the artists that are not getting the recognition they deserve? And why?
Share the Eye:
The Vincent van Gogh Gallery vggallery.com $40,336,000 was the record price paid for Madame Ginoux,and was part of a series of five paintings by the Dutch artist, which pay homage to the artist Paul Gauguin.
Starving Artists starving-artists.net/ Welcome! Starving Artists offers the opportunity for emerging artists of all abilities to present their work to the world.
Impressionism artchive.com Photography in the nineteenth century challenged painters to be true to nature and encouraged them to exploit aspects of the painting medium, like color, that photography lacked.
My Dear Spinner and Peter L:
I am sitting here, all choked up. I can't believe that you gu...
Jul. 29, 2008 8:06 PM
Who's your favorite impressionist?
12% 47% 12% 18% 12%
Not only is "Starry Night" my favorite Van Gogh painting, it is the painting that taught me the importance of seeing the original as opposed to prints. For years, I had assumed that, if I saw a print in an art book, I could judge the quality of the work as well as if I had seen the original hanging in a museum. In those days, I was also perfectly willing to declare Van Gogh overrated.
The day came in my early twenties when I stood face to face with the original "Starry Night" at the Museum of Modern Art. My life changed. I could not believe how stunning this vision was. The night sky clearly did not literally look like that but it was so clear what the heart of the artist seemed to experience in looking at some starry night.
Last Friday, I was heartbroken. I took my three year-old daughter on her first visit to an art museum. We went to MoMa and I wanted to show her "Starry Night". It was out on loan for another exhibit. We talked a lot about the colors and shapes we saw in the paintings. She seemed to gravitate more toward sculpture. And we had a grand time moving forward and back in front of the Seurat works to see them change from little dots to full-fledged pictures. But later, when she is four, I must take her back to experience "Starry Night" for herself.
I recently read a great quote from a gallery owner: "Live with art. It's good for you."
Amen!
I also had the blessing of standing before the original "Starry Night" which was part of the Van Gogh and Gauguin "The Studio of The South" exhibit, at The Art Institute of Chicago September 22, 2002. DreadPirateRoberts said it best "My Life Changed".
"The Olive Grove with a white cloud and a background of mountains, as well as the Moonrise and the night effect [The Starry Night], are exaggerations from the point of view of arrangement, their lines are warped as in old wood."
-Vincent van Gogh, 1889
Side Note: I just realized that I am sitting here, drinking my morning coffee from my "Starry Night" coffee mug, which I purchased from the exhibit.
MACKDADDY1 said...
My favorite is the French impressionist, Claude Monet. I love his work so much that I had a local artist paint a mural in my first grandsons nursery from the childrens book: "Phillipe in the Monet Garden". It is the most beautiful, calming, yet stimulating and colorful nursery any child could ask for. I am sure you are familiar with this book. My grandson who is now 5 has moved on to a sports theme bedroom (I had a football field painted around the walls in this bedroom) but his two younger siblings have also enjoyed the beautinful piece of Monet. I have introduced the arts to my grandsons. It isn't easy where we live, but we take day trips to all sorts of museums in close by cities. And yes DPR...you are certainly correct. Art does enhance and change lives. It is one of the few joys in life.
Just last year I took a course in art history and I have to say it was probably the most worthwhile course I ever took. It also rendered me a pedant, so far as to say that Cezanne, van Gogh, and Matisse are not Impressionists, but Post-Impressionists, which is different. They twisted the way Impressionists painted by putting more of themselves in it. Impressionists, like Manet, Monet, and Degas just took an Impression of the world, portraying light, shadows, et cetera.
But the thing is, artists that really make us try to see things have only been around for a hundred and twenty years or so, starting with the Post-Impressionists. Before that, paintings didn't have much of a message unless they were satire - see Hogarth and Bosch - or Biblical/mythological allegories. When the Post-Impressionists came along, they started doing other stuff with their art, like making us think: for example, Kosuth's 'One and Three Chairs'. It's a display put together of a chair, a picture of said chair, and the definition of a chair. Which one is the most real? Is the definition based off the chair? Or did someone build the chair from the definition? Or is the chair simply based off the picture of the chair? What came first?
And things get all unreal and transcendent. Rothko's giant colour fields, meant to absorb us and make us feel a certain way. Duchamp's 'Fountain' - Dada, in fact, in its entirety is completely something else. I don't get it, but maybe some people do.
And it's just getting weirder. David Smith's 'Cubi': the big metal blocks; Henry Moore's sculpture groups; Jackson Pollock. It gets more and more abstract and somehow we're meant to discern deep personal truths about ourselves. I'm not quite sure what people see in Pollock, myself.
Here in Los Angeles we have the Getty Museum. They have Van Gogh's "Irises". It is as bright an intense as when itwas painted. It's slightly overwhelming.
It was painted by Van Gogh in 1889 about a year before he died. he had recently cut his ear off and was in an asylum, voluntarily. During that period of time he painted "Irises".
It was just a "study" a type of painterly sketch. Who knows what the final versiion would have looked like. The "study" is magnifiscent.
The Getty is admission free. You just have to pay to park. There are many other works of art at the Getty, but "Irises" alone is worth the trip.....I'd pay to see it.
The One at the Desk,
You mention an interesting point regarding how the actual nature of the art has changed from virtuosity in depicting literal images to a new vision in which the image and style in which it is presented is meant to suggest something other than simply itself. Satire is, as you point out, the clearest and oldest example.
In my opinion, the most interesting group of paintings who sought to depict something in their images, beyond what can be seen in the literal world, were the Neue Sachlichkeit painters of Germany in the 1920s. Otto Dix, Georg Grosch, Max Beckmann, etc. are largely responsible for my fascination with Weimar Germany.
Like you, I've never really understood the great fascination with Pollack. I've read much about how his paintings represent the chaotic feelings of the post-war populace. But I can't imagine someone walking into the Whitney, looking at a Pollack painting, and saying "Ah! I've felt like that!" There comes a point when abstraction falls over the abyss into obscurity that is peculiar only to the artist himself as he forgets to let the viewer in.
By the same token, when I saw the Rothko work at MoMa, the audio tour discussed how Rothko had meant to shake up the art world and created precise colors that were impossible to duplicate. But therein lies the problem. It should not be necessary to tell me this. A work of art must speak for itself rather than relying on outside information to clarify that which should already be clear, standing on its own two feet (so to speak). Audio tours in museums should serve to call the viewer's attention to that which is present but not necessarily obvious. They should not be the crutch on which otherwise incomprehensible work depends in order to be appreciated.
Enrico Caruso once said choosing a favorite opera was like trying to choose your favorite child. That is the way in which I am hard pressed to choose a single favorite painter in any style. But, if only for my love of his subject matter, I think I must vote for Degas. His love of the theatre in general and ballet in particular is so beautifully presented. He depicts the magic and the scrappy glory of the performing arts with that perfect combination of glamor and seediness that will be recognized and loved by anyone who has worked in the field.
Van Gogh's use of lines & colors is extraordinary.
I missed the chance to see the real "Starry Night" while it was in the Van Gogh/Gauguin tour of their works few years ago.
While I do regret not being able to see that particular painting I did get to see Van Gogh's Landscape with House and Laborer & Cottages at the Hermitage a few years ago. His use of non straighlines yet having various outlines set up in his work is in a way a shock to your eyes & brain. Trying to figure it all out as full picture with all the rich dark grades of colors is somehting I feel everyone should expeirence.
I know I've said previously that I was really impressed by Matisse's works but really the whole impressionist/post impressionist periods of painting all the artists to me have doen something that has actually inspired some type of AWE & Awareness in myself & the way I look at the world.
I happen to like most art, there are some paintings & sculptures that I don't care for but there are many more that I can find the beauty in. Maybe that's all arts really meant to be for us. A way to find beauty in our sometimes dreary world, by being able to see some of it through another persons eyes.
In a few weeks I will be having the privilage to see the following exhibit http://www.thepaine.org/exhibitions/the_imp_fig.html It's at one of the little local galleries in the area & unlike the Van Gogh/Gauguin exhibit it's one I shall not take the time to miss out on seeing.
One of the attributes I imagine that separates the great impressionists from the rest of the pack may be their ability to see the world through the eyes of a child. Whether it is a vast, beautiful, limitless, and perhaps even overwhelming "Starry Night", a field filled with mounds of fresh cut hay, rays of sunshine filtering through the trees, or maybe even a stormy sky streaked with lightening and thunder pounding on your chest.
As we age and mature I think that most of us forget that we have these beautiful, wonderful, sometimes terrifying images stored in our memory warehouses. The great artists, particularly the impressionists, have the ability to consciously, or maybe subconsciously, tap into these innocent, unfiltered images and depict them on canvas.
Just a thought I've had while wandering around art museums.
I've had a couple opportunities to wander around The Chicago Art Museum after hours (legally of course), away from the noise of the larger crowds; and I swear it feels like you can almost hear the paintings whisper. If you ever get the opportunity, take it.
JillyBean said...
"If one can only remember what one has seen, one is never without food for thought or truly lonely, never alone."
Spoken like a truly lonely man...
Pseudo-psychology aside, Van Gogh spoke to what I think is the true meaning of art: shared experience.
Art is the product of an artist's desire to express a feeling. Artists then show their work, hoping for validation, or at least reactions, from viewers. Just like all forms of communication, viewers listen to what's expressed, and they react to it. They analyze the artist's choices, techniques and socio-political background. They share the experience, sometimes seeing themselves in the work, sometimes distancing themselves from it. And of course, everyone's a critic.
But the thing is, unlike other forms of communication, art is a one-way street. Artists don't usually have a chance to listen to viewer reactions. ...unless of course they're famous, and everyone's talking about them.
Van Gogh never got that kind of validation. He spoke through his canvases, and no one ever spoke back.
Lonely indeed...
Spinner said...
I, too, prefer Van Gogh and that period of art to what is presented today. The use of color, form, and composition is unsurpassed in richness and expression. But today, I think things have indeed gotten a bit out of hand. Perhaps we should take a step back and look at our definition of just what "art" is. After all, it is a fairly new concept that was introduced into western culture during the middle ages. Before that, there were simply very good craftsmen. And I think that today's representatives of "art" do not always fall within that concept. Shouldn't these "artests" be reasonably good at their craft as well? I will take my chances now and hope no one will be offended when I quote my wonderful mother-in-law. "Modern art is like a good bowel movement. Of great satisfaction to the artist, but of no interest what so ever to anyone else." She was a corker and a very real inspiration. She volunteered for years at our local art museum, so indeed knew the subject well.
I hope you will allow me to continue contributing to this forum after that...
Spinner,
Your mother-in-law's point is well taken. It's difficult finding heart in modern art when paintings that are the result of tying paint brushes to shaggy dogs and elephant trunks are being sold for six figures.
MACKDADDY1 said...
Well put PeterLake!
Forgive me for going off topic but I'm concerned about one of our most esteemed contributors.
I just read of an earthquake in Los Angeles. The news article said no major damage had been reported but I can't help noticing that we haven't heard from ExPat today.
ExPat, my friend, please let us know if you and yours are unhurt and all right. Best to you.
Gia said...
But, just to pose a question to Mr. Lake, and to Spinner, are we perhaps as blinded to "genius" as they were in Van Gogh's day, when I'm sure a critic said Van Gogh through paint on a canvass...and Rubens just painted chubby naked women and a whole slew of greats never got their just due.
Don't get me wrong, I prefer a nice Degas ballet dancer or a horse I can recognize than some of the stuff that passes for art...these days. But to beat a dead horse, are we not guilty of some of the same things that didn't get artists recognized in their time?
Gia,
Probably, . . . . . but I've personally got to draw the line and insist that they at least have opposable thumbs and the capacity to understand what they are doing. There still some life in that poor horse yet.
Spinner said...
Re: the LA earthquake. Our kids are in that area as well and we have been trying to get in touch with them to no avail. But they are always on the go so we are not upset at this point. We have the Weather Channel software downloaded on our computer and I have checked with that. The vidoe they showed has the epicenter probably a bit ESE of where ExPat is. And the interview with someone at the epicenter said that some food fell off shelves in a grocery and books at a Barns and Noble. No structural damage. Communications were still up and running so if that was the story at the heart of things, I would think ExPat is fine. Lets hope so.
I'm with Peterlake on this one. Opposable Thumbs & capicity to understand what they at actually doing really should not be too much to ask of befor eyou are labeled as an Artist who's work is worth 6 figures or more...
Dear PeterLake,
PLEASE let me know the next time that you will able to wander around The Chicago Art Museum after hours.
Your dearest friend in the whole wide world....... : )
To: Spinner,
I think after that last comment, you need to be exiled to Twitter!!!! : )
P. S. I think I would have liked your mother-in-law!
ExPat is OK....remember I've been sent to Twitter.... : )
I think, of the whole Impressionist/Post-Impressionist period, Manet is my favourite. I have to say that it probably took some gusto to a) paint a naked woman looking so defiantly, as in 'Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe' and b) when that painting was refused by the academic salon, to establish a Salon des Refusés (Salon of the Refused). It was a time when paintings could mean something and make you think things and still be aesthetically pleasing.
Now we've got bicycle wheels on stools. Art? Even Duchamp said he just liked how it looked when it spun, but the avant-garde community has to proclaim that it's art. I guess this just hearkens back to that quote about bowel movements. Pleasing to the artists, but of no worth anywhere else. Thank you, PeterLake - I'll be using that one for years to come.
La Donna and Spinner,
Thank you for the reassurance. When I looked back over the comments, I realized ExPat had chimed in today and I missed it somehow. If I'd seen it the first time, I'd probably have been less worried.
An old friend of mine who now lives in L.A. told me it was the biggest quake he had yet felt but no property damage so far.
I'm more of a Monet fan when it comes to Impressionist art, but give me some High Renaissance or Vermeer any day. If some of what I've seen hanging in galleries today is considered "art", my housepainter's dropcloth must be worth a fortune.
The One at the Desk,
I wish I could take credit for that wonderfully graphic metaphor, but that one came from Spinner's mother-in-law. Though it does sound like something I'd hear in my old neighborhood.
La Donna,
Given the opportunity, of course I would invite my new and dearest best friend!
DPR,
Happy Birthday Eve! We celebrate birthday months in my neck of the woods so take August if you haven't started yet.
Spinner said...
DPR: PeterLake one-upped me! I have a post-it on my computer screen saying that tomorrow is your B'day and I was going to try to be the first to wish you the very best. But now, I have to be simply an echo and say A Very Happy Birthday to You! And you DON'T want me to sing to you. Definitely not one of my strong suits! In fact, when our son was three, he asked me please not to sing to him any more.. (Of course he then went on to marry a classical singer, so he does have descriminating taste.) Hope you are able to celebrate in grand fashion!
Lovey said...
The One at the Desk and Dread Pirate Roberts:
Pollock is the definition of modern art. Not creating something because of emotion, but creating something because "if I throw a little more red in the left corner it looks cool".
His work is a statement in that it isn't one; it's fake, but it's telling you that it isn't real.
[For some reason I have the urge to copare Pollock's work to famous drag queen Jefree Star. He advertises the fact that he is, indeed, a man in women's clothing. He's not pretending to be anything when he straps on the nine-inch pink heels in the same way that Pollock's art isn't trying to actually be art.]
As for Vincent Van Gogh, as you may have guessed, I'm not a big fan of many of his paintings. I like his style, just not a majority of his work. My favorite of his paintings would be Skull with a Burning Cigarette.
To: My Friends,
L.A. got a pretty big shake about 11:30 am PST....5.8 magnitude (maybe downgraded to 5.4). It was centered in the Chino Hills about 30 miles from downtown L.A. I am pertsonally okay. I experienced Sylmar and Northridge quakes. very intense. This one rattled the nerves of a lot of people.
Cell phone service was out for quite some time.
Thank you for your concern and well wishes. I'd notified both La Donna and Spinner privately.
Spinner said...
OK, this is Spinners other half and she has asked me to give you my comments on art. I am glad you enjoyed my mother's comments on modern art. For a number of years I taught a class in cultural anthropology. It was easy to talk about kinship and economic systems, but it was difficult to lecture on art. Then I read that there was really no such thing as "art" and it was a mental category that we have created. All societies have music, dance, painting, etc., but it is only recently (last 500 years or so ... I'm guessing) to classify some of this as art. This classification is of course done by a minority of individuals who are associated with museums and gallaries. If art is thought of this way there is no such thing as primitive art. The individuals who created these works were doing it for functional reasons, like burial items or for ceremonies. It is also interesting that what has traditionally been called art was created for the elite. It was the nobility of Europe who paid the artists and musicians and the works were hung or performed in palaces. The music and art that was done for the masses is always labeled Folk Art or Folk Music, an implication that is was inferior. I have exceed the 100 words that Spinner said I could write. I have no profound words of wisdom, like my mother.
Digs (my nickname since I was an archaeologist)
My Dear Spinner and Peter L:
I am sitting here, all choked up. I can't believe that you guys both remembered tomorrow is my birthday. Spinner, you actually have a post-it reminding you? I am very touched and I thank you both for your good wishes.
You all remember that great discussion we had about barbecue a few weeks back? Well, we hope to celebrate by going to Hill Country BBQ in the city. It is said to be the best of the new cue joints to open in town in the last few years. I'll let you know how it goes.
Thank you again.
more on the honor rollGia said...
Happy birthday and have the brisket. The best I've ever had. You'll have a choice and no pirate would order it...lean.