tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post3437751673392169447..comments2024-03-28T18:17:09.618-04:00Comments on ILLUSTRATION ART: BULLDavid Apatoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-26305525360414734102021-02-02T10:53:50.766-05:002021-02-02T10:53:50.766-05:00that's FUNNY right THERE ! ! ! !that's FUNNY right THERE ! ! ! ! Gary Lockehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08551064249663717360noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-3720712202708392192020-06-06T12:04:22.328-04:002020-06-06T12:04:22.328-04:00"I would suggest that you feel like Academic ..."I would suggest that you feel like Academic art is dead "<br /><br />More accurately, I felt it was never alive compared to what came before. They had not the Italian's fluidity and vigor of drawing or the Flemish eye for rich, gem-like color. The academic training method could not and cannot produce it. Chris Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11931414857801867456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-75370873701857104652020-06-04T13:04:25.583-04:002020-06-04T13:04:25.583-04:00Everything relates to the first drawn axis or mayb...<b>Everything relates to the first drawn axis or maybe I should say everything relates to the X and Y axis of the paper first. </b><br /><br />Everything relates to the flow of the idea. In order for a picture to have unity the idea has to encompass the canvas. <br /><br /><b>everything can not help but relate to that first mark like a datum line in mechanical drawing.</b><br /><br />If you want to play this academic game, I'll play: The frame edges and the canvas surface comprises the initial pictorial state. A first mark relates to this initial state. The second mark relates to the first mark just as much as the first relates to the second. And both relate to the initial state. The third mark relates to the first and second just as much as the second relates to the first and third and the first relates to the second and third, and all relate to the initial state. And so on. Blah blah blah.<br /><br />None of this means anything without an idea. The idea is a complex effect that expresses some truth of human experience. Since the idea must comprise the canvas, breadth is of paramount importance in the expression of the idea, thus in the expression of its components. kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-20696203579555087212020-06-04T11:22:13.827-04:002020-06-04T11:22:13.827-04:00Everything relates to the first drawn axis or mayb...Everything relates to the first drawn axis or maybe I should say everything relates to the X and Y axis of the paper first. An axial line starts at a point an moves is one direction. All the parts of the whole are held in relation to that axis. In symmetrical objects all the parts are balanced across that center. The center unifies the whole, it holds the parts in relation and makes the parts comprehensible. The parts follow and respond to the center. Like the invisible but felt axis of a hallway, or the nave of a church or garden of Versallies or the way the muscles masses of the legs arrange and insert in relation to the thrust of the leg. The way a river flows or how trees are lifted following the direction of a hill from the plane to the hill's peak down the back side. In plan the power of the center is even more felt. As Delacroix wrote the drawing is determined from the first mark. Everything follows or contrasts with the flow in the same manner that remoras attached to the body of a shark. Because everything can not help but relate to that first mark like a datum line in mechanical drawing.<br /><br />And even a line representing the visual end of a form is traveling forward and back into space. It does not arrange itself like a line of gravity evenly stacked up one point above another. It comes closer and farther from the eye of the viewer as it descends or raises form a level ground plane (real or imagined).<br /><br /> Not to sound contrary but I did not get my understanding from Kimon Nicolaides from his platitudes about feeling the growth of a flower etc. one would never arrive at anything specific with his drawing book or and understanding of the richness and depth of space. Older books, geometry and the science of drawing that the West undertook in perspective and descriptive geometry are much more demanding and complete in the understanding of form and space. With it one can begin to comprehend how many of the works of the past where created. Nicolaides never came close to providing access to such wonderful experiences. <br /><br />I used the face because the painting I used as and example is a portrait.<br /><br />Shallow or deep your still dealing with space. There is nothing but space, illusions( I assume you mean fooling the eye) have nothing to do with it. Why worry about bad art? Because something looks "real" is a most shallow understanding of art although it can be a crude acknowledgement that some one has been captured by a works spirit.<br /><br /> Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04641223414745777056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-5884147093284267202020-06-03T19:33:57.780-04:002020-06-03T19:33:57.780-04:00Yes you could trace backward to the source to find...<b>Yes you could trace backward to the source to find the center but I would prioritize the center first. Otherwise you kinda cobbling together your image.</b><br /><br />One moves from the general to the specific, from the whole to the detail, from the synthetic imaginative visualization to the realization of that as specifics through analysis. If you can't previsualize the shape on the page, you shouldn't put the pencil to the paper, and even before that, you should have felt the idea. <i>Otherwise you are cobbling together your image.</i> Proportion is a wholistic matter. The idea is a wholistic matter. Composition is a wholistic matter. I've never known any artist to work "center out" except in the sense that a brief gestural line can be of assistance in capturing a pose. (Unless somehow you have some unique meaning for the words you're using.)<br /><br /><b>One's pencil should flow, rise with clouds descend with waterfalls climb with a vine, travel to distance objects, sense how one volume or plane supports the next volume or plane as if stair stepping through space. Space and form is continuous in all directions.</b><br /><br />You seem to have understood what Niccolaides was after without realizing that you did. That he concentrates on contour does not exclude haptic experience of other qualities and dimensions. <br /><br /><b>In general Titian directs the eye to the face not to the silhouette of the head.</b><br /><br />The face is a detail, and an incidental detail in narrative paintings. Just as we don't see the faces of the participant in an event as we first enter into it - we get the gestalt - we don't see the faces of a narrative painting first. Rather, we feel them, we sense them, in the act of feeling and sensing the complex totality of forces that makes the picture alive. And only later do we fixate on them as we fall out of the total effect of the picture and its general meaning.<br /><br />No doubt faces must be good, and in keeping with the story, and worth inspecting, but a face is only a small part of a story told in bodies, environments, texture, space, volume, value and color. (I find your insistence on centers and faces myopic.)<br /><br /><b>Because everything exist in space. (...) Things in a more profound way line up from front to back with space in-between them then they do in any 2 dimensional matter.</b><br /><br />The idea of a picture goes beyond space, though it takes it in. The idea takes in all factors, and all factors serve the idea. If the idea requires shallow space, there shall be shallow space. If the idea requires shallow form (as with Bacchus and Ariadne) so be it.<br /><br />If it is any good, the idea is of the picture, the thought behind it, is what is profound. To the extent that depth assists the profundity of the idea, it has served the picture well. Illusions without a point are just a trick.<br /><br />kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-34907787400588842422020-06-03T14:28:22.959-04:002020-06-03T14:28:22.959-04:00> but if you give them a choice between Bouguer...> but if you give them a choice between Bouguereau’s angels and porn on a Saturday afternoon, I'm guessing you'd lose them 95% of the time.<br /><br />For 10 minutes until they've wiped themselves up, get disgusted with the porn in front of their face, and become functioning human beings again.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08249577762409684046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-56016074855593740652020-06-03T11:37:18.006-04:002020-06-03T11:37:18.006-04:00Kev wrote
"The bleeding inward of informatio...Kev wrote<br /><br />"The bleeding inward of information encoded into silhouette edges is far more informative to the intuition about the nature of an element than your inside-out belief"<br /><br />Things grow from the center. Things collapse and die form the outside in. An internal energy or desire produces the outside contour of form against or with the force of gravity.<br /><br />Yes you could trace backward to the source to find the center but I would prioritize the center first. Otherwise you kinda cobbling together your image. Like a point in geometry, or a seed or the Big Bang its better to sense and find generating force. IMHO<br /><br />Kev also wrote,<br />"An internal edge, unless of tremendous narrative value, will be meager in comparison to the silhouette outline/edge in terms of its layered density of abstraction and meaning."<br /><br />And edge is the meeting of planes. Its the strongest area of light. It directs the eye to the center of a body, at least the bodies surface center. It's the point of rest for the eye. It's the destination. It's where the pathways lead. A point of rest. The satisfaction of a journey completed. In general Titian directs the eye to the face not to the silhouette of the head. The eye looks at the object not its edge as it does in life. One looks at things not contours. HIs bodies assert themselves forward into space and he handles his silhouettes accordingly. The outer form recedes from this center of light. I'm thinking of the portrait of Ranuccio Farnese in the National gallery of art for example. Or his drawings.<br /> <br /><br />Kimon Nicolaides that has to be one of the weakest drawing books of all time. Contour copying and scribbling page after page with no comprehension of form or the understanding of building blocks of form. Better to read a book on descriptive geometry.<br />Without comprehension how can one have a philosophical viewpoint? If anything his book reflects the decline of artistic thought into a kinda mind numbing copying. He fails to see the relations between parts unless they are right next to each other let alone providing a way to organize parts into a coherent whole which always demands some kind of hierarchal thinking. Granted these are memories of the book at this time but that is my overall memory and it leaves my mind in a stupor. I won't be mindlessly crawling my pencil across a piece of paper like a snail while looking at someone's shoulder without the slightest trace of any understanding of it's mechanics.:) <br /><br />One's pencil should flow, rise with clouds descend with waterfalls climb with a vine, travel to distance objects, sense how one volume or plane supports the next volume or plane as if stair stepping through space. Space and form is continuous in all directions. <br /><br />Kev wrote,<br />"Yes, of course. But why is that so important to your argument? Why do you keep emphasizing that factor above all others? "<br /><br />Because everything exist in space. Everything is a relative distance from each other. Space itself is not flat. It becomes a body of space when contained by points lines not a negative shape. A shape is only a product of volume. And how long does a shape truly stay flat relative to the picture plane? Flatness is always the enemy of good drawing. Things in a more profound way line up from front to back with space in-between them then they do in any 2 dimensional matter. What's the point of concentrating on the edge between your lapel and your coat in your drawing if at first you don't understand that the lapel is in front of the coat?<br /><br />All in IMHO!<br /><br />Like Richard said<br />"It is the three dimensional form that contains the poetry in Titian's figures. The beauty in the silhouette is merely the 2d holographic compression of 3 dimensional poetry"<br /><br /><br />Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04641223414745777056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-9664531727320744452020-06-03T09:32:09.510-04:002020-06-03T09:32:09.510-04:00Kev Ferrara-- You don't think Titian's Rap...Kev Ferrara-- You don't think Titian's Rape of Europa is <b><i>any</i></b> good? After you just got through saying "There are all sorts of poetic concisions/abstractions available to the artist. (Edges, silhouette value, colorvalue, tropes, structural form, depth, etc.)" you can't find any love in there for the Rape of Europa? I haven't seen Bacchus and Ariadne in person but I saw Europa at the Gardner Museum and understood for the first time why Titian was so celebrated for his use of color.<br /><br />Richard-- What you characterize as a "beautiful dead end" I'd characterize instead as a different destination-- better for some purposes, worse for others. I like some abstract expressionism, I like some Bernie Fuchs, I like some porn. I think they're each superior to Bouguereau in some respects but worse in others. <br /><br />But the real gap between our views is with your conclusion that artists are the ones addicted to high sensation art, while the "public" doesn't need that kind of fix. I suppose that's true in some limited circumstances, but I think more often the opposite is true. I'd think the general public is more susceptible to bright colors and flashing lights; they'd prefer rock n' roll to Chopin any day. Yes, they might say Bouguereau’s angels is the greatest paintings they’ve ever seen because they like realism or they like angels, but if you give them a choice between Bouguereau’s angels and porn on a Saturday afternoon, I'm guessing you'd lose them 95% of the time. <br /><br />It may be that artists appreciate avant garde art more than the general public, just as experts in any field find it easier to assimilate pioneering work. But does that mean artists have become de-sensitized to the fine points of classical Greek sculpture, the delicacy of an Ingres drawing, the mastery of a Sargent watercolor? I don't see why that follows.David Apatoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-83660370772374369322020-06-02T03:07:06.334-04:002020-06-02T03:07:06.334-04:00I would suggest that you feel like Academic art is...I would suggest that you feel like Academic art is dead for the same reason that most musicians prefer Frank Zappa to Clair De Lune or Eine Kleine NachtMusik. It’s not that Claire de lune is inferior, quite the opposite, it’s that as an artist you’ve gotten addicted to high-sensation parts of art that are wholly irrelevant to nonartists who don’t need that kind of fix (and frankly, dead ends to the art language).<br /><br />The flourish of pencil like a squeaking jazz horn taken to the limits of liberated dissonance, the spatter of ink like a non-functional Harmony, a cutting experience that scratches an itch for the artist, but devoid of any real content in the fundamental language of the artform — all Dionysian plasticity devoid of Apollonian ideal — no better than abstract expressionism.<br /><br />Like the brain on high-grade porn that doesn’t appreciate the simple beauty of a girlish figure, the artist Brain is high on art crack and can’t figure out why in a simple comparison test most of the human species of any culture would rate Bouguereau’s angels as the greatest paintings they’ve ever seen, even if they’ve never heard of him.<br /><br />And it was this difference that made artists and public do their separate ways. The addicts went off on their own with these hyper-aesthetic beautiful dead ends like Zappa and Bernie Fuchs. They’re still waiting for us to get out acts together, get clean, and start making more Academic art.Richardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-14900849147308722152020-06-01T12:59:25.709-04:002020-06-01T12:59:25.709-04:00" '19th Century academic artists approach..." '19th Century academic artists approached hyper-reality, but they did it organically, and it turned out more beautiful than any other of man's creations.'<br /><br />Whoa!! you're a brave man!"<br /><br />Yes, I would like to hear more about this. Academic art is moribund art, to me. No wonder it was over for representational art soon after.<br />Chris Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11931414857801867456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-58874228665033559352020-05-31T22:23:06.406-04:002020-05-31T22:23:06.406-04:00Sorry but I just don't think Titian's Rape...Sorry but I just don't think Titian's Rape of Europa is any good.<br /><br /><b>In fact, I'll do you one better and argue that words can be visual art; they have power as symbols or pictograms, or as calligraphy (for example, in korans) even apart from their literal meaning.</b><br /><br />Letters that don't exist formed into a non-word can be written in an expressive typographic way. And the gibberish will have the same expressionistic quality as an actual word written in the same typographic style. The only difference will be that one is decodable and the other not. (Any number of unreadable band logos or graffiti will prove this point without resorting to actual made-up letters.) <br /><br />So the art of typography is actually a stand-alone graphic art, which need not be grafted onto known letterforms to give expression.<br /><br />kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-1372014508850053882020-05-31T22:05:09.918-04:002020-05-31T22:05:09.918-04:00It is the three dimensional form that contains the...<b>It is the three dimensional form that contains the poetry in Titian's figures. The beauty in the silhouette is merely the 2d holographic compression of 3 dimensional poetry.</b><br /><br />Any personal meaning- and feeling-driven means of lossless compression <b>is</b> poetification. There are all sorts of poetic concisions/abstractions available to the artist. (Edges, silhouette value, colorvalue, tropes, structural form, depth, etc.)<br /><br />How strongly and coherently the poetry is vivified as a complex of effects through the audience's mental closure (and how well that meaning is received sans intellection) is the only testament to the quality of the poetry.<br /><br />The flatness of Titian's silhouettes in Bacchus and Ariadne is not meant to re-inflate, it is meant to stay flat. Because the work is functioning as both illustration and decoration, which is to say, as narrative and musical narrative.<br /><br />However, I also agree that there can be great poeticism to creating the effect of structural form. There is a reason why Bargue's and Bridgman's drawings look as they do. Because those fellows understood, as all good artists of that day did, that gross roundness is exactly the wrong way to go about creating volumetric illusions. What works is edge projection, and that entails clear decisions about form. And clear decisions about form also entail clear decision in the edge work. (I recommend Charles Bargue's <i>The Painter and His Model</i> (1878) as a master class in the subtle use of his methods of structuring sculptural form.)kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-10991856112152752020-05-31T18:18:47.303-04:002020-05-31T18:18:47.303-04:00Richard wrote: "Words are not visual art, but...Richard wrote: "Words are not visual art, but they are often effective memes when used in conjunction with a piece of visual stimuli." <br /><br />I agree that words can be very effective when used in conjunction with visual stimuli, just as words can be effective when used in conjunction with music (as in Beethoven's 9th or Tristan and Iseult). I must say it seems a little odd for a group discussion of illustration, which ties images to words more than any other modern visual art form, to disavow words and their myriad applications. In fact, I'll do you one better and argue that words <b>can</b> be visual art; they have power as symbols or pictograms, or as calligraphy (for example, in korans) even apart from their literal meaning. We may not be able to translate hieroglyphs but the mere fact that they have meanings affects the way we process Egyptian art.<br /><br />"I think a bit too much is made about the evils of intent and the artist statement on this board."<br /><br />You're probably right, but I attribute that to irritation over today's trend of concept increasingly dominating form. This is largely the work of artists who neither understand form nor are capable of doing good work with form, so their efforts to substitute long treatises for good visual work is particularly annoying. A lot of people, myself included, instinctively strike out at them. It doesn't help that so many of today's artist statements are inane. (https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2011/12/art-basel-miami-beach.html). I'm willing to read what Marcel Duchamp has to say because he was an interesting pioneer feeling his way, but Tracey Emin... dear god, what a nitwit. <br /><br />"19th Century academic artists approached hyper-reality, but they did it organically, and it turned out more beautiful than any other of man's creations."<br /><br />Whoa!! you're a brave man!<br /><br />Francesco Paonessa wrote: "Self-abandoning intrepidity sounds great, but what is it?"<br /><br />Exactly!<br /><br />Kev Ferrara, Richard and Tom-- Is there no love for the Rape of Europa out there? One glimpse of those perfume-infused tinctures from Venice at its peak and I become so besotted that I can no longer concentrate on the silhouettes in Bacchus and Ariadne.David Apatoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-34473172083681142992020-05-31T13:37:44.908-04:002020-05-31T13:37:44.908-04:00Talk of intent is usually advertising hype, and sh...<b>Talk of intent is usually advertising hype, and should be ignored. Words are not visual art.</b><br /><br />Words are not visual art, but they are often effective memes when used in conjunction with a piece of visual stimuli.<br /><br />A large black polished stone can mean nothing as a sculpture in one moment, and then you declare it as a reminder of the holocaust, or POWMIA, or children killed in this or that school shooting, and it suddenly becomes an extremely effective device.<br /><br />I think a bit too much is made about the evils of intent and the artist statement on this board. It is comparing apples and oranges.<br /><br /><br /><b>For me, Titian's best work is Bacchus and Ariadne. And in that picture, his silhouette prowess is in full flower; the figures are far more expressed as silhouettes than spheres.</b><br /><br />It is the three dimensional form that contains the poetry in Titian's figures. The beauty in the silhouette is merely the 2d holographic compression of 3 dimensional poetry.<br /><br />Similarly, what poetry there is in Fuchs' bull is the poetry of the three dimensional form that births that silhouette. Had he rendered it beautifully it would be more beautiful, not less. <br /><br />Had he sculpted the bull that produced that silhouette, it would be more beautiful yet again. <br /><br />And if he could reach out like a God and produce that bull in the flesh, stretching sinew over bone, blossoming atoms ex nihilo, and breathing consciousness into clay, it would be more beautiful yet again.<br /><br />The poetry of Concision is merely man's making excuses for not being a God. There is nothing in that -- maximal reality contains the maximal artistry.<br /><br />20th Century hyperrealist art isn't shit because it's not concise. It's shit because its an uncanny plagiarism. 19th Century academic artists approached hyper-reality, but they did it organically, and it turned out more beautiful than any other of man's creations.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08249577762409684046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-86017567024761458312020-05-31T13:04:53.990-04:002020-05-31T13:04:53.990-04:00I think I wrote "silhouettes are great."...<b>I think I wrote "silhouettes are great."</b><br /><br />You wrote: "Silhouettes are great as they are a refection of the internals that make up a form."<br /><br />But I would argue this is not the reason that "silhouettes are great." Rather this idea is the one that comes from "comprising with reality."<br /><br />The bleeding inward of information encoded into silhouette edges is far more informative to the intuition about the nature of an element than your inside-out belief. To create an effective silhouette, the understanding of internal structure is necessary, I agree. But actually experiencing a silhouette (which is to say, an articulate shape-character) is an edge-inward intuition. And one cannot compose an effective silhouette without deeply considering the edge-inward read.<br /><br />The overwhelming majority of silhouettes one experiences in life, photography, and even art rather poorly "reflect internals" because Silhouette Value has not been considered as paramount. Silhouette Value is something that has to be installed by a mind that has a deep appreciation for the how the intuition apprehends shape abstractions and edge information. It is a deep part of the art because it such a synthetic/wholistic kind of expressive act. <br /><br />An internal edge, unless of tremendous narrative value, will be meager in comparison to the silhouette outline/edge in terms of its layered density of abstraction and meaning.<br /><br />Worth reading up on Kimon Nicolaides methods of teaching this material. Although not explicitly philosophical about why he was teaching what he was teaching, his teaching still reflected much of the philosophical progress made up to that point on the essentials of drawing, painting, and most importantly <i>feeling</i> edges.<br /><br /><b>I just use a sphere as the simplest example of how the closest part of a form to the viewer or the backside of the picture plane is at the surface of a form not at it's edge.</b><br /><br />Yes, of course. But why is that so important to your argument? Why do you keep emphasizing that factor above all others? <br /><br />I agree that the eye travels to the lightest portions of his figures, but it is more important to understand that these are not static destinations where the eye freezes. Rather they are slightly better lit portions of larger pathways that guide the eye through the work. The lighter areas draw the eye, but they don't cease it. The eye carries through the figures entirely, animating them and the pictorial ideas in the process.<br />kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-26934151850168264582020-05-31T11:51:50.314-04:002020-05-31T11:51:50.314-04:00Kev wrote
"You are severely short-changing s...Kev wrote<br /><br />"You are severely short-changing silhouettes, my friend..."<br /><br />I think I wrote "silhouettes are great." The best silhouettes are produced by complete internal development as I wrote earlier. I was short changing "comprising with reality." <br /><br />Of course Titan subdued and contrasted edges but his strongest light is in the interior of the form. He submerges and subordinates form compared to for example Florentine painters. <br /><br />Who said he was a renderer? Masses contain edges too, the only edge is not at the silhouette. The greatest light gathers at plane breaks.<br /><br />I wasn't saying Titians figures where spheres. I just use a sphere as the simplest example of how the closest part of a form to the viewer or the backside of the picture plane is at the surface of a form not at it's edge.<br /><br />David wrote,<br />"I agree that it's nearly impossible to escape intent altogether...More importantly, "intent" seems to be crucial to judging the various apples and oranges of art."<br /><br />Well you could replace intent with express. An art expressing the poetry of the Tao well certainly take a different form then the art expressing the suffering of man through the image of Christ. But all artist do have to conceive what they want to express which to me seems like intention.<br /><br />Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04641223414745777056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-57377790130509979062020-05-30T18:53:24.467-04:002020-05-30T18:53:24.467-04:00Thanks for the reference to Harvey Dunn - I learne...Thanks for the reference to Harvey Dunn - I learned a little about this early 20th century South Dakotan painter who was famous as "a demanding teacher and at times a harsh critic."comicstripfanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14830784804963989361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-36065644168515148962020-05-30T15:27:02.472-04:002020-05-30T15:27:02.472-04:00Thanks for that link.
Alex Toth Said:
It is: &qu...Thanks for that link.<br /><br />Alex Toth Said:<br /><br /><b>It is: "The Majesty of the Simple thing"! (Repeat after me -- 100 times -- "The Majesty of the Simple Thing.")<br /><br />To add to the truth subtracts from it!" A beautiful quote. (Heard or read months ago. Sorry, can't recall the source.)"</b><br /><br />Just to close another circle.... "The Majesty of Simple Things" and "To add to the truth subtracts from it" are both Harvey Dunn quotes. kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-29652924534914450702020-05-30T14:37:45.571-04:002020-05-30T14:37:45.571-04:00
Mr. Apatoff said: I agree with you [Kev Ferrara]...<br />Mr. Apatoff said: I agree with you [Kev Ferrara] about those strong Toth silhouettes. He excelled at a chiaroscuro technique which he (like Milton Caniff) mostly picked up from watching one of his heroes, Sickles.<br /><br />Alex Toth on Noel Sickles:<br />http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/2008/08/alex-toth-on-noel-sickles.htmlcomicstripfanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14830784804963989361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-9851306817788964852020-05-30T14:18:49.012-04:002020-05-30T14:18:49.012-04:00Just to clear the point...
The artistic impetus i...Just to clear the point...<br /><br />The artistic impetus inside us - what we feebly call 'intent' - is not born of a word, or a sentence. There are no words in the brain. It is all chemicals, electricity, and meat. (Maybe a little bit of spirit, if you're so inclined.)<br /><br />So when somebody pronounces on their intent - <i>using words</i> - that can only ever be, at best, a rough, lossy, dogmatic approximation of actual deep intent.<br /><br />The point that sentences are linear things is crucial to the understanding of this point. For in art, with each stroke of the pen or brush, multiple and manifold relationships of graphic forces and sensible qualities manifest in multiple physical and conceptual directions and scales. And many of these relationships are quite subtle, often even subliminal, even to the artist. There is no converting these proliferative organic dynamics of art into literature. Simply can't be done, can't even be approximated.<br /><br />Which is why, again, Cornwell would repeat that, "anything sufficiently described in words is not a fit subject for pictures." This would include such words as comprise "stated intent."<br /><br />I believe that the only way to judge true intent is to sufficiently back engineer the actual act, subtracting out the errors, accidents, and stupidities. (Presumably, nobody means to be stupid in their art.) For in the results, the results of the intuition and heart are available for inspection, just as well as the results of the conscious mind. kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-44026453850689515062020-05-30T06:29:54.863-04:002020-05-30T06:29:54.863-04:00Wes / Don Cox / Kev Ferrara-- I agree that "i...Wes / Don Cox / Kev Ferrara-- I agree that "intent" is often an important element in the creation of art, but we seem to be using the term in different respects. <br /><br />Rothenberg disavowed intent just as stream-of-consciousness artists and shamans on peyote purported to turn control over to some larger subliminal force. She said: “I make a mark and then retreat, and wait, and wait some more. And then I make another. It’s all very mysterious." She's obviously just taking orders from some higher muse. (A less charitable observer might insert here that the law, too, attaches special significance to intent: if someone with diminished mental faculties lacks the ability to form an intent, the law is less likely to hold them responsible for their actions.). <br /><br />I agree that it's nearly impossible to escape intent altogether-- if an artist ties a paint brush to a donkey's tail, that still doesn't eliminate intent from the resulting painting. The donkey is a tool just like a brush, and is still an extension of the artist's intent. More importantly, "intent" seems to be crucial to judging the various apples and oranges of art. A Van Eyck, a Turner and a Rothko are all Art but you can't compare them without taking into consideration the different intentions of the individual artists. How worthy are their ambitions, and how successful were they in achieving those ambitions? I like to believe that Holbein, with a little patience, could appreciate the value in what Degas was doing, even though they were running in very different races. Intent is the only way I know of to separate those races.<br /><br />Having said that, in a different sense of the word "intent" I agree with Kev that a work of art must stand on its own, and can't be saved by some windy essay about the artist's intention. <br /><br />Don Cox-- I'm interested in why you find Kara Walker's subject matter "stale." I too like her silhouette images (although her paintings seem very weak to me) but I'd think her subject matter is more current and topical than any of the other artists we've discussed here. I think her images have permanent values, but her subject matter is in the headlines today, with the riots following the killing in Minnesota, and her medium is explicit sex and violence rarely found in more traditional art in museums. For example, I'd think she's more current than John Goodall's more classical silhouettes.<br /><br /> David Apatoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-44053168457778641302020-05-29T23:50:54.810-04:002020-05-29T23:50:54.810-04:00Self-abandoning intrepidity sounds great, but what...Self-abandoning intrepidity sounds great, but what is it? Is it to have the courage to move beyond what you know, and away from what's familiar or reliable? Genuinely curious.Francesco Paonessahttp://francescopaonessa.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-5511523760672740722020-05-29T23:05:34.088-04:002020-05-29T23:05:34.088-04:00Dear Kev -- Ha! Touche! Perhaps I meant "whac...<b> Dear Kev -- Ha! Touche! Perhaps I meant "whack a mole"? (He asked, weakly.)</b><br /><br />Actually Wack A Mole is a pretty good metaphor for the problem. <i>If only</i> the easy cheesy ideas of postmodernism would die. But first they need to be shamed and uncooled. Which means, first, those who defend and buy the ideas need to be shamed. But they're postmodernists, investors, and hucksters. So none of them believe in shame. And so it goes.kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-31800655123563523972020-05-29T22:54:37.652-04:002020-05-29T22:54:37.652-04:00Silhouettes are great as they are a refection of t...<b>Silhouettes are great as they are a refection of the internals that make up a form but I don't think artists have to "comprise," with reality.</b><br /><br />You are severely short-changing silhouettes, my friend. And Titian was clearly a silhouette master who knew exactly the point of encoding information at the edges of masses rather than rendering within the mass. He was a poet, not merely a renderer. <br /><br /><b>Titian directs the eye to the body's center with a clear sense that the more "distance," part of the bodies forms are retreating away from the eye. The closest part of a sphere is the part of the surface tangent to the picture plane not it's edge.</b><br /><br />For me, Titian's best work is Bacchus and Ariadne. And in that picture, his silhouette prowess is in full flower; the figures are far more expressed as silhouettes than spheres. <br /><br />I don't agree that Titian directs the eye to the bodily centers of his figures. I don't see that, and such an 'intent' is not good composition and wouldn't jibe with the musical-narrative nature of his work.kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-42180427160495426532020-05-29T14:34:27.030-04:002020-05-29T14:34:27.030-04:00Dear Unknown -- thanks for the references.
Dear ...Dear Unknown -- thanks for the references. <br /><br />Dear Kev -- Ha! Touche! Perhaps I meant "whack a mole"? (He asked, weakly.)Wesnoreply@blogger.com