Some of the finest ink drawing was created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in response to the invention of the modern magazine. The popular new medium created a huge demand for black and white images in the years before reliable color printing. Just one of the new magazines, Life, employed an average of 25 different pen and ink illustrators each week.
A group of well known illustrators such as Charles Dana Gibson, James Montgomery Flagg, Joseph Clement Coll and Orson Lowell developed the craft of ink drawing for the new market. But there were dozens of other highly skilled, less remembered illustrators whose work for these magazines deserves attention.
Frank Godwin is mostly known for his popular comic strip in the 1950s but back in the 1920s he was a regular contributor to Collier's magazine.
Look at how magazines were chock full of drawing back then.
Prior to the introduction of full color the highest medium of expression in these magazines was line work with pen, brush and ink. As usual, constraint inspires creativity.
A lot of excellent drawing is buried back in those archives.
54 comments:
Wow, these are spectacular. Godwin really deserves a floppy monograph, a la jc coll.
Speaking of coll, he too was a collier's mainstay, but had just died prior to Godwin's advent. So essentially Godwin picked right up where coll had left off in colliers. And this early Godwin really tells of Coll's influence on him. Later Godwin's technique becomes much more sparkling like Flagg or Schabelitz and his compositions more Brandywine-ish.
Kev Ferrara-- So happy to have something to talk about beside politics.
I'm glad you like these-- Godwin drew a lot tighter back in the 20s, but his work still had a genuine flair. I agree with you about the need for a monograph-- there is a ton of his work buried in those ancient magazines. A little later in Collier's he began working in wash and what appears to be wolf pencil.
Godwin may have picked up where Coll left off chronologically, but I still prefer Coll's work-- he was a damn virtuoso with ink, and much more free and adventuresome than Godwin at that advanced stage of Coll's career.
They were all terrific, those ink guys from that era. The originals were big and bold and they worked their asses off. Now here's a question for you: what do you think of Franklin Booth? I did not include him on my short list because his style is different, and I'm not as enamored with his work, but he appeared in those same Collier's issues.
David,
I too, dearly adore Coll's work and think he's way beyond Godwin. Coll's work doesn't just sparkle technically, but also sparks imaginatively and feels filtered through his unique personality. It even feels of his Celtic heritage in some way. Clearly, Coll is working and dreaming from an internal, personal dream-place. And guys like that end up, no matter what their influences, being (or seeming) sui generis.
With, Godwin, on the other hand, as with, say, John Richard Flanagan , there is a sense that they had too much influence. They were so busy being superfans of their heroes (Coll for both of them), they could never have the kind of self-possession it seems to take to become unique artistic personalities themselves. Great artists, I think, must live as youths in some kind of unbridled way.
The lack of some kind of artistic "true self" was also Walt Reed's critique of Dean Cornwell. J.M. Flagg's quote that "Dean was Dunn before he started" becomes even more poignant when we see that a few years later, he "becomes" Frank Brangwyn. Its a strange Zelig-like pattern.
There are other examples counter to this chameleon-like phenomenon among artist/superfants, but I think Norman Rockwell is the best example of someone coming asymptotically close to his idol's style, and then veering off to become himself.
Booth's drawing is slightly stiff sometimes. His technique, laborious in the extreme, is very prone to stiffness. But I adore him. To still get work to soar, even with all the dreary technicality, is miraculous. How many others in the history of art have managed that trick?
Kev Ferrara-- I suppose Booth's work couldn't help but be "prone to stiffness" given his faux engraving style. It's a miracle it wasn't stiffer than it was. But I have to wonder why Booth didn't give up that trick, once he realized that it wasn't necessary. A more direct application of line would seem so much more economical, and for me at least, so much more rewarding. When Booth did turn to other approaches (such as pencil drawings or water colors) his work seemed less impressive to me, suggesting that the razzle dazzle of that surface skill with all those lines was a large part of what impressed me. I agree with you that Booth gets his pictures to soar, but how much of that is because he specialized in vaulted temples, huge trees and glorious scenes in the clouds? The right subject matter can surely help out in the soaring department.
I agree with you that Booth gets his pictures to soar, but how much of that is because he specialized in vaulted temples, huge trees and glorious scenes in the clouds? The right subject matter can surely help out in the soaring department.
What makes Art great is never the subject.
If there is one thing to take from what I have written here for all this time, I would hope it be that. (Damn you, Ecclesiastes!)
Regarding economy, due to your concentration of interest on outline and drawing, I think you have a tendency to equate poetry with minimalism. But it ain't so. In fact, I believe that thought is quite destructive to understanding the orchestral nature of painting in all its wondrous complexity.
Poetry demands concision of plastic material and symbolism. It does not demand paucity of means. In fact, Art can become enormously complex in the hands of a master, and still be singing all way through, without a touch of lead. As long as each and every judiciously selected element is evoked from the least means and performs as many artistic tasks as possible each having a strict place in the organization of the overall effect. In this way, each aspect of the work will come to fairly beam with aesthetic meaning, which translates as sensual force. The more that is marshaled to the poetic end, the more powerful the total poetic effectiveness. The only way this can become diminishing returns is if a particular viewer finds the power of the work so intense that they seek escape from it. (And this does happen.)
If you look at Booth's technique and only see "razzle dazzle of surface skill" you have completely missed its compositional purpose. To be profligate with means is inartistic, unpoetic. The greats of the golden age were masterminds, brilliantly trained. None of them were superficial. (I defy you, Ecclesiastes!)
Kev Ferrara wrote: "What makes Art great is never the subject."
I guess I'd propose that what makes art great is rarely the subject. I agree that you can make a great picture of the most humble or unlikely subject: a blade of grass, a toe, a piece of garbage. And you can make a terrible picture of a great subject, such as a mountain or a madonna. Nevertheless, there are Steinberg drawings that work because the subject clicks, and ones that don't. Art Spiegelman draws badly in my opinion, but his art in "Maus" is at least partially redeemed by the content. Wouldn't you say that a well designed picture with ambitious or profound content is greater than a well designed picture with superficial or sloppy content? Or a well designed picture with no content?
Regarding economy, I do think that minimalism has its charms, but my point is more that redundancy, unnecessary details, excessive content with diminishing marginal value, all reduce the greatness of a picture. Many of the greatest artists are able to say much with fewer strokes because of their ability to prioritize. I don't think we're all that far apart because you too believe "every judiciously selected element [should be] evoked from the least means and performs as many artistic tasks as possible." You agree, "To be profligate with means is inartistic, unpoetic." So how are we different?
It's dandy that you like "the orchestral nature of painting in all its wondrous complexity" but many people, myself included, believe that chamber music can be just as great as orchestral works, and drawing can be just as great as painting.
these drawings are impressive at first glance, but there's a tentative feel to much of the inking, and some of the underdrawing is a bit weak... the opposite of J M Flagg who's inking was loose, confident and never laboured, and who's form and 'acting' was (nearly) always convincing.
I see a particular correlation between the images and words - and also, possibly, emphasized by the layout - in the very first image you share in this post. It occurs to me that similar to how what at first appears to be people and buildings, are, upon closer inspection, merely heaps of lines and squiggles, that which appears to be just a wall of text might be something more, and worth inspecting more closely. In this sense, traditional pen and ink illustrations might function as an encouragement to actually engage with (the) text. And not just in the capacity of the pretty pictures' illustrative allure, but as lessons in statement making and reading. As opposed to the social media and video driven kind of communication that is popular today, where text (as well as illustrations) seems intended to be merely looked at.
Art Spiegelman draws badly in my opinion, but his art in "Maus" is at least partially redeemed by the content.
Well, if the value of Maus is almost wholly moral, then one can easily argue that it should have been drawn by somebody else. And Spiegelman's insistence on drawing it himself was more to "virtue signal" - to aggregate moral stature to himself - than to broadcast out the most effective moral statement possible into the larger culture to effect change. I mean, if the presumed target audience for Maus is average superhero comic book fans who had no clue about the evils human beings are capable of in times of economic fear, then Speigelman's artistic ambitions thoroughly overmatched and negated his moral ambition. Because the crummy art surely put off most Lobo fans. (Most people who read about Maus through the New York Times, or other such publications, surely didn't need comic book lessons on the holocaust.)
The best moral thing that Maus did was to pave the way for other writer-artists with more visual talent than Spiegelman to take the graphic novel seriously as an adult medium. But, in the main, Maus itself only functions as a kind of moral totem.
It's dandy that you like "the orchestral nature of painting in all its wondrous complexity" but many people, myself included, believe that chamber music can be just as great as orchestral works, and drawing can be just as great as painting.
Dear Dandy,
All chamber pieces are bound to a certain narrowness of tone due to the sparse instrumentation. Same with drawing.
An orchestral work, on the other hand, can become a chamber piece for a brief period of time, becoming delicate or moody or languid or what have you as the composer wishes. And then it can return to massive grandeur, awe, violence, and power. Or not. Same with a painting... it can go from sensitive line to explosive color masses and back again. Or not. That level of distance or contrast between aesthetic poles defines the range of expression, and thus the range of aesthetic force available within the work. And such pits the quiet against the ballistic, colors against grays, tones against textures, making each, respectively, that much more effective in the force of its own quality. In short, meekness can only become forceful as an idea with respect to assertiveness. And the greatest force of meekness as an idea can only come from its greatest contrast with assertiveness. But you can't create a stampede of four wolves. (I suppose I have just been defining what I think the word "great" means, in contradistinction to "enjoyable" or "agreeable to my current mood or decor.")
Laurence John-- I agree that Flagg (another one of the heavyweights I mentioned in my post) was an illustrator "who's inking was loose, confident and never labored." Yet, his confidence sometimes bothered me when I felt it lapsed into arrogance. He would draw a strong line, but then draw a second and a third and a fourth just like it for emphasis, when he might've stopped with one. It's as if he was always underscoring his initial artistic judgment. Sometimes that worked well for him, but I think it sometimes just drew attention to his weaknesses. You say that sometimes Godwin's "underdrawing is a bit weak." I could say the same thing about Flagg, but unlike Godwin, Flagg never had "a tentative feel to much of the inking." To the contrary, Flagg was always "full speed ahead" even when he might have benefited from a little more artistic circumspection.
Perhaps I'm being too hard on Flagg. I've just had my fill of bombastic blowhards this week.
Øyvind Lauvdahl-- I think you make a good point. In those days, artists and designers had much more experience interweaving art and text because there were far more illustrations in each magazine, and far denser text. In the illustration you reference, the hem of Jesus' garment, and his toes, had to be strong and dark enough to pull our eyes across from the preceding page and continue the angle started with that line of heads. The page would not have worked as well if Godwin just feathered it out so he cross hatched it with all the density of a Rembrandt etching.
There were more words on a single page of Collier's than there are in some popular magazines today. The talented people who blended these words and pictures took their responsibilities seriously. There was a good reason so much of the art was done as vignettes, rather than separate, squared off images.
Kev Ferrara-- the term "virtue signal" was new to me, thanks. We might discuss what kind of artistic presentation would have been more effective for Maus. Certainly I think a black and white, rough hewn approach made sense. That was not a topic for polish and elegance. But I can't help but think that a little more George Grosz or Goya etchings or Kathe Kollwitz would have taken the project further. Spiegelman was incapable of any of that, but of course he happened to be the one with the father who lived through the holocaust, and whose personal story made it accessible. (Even Picasso said that art was incapable of conveying that "slaughter of the innocents" head on.) As for the NYT audience, I agree they "surely didn't need comic book lessons on the holocaust" but they do seem in need of some remedial lessons in graphic arts.
David,
'tentative' as i used it above, in my critique of Godwin's inking, is never a good quality, and not to be confused with delicacy, lightness of touch, subtlety etc.... which could all still be done with conviction.
i meant it as the sign of someone who is nervous about the marks he / she is about to make and the nervousness shows in the finished piece.
the J M Flagg stuff i've been looking at recently (from early '20s magazines) doesn't bear any of the bombast you mention, at least not to my eye. he does emphasise a line with a black brush now and then, but the final drawing is only stronger for it.
(if you give me an email i'll send you the jpegs)
what kind of artistic presentation would have been more effective for Maus. Certainly I think a black and white, rough hewn approach made sense. That was not a topic for polish and elegance. But I can't help but think that a little more George Grosz or Goya etchings or Kathe Kollwitz would have taken the project further.
I was just pondering this question. Then, I looked over Maus again, read a bunch of pages. To be honest, there are a few good pages where the style seems to work really well to convey the power imbalance and the banality of the evil and the kind of nervousness in the air. But overall, as it stands, I think I would rather experience most of the interviews that went into it via Shoah foundation recording.
I'm reminded of Gene Siskel's great critical question, "Is this film more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch?"
Laurence John-- Yes, I understood that "tentative" was not intended as a compliment. Years ago, I did a post on Flagg which includes several superb drawings that I deeply admire, but which also showed a close up illustrating what I viewed as repetitive, unnecessary lines. If you're interested you can find it at https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2007/08/james-montgomery-flagg.html. As a bonus, that post has one of Flagg's bawdy illustrations from the Dutch Treat annual, showing the American public (in the form of a beautiful girl) rubbing its sore butt after having been ravaged by Washington DC. I have not collected examples of what I would call Flagg's weak or careless drawing skills because why would I want to collect those, but I can dig some up. In the meantime, if you want to send me something (and there's no url so other commenters can see it) you can send it to David.Apatoff@gmail.com . Thanx!
Kev Ferrara-- It sounds like we have an irreducible difference in what is required for greatness. You like the crashing of cymbals and booming of bass drums and the explosion of cannons (for example in the 1812 overture) because "massive grandeur, awe, violence" are characteristics of greatness for you. I, on the other hand, can find equal greatness in the quietude of a Chopin piano sonata. You think the "level of distance or contrast between aesthetic poles defines the range of expression, and thus the range of aesthetic force available within the work" enables its greatness, so poor Beethoven could never be as great as a later composer whose range has been greatly expanded by a moog, a theremin and a waterphone. I on the other hand, believe (as I said in this post) that "constraint inspires creativity."
That's OK, it's just a difference of taste.
I do agree that "An orchestral work, on the other hand, can become a chamber piece for a brief period of time, becoming delicate or moody or languid or what have you as the composer wishes." I think there's no better example than Beethoven's 5th piano concerto, with the most brilliant interplay between solitary piano and a full orchestra in the history of sound. But I doubt Beethoven would tell you that his symphonies were necessarily any greater than his chamber music.
As Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “Perhaps the crescent moon smiles in doubt at being told that it is a fragment awaiting perfection.”
because "massive grandeur, awe, violence" are characteristics of greatness for you.
I must not have explained myself well at all. In fact, I know I didn't. I wrote and thought entirely too fast and glibly on that post. I'll reset and try again soon.
As Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “Perhaps the crescent moon smiles in doubt at being told that it is a fragment awaiting perfection.”
This is a beautiful quote, thanks.
David: "...but which also showed a close up illustrating what I viewed as repetitive, unnecessary lines"
i don't see the lines in that close up as unnecessary. they're doing what the lines in the rest of the image do; creating areas of tone. the way Flagg made pen and ink drawing look so dashed-off and effortless, avoiding all the pitfalls of looking tentative, stiff, overworked etc is pretty miraculous in my opinion.
Kev: "if the presumed target audience for Maus is average superhero comic book fans who had no clue about the evils human beings are capable of in times of economic fear, then Speigelman's artistic ambitions thoroughly overmatched and negated his moral ambition"
but the audience for Maus wasn't superhero comic book fans (not sure where you got that idea from)... it was an audience of literary-savvy, art-savvy adults who might previously have thought 'comic books' weren't for them.
but the audience for Maus wasn't superhero comic book fans (not sure where you got that idea from)... it was an audience of literary-savvy, art-savvy adults who might previously have thought 'comic books' weren't for them.
Laurence,
My point was that, if the great value of Maus was it's moral/historical lesson, then the target audience should have been those who hadn't yet been exposed to that lesson. Since most "average" teenage comic book readers are literate but startlingly uneducated, they should have been the natural target, in my opinion. Otherwise, Maus just preaches to the choir. Which is what, in the event, it did.
I would guess that most of the literati that purchased Maus, probably did so simply because of its value as a virtue-signalling moral totem - a signification established by the publicity attending it in such venues as the NY Times and the New Yorker, etc. If it wasn't for the publicity surrounding it, it never would have gotten out to the literati because it didn't have the artistic chops to do so on its own. So those venues saved its moral message from its poor craftsmanship.
The subterranean idea in all that I am writing is that aesthetic force and quality is Art's entertaining disguise for its educational content. The more the educational content is sublimated by the aesthetics, the more directly it teaches the unconscious mind. Which is why Roman Polanski's The Pianist is an infinitely better work of moral art than Maus.
Kev,
I've never heard Speigelman say that uneducated, teenage comic readers were the audience for Maus, nor that his reason for making the book was 'to educate'. i'm sure Speigelman felt compelled to create Maus simply because he was moved by his father's story.
i've noticed that your focus (on the purpose of art) always slowly shifts, while the broader aesthetic enquiry remains roughly the same; you've mention 'teaching' and 'educating' a lot recently, but i think you need to be careful about ascribing that kind of intent to work which didn't have it as a motivating factor. i'm not convinced that the job of the artist is to be a moral teacher. can you imagine how many brilliant paintings such a requirement rules out ?
Laurence,
Human beings are sponges and chameleons. Everything in our environment, including culture, acculturates us. We are constantly adopting and adapting reflexively all day long.
I never said an artist must teach with their work. But they do teach with their work. It cannot be helped. Because all communication teaches. And art, culture more generally, is obviously a longstanding form of human communication.
Given that culture is always educating, I would argue that there is always a moral component to culture. I use "moral" in a philosophical sense, of "those teachings and influences which result in the best possible life for the student and his society, especially respecting what is true, factual, probable, and agreeable to reason."
Many respond with, "Fuck that, I'll draw what I want." And that's fine. Because I've never said its the job of the artist to teach. But it is the nature of communication to teach, so it doesn't matter what the "job" of the artist is. An artist will teach. Similarly, it's not the job of a beaver to build dams. They just hate the sound of running water and have these crazy teeth. (Hat tip: David Mamet)
An artist may teach peace, love, beauty, sensitivity, logic, clarity, confusion, whimsy, formality, nihilism, intimacy, respect for nature, petulance, violence, ugliness, physics, repose, intensity, dullness, brilliance, individualism, communism... and on and on. Whether artists are conscious of it or not.
Regarding my philosophical drift; the fundamentals of Art/Illustration/Aesthetics do not change, and my views on them have become fairly stable. I'm not really here to discuss that stuff, although now and again I lose my discipline. Outside of the fundamentals, things get vast and complex and I discuss aspects of that much bigger world as they come up or seem to suggest themselves. I drift as our conversations here drift.
Regarding this week's drift, the discussion of morals began with David saying "Art Spiegelman draws badly in my opinion, but his art in "Maus" is at least partially redeemed by the content."
David,
Thanks for this interesting post, it begs the question (to me at any rate) that if ink drawing is innately predisposed to combine with printed text so well, is there an equivalent regarding digital images and text?
And this brings up another question I would like to see you cover in one of your posts; regardless of their content, what is it about the 'handwriting' of certain images that makes them appear old-fashioned?
Kev,
i think Maus is one of those stories which simply 'bears witness' to the horrors of certain events. it's purpose would be to give the reader pause, to allow them to reflect on the atrocities that humans can inflict on each other, and to hopefully serve as a warning about such events happening again (you'd have to ask Speigelman whether any of those things were his intention, but i think any thinking reader would respond to a holocaust story in a similar way).
i find it much harder though to see the 'educational' aspect of some of my favourite paintings e.g. Zorn's 'Omnibus' or a murky nocturne by Whistler. from a visual point of view (especially for another painter, or a cinematographer) there is much to be inspired by in their use of light, colour and tone, but morally and philosophically they seem neutral.
i think Maus is one of those stories which simply 'bears witness' to the horrors of certain events. it's purpose would be to give the reader pause, to allow them to reflect on the atrocities that humans can inflict on each other, and to hopefully serve as a warning about such events happening again
Yes, it offers a moral/historical lesson. There are millions of such lessons to learn. The Shoah foundation has collected more than 54,000 such testimonials about Holocaust experiences. Speigelman decided to illustrate his father's personal testimonial in order to bring attention to it as a moral/historical matter, and himself as a storyteller/artist/moralist, and comic books as a serious artistic medium. Frankly, his father's experiences in that hell aren't that extraordinary. Maybe the mundanity of his experience is exactly why it is worth recording. But it tells against why it might have been worth dramatizing in comic book form. I think it is so poorly executed, in fact, that Maus rather diminishes the force of the reality it seeks to re-express. The reason why art requires aesthetic force, which requires tremendous talent and energy to manifest, is because the stuff of art is dead, inert material. Experience cannot be simply diagrammed in Graphics. Such a process will never create work that has successfully translated the force of experience into the medium of choice.
i find it much harder though to see the 'educational' aspect of some of my favourite paintings e.g. Zorn's 'Omnibus' or a murky nocturne by Whistler. from a visual point of view (especially for another painter, or a cinematographer) there is much to be inspired by in their use of light, colour and tone, but morally and philosophically they seem neutral.
When you speak truth, you teach truth. When you teach beauty, you influence people toward the beautiful in both action and thought. These are moral acts of teaching. When you combine beauty and truth through aesthetic transformation, where the source of the beauty is the very truth being expressed, then you have met the moral potential of Art.
It isn't the "use" of light, colour, and tone but the truth of it that I am talking about.
Hi Kev, I think your earlier use of the term “never” gets in the way of what you are generally talking about regarding aesthetic forces verse subject matter as what makes a great piece of art. Are you saying that it's not the subject matter but the way it's treated or captured that makes a great piece of art?
If the only subject matter an artist could paint was a car battery, it would eventually run its course, because at some point, no matter how many ways and how truthfully one treated the subject, eventually the viewer would desire more subject matter, things that people do and are. I'm not sure if painting a car battery, one could ever approach the emotional complexity of Rockwell's Breaking Home Ties, a painting we both agree is a fantastic painting. I mention this because you have also remarked on a modern realist like Rackstraw Downes as not taking the next step towards what was understood in 1906. Isn't then subject matter, (gesture, etc.) part of the beauty of what it is you refer to as understood in 1906? Doesn't subject matter then expand what can be captured and isn't it then part of or a contribution to the final captured beauty? Is the nature of the subject matter part of the orchestra verses chamber music? Does this have anything to do with what you were referring to when you commented on Downes verse the artists of 1906?
Are you saying that it's not the subject matter but the way it's treated or captured that makes a great piece of art?
Of course. You show me a great painting of any possible subject, and I'll show you a hundred bad paintings with the same subject... proving that the subject, no matter its gravity or importance, couldn't save the painting.
If the only subject matter an artist could paint was a car battery, it would eventually run its course, because at some point, no matter how many ways and how truthfully one treated the subject, eventually the viewer would desire more subject matter, things that people do and are.
Sean, I never suggested that subject matter couldn't weaken a work of Art. You've made a logical leap that is fallacious. (Similar to Argument from the Negative.)
I agree that new subject matters offer new artistic possibilities. But not new artistic guarantees. There is no subject matter that cannot result in a terrible painting.
Kev, I wasn't implying subject matter guaranteed anything. The reason I wrote the note was because the modern realists understand it's how you paint the subject, not what you paint, but your criticism of Downes not stepping out and embracing 1906 implied to me you were addressing a certain limitation of subject matter, not embracing narrative subject matter. I thought that was a point getting lost and a good point because the notion that it's not what one paints but how it's painted has become so democratized a notion that it's become a kind of mantra, as if subject meant nothing at all.
I'm not criticizing what you're saying, but just making a point that challenging subject matter brings with it more challenges.
That's a good point Sean. It's what's known in the biz as a distinction between 'a painter's subject' (still life, landscape, nude, interior etc) and an 'illustrator's subject (people doing stuff). After many years of exhibiting in commercial galleries I can tell you that it's tough selling the latter and much easier selling the former. But the real reason it's called 'a painter's subject' is a matter of neutering the subject's moral specificity. Which does seem to explain why the majority of people prefer a 'painter's subject' on their walls - I'm sure that even Pope Julius felt the same way concerning the decorative scheme outside that big chapel of his.
Chris: "But the real reason it's called 'a painter's subject' is a matter of neutering the subject's moral specificity"
and narrative specificity.
i'd never heard the phrase 'a painter's subject' before, but it speaks volumes about the innate snobbery in the gallery world (here in the UK at least, probably less so in the U.S.) toward certain subject matter, and the implicit suggestion that one is higher than the other; that 'illustrative' subject matter is for the common man (working class, uneducated in the arts) and the 'painter's subject' is for the middle, university-educated classes.
Laurence:
I have encountered a sense of this snobbery about 'illustrative subjects' (often unconscious on their part) among some of my peers, but I have paid it little attention because their own efforts in executing such works is generally piss poor. The aspect of the matter that really interests me is a practical one; aspects of why 'pictures of people doing stuff' are generally unpopular with the buying public.
"Isn't then subject matter, (gesture, etc.) part of the beauty of what it is you refer to as understood in 1906? Doesn't subject matter then expand what can be captured and isn't it then part of or a contribution to the final captured beauty?"
Hi Sean
That just doesn't feel right to me for some reason. If an artist has to paint a picture of a car battery or paint a the most profound subject in the world he is still going to have to come up against his assumptions about reality. Whether you are painting Christ on the cross or your dirty dishes on the kitchen sink you still have to address the issues of art, line. mass, light and shade, value etc.
I like Chris's distinction between 'a painters subject" and a "illustrators subject." Although a lot of painter's subjects fall into Kev's category of well done but dead.
What really grabs me in an art work is much more the feeling of how did an artist managed to paint or draw something so well. It's not the subject, but how the artist conceived the subject. Which really brings one back to the elements of art and not the so called subject.
Hi Tom,
I jumped in because Kev has been discussing two interesting but different things for a long time. The first being the aesthetic forces which make up a composition. The second being the limited nature of certain genres, cartooning for example lacking certain qualities, a limitation of subtlties. Both of these in themselves Kev has made pretty clear, but it's also true that certain subject matter requires tools not used in simple genres. I wasn't sure if that was coming through as clearly.
The way an artist relates to subject matter is also part of how the artist conceives the subject matter. If an artist has one tool, they treat a subject accordingly and they tend to keep the subject matter in the range of their familiarity with their tool. Narrative adds all kinds of considerations which are of a nature different than lighting, color, edges and shape for example. There certainly can be emotion in these things, but the example of Breaking Home Ties adds more complex psychological considerations into the story and composition of the picture, the placement of the figures, gesture, etc. which are as important as where they are, the light mood etc. It all has to work together to say something of a distinct nature.
I also appreciate the comments of Chris and Laurence. The world of realist painting does seem to be at the moment, confined by these attitudes.
your criticism of Downes not stepping out and embracing 1906 implied to me you were addressing a certain limitation of subject matter, not embracing narrative subject matter.
No. My issue with Downes is not that his subject matter is limiting him. Its that he doesn't (or refuses to) have anything interesting to say about either his subject matter or Art. His work strikes me as quite vacuous, even (maybe especially) if it was some kind of philosophical intention to have no intention, to mean to be meaningless. It makes me ask, what was the purpose of choosing his chosen subject matter? Why talk about something you have no interest in? Why are you asking for my attention if you aren't going to offer anything much more enriching than a hyper-realistic architectural rendering?
In other words, speaking about a subject matter without saying anything about it is essentially negating the idea of subject matter. Its play-autism; a dull pretense at super-objectivity. I'd rather he give his Nikon to a chimp.
A theory on the lack of dramatic content in the gallery...
Obviously people alter the superficial aspects of their environment in order to put themselves under a different aesthetic spell.
It seems to me that the average ultra-domesticated human being is increasingly horrified by, and increasingly incapable of dealing with, the full range of human experience. Which is why they increasingly shun the full range of human expression. Not just forbidding horror, violence, and sexuality, but even the mere hint of drama, even the whiff of the unbridled, even the freedom of character, even movement, even thought.
I think this process of ultra-domestication has been ongoing for a century at least. Now we are all bearing witness to the coming-of-age of the most protected, mediated generation in human history. Which is surely the cause of such bizarre necessities as safe spaces, trigger warnings and incessant calls for thought control and speech control.
Work that exists in total repose, even poorly executed, meaningless work, will at least provide the psychological service of shielding and becalming the mind, protecting it from being reminded about the fearsome forces beyond the walls. I think this is nothing new - the wish for the home to be a protection from the world - but I think we have entered a new acute phase. Although Malevich and Mondrian solved the repose problem ages ago by simply making their work resemble math.
Thank you Kev for your thoughts on Downes and his subject matter and also your thoughts on the lack of dramatic content on the gallery.
PS: Regarding Rackstraw Downes, I don't know if you meant literally his Nikon. His hero was super-realist Antonio Lopez Garcia whose took measuring the height and width of things to extremes, so I wouldn't think Downes used a camera, but you asked questions I've wondered about myself.
"The way an artist relates to subject matter is also part of how the artist conceives the subject matter. If an artist has one tool, they treat a subject accordingly and they tend to keep the subject matter in the range of their familiarity with their tool."
Hi Sean
Doesn't the artist, the more he works, begin to see the unity of things instead of the differences between things? I am not sure what you mean by tool, but aren't you in a way saying the work of art reveals the artist understanding. As how an artist uses his brush, pencil etc...reveals how he has thought the subject. And how the subject is thought is the the more interesting subject to my mind. In fact the apparent subject provides the artist with the material to express his ideas about how reality is formed.
When one spends a lot of time in the churches of Rome, one starts to think about verticality, axis and symmetry much more then the religious narratives of the work. It's hard to say if the artists where using these "tools" of organization or if the the artworks are revealing these tools of organization. The structures the artwork of the church in themselves are much more compelling then what the stories are trying to convince me of. In fact they direct me back to my everyday experience of the things of nature. But that might just be me.
You could say that the narrative impulse is the driving force to a composition. All narrative have a beginning middle and end. A foreground, middle ground and distance is a narrative. Hooking anything on a line, like the pearls of a necklace that hang on a chain, or a shishkekab, can be thought of as narratives. But maybe I am off track.
Maybe what I am saying is after a while one gets more interested in the structure of stories then the stories themselves. Just like in painting. When we are young the subjects often grab our interest at first. Making pictures of subjects you love, but as you learn how to make those pictures you find that nature is teaching you not so about your subject but about principals that govern all subjects. Which becomes much more fascinating, then the subjects themselves. The experience of line, a flat plane, a sense of space is much more distinct, specific and emotional satisfying then narratives, IMHO.
As far as Rackstraw Downes is concern he has said lots of interesting things about his "intentions," as an artist. But intentions don't mean that much. It's the experience of the work of art that counts. Some of his paintings have such and incredible sense of space which awakens the sense of freedom that often accompanies the immeasurable vastness of space which is constantly before our eyes. He actual address his own experience of the world. The camera simply bypasses the experience space. Just as stories eclipse the space they happen in. Like clouds in the sky they come and go but the sky reminds.
Downes never uses a camera. He was going to include some cows in a landscape and he figured he would take some snap shots of them as it would be easier. He said after developing the photos he give the camera away and spent the rest of the summer learning to draw cows to his satisfaction
As far as "psychological considerations," is concern, think about the weight in all the tree branches cantilever above your head next time your walking down the street.
In other words, speaking about a subject matter without saying anything about it is essentially negating the idea of subject matter. Its play-autism; a dull pretense at super-objectivity. I'd rather he give his Nikon to a chimp."
Hi Kev
Space is the subject matter of a Downes painting. A camera can not make a Downes painting. Objects bring space, distance and light into being just like paint. Maybe you just don't like the subject matter or find it boring.
Are you saying that because something looks like reality that an artist is doing the same thing as a camera? A camera can not draw a ground plan. It does not comprehend or conceive the structure of space or the geometry of things. It fails to "understand," depth and 3 dimension. The experience of the space in which all things and events happen seems like a good subject for an art work.
What is the Shakespeare quote, "All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players;......And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history , Is second childishness and mere oblivion; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." But the stage remains.
Tom,
I've been railing against the aesthetic deficiencies of the camera on this blog and elsewhere for many years. I'm happy to hear that you agree on that point.
I agree that there is art and skill to what Downes is doing. I have no problem with Downes's subject matter, per se. I have a problem with his composing, his aesthetic transformation of his subject, which I understand to be the measure of his expressive intent.
It just occurred to me that what we mean by subject matter is the artist's reference to something objective, some thing or event out there in the world. Which is to say, most people mean object matter by "subject matter." The actual subject matter of a picture is actually then, the transformation of the object matter.
So it is an artist's treatment (as well as selection) of the objective elements he references that is his true subject matter. Which explains, in a different way, why banal, factual, journalistic treatments are anti-subjective. It also explains why lesser artists (like myself) become so fixated on the object matter of great artists and then proceed to ape their subjectivity.
Hi Tom,
Yes, the branches are psychological too as you describe. A battleship is narrative as well and has posture, gesture, position etc. and such are obviously symbolic. I'm not sure of what Downes and Antonio Gracia Lopez are about and have wondered about some of this modern realism as being vacuous.
I thought something was getting lost in the previous conversation and gets lost in the mantra of it's not what you paint but how you paint it. It's true that it's how one paints it, but what one paints it isn't so entirely separated from subject unless the subject becomes light, or space as you described Downes and what the light is hitting or what is in space are but props. So there are distinctions to be made and I'm not so sure they are always easy to make. But there is a point where the stuff being painted isn't the subject and that's light years from the example of Breaking Home Ties which is a deeply moving human picture.
Downes' work is drearily realistic. it may not be painted from photos, but it looks as if it is.
i think that if you're not interested in re-imagining reality in some way then you may as well use a camera.
So there are distinctions to be made and I'm not so sure they are always easy to make. But there is a point where the stuff being painted isn't the subject and that's light years from the example of Breaking Home Ties which is a deeply moving human picture.
Here is how I see it: All abstract elements/qualities/complexes and referential objects/events are merely instruments awaiting: Composition based upon intention, orchestration of the instruments/notes for clarity, mood, and the engineering of effect, and the performing artists and their performances of the orchestration for each instrument. All of which both poeticize on their own and contribute to the larger poetic venture.
Hints for using this idea: One cannot replicate the effect of a flute part with a tuba. Mustard Yellow doesn't symbolize cold water. A face is a signalling system. Art is a signalling system. Truth is set down in relationships. Insight results from a synthetic restructuring of the known.
Sometimes it's simpler but too close to see. Certain animals can see things we can't, farther, in less light, or dimensionally, or hear and smell things we can't because they are beyond our sensory scale and all those things are real, though we don't know them. From the relationships you are describing in a painting, we can recognize a place in ourselves and that's a unique trick in the animal kingdom, nor does it require intellectualizing it as an idea.
I'm not belittling any of the parts of the orchestra as performing poetry in their own right as you well put it, but in the process of breaking them down into verbal descriptions it all starts sounding very much like performance art or installations and in truth, some modern realism does pander to the same sensibilities and ideas. I'm as wary of intellectualizing the sensory as I am of limiting all we sense to a process of interpretation because we recognize things by a measure even closer to home. When we look at a painting of a man and a woman, things are triggered which are not in the painting and these are unavoidable as they have everything to do with our interior relationships as men and women, even when we look with disinterested eyes. We are instinctively attracted to light and such plays a huge part in reading pictures. Our attraction to light is part of our survival instinct which gravitates to life and avoids desolation. I feel the same way about Downes as does Laurence and also, the way you saw an autistic play and this is something taking place on an instinctual level more attuned to health or a life force closer than thought or even something we can intellecualize as interpretation. We can't separate ourselves from our survival instinct.
Sean,
In describing things as I have, I have necessarily transposed a very complicated matter into the clearest possible abstractions I could manage in English, today, and quickly. But, if you give me any credit at all, imagine if I told you that colorspace consists of 7-10 distinct hues, black, white and all that can be mixed from these components. While such an overview is fair enough, it would be up to you to apprehend the infinity of color I just described through your own investigation and imagination.
A point that maybe escaped you, which may bridge our views on this, is that the correspondence of a picture to its subject, and thus the reference to all the attending associations of that subject, is one of the relationships that a picture has. And truths, again, are set down as relationships. We will respond to aesthetically presented truths intuitively when they reverberate with our experience; our appreciations and memories of light, loneliness, weather, people, and love. Aesthetically presented truths can cause those same truths, housed in memory, to resonate within us. And, yes, this can lead us on forgotten trails of emotion and recollection internally. But those internal specifics are beyond the control of the artist or the art.
Again, as I understand these things, truth can never be fact. Consider that well when you think of Breaking Home Ties and all the facts built into it.
Kev: truth can never be fact'.
Interesting, because I recently worked out that belief is an emotional investment in something rather than knowledge of the truth of it. (Newton's laws of motion I understand to be true because I am aware of a consensus based on empirical evidence, but I only believe their consequence when hitting a crash barrier at 70mph after a blow out to a front wheel - as I did almost a year ago) All to say; the belief in the truth of something is experiential rather than intellectual - which, as I know you know, goes for Art.
As for; A theory on the lack of dramatic content in the gallery...
I certainly agree that drama in the home is something most of us like to avoid. But I cannot share your view that this is a recent phenomena brought on by our cultural climate. The bourgeois of 17th century Holland preferred to have still lives, portraits, flower pieces, landscapes and innocent domestic scenes over Rembrandt's history paintings (his etching were popular, but they were etchings :) The Victorian morality set pieces were far outnumbered by pictures of horses, ships, fairies, swooning women and pretty cottages. And walk into any historical stately home and for every 'Wreck of the Hesperus' you will find acres of brown landscapes, ancestral portraits, game laid on tables and ladies on swings loosing slippers.
Kev, Downes and Lopez are very dedicated artists and their point of view is their own. I was describing why I and others might find the work dry to suffocating and I asserted that such was based on a given as I described. With some explanation regarding their work, a person might be made to understand something they're not seeing, but the initial emotional reality comes from one's life force, one's own survival instinct and from that one can't separate oneself.
Just like modern people don't understand something like fasting because it's a bother, but physically that's the whole point. It sets up a battle in the body which builds the immune system and so in oneself. I short, it's good for one. I'm not referring to things here housed in memory, but givens in the force of life. When we part from this nearness, we enter a descending routine of monotony which seeks an escape from itself and this leads to all sorts of worthless things. I haven't had any difficulties with your comments and explanations on the orchestration of the instruments. None at all. They were clear and couldn't have been put better. I was opening a different area, something human from which we cannot separate ourselves and which effects our relationship with the world around us and also with art. That's it. That's all I meant. Thanks for your notes.
Hurt my wrist last night. So will be mostly absent for a few weeks. Sad to hear of accident Chris. Hope you are intact/recovered.
Chris, I agree with your statement that truth is experiential and I agree with it even though the medium you used to express it was written language. Neither does it matter that what we call reality now includes unseeable energies at levels never before understood, nor that it is of a medium with shopworn words, because the truth of your statement is in what says, not in the nature of language as born from the neurological level as as interacting sensuous energy material, nor in the nature of language as symbol, but in the orchestrated reality of what flows through it as communicable meaning. Yes, truth is experiential and language was used as a medium for sharing the meaning or spirit of that truth. I would add that life thirsts for itself and that too is true, though we know circumstances can impair life's thirst for itself in the form of things which lead to despair. Despair doesn't alter the truth that life thirsts for itself. Despair is indicative of life not being able to quench itself, a loss of faith, a loss of belief on the verbal level, but a loss of enriching experience, but also as one understands it. So despair is a type of loss of belief or loss of faith.
The past 60 years haven't been the age of orchestration, but the age of the small group, the jazz ensemble, the soloist, the featured singer, etc., so we have an abbreviated understanding of the fullness of orchestration, or even the orchestration of simple phrasings such as in Samuel Barber's Addagio for Strings. We've become connoisseurs of smaller interactions in music without the larger orchestration. We also can come to see the age of cut and paste music, cut and paste art, etc. In the same way we have deconstructed language to the point of no longer understanding that it isn't language, but what is understood through it, which gives it its significance. That is, the deconstruction of truth by deconstructing language had to lead to a rediscovery of truth as experience and so sharing such reaffirms language as a medium of sharing meaning. It is the medium as neurological orchestra through which spirit flows, be that spirit gracious or bombastic, truthful or distorted and this spirit is more apparent in conversation than purely the written word, but it remains true in word too as I did understood what you said.
Sean:
Thanks for your thoughtful response.
I think the process by which experience is communicated by words, brush marks, musical notes or what have you is by way of the relationships between them. And further to this, it seems to me that a relationship cannot be stated, only implied by the proximity and attitude of what is being related. In other words; a relationship is always experienced but never 'known' - can only be shown, never told (a telling maxim from script writing, and with good reason).
So art is a language communicating a fictive experience (Kev has called it a sensual language) authored to resolve to an experiential truth.
Kev:
Yes thanks; unhurt apart from some badly bruised ribs - I guess my car (a total write-off) took the hit for both of us, bless her darling ocean-green heart.
"Yes, the branches are psychological too as you describe. A battleship is narrative as well and has posture, gesture, position etc. and such are obviously symbolic. I'm not sure of what Downes and Antonio Gracia Lopez are about and have wondered about some of this modern realism as being vacuous.'
Hi Sean
I wasn't trying to say the branches were psychological but that they are really large weights suspend over our heads waking down the street. Weight is such a fundamental fact of our world, something a photograph rarely conveys. Why are drawings of anatomy so much clearer then then photographs of corpses? Anyway I digress.
I think Downes is much like William Turner whose pictures of vast immeasurable space lead us to what you describe as an unfulfilling emptiness or vacuousness. But the more one looks into reality the more emptiness one finds. To my mind and artist like Downes addresses reality at a much more fundamental level then a Norman Rockwell who bypasses the whole issue through the use of photos. The Rockwell paintings I have seen in person always looked like they are glued onto the surface of the canvas, IMHO. I am not trying to start a Norman Rockwell battle. I know everyone here thinks his great. I have no problem with that.
Like Laurence wrote about Downes, his work can look banal. But painting are not really meant to be seen in reproduction or on the internet. Its like turning the painting back into a photo. I was never that impressed with Turner's painting having only seen them in reproduction, until I actually saw them in the Tate. Not all of Downes painting are great but the MOMA has one of his paintings of a Bayou that had such a feeling of expansive space it was exhilarating. One can not crave into space with a photo the way the mind can when it has an understanding of space. The way space can be thought is immeasurable. It's how space feels, it's how our eye and or body travels through space. Nature does not try to convince us of anything the way advertising does and because it doesn't it is infinitely more satisfying.
What did Nietzsche say about happiness, “For happiness, how little suffices for happiness!…the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard’s rustling, a breath, a wisk, an eye glance—little maketh up the best happiness."
Hi Kev
Sorry to hear about your wrist.
You wrote
"It just occurred to me that what we mean by subject matter is the artist's reference to something objective, some thing or event out there in the world. Which is to say, most people mean object matter by "subject matter." The actual subject matter of a picture is actually then, the transformation of the object matter.
So it is an artist's treatment (as well as selection) of the objective elements he references that is his true subject matter."
Exactly, well said. That's what i have been trying to get across for a long time. The "subject matter," are the objects seen in the picture. A landscape, a portrait, a genre scene, a still life, the human body etc... It's how the artist develops or how he puts the objects together in his picture not just compositionally but also in how he constructs the forms of the picture. That is the real "subject matter," of the picture. What holds my attention is always how well someone has thought through their subject. Artists are almost always expressing a philosophical viewpoint about reality, again that is only IMHO. One can draw the outline of an arm or one can draw an arm like Michelangelo and the object of the picture is transformed into a fascinating subject. The subject being how Michelangelo has conceived reality or how he sees reality expressing itself in the arm.
Tom, Thanks for your comments on Downes.
All things being part of a system of symbols, means yes, that each takes on new meaning as it is combined with other things. However, a dog understands the face as the origin of his master's actions. The dog will look to the master's face. Degas understood the innate priority of the human face and did things to reorder its priority in a picture quite intentionally. He blotted them out or turned them in dance subordinating them into movement which would then take priority, diffusing the power of the head into a destination of movement. It is an unavoidable part of subject that the human face holds priority and there are ways to diffuse its power, but it can't be simply be ignored because such authority isn't purely visual as its own end. It's not a sentiment or sentimental, but a given that some things are not exclusively visual, as priority itself is part of a picture and part of the seeing process. The notion of priority and which element held court so to speak, was a major part of Degas' art. How he subordinated many powerful elements into movement is one of the things accounting for the power of his art, but never was he unaware of the power of priority, the power of contrasts of light or contrasts of color for example and how they interacted with or submitted to the prioritization of the human head. Even how we understand a black dropping back into space and coming forward in another place in the same picture is something that is not purely about the depth of the tone or its relation to other tones or colors, but to our preexisting understanding and acceptance of space. Such is an intimate part of Degas' art. Where modern realist artists may tend to subordinate things to space and light, Degas incorporated priorities and strong contrasts into movement and with regard to the natural priority of the human head.
Chris, I appreciate the distinction you made between the experienced and the 'known'. Understanding through language is experienced in its own curious way. I am experiencing something as I understand you and it is not without its accompanying reflective space, clarity and feeling. There is tenderness in reflectively contemplating upon something. What is known to one is news to another. There is a quality that travels through languages and that is supplied by the living parties and I think enlivening this sense of being is part of what art is about.
I am not quite sure why you brought up the human head and Degas, except to express the idea that we give visual and moral(?) priority to human beings in the visual field. A dog already in a master servant relationship my respond to the master first because of the given relationship, but a wolf in the wild who has not become a servant will see the relationship differently.
An apple on a table catching the the last of the evening light my strike one as beautiful while someone who is hungry will have a totally different response to the apple.
People will often find delight in arrangements of color and value before they even know what the objects of a painting are.
It seems verbal ideas are not the stuff of the visual arts, at least not for the maker of art. That has been my experience. An artist my want to do a painting of an important man because of his upright moral character. But once the actual work begins it is how and what relationships that the artist establishs between the parts that becomes the true subject. The steepness of the forehead, the depth of the eye socket, describing the terrain of the head itself becomes a much greater motivating factor for the artist because such concerns allows the artist to do deal with the specifics that can be conveyed by his given medium.
I would go as far to say it is in the learning of how to create a language/geometry for drawing things, that the artist reveals his true philosophical understanding of nature. Or the better the portrait the deeper the understanding.
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