This illustration by Jon Whitcomb contrasts a creamy, flawless figure with a violent, abstract background.
Similarly, this illustration by Piotr Leśniak frames a meticulous drawing with a chaotic background:
Vivian Dehning's recent "photo illustration" in the New York Times covers a photograph of a woman with a wild crayon scribble.
Normally the elements of a picture are expected to work together, rather than clash in contumacious oppugnancy.
There are limitless ways for artists to combine opposites so that they work together to add useful contrast:
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| Norman Rockwell |
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| Austin Briggs |
Hard black line contrasted with soft watercolor can often be a productive combination of extremes.
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| Note how the color is flat but the line contributes volume |
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| Sempé uses black line sparingly in fields of pastel color |
However, sometimes the two extremes just sit side by side, yelling at each other. They aren't glued together by form, content or any of art's other epoxies. The artist just seems to enjoy the collision.
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One of my cranky friends derides this kind of contrast as "empty" because he finds it devoid of purpose. Without a discernible expressive intent, he finds the contrast to be neither significant nor interesting.
The purpose of the random scribble in Vivian Dehning's "photo illustration," above, might be construed as a comment on the mistreatment of women in the photograph. This purpose, however, is hardly enough to save such a ridiculous image.
I don't claim to be ecstatic about either the Leśniak or the Whitcomb examples. Still I think it's worth considering the notion of "collision" as an aesthetic concept in and of itself. Abstract expressionism proved that not all collisions require an "intent" to be interesting.
Placing realism and abstraction side by side may make an unruly mess, but there is often "intent" to be found, even in purely abstract forms. Could placing freedom and control next to each other be viewed as a way of challenging the reason of each for being? Could their juxtaposition be a reminder that the realistic, controlled three dimensional portion is still, after all, just an illusion, a two dimensional fake no more trustworthy than the adjacent random mess? Or could the collision of the two extremes be a way of dissing the hard labor of the skillful extreme? A postmodernist attack on obsolete talents? An attempt to blow up conventional taste? It's worth looking for potential for artistic value, even in collisions.
17 comments:
The Whitcomb doesn't need an intent because "beauty is its own excuse for being." The rest of these are shit.
"Placing realism and abstraction side by side may make an unruly mess, but there is often "intent" to be found, even in purely abstract forms."
- I'm not sure about 'intent' or what your own use of it here was, but I certainly don't see anything wrong with mark-making / patterning that is only vaguely or not at all figurative, it can be looked at as a subset or analogous to the patterns in nature at the very small or large (usually what is outside of normal human experience) scales, and even a kind of subset of it.
But
" Could placing freedom and control next to each other be viewed as a way of challenging the reason of each for being?
Could their juxtaposition be a reminder that the realistic, controlled three dimensional portion is still, after all, just an illusion, a two dimensional fake no more trustworthy than the adjacent random mess? "
brings in two wholly different modes - the (i) figurative and the (ii) 'idea', or rather the worst sort of thing, the 'concept' soldered on to a visual in a way that doesn't arise from any natural relation.
And then, worse again, making a further level of chimera of this by attaching it to figurative elements (which have an internal meaning-image relation that makes an indivisible, organic whole).
I think the 'mix' works, or can work, if the 'abstract/expressionist' marks are patterns at the aesthetic level, then it's little different to a figure in a setting which is so indefinite or oblique as to be pure pattern.
Otherwise, well, Rockwell nailed it.
Or it's a gimmick to hide an imaginative impasse the artist can't get over, or make it into an element of the picture.
Bill
There's a variety of different things going on in these examples, however the most irritating to me is the Lesniak. When arbitrary graphic marks sit on the surface of the image (rather than contributing to the 3D illusion) they are essentially just 'decorative' for the sake of it. You could remove that red scribbly border and replace it with any number of different versions, as it's basically throwaway jazzy-decorative nonsense.
p.s.
notice in the Whitcomb that as well as the marks going behind her, she's also casting a slight shadow on the surface of the Pollock-style 'painting' as if she's emerging through a piece of painted fabric. So it's not a completely flat graphic layer. There was a trend in the 40s and 50s for fashion shoots featuring parts of models emerging through torn paper etc so it could well be that Whitcomb was influenced by that.
The Briggs is very smart and concise as visual storytelling. There's something deep to be learned about the elegiac effect of the duality. It reminds me of The Nabis' (Vouillard et al) contention that every emotion had an abstract visual analog. By merging the top half of the boy with the background, he creates an origin spot of unity from which the rest of the picture spreads.
The decorative use of "modern art abstractions" - as with the Whitcomb (decorative background) and Lesniak (decorative frame) - cleanly demonstrates the inherent decorative character of "High" Modern Art.
When Piet Mondrian and his pals were formulating their design style, they were looking at Frank Lloyd Wright's stained glass window designs. Wright never had any qualms about functional decorative work, he didn't denigrate decorative art by trying to play it up as "Fine Art" with its perceived higher gallery status. Everything had its place before the status-seeking wordcel neurotics took over the art world. But everything finds its proper level anyway, entropy takes its course against false constructs. Now, Modern Art Museums make great tote bags and t-shirts with their graphic art stock. One of the great uses of Mondrian's work was the Rubik's Cube.
Just when I thought that The New Yorker was leading the Cultural-Intellectuals-as-Kindergarteners regression race, we get Dehning's playpen scribbles for the NYT. (Notably, the photos scribbled-over look "found" - which is sophist for pinched. If you're lazy, childish, and distracted, postmodernism is your apologetics!)
Rockwell's classic complex commentary on Modern Art, Confusion and Pretension has a second level of depth which is even more pointed. Which is that, starting from zero, it took him all of two weeks to figure out the involved techniques and design ideas. And produce and execute his modern art Action Painting design. Flawlessly integrated into his narrative idea/figuration for THE high-pressure national stage for illustration The Saturday Evening Post. On deadline.
I'm the Lesńiak work, the background is spilling from the shirt. Decorative patterns in textiles have a long tradition. I see this as the modern and stylized version of a portrait with a tapestry as backdrop.
Doh, that's me.
"I'm the Lesńiak..." is "In the Lesńiak...". Phone autocorrect be damned.
I work on the assumption that an artist--or a composer or author--knows what he's doing, and then try to work out what that might be. But it's only a starting presumption, not necessarily the truth. Rockwell I think clearly has a plan. The scribbled borders might be one, which I only so-so appreciate. The New York Times scribbling over photos looks like someone trying to follow a trend he doesn't understand. Never uncommon, but there used to be editors to prevent actually going to print that way.
Kev Ferrara-- Yes, I have to wonder what exactly the art director for the NYT does to earn his salary. In recent years, what should have been recognized as a shameful dereliction of duty-- adding random squiggles to a photograph to humanize it (see e.g.https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2024/05/illustrating-end-of-world.html ) has become the lazy artist's cliché. Dehning's illustration was done for an editorial about Jeffrey Epstein, and it does convey, as you suggest, a "kindergarten" level message that pedophilia is bad. But when you compare this level of sophistication with the dozens of conceptual illustrations that have wrestled, for example, with the subject of Lolita (https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2024/11/lolitas-litmus-test.html ) you see how truly impoverished Dehning's solution is.
As for your other point about "the inherent decorative character of "High" Modern Art," we will have to continue to disagree. Your term "decorative" is the most neutered version of what I think are more appropriate terms, such as design, composition, construction, architecture, as well as the important aesthetic concepts that accompany them-- harmony, tension, balance, potency, etc.
MORAN-- I disagree that "the rest of these are shit" but I do think your point about beauty is important. I'd say that the Whitcomb piece is beautiful while the Leśniak and the Dehning pieces are not. This goes back to the importance of design that I was discussing with Kev Ferrara. Turn that Whitcomb upside down to obscure its content and its colors and composition still work.Turn the Leśniak and the Dehning pieces upside and they don't. They're really pretty unsuccesful.
Laurence John-- I agree with you about the Lesniak-- I find it irritating despite the fact that the technical skill behind the drawing of the face is pretty darn impressive. The face really stands out, which of course makes you wonder what the heck it's doing in that picture. It is, as Thoreau said, a trout in the milk.
That's an interesting observation about 1940s and 50s model shoots. I do think I give the Whitcomb more credit because it's such a snazzy example of that 1950s post-war style-- so sharp and crisp and stylish.
xopxe-- I think you're being pretty generous to the Lesńiak. A textile background would extend behind the head, rather than disintegrating into friable ingredients a safe distance from his head, and the strange interaction with his short collar would consistent with the interaction with his head.
Bill wrote, "I certainly don't see anything wrong with mark-making / patterning that is only vaguely or not at all figurative"
Thank you! I totally agree.
Bill also wrote, "...brings in two wholly different modes..."
Exactly my point! Even if these wild splashes and scribbles don't advance the narrative, it's still possible for them to earn their space in the picture if they contribute to the mood of the picture or they raise epistemological or ontological questions about the realism going on in the center of the canvas, or even if they just pull down the pants of the realism.
Of course, all of these different contrasts can be done well or done poorly. I'm sure that some artists add these wild elements just to keep an old fashioned artist from looking so old fashioned. If that's the game, I suggest we are better off without the artificial contrast added in.
Robert Piepenbrink-- Rockwell did indeed "have a plan." He thought long and hard about his plan, and about all of the ingredients he would need to coordinate in order to maximize his plan for his audience. It shows.
" [T]here used to be editors to prevent actually going to print that way." Amen, brother. I wonder if we could program AI editors to have higher standards when reviewing AI art?
Dehning's illustration was done for an editorial about Jeffrey Epstein, and it does convey, as you suggest, a "kindergarten" level message that pedophilia is bad.
I didn't see the article, and you didn't provide context. So the editorial subject is news to me.
I suppose, now understanding the context, the point is to suggest that some traumatized child is scribbling over pictures of his or her tormentor. In some inchoate wholly-symbolic act of lashing out in rejection or revenge.
It isn't a Kindergarten-level idea. But it also has no currency past the basic understanding of its point. It's more like an insert shot from a generic police procedural show, created by a hurried art department, than a work of illustration art. Once you get it, it's gotten. Cut. Next shot.
The art director is thinking like a tv director.
NYT’s audience is well versed in design and in abstract mark-making as an art form. They would recognize that Dehning’s marks are the strongest of these examples: most beautiful, most artfully designed, most alive, most fashionable. They may not know Art, but they are generally well educated in design.
The fact that she used a photograph directly, rather than translating it into another medium the way Whitcomb and Lesniak did, does not bother me either, I think I prefer it. If I am going to look at photos (or copies of photos), I would rather see them straight from the source. I am not sure there is any benefit to Lesniak’s conversion. Something is always lost when a photo is translated into a drawing, and almost nothing is ever gained.
I also think that in Dehning’s work, the synthesis of figurative and abstract elements is slightly more resolved when compared with mere background or border. At least the two are in conflict. To me, it is the strongest example of your point among the images here, other than the Briggs.
PS:
I do not think the Rockwell really counts, since it is fully figurative. The figuration depicts an abstract artwork on a wall, which is a real object, but the marks themselves are not abstract in any way relative to the logic of the represented world.
Kev Ferrara-- i didn't provide context for any of these pictures, in part because I didn't know it. But I suppose it's fair to say that, since the Dehning picture is the least comprehensible of all these offerings, it would've made sense to explain more of the background if we're going to discuss whether these kinds of contrast must reflect a purpose or intent to be artistically valid.
So to be more precise, the Dehning image is from an op-ed abot "America's continued assault on women," which discusses why the increasing number of women attending law school haven't been able to do enough to change the laws on marital rape and women's rights. (The author says, "Men, frankly we would welcome a moment of gratitude from you that we have not burned this whole damn human enterprise down just yet."). The author commends women like E. Jean Carroll who have had the courage to hold Trump to account for his behavior and she hopes that the current "Epstein moment" will give other women the courage to demand better treatment. So rather than "some traumatized child scribbling over pictures of his or her tormentor," this would seem to be American society mistreating (or scribbling on) female victims. It's clearly not scribbling on a "tormentor." Anyway, you can decide whether that expression of intent makes a difference in your evaluation of the image.
Richard wrote: "Something is always lost when a photo is translated into a drawing, and almost nothing is ever gained."
This is a rather startling assertion. Could you elaborate on that, taking into account Degas, Lautrec, Bonnard, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Eakins, Brangwyn, Gauguin, Mucha, Rockwell, Briggs and Fuchs? If you have answers for those, I'll dig out a dozen more.
Richard also wrote: "NYT’s audience is well versed in design and in abstract mark-making as an art form. They would recognize that Dehning’s marks are the strongest of these examples: most beautiful, most artfully designed, most alive, most fashionable. They may not know Art, but they are generally well educated in design."
Again, I could sure use a little back up here. You're talking about the highly financed engine for some of the silliest and most decadent "high" art and design in American history, artists such as Koons and Holzer and Prince and Schnabel and Rothenberg and Emin and a hundred more like them. I've offered opinions on design and art in the NYT over the years. If you want some specific examples of the reasons for my uncertainty about your claim, please check out:
https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2019/12/four-artists-and-computer.html
https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2019/01/why-are-these-illustrations-so-bad.html
https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2007/02/comics-at-new-york-times.html
https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2019/07/rip-mad-magazine-postscript.html
Finally, I'm most curious about your statement, "Dehning’s marks are the strongest of these examples: most beautiful, most artfully designed, most alive, most fashionable." Assuming this comment is not just the ipse dixit of the new Pythagoras, I would love to learn what makes these particular scribbles "the most beautiful, most artfully designed, most alive, most fashionable."
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