I previously posted a series of life drawings by illustrator Daniel Schwartz. In addition to pencil drawings, Schwartz regularly painted from the model with watercolors.
Schwartz was a highly respected illustrator, winner of eleven gold medals from the Society of Illustrators, yet every week he went back to study from the model.
It seems clear that Schwartz wasn't doing this to learn anatomy. He already understood bone and muscle structure. But long and close observation of the human figure can be an introduction to the greater world of natural forms. It rewards our discipline with enhanced perceptions of wider truths.
Some of the best draftsmen I know, including Robert Fawcett, Bernie Fuchs and Pat Oliphant, underwent rigorous training drawing from the figure early in their careers, yet continued to find fresh discoveries and substantial value by continuing the process late in their careers.
Very tough to thread the needle between haste and accuracy in (what looks like) mostly ten minute studies. One senses the time pressure. I feel only the second one nears the blithe buoyancy of David Levine, and I'd guess that one took a half an hour or more.
ReplyDeleteThe haste of these makes them, imo, less figural studies and more hand-eye-coordination exercises. Interesting to see, nonetheless. Thanks.
Levine and Schwartz were good friends and were both part of the fabled group of "eleven rebels on the roof" who advocated for the ongoing value of realism. (https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2025/09/eleven-rebels-on-roof.html ). I love Levine's watercolors even more than his pen and ink work, but I've never seen Levine do watercolor figure studies; his watercolors seem to be scrubbed and layered to achieve that rich effect, and his choices (such as his frequent use of a stark contrast between a pale figure and a dark background) were very carefully applied on a drawing board after the fact. Even his watercolors that started out on the spot (like his "shmata queens on the beach") were taken back to the studio and carefully reworked. All of which goes to say, can you point me to examples of his "blithe buoyancy" that threaded the needle between haste and accuracy?
ReplyDeleteAs for your reaction to the Schwartz studies, yes, they were all done fairly quickly in front of a model, often when Schwartz was teaching a class on figure drawing. I would say that "accuracy" was important (I give Schwartz more credit for accuracy than you do-- for instance, the astute reverse 3/4 profile on the last picture, or the carefully controlled second to last picture) but it was clearly not the most important thing for him; note the 6th, 7th and 8th pictures.)
Not sure I understand why you think the second picture is so different from the first. It seems to me they are both similar attempts to capture a difficult angle of the head from the same modeling session.
Not sure I understand why you think the second picture is so different from the first.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I meant the third picture (with the blinking hazard lights), not the second one. I glitched and melded the first two together in my mind because they're so similar. The hair alone in the third one is worth the price of admission. It looks dashed off in seconds, but there is a heck of a lot of information being subtly distilled just there into a deft bit of poetry.
"can you point me to examples of his "blithe buoyancy" that threaded the needle between haste and accuracy?
I think all Levine's best watercolors have the quality of blithe buoyancy. Which stems not from haste per se, but from a feeling of impromptu effortlessness in design and execution coupled with penetrating accuracy and humor. All but impossible to accomplish in real time, true. Though that is the presumed goal (or illusion) of most watercolor work when used transparently and broadly as here. (As opposed to Jaimie Wyeth's use of thick opaque watercolor.)
I sense Levine's work as washy; done in cascades, rather than "scrubbed." Burt Silverman once wrote a wonderful article on his own watercolor technique in Step By Step magazine, where he achieved a similar feel. The process even allowed for effortless error correction, a miracle in the watercolor world. However, the paper required for the technique has long since disappeared from art stores, along with its manufacturer from the planet. C'est la vie and so it goes.
I give Schwartz more credit for accuracy than you do-- for instance, the astute reverse 3/4 profile on the last picture
In general I feel that his drawing and aesthetic sensibility is stiffening where it is most accurate, and breaking down where it is too loose. Again, I would posit, the toll of haste - and now that you've shared that these were demonstration pieces - also probably due to split concentration. Not his fault in the grand scheme, but a reality of the pieces you've presented.
The third picture seems to me to be the only one that works as a completed work of art that is at once well balanced, loose yet confident in its drawing and abstract design, and humorously human.
'Burt Silverman once wrote a wonderful article on his own watercolor technique in Step By Step magazine, where he achieved a similar feel. The process even allowed for effortless error correction, a miracle in the watercolor world. However, the paper required for the technique has long since disappeared...'
ReplyDeleteCan you describe the paper ? (I imagine an ideal of a thick, very dense and compressed watercolour paper that has no existence I know of...)
A part of this book (Burt Silverman/Breaking the Rules of Watercolor) was excerpted into some art magazines in the 80s or 90s - https://archive.org/details/breakingrulesofw0000silv/page/n3/mode/2up , which you can 'borrow' like a library loan to view online.
Bill
Kev Ferrara-- yes, Silverman wrote an entire book on breaking the rules of watercolor and produced a splendid body of work that makes his case even better than his words do.
ReplyDeleteI view Silverman's watercolors as closer to what I call Levine's "scrubbed" effect, rather than "washy, done in cascades." I'm referring to that gritty, beaten, organic look that gives watercolors a weathered texture. (Dinnerstein, another one of the eleven realists, sometimes added pumice to his ground.)
For me, the high water mark for Levine was his brilliant watercolors from the 70s which create the desirable illusion of speed and casual application, but on closer examination are much tighter. For example, we see hundreds of detailed wooden slats on his "loose" paintings of the Coney Island roller coaster, where we also see carefully lettered advertising signs, painted with the aid of technical drawing tools. Similarly, we see meticulously painted stripes and patterns on a model's clothing, or individual furrows on the brow of an elderly garment worker, with numerous accurate wrinkles on his T shirt. These details are often juxtaposed against a "washy" background (to excellent effect, not unlike the way Bob Peak would carefully rehearse a drawing and then add rapid slashing lines at the end to create a feeling of spontaneity). Bottom line, I think Levine's watercolors are done on a different timescale, running in a different race, than Schwartz's figure studies. Levine spent more time perfecting the stripes on the model's robe than Schwartz spent on any of these paintings from life.
People are sometimes puzzled by the difference between Levine's small, fine lined, cross hatched drawings and his broad, "washy" watercolors but I think in the end Levine was too careful (and perhaps too anal retentive) as an artist to give "cascading" too long a leash. For me, both styles were done by the same hand (and I prefer his watercolors to his drawings). Schwartz could be precise too (as could Silverman, Dinnerstein and all of the eleven) but he was not as afraid of hydrology as Levine. Schwartz's mature illustration style involved casting liquid medium (turpentine or other) freely on a painted ground, tilting the board and letting the rivulets run down the surface, then coming back and seeking out the natural designs and patterns for a realistic treatment.
Bill-- It looks like you and I have been reading the same material. I think Dinnerstein was the most detailed of the eleven in describing papers. He said he tried to use "good quality, 100% rag paper," minimum two ply, which is "a fine surface to work on." He often used artist paper or boards manufactured by Grumbacher in several surfaces: hot pressed (smooth) and cold pressed (medium rough). He personally recommended Canson papers which had a different surface on each side, one side slightly rougher than the other.
ReplyDeleteBottom line, these guys were working in an era with bountiful choices of quality papers from multiple manufacturers. Today it's a question of which Epson paper will go through your printer without jamming.
Returning to Schwartz, you can see instances in these studies where the thin paper began to crinkle up as a result of even minor contact with water.
Yes, there's a section in that Silverman book which describes treatment most (even heavy & stretched) paper doesn't seem able to take easily. There are quite a few good handmade rag papers, but even these are too spongey.
Delete(Incidentally, for some really lovely work by him, which you probably know already but for anyone else interested, that site also has a great book from a 98/99 Silverman exhibition)
Thanks for these Schwarz pieces.
Bill
Silverman used ‘plate bristol’ paper. ‘Plate’ being the smooth surface version and ‘vellum’ being the textured version. Seems to still be available according to a google search, at least here in the UK.
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DeleteLaurence , Kev - thanks. Yes, there's Strathmore which does great bristol for drawing (though seemingly not as good as the older kinds according to those familiar with them), but it only takes very slight washes.
DeleteBill
EDITED: Yes, the paper was 3-ply to 5-ply plate Bristol. Extremely smooth. But even though (presumably Strathmore) still makes a paper under this name, it is not the same quality as what was produced in the 1970s and 1980s which Silverman (and his pals) used and referenced in his how-to writing. Silverman said in an interview somewhere, sometime afterward, that it could no longer be gotten.
DeleteAdditional tips in the article (A 'Workable' Approach to Watercolor - Step By Step Graphics - Nov-Dec 1989) but not in the book: The paper towels are always Bounty (durable when wet, very absorbent). And he used a No. 2 Charcoal pencil, finely sharpened, to draw into the work, which he said could be painted over.
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ReplyDelete"he was not as afraid of hydrology as Levine.
ReplyDeleteI see no fear in Levine's lovely wash technique. And accuracy hardly makes an artist "anal retentive." Especially someone with Levine's expressive drawing ability. Levine's work is not tricky in the sense of looking for shortcuts to give the effect of looseness. He has it inherently.
Meanwhile, I do find Schwartz's "looseness" to be something of a trick to escape his somewhat stiff drawing and compositioning. (In keeping with a lot of the 1960s and 1970s guys who jazzed up their surfaces to randomly "activate" and "energize" highly photo-referenced work.)
I agree with your assessment of Schwartz, Kev... i've seen nothing by him that is in the same league as David Levine's watercolours.
DeleteThanks for these David, a pleasure to look at during my morning coffee. Being on a laptop screen there's no chance of spoiling them with drips...
ReplyDeleteWhat artist’s call 'touch' is a fundamental aspect of their imaginative grasp of the material along with its manipulation on the surface and I think watercolour tests this aspect in particular, which is why the nature of the papers plays such a strong role. An animal must be approached in tune with its temperament.
One thought on life studies in general: We behold the world through our senses and in terms of our body, so an artist drawing the limbs of a fellow creature is in the act of comprehending a concentrated or focused iteration of the world at large. To outsource this study to a machine (your point about the deleterious effects on an artist’s understanding and skill by using CAD modelling) would be equivalent to an astronaut not doing resistance exercises in a spaceship.
Wonderful. Love the use of the blank paper for the direct light side of the back on the last one.
ReplyDeleteDelicious. More difficult than it looks to stay with primaries to such a degree.
ReplyDelete- - -
Postmodern Anonymouse
chris bennett wrote: "an artist drawing the limbs of a fellow creature is in the act of comprehending a concentrated or focused iteration of the world at large."
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Artists can sharpen their skills and powers of observation by painting a bowl of fruit or a bouquet of flowers, but change the subject to a nude human and suddenly all kinds of new elements-- psychological, sexual, intellectual -- enter the picture. The subject of "artist and model" is one of the most primal, and at the same time one of the most layered, in the history of art.
Many years ago, one of the most popular posts on this blog was an excerpt from the diary of frontier artist Audubon. He led a rugged existence in the wilderness drawing the beautiful lines and shapes of wild birds. Then through a fluke he had the opportunity to draw a nude woman ( what John Updike called "the first known nude American portrait done from life") and wrote that he was as stunned as if he had been "shot through the heart." https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2009/02/audubon-and-veiled-lady.html .
Laurence John wrote: "I agree with your assessment of Schwartz, Kev... i've seen nothing by him that is in the same league as David Levine's watercolours."
ReplyDeleteI think a more productive way to view Schwartz and Levine, and the rest of the eleven realists for that matter, is to recognize that they were all talented and offered a rich variety of images within a particular genre. They were each responsible for creating more successful and less successful works. I would say, for example, that Dinnerstein was not one of the best and yet his magnum opus "Parade" dwarfed the work of the other ten in important respects.
In my opinion, Levine did about 15 - 20 brilliant watercolors where he knocked the ball out of the park. They're the ones we see over and over, the ones reproduced in his book, the ones on which his reputation as a watercolorist is based. After that, there's a drop off, with a lot of more formulaic or repetitive images. If you compare Levine's top 20 finished watercolors with Schwartz's rapid figure studies, you might well conclude that the two artists are "not in the same league." However, if you look at Schwartz's finished watercolors (such as his peeled orange: https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2025/09/eleven-rebels-on-roof.html ) the playing field levels up mighty quickly, IMO. And when you turn to oil painting, which was Schwartz's preferred medium (and the source of his 11 gold medals from the Society of Illustrators), Levine wasn't even in the running, just as Schwartz didn't work in pen and ink as Levine did.
In his later years, Schwartz did literally hundreds of pencil drawings from the model. It would be easy for me to pick out 20 that I find far superior to any such pencil drawings I've seen from Levine, but what would be the point? We are not at the dog track. Far better, I think, to say, "Here's why I like this drawing, here's why I like that drawing, and here's why a particular drawing falls short in my eyes."
David, we've discussed the problems with the Schwartz 'magnum opus' oil painting in two separate posts. It doesn't need to be re-hashed. And I don't know what you think is so great about the peeled orange painting. It's a straightforward still life with a flattened pictorial space, and a pointlessly distracting (to me) washy background that resembles stone or leather. Do you have a link to see a selection of what you consider to be the best oils ?
DeleteLaurence John-- we seem to be entering a level of analysis that I'd love to discuss in person with 50 images in front of us, but which is very difficult to have trading a few urls on line. I wish there was a source on line with dozens of paintings by Schwartz and Levine and others we could use. I've posted a smattering of images myself in the past. Can I ask how you compare Schwartz's portrait of Henry Kissinger (https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2014/10/daniel-schwartz.html ) with Levine's portraits?
ReplyDeleteIt's OK that you don't care for the Schwartz painting of oranges. Personally, I've never seen another artist who was assigned to paint oranges who created such an interesting and unconventional response, with that partial peel. Schwartz found grays and blues and greens and deep reds in the color "orange," yet he still qualified as a "realist." We've discussed that organic, "scrubbed" feel to the picture, which you either like or you don't. I agree with you about about the "flattened pictorial space," but Schwartz himself deliberately flattened it out with the dominating carve out shape of the vignette. This is a feature, not a bug, in a design-centric, post abstract-expressionist image. This approach might make more sense viewed in the context of Schwartz's fine art paintings from around the same time; for example he did a whole series of waterside paintings with realistic figures in a flattened pictorial space, where the luminous colors and the shapes were the whole point. Such paintings are scattered throughout the internet, and many of his gallery paintings are not on the internet at all. But we could scroll through a thousand illustrations of oranges and not find that level of choice and innovation-- hardly what I'd call a "straightforward still life."
Similarly, while I'm not wild about the final version of Schwartz's "running man" magnum opus, he did several preliminary paintings, far more loose and liquid, which are in my opinion equal to any of Levine's paintings. He also did a series of beach paintings shortly before Levine began doing his beach paintings, that are similar in tone and and in my opinion every bit as good as Levine's beach paintings. (see e.g.,https://www.bridgemanimages.com/en-US/schwartz-daniel-bennett/the-rock-1967-oil-on-canvas/oil-on-canvas/asset/155606 ).
To provide context for my point, I suppose it would make sense to assemble a collection of Schwartz's fine art images, which are on collectors' walls and pretty much spread to the four winds right now. But of course, that's a lot of what this blog tries to do-- pull together unpublished images, collect scarce pictures, dig out preliminary drawings I admire. I'll see what I can do.
Ultimately, our differences of opinion may stem from the way that Schwartz opened the door to more abstraction, which I understand is an unforgivable sin in the eyes of many here.
The Kissinger Portrait is one of Schwartz's best uses of reference photography. Though the assignment is commonplace, he did make a work of art out of it through the sensitive drawing, abstractions and illusion of spontaneity.
ReplyDeleteWas he ever as clear and sure in his artistry again? I'm not sure. Attempting to willfully conduct surface "spontaneity" to alleviate inherent stiffness seemed to be his preoccupying artistic struggle, still palpable in many of his pieces. I think Austin Briggs solved the problem more efficiently by avoiding rendering entirely and sticking to agitating lines.
"Ultimately, our differences of opinion may stem from the way that Schwartz opened the door to more abstraction, which I understand is an unforgivable sin in the eyes of many here."
Please define what you mean by "abstraction". In some way that distinguishes it from meaninglessly diverting arty surface gibberish. You're a smart man - neither stubborn nor hidebound - and by now you are surely convinced there is an articulable difference.
Kev Ferrara wrote: "Please define what you mean by "abstraction"."
ReplyDeleteA fair point. I've been scolding people since the beginning of this blog that abstraction is at the heart of all good art, no matter how realistic or photographic the picture might be.
What I meant about Schwartz in this instance, when he was criticized for "flattened pictorial apace," is that he was perfectly capable of painting depth in a room or on a table top (having studied alongside Silverman and others for years) but that he deliberately chose to untether himself from the rules of painting depth, and to flatten the shapes, throwing out the descriptive details, accentuating the importance of the geometric shapes with little regard for their subject matter. In the same vein, he pushed the colors in a way that took him further from an accurate, realistic image than the other ten "realists" would normally go. My argument to Laurence John is that he is perfectly entitled to dislike Schwartz's flattening approach but if he thinks it's caused by a simple inability to paint figures in 3D space, that's not correct.
For me, the "running man" painting is a lesser example of this, with figures against a flat red background but the painting by Schwartz just below the Kissinger painting I cited is one of a large series where I think Schwartz did a good job flattening the figures and the background colors.
David, the Kissinger portrait is standard issue Fuchs-ish photo-ref stuff of the era. I don't see any of Levine's that look traced in that way.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, I understand it's hard to find a good source for Schwartz's other works. Googling the oils the one that jumps out to me is the two boys sitting on the grass (1990). It reminds me of Michael Andrew's painting 'Melanie and me swimming' ...
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/andrews-melanie-and-me-swimming-t02334
... a large painting i saw as a young man at the Tate in London, and was very impressed by, but now just seems like an exercise in converting the exaggerated shifts of colour and flattening of space of an under-exposed photo into a painting. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, but it seems like a formal exercise for the sake of it. Many previous painters I like explored the 'flattened pictorial space' thing, such as Whistler and Degas, as did Levine. At the end of the day it can feel a bit like a gimmick that wows the painterly nerds, but has no real point. I'm willing to accept that this is my own weariness with painting showing at this point. Much of it just seems like technical / formal tricks for the sake of showing off.
While i agree that the Schwartz beach paintings are almost on par with Levine, they lack the observational bite, and the decisive mark of the best Levine work. That small area of sharp observation that provides a focal point while you go fast and loose with other large areas. See the hands and face in the 4th image down in this post for example.
https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2008/01/david-levine.html
btw, (you can print this on a t-shirt): it's ALWAYS about the hands and the faces.
ReplyDeleteIf the hands and the faces in a painting are awkward or fudged then no amount of perceptual trickery - deliberately hard edges, lost edges, desaturated colours, weak values bounded by dark, flattening, texturing, dripping, shallow space - will make the painting great.
Laurence John— I’m just boarding an early morning flight to NY where it will be difficult to respond to your point about Schwartz / Levine with examples but in the interim, here’s a reaction to your T shirt slogan: It’s ALMOST always about the faces and hands— certainly the most expressive parts of a human (although I know some distill that further and say it’s all about the eyes). But we need to respect artists with a different agenda. It wasn’t all about the hands or the faces for Monet or Rodin or many others competing in a different race.
ReplyDeleteAs a relevant anecdote, Mort Drucker (who was great with both faces and hands) once said he didn’t have the luxury of doing “lollipop caricatures” (with a big head and a tiny short hand of a body) because Drucker’s job might require him to draw 20 caricatures of the same person from different angles with different expressions in different lighting, which meant he needed to do full body caricatures, observing the way John Wayne held himself or the way Cary Grant walked or James Caan’s shoulders. MAD relied on Drucker to make a celebrity recognizable from behind, which is why his style was more detailed and realistic than most caricaturists.
David, don't get distracted by trying to come up with counter examples to the point (which I said hyperbolically for comedic effect). This is the key bit ..."they lack the observational bite, and the decisive mark of the best Levine work".
ReplyDeleteTake another look at the woman's face in the 4th image down here: https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2008/01/david-levine.html
It's Sargent-level quality in the way it has to nail it in that key moment or the whole painting fails, and needs to be started again. I see no portion of a Schwartz painting as good as that in its observational brevity.
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ReplyDelete"I've been scolding people since the beginning of this blog that abstraction is at the heart of all good art, no matter how realistic or photographic the picture might be."
ReplyDeleteNo need to scold. On this point you and I, and I think everyone you are arguing against here (and most folks playing the home game, one presumes), agree. Abstraction is foundational to good art.
Therefore, our wrestling with "abstraction" here must be one of definition. (And further, what else is foundational that works in tandem with abstraction.)
"What I meant about Schwartz in this instance,"
Discussing instances is exactly what I was trying to avoid in asking for you to consider what you would find acceptable as a definition of abstraction.
"when he was criticized for "flattened pictorial apace," is that he was perfectly capable of painting depth in a room or on a table top (having studied alongside Silverman and others for years) but that he deliberately chose to untether himself from the rules of painting depth, and to flatten the shapes, throwing out the descriptive details"
I don't think Schwartz's ghost was "criticized" here for flattening pictorial space. I think Laurence simply pointed out that flattening pictorial space was what he was doing. With the further implication that there is nothing miraculous in flattening pictorial space, given that a camera will do it mechanically. And so will tracing. And so will a shadow on a wall, or backlighting, or bloody Grandma Moses.
"accentuating the importance of the geometric shapes with little regard for their subject matter."
Here we go. Now you've lost me. You are de-defining abstraction by combining it with an opposite idea. Abstraction is artful, clever summation; the very point of it is to nail the content and subject matter concisely - minimal means - yet with the utmost fidelity to the original source material. Saying more with less. As the foundation of all poetics, abstraction cannot be mere random decorative stylization. Reduction is not poetic. It is saying less with less. Or saying whatever with less. All forms of infidelity.
"In the same vein, he pushed the colors in a way that took him further from an accurate, realistic image than the other ten "realists" would normally go."
Again, the confusion of random lossy decorative design-stylization with abstraction. Where did this come from? Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie?
I think we all understand that you like visual play; random pretty colors and shapes, flattened space, cartooning, certain kinds of distortions. Which can turn any random scene into some novel graphic design trip. But must you insist that this is abstraction?
This is our fundamental long term disagreement in a nutshell. You seem to think that any intentionally distortive graphic designing or stylization of recognizable visual matter is poetry. Even if the end result is unrecognizable and anaesthetic; requiring verbal explanation.
>>>>>>"Again, the confusion of random lossy decorative design-stylization with abstraction."
DeleteIsn't all abstraction inherently lossy?
~ FV
"Isn't all abstraction inherently lossy?"
Delete'Lossy' implies that salience had been mismanaged and that some key meaning or content had been dropped. Which is only what would happen if you merely simplified the communication of some object of interest in a heedlessly destructive or reductive way. Clarification and concision is the opposite of that and so are not lossy processes (thus neither is poesis.)
To further Kev's excellent points, or rather to frame them in another way:
ReplyDelete"Hi Honey, how was your day?"
"I was late, but things settled down a bit once they saw my portfolio. Their questions were tough though."
"And...?"
"I got the job!"
Abstraction. It is the means by which we know the world, the extraction of meaningful identity from the multiplicity of experience.
"Honey how was your day?"
"Well, I awoke to the alarm which I had set for 5:30. I didn't switch the light on so as not to wake you, but stubbed my toe and cursed and hope this had not awoken you as I went downstairs in my dressing gown to make a cup of instant coffee. I used the mug with the boat picture on it and put an extra half teaspoon to help wake me up. I then opened my laptop and the sound of the hard drive fan was a little higher than usual..."
See what I mean?
Chris, it seems you are making a distinction between being pithy and being verbose. That isn't the same thing as abstraction, I don't think. Or I don't understand what you are trying to contribute. What are you adding?
Delete~ FV
FV, I'm saying that to live in the world, we are necessarily abstracting all the time. Not just in how we report or narrate our experience but how we existentially encounter the world. The hero in my little example negotiates the day with the embodiment of an evolving narrative formed by what he is abstracting out of the world as being important. In other words one's attention is an abstracting out of seeming chaos into meaning. It is inevitable therefore that an artist will be doing the same thing when re-presenting the world as a picture, a film, a story, a song or a poem.
Delete>>>>>>>>"In other words one's attention is an abstracting out of seeming chaos into meaning."
DeleteOne's attention can also focus us down on specific things which are not abstract. And looked at alone without context, they would lack meaning.
~ FV
But the 'focus us down' of attention is the act of abstracting. What we find relevant, worthy of attention is precisely that which we find meaningful. We never, ever, 'look at things alone without context'.
Delete>>>>>>>>>"But the 'focus us down' of attention is the act of abstracting. What we find relevant, worthy of attention is precisely that which we find meaningful."
DeleteSo focusing on detail is now abstraction? So if an artist fills a picture with focused detail as in photorealism it must be a highly abstract work?
Either you aren't explaining yourself well, or you don't have this clear in your own mind. I'm certainly confused by what you're writing.
~ FV
It would help if you were more attentive to what I actually wrote, which was: "...the 'focus us down' of attention is the act of abstracting.
DeleteThis is why you are confusing detail with abstraction.
>>>>>>>""...the 'focus us down' of attention is the act of abstracting."
DeleteIt obviously is not. You might need a primer on abstraction.
~ FV
To abstract is to extract, take out, edit down. I'm in the park on a sunny day, I don't pay attention to the blade of grass, the stone on the path, the trousers of the guy ahead of me, the scuff on his shoe, the sparkle of the girl's earring, the discarded crisp packet... I'm centered on the ice cream van, then the money in my pocket, then buying the soda, then drinking it. Of all the gazzillion things and conditions I could have paid attention to in that moment my thirst abstracted out from the world before me the meaning of a soda in relation to my need.
Delete>>>>>>>"my thirst abstracted out from the world before me the meaning of a soda in relation to my need."
DeleteYou think abstraction is the act of finding and concentrating on something to the exclusion of other things because of some interest or need? That's called focusing. You may as well declare distraction to be a form of abstraction if all that is required is the narrowing of attention. No wonder your posts are so confusing.
~ FV
FV, I appreciate your trying to understand my meaning here, but you are clearly not seeing what I'm pointing to in the way the world manifests to our attention. Unfortunately you are now taking the position that this is a lack only on my part and thereby ending any feeling of a debate in good faith. Thanks for taking the time to push back though.
DeleteKev Ferrara wrote: "Abstraction is artful, clever summation; the very point of it is to nail the content and subject matter concisely - minimal means - yet with the utmost fidelity to the original source material.... This is our fundamental long term disagreement in a nutshell."
ReplyDeleteI always salute and learn from the rigor you bring to these analyses, but we tend to part ways when your rigor turns into rigidity (which the millennia have revealed is rarely a useful tool to bring to art). You've found a particular definition of abstraction you like, and which serves the kind of art that you prefer. That's dandy. But the Oxford English Dictionary lists 19 different definitions of "abstract," and says that the term was only introduced into the visual arts in the 1850s (as opposed to much earlier applications in law and literature.)
You and chris bennett seem to restrict abstraction to "nailing subject matter concisely" or "abstracting out of seeming chaos into meaning" but the predominant uses of the term over the past century say "abstract" art serves a different purpose, shattering the rules that bound us, piercing the visual surfaces that are familiar to us, re-examining ontological elements of pictures. (Note Katharine Kuh's influential history of modern art from Monet to Pollock, "Break-Up: The Core of Modern Art." And I've previously quoted Holland Carter's explanation for cubism: "The day of pure optical pleasure was over; art had to be approached with caution and figured out. It wasn't organic, beneficent, transporting. It was a thing of cracks and sutures, odors and stings, like life. It wasn't a balm; it was an eruption. It didn't ease your path; it tripped you up.")
Before you try to use your definition to banish modern abstract art from the land of artistic legitimacy like some super ICE agent, I'll remind you that the Latin etymology of abstract ("abstractus") is not a "clever summation" but rather means to split, drag away, or forcibly remove-- much closer to Katharine Kuh's version than yours.
But to return (thankfully!) to the question of abstraction in Schwartz's pictures, I don't know what I could have said that would lead you to conclude that I think "any intentionally distortive graphic designing or stylization of recognizable visual matter is poetry. Even if the end result is unrecognizable and anaesthetic." I've maligned and ridiculed plenty of "intentionally distortive graphic designing or stylization" on this blog. It's one of my favorite things to do.
Distinguishing between good and bad "intentionally distortive graphic designing or stylization," and finding beauty in unfamiliar forms is a subtler and more complex process than simply checking to see if a picture comports with the gospel according to Harvey Dunn. It's incumbent upon people who do see value in these kinds of abstraction to explain themselves and justify that value in ways that are persuasive. But it's a cinch those people won't be dissuaded by telling them, "I've got a definition here that explains your type of art is illegitimate."
Since the word "abstract" dates back to Middle English, it might not be inapposite to point out that Chaucer's artistic immortality stems in large part from his willingness to embrace vernacular dialects, to scavenge words and street slang from different sources and be open to useful infusions that would one day be standardized into the elegant, Early Modern English of Shakespeare and Milton. That's how I always think of art that lives and evolves; art that is lusty, robust, energized by street spirit, not afraid of change but not misled by it either. If you interrupted one of Chaucer's fart jokes by telling him, "excuse me sir but my definition of 'abstract' is the only legitimate one," he would laugh at you with a lusty, robust laugh.
David, 'to abstract from...' implies an artist translating something seen in reality into abstract marks that represent that thing in some sort of illusionistic way. The more common usage as in the term 'abstract art' usually refers to a non-representational image.
DeleteOver the years you've tried to compare the 'abstract' marks of 'abstract art' by the likes of Kline and Frankenthaler to the 'abstract' marks that coalesce to form the illusionistic images in works by Fawcett, Briggs etc.
I've never liked this because it feels like an attempt to suggest they're both doing the same thing, when they're obviously not. The marks in an anything-goes piece of abstract expressionism do not have the same concerns as those in an illusionistic image, even if they look superficially similar when viewed close up.
>>>>>>>>"Note Katharine Kuh's influential history of modern art from Monet to Pollock, "Break-Up: The Core of Modern Art." And I've previously quoted Holland Carter's explanation for cubism:"
DeleteModernist scholars tout the dumbed-down Modernist definitions of abstract! Can you believe it! Also, water is wet! News at 11!
What kind of arguments are these? It's all basic appeal-to-authority fallacies.
"Chaucer disagrees with you!" is even worse. (What is this, a séance? And never mind "What are you, ICE?" Which is just pure libtard politics out of left field.)
I'm looking for a reasonable technical discussion with intelligent arguments.
~ FV
A little history. All the definitions of abstract go back to Aristotle's understanding of abstraction. Except that of the Modernists. So obviously the Modernists or their PR people just used the idea and term incorrectly and spread it. And now we're stuck with their error because intellectuals are herd animals who will revere and repeat any intellectual bullshit published in book form or taught in college.
DeleteLaurence John wrote: "I've never liked this because it feels like an attempt to suggest they're both doing the same thing, when they're obviously not."
ReplyDeleteI agree they're not doing the same thing yet they share many of the same attributes and can be judged in part by the same aesthetic standards. It's interesting that you mention Fawcett, one of my heroes, because when I was a young boy reading his classic work, "On The Art of Drawing," I was impressed by the way abstraction infused his discussions of traditional realistic draftsmanship. His views really stuck with me, and reappeared in many of these blog posts.
For example, Fawcett wrote that as he worked on an illustration, realistic details inevitably came into focus, but “the longer the idea can be considered in the abstract, the better.”
He scoffed at critics who argued that realism was old fashioned and had been superseded by abstract modernism, replying that this view “demonstrates a misconception that abstract qualities are new to contemporary painting, whereas they have been the comparison of excellence since painting began.“
A sophisticated appreciator of classical music, Fawcett wrote that abstract drawing "is probably as close to music as drawing can come."
Given his recurring comments about abstraction, it shouldn't be surprising that he was friends with many modern artists such as Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland.
To put your point to the test, I'd refer you to this drawing by Fawcett: https://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2013/03/warring-with-trolls-part-2.html . Look at the close ups of the marks he made on paper; they have a great deal of character with a wide range of shapes and sizes and physical attributes. It would have been faster and easier to draw realistically with straightforward descriptive lines, so why did Fawcett draw with marks that are beautiful and varied in the manner of Motherwell or Kline?
FV-- If you're looking for "intelligent arguments," you'll probably get a lot farther if you don't dismiss "modernist scholars" you've never read for having "dumbed down modernist definitions" you don't know. As good ol' Seneca said, "If you judge, investigate."
ReplyDeleteI have a a lot of problems with modernist art scholars starting with the daddy of them all, Clement Greenberg, and with the treatises and manifestoes of intellectual artists such as Kandinsky, but they tend to be hyper intellectual, and anything but "dumbed down."
>>>>>>>"but they tend to be hyper intellectual, and anything but "dumbed down."
DeleteI love that you still think "hyper-intellectual" can't be stupid beyond belief and blindingly ignorant. How cute and quaint. I don't know what world you live in.
Koh herself didn't think much of her understanding of art. She considered herself an outsider, forever and always. An abiding fan of Modernism. Aside from the short fan-girlish artist bios, "Break up" is a one note discussion of fragmentation as a theme in the various modernist painting movements. There's no meat to it. Van Gogh broke up color. Check. The cubists broke up perspective or something. Check.
It is certainly not about the theory of abstraction because it is not a philosophy book. It's more like a Sunday slide lecture by a passionate and nerdy nun. It is by a lay-person for lay-people.
That you touted it as some hefty, brilliant and important read about abstraction (gambling that I'd never seen it) is an interesting tell.
~ FV
Anonymous-- Ummm, wouldn't you say that abstraction precedes Aristotle, at least as far back as Plato's "forms" (which would seem to be the embodiment of abstraction, as defined by Kev)?
ReplyDeleteI think your idea that modernist PR people used Aristotle's definition incorrectly and now we're stuck with their error is pretty funny.
Aristotle's theory is the one that pertains to this discussion. Where are you sniffing out references to Platonic forms?
DeleteIt is pretty funny that people still think 20th century cultural intellectuals weren't mostly blowhards publicizing themselves.
Platos forms would be the ultimate concrete, no ? I.e., the opposite of abstraction. Everything else is their partial instantiation.
DeleteA hyperdetailed drawing of a leaf is a concrete (though less so than its archetype in the Plato hierarchy), as is a whole noodly filigree of them in a painting of a tree by William Dyce.
But so is a few strokes of a pen suggesting one blowing in a breeze (where the limits of what is expressed, or can be expressed, nonetheless is not a hindrance to the expression of the subject's perceived/intuited quality with precision). Or any other kind of drawing or painting attuned to its subject & expressed in a similar way, which can eliminate much information yet remain precise to whatever part(s) of the exact qualitative poetry of the subject that is/are attended to.
And so is a system of lines on a canvass - whose 'meaning' is solely their own pattern and qualities; or coloured splodges; or ........ etc, etc.
These are also concrete in the way a painting of a pattern in nature with a circumscribed context might be, of, say, giraffe hide, or a portion lichen against stone texture. Patterns of vibration like music as in Fawcett's recognition.
A painting of pattern with no qualitative relation to a phoney meaning attributed to it is abstract (but the splatters are concrete when correctly observed solely as a pattern of splatters).
The shorthand Rembrandt sometimes used to represent foliage in his ink drawings is also an abstraction, but of an intermediate kind. The symbol has a partial qualitative concurrance with the thing represented, like a pictograph on its way to becomming a letter (but if Plato was right, the symbol - but only at that at that cusp on the turning horizon towards abstraction - is also 'concrete'. And instanced in things like light split by folage into rays, & suns painted by children, or carved on prehistoric stones)
Bill
(The anon you were replying to wasn't me - apologies for butting in)
Anonymous-- not sure where you're going here. Plato's concept of the forms, in addition to being a predicate for Aristotle, is exactly the kind of abstraction that Kev and Chris are talking about. When Kev says, "Discussing instances is exactly what I was trying to avoid," that's what Plato was trying to avoid: Don't show me examples of a chair, I seek the conceptual essence of a chair, the Platonic form. But I'm guessing that someone first felt that inspiration a good 20,000 years before Plato or Aristotle.
ReplyDelete"Kev says, "Discussing instances is exactly what I was trying to avoid," that's what Plato was trying to avoid"
DeleteNo he said "Discussing instances is exactly what I was trying to avoid in asking for you to consider what you would find acceptable as a definition of abstraction." And he said that, I presume, because you switched on a dime from saying you would provide that general definition (which you said was a fair ask) to instead offering instances and examples of abstraction from Schwartz's work. (I presume, frustrated that you didn't provide what you had promised, he then guessed at your definition of abstraction based on what he could discern from the examples of abstraction you provided.)
Obviously human abstraction goes back further than history. But we were speaking of its definitions. Which is why Aristotle needed a mention. I still see no evidence of Plato in Ferrara unless your claim is that definitions themselves are transcendental or metaphysical in nature. Which is a bizarre idea. What definition doesn't get at the essential characteristics of the thing being defined?
I can't speak to Bennett's position until he clarifies it.
I never intended this to be a post about abstraction; if I had, I would've loaded a lot more source material. But as always, I follow the string wherever the discussion takes it.
ReplyDeleteTwo pieces of background from wiki that I think could be useful for some commenters: First, that historically there have been different definitions of abstraction for art, philosophy, music, mathematics, neurology, psychology, etc. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction). Second, that the idea of "abstract art" as it has been commonly used for over a century but denied by a few resolute hardliners here has a longer and healthier involvement in the history of art than some might suspect. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_art)
David, If these drawings are quick demos as you say, then they're accurate enough to believe the last batch of pencils you posted by Daniel Schwartz were done directly from life. Those drawings were quite sensitive and accurate. Accurate enough for one comment to suggest they were traced and knowing he worked in the Fuchs school of projected drawings, it seemed likely they were traced and that left me disappointed after responding so positively to them on an emotional level.
ReplyDeleteBut these life drawings have the same touch, accuracy and approach of traced drawings but aren't. He appears to have learned to draw as the Fuchs artists traced through that era, relying heavily on the outline shape drawn with a very light touch. But to do such from life and bringing it to the interior as in the last batch of pencils is no small trick and leaves me with a greater appreciation of his skills.
I’m seeing an influence of McMullen in the use of the red outline
and blue in the top two drawings. Of course Levine took
advantage of the nature of watercolor itself. They too
were a real surprise from his familiar NY Times drawings.
As for Fawcett and the mid-century illustrators who loved
black ink, charcoal and digging into that graphic communication
of line as weight, shape, shadow, space, movement, bristling leaves
and anything else one could make a line do, either one loves it
or they don’t. I love that stuff and I know you do too. No question,
the Daniel Schwartz pencil drawings possessed a sensitivity that
reaches one on a different and tender level.
I think I mentioned this story once, but forget. I met an old animator on the train back in the mid 70s and he was showing me his phone book full of artists and musicians names and I asked him if he had any favorites and he said with a big smile, I love it all. I understood what he meant. He loved the life of it.
David: "I agree they're not doing the same thing yet they share many of the same attributes and can be judged in part by the same aesthetic standards"
ReplyDeleteNo they can't. To repeat; 'the marks in an anything-goes piece of abstract expressionism do not have the same concerns as those in an illusionistic image, even if they look superficially similar when viewed close up'.
It does not matter if they look superficially similar. They are doing different things. The lines in a Fawcett or Briggs were not meant to be viewed in isolation.
David: "It would have been faster and easier to draw realistically with straightforward descriptive lines, so why did Fawcett draw with marks that are beautiful and varied in the manner of Motherwell or Kline ?"
The variation in the brush and line-work of someone like Fawcett is done to suggest the varying textures of the surfaces and forms in the illusionistic image he's depicting. Their 'beauty' is down to how eloquently / suggestively they describe the overall image. A huge thick black brush stroke in a Kline is not describing anything in particular, nor is it meant to.
If you can't understand this difference then there's no point continuing the discussion.
You and chris bennett seem to restrict abstraction to "nailing subject matter concisely" or "abstracting out of seeming chaos into meaning" but the predominant uses of the term over the past century say "abstract" art serves a different purpose, shattering the rules that bound us, piercing the visual surfaces that are familiar to us, re-examining ontological elements of pictures.
ReplyDeleteDavid, as a lawyer, you'll have to do better than that, what you're calling 'abstraction' is just the transgressions of practices. According to your definition if I were to take a dump on the table at a dinner party or lay under the table while talking to someone I could be excused for performing an act of abstraction.
But if such a scene were sketched, it would be figuration. This is all so difficult...
ReplyDelete