tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post4034536038024792569..comments2024-03-28T09:33:38.032-04:00Comments on ILLUSTRATION ART: NEW BOOK: A LIFE IN INK BY RALPH STEADMAN David Apatoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-21757700399189607082021-01-28T12:16:17.299-05:002021-01-28T12:16:17.299-05:00You missed mentioning his work for Pink Floyd'...You missed mentioning his work for Pink Floyd's "The Wall" album. That's where I first found him. He also then did the intro to the very successful TV show "Yes Minister".<br /><br />I somehow felt he drew from Ronald Searle but had a harder meaner edge to his drawings.<br /><br />Great posts of late! I'm learning about many more artists in the last few than ever before.Untitledhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05167338867779006388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-80068111318089726332021-01-07T20:02:36.170-05:002021-01-07T20:02:36.170-05:00Hi Chris,
Happy New Year.
Yes, theme is iterativ...Hi Chris,<br /><br />Happy New Year.<br /><br />Yes, theme is iterative. I didn't realize that was what you meant by 'cyclical.' I'll forgo the discussing this in detail. You already know some of them from our discussions a few years back. And I know you know enough for me to know that you know what you are talking about here. <br /><br />On the picture having sentience, of course it's a kind of feedback loop between audience and picture. The eye is the needle on the record. But while every jot of a work of art is predicated by a thought, it is not always the expression of one, because to be poetry there must be an effect. The thought must be aesthetically communicated, not described/stated in code-symbols.<br /><br />This is why Symbolism, per se, is a kind of text language. Symbols are codified signs. Codification makes code. Code equals text. Thus text requires decoding, which is not aesthetic in the read. Although, as with literature and poems, it may be aesthetic after the decoding.<br /><br />Of the names you offered Burne Jones is the most Symbolist. There is obvious allegory. I think Raphael's work has a lot of Imagistic content to it, a lot of Decoration, and only a little Symbolism to it. Both Inshaw and early Shields (also Rockwell Kent and Maynard Dixon) are somewhat Imagist but also somewhat Mannerist - which takes it in the opposite direction of Imagism. None are Symbolists that I can see. (They don't require symbolic decoding.) William Blake may be all three: Imagist, Mannerist, and Symbolist.<br /><br />By Mannerist I mean there is a kind of dogma to the realization, the cartoon stubbornly asserted into a sculptural form. More like carving a chair than painting. <br /><br />A great "Poetic Journalist" is usually also an Imagist in some measure. Nature must be rearranged, recomposed, abstracted (etc) in order to make a good picture. And all that stuff results in aesthetically communicated meaning. But it is more distributed, more like a poetic field effect than a poeticized thought process. <br /><br />Lots of works develop foremost from the imagination. Very few are Images. I can't imagine any artist being an Imagist without being trained to some large extent in the form and being steeped from an early age in Imagist works. It took Howard Pyle 20 years to become an Imagist. But N.C. Wyeth grew up on Pyle's pictures, so once he landed in Pyle's class, he was off and running in months. <br /><br /> <br /><br />kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-51012675751463621112021-01-06T17:21:46.079-05:002021-01-06T17:21:46.079-05:00As far as 'cyclic resonance of theme' - I ...<br /><br /><b>As far as 'cyclic resonance of theme' - I wouldn't say that defines an Image and I'm not sure how you derived that, Chris. I wrote a bunch of stuff on Image earlier, which explains my view at least somewhat. However, it is true that no other artform needs to restart the experience as continually as visual art does. Which is why the recycling of the eye is usually an important consideration in composing. So cycling does happen. But of course if you read the same thing twice it will resonate with itself read to read. ;)</b><br /><br />Hi Kev, sorry for the late reply – taking time off for the Christmas/New Year festivities. Hope you and yours had a good time. I have also been turning over in my mind how your definition of 'imagist' relates to my own thoughts in order to answer you properly.<br /><br />As far as I understand this, the sentient-written image can be realized in the following three modes:<br /><br /><b>Poetic Journalism</b> - the divining of poetry from a set of given facts. (work by Chardin, Sargent, William Coldstream)<br /><b>Poetic Symbolism</b> - the construction of poetry from a set of symbols. (work by Raphael, Burne Jones, David Inshaw)<br /><b>Imagism</b> - the evocation of poetry from internal vision. (work by Georgione, Waterhouse, early Mark Shields)<br /><br />Of course all works of art will comprise these three modes in varying dosages, and any classification will be essentially and usefully based on which class of poetic realisation is dominant. <br /><br />But it seems to me that all three types of imaging involve plastic narratives gaining traction on our senses by way of resonance induced through the cyclic nature of beholding their themes.chris bennetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02088693067960235141noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-42908259358658829392020-12-29T08:54:56.155-05:002020-12-29T08:54:56.155-05:00Image and Imagination are also discussed in Harvey...Image and Imagination are also discussed in Harvey Dunn's notes.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-32778120124743500482020-12-28T14:44:02.522-05:002020-12-28T14:44:02.522-05:00So, who (as far as you know) started using it in t...<b>So, who (as far as you know) started using it in the way you are now, to refer to them ? </b><br /><br />I've heard the term used for them quite often. I've known the term since I became a fan of Pyle and Homer as a kid. And I've been researching just what makes an Imagist different than any other kind of art since I was a teenager. I've been in illustrator's circles since I was in my early 20s, and "American Imagist" was a term used for the Brandywine guys. Not all the time, but often enough.* I've read the term in American Artist quite often. Toth used that term in print, and I personally heard Jeff Jones and Berni Wrightson use the term. There is an impromptu video of Richard Schmid teaching where he uses the term, lamenting how far Art has fallen since the golden age of illustration.<br /><br />But the above is not a real argument. It's all "Argument From Authority" - a particular kind of fallacy. The more important thing is obviously that the ideas line up. And add up. As has been pointed out, people are loose with terms. Terms get co-opted instantly if some status or a buck is at stake, not a damn given for any technical specification predicating the label. And it's easy to exploit this Sloppy Labeling Problem, as David did, as a tactical trick to explode the whole category. And, thereby, any argument based on that category.<br /><br />So we must keep trying to get down to the technical. As with everything else about art, what matters is the suite of ideas/concepts that fit together to cause some product to have particular characteristics. That is a concept's true definition, not the symbol we use to refer to it, which is easily misappropriated by bad faith actors.<br /><br />*As a general matter, Illustrators have been so outfoxed by carnival barking "modernist" and "postmodernist" "fine art" types in terms of publicity, hype, intellectual and cultural status, 'manifestos', dealers, grants, (etc.) that there is a strong distaste for hifalutin labels in the field. Illustrators use the word 'effect' and 'composition' but don't use 'aesthetics' or 'poetics.' Anything that will even vaguely smack of "fine art" pretension (aka selling art by the mouth) tends to be avoided. kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-55463917577098217102020-12-28T13:47:04.494-05:002020-12-28T13:47:04.494-05:00Kev,
You said the artists you mention - Homer, R...Kev, <br /><br />You said the artists you mention - Homer, Remington, Pyle, Waterhouse, Wyeth etc - weren't using the term 'Imagism' to describe their own work.<br /><br />So, who (as far as you know) started using it in the way you are now, to refer to them ? Laurence Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11988700485839219253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-77980894403064128182020-12-28T10:48:33.659-05:002020-12-28T10:48:33.659-05:00much of Rockwell's work was "cartoonish,&...<b>much of Rockwell's work was "cartoonish," it's because so many of his famous Post covers were humorous situations or anecdotes with cartoon-like facial expressions and cartoon-like "snap" timing. Michelangelo's cartoons were obviously something very different, and the cartoons we've been discussing, especially animated cartoons, are even more different.</b><br /><br />I would say all three ideas are the same idea in different guises. All stem from the need for clarified and exaggerated gestures, so-designed in order to broadcast key visual ideas (whether dramatic, mysterious, or comic) long distances and into many mentalities. The call, in this regard, is for blatancy. That's what the word "graphic" means; the opposite of 'subtlety' or 'refinement.'<br /><br />But the Michaelangelos, Parrishs, Leyendeckers and Rockwells of the artworld only use their cartooning as foundational scaffolding to rough out their figures and compositions, having yet not begun their justification process or the implementing of compositional complexity that would bring narrative meaning into every stitch of the storytelling weave and bind it all together into an aesthetic unit.<br /><br />Whereas Disney, Dik Browne, Kurtzman and Picasso simply codify their blatant designs as the actual art, which is what gives us cartooning as it is normally understood (also graphics.) <br /><br /><b>David it seems me and you missed the memo that said great visual art has to be definitionally an 'image' and an 'image' is what the 'Imagists' were doing (thereby excluding anything that isn't motionless, such as film, or 'realistic' enough such as cartooning).</b><br /><br />Many great films are Imagist in their own cinematic way. Just as many great novels are Imagist. That's too long a discussion and this isn't a film or literature blog. Cartoons aren't specific enough to be Imagist because they are so simplified. And they generally don't wade into the deep end of poetics, thematics, or aesthetics. <br /><br />There is certainly a lot of crossover between Imagism and "good pictures." Even with bad pictures there's some crossover. But there is a difference between realizing a scene and realizing an image. An Image must realize a scene unified to a visual poem. Thus nothing is only what it seems. Whereas a scene alone would still have some poetry to it, as the very nature of art is suggestive, but its governing idea would be believability, not poetry. kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-39159114707254161722020-12-28T04:19:18.947-05:002020-12-28T04:19:18.947-05:00David: "I agree that seeing a reproduced work...David: "I agree that seeing a reproduced work is not the same as seeing the original, but on the other hand some art doesn't even have originals anymore-- just electrons."<br /><br />And let's not forget that the vast majority of viewers of Leyendecker and Rockwell paintings saw them on a magazine cover, which is where they were intended to be seen. <br /><br />David: If one wants to propose a single idiosyncratic application, one has the burden of coming up with protectable borders capable of fending off the other overlapping uses. Some of the characteristics you ascribe to imagism I'd ascribe to good picture making."<br /><br />David it seems me and you missed the memo that said great visual art has to be definitionally an 'image' and an 'image' is what the 'Imagists' were doing (thereby excluding anything that isn't motionless, such as film, or 'realistic' enough such as cartooning). Laurence Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11988700485839219253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-75852095195740483532020-12-28T04:15:59.407-05:002020-12-28T04:15:59.407-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Laurence Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11988700485839219253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-54442972969396648102020-12-27T23:55:00.296-05:002020-12-27T23:55:00.296-05:00Tom-- As I see it, artists may have plenty of expe... Tom-- As I see it, artists may have plenty of expectations for the "contexts" of their work, but art is an animal ferae naturae, not ferae domitae, so once it's released into the world, all bets are off. People can do whatever they want with it. Yes, some paintings do have the context of a big gallery wall, but banksy paints for alley walls and Persian Miniatures are painted for the portfolios of nobles. Pixar may spend millions of dollars on an animated movie designed for the big screen but if theaters are shut down due to a pandemic, people end up watching it on a cell phone.<br /><br />I agree that seeing a reproduced work is not the same as seeing the original, but on the other hand some art doesn't even have originals anymore-- just electrons.<br /><br />Kev Ferrara-- On all the basics, we seem to agree. I share your views of Rockwell, Parrish, Leyendecker and JGC. (If you think her Parrish text was an abomination, don't go near her Leyendecker text.) <br /><br />When it comes to vocabulary, we seem to have the misfortune of dealing with not one but two words with multiple historical definitions: cartoon and image. <br /><br />When I say that much of Rockwell's work was "cartoonish," it's because so many of his famous Post covers were humorous situations or anecdotes with cartoon-like facial expressions and cartoon-like "snap" timing. Michelangelo's cartoons were obviously something very different, and the cartoons we've been discussing, especially animated cartoons, are even more different. One must use a slippery word like that at one's peril.<br /><br />As for the word, "image"and its many derivatives, the possibilities seem endless. If one wants to propose a single idiosyncratic application, one has the burden of coming up with protectable borders capable of fending off the other overlapping uses. Some of the characteristics you ascribe to imagism I'd ascribe to good picture making. <br /><br /><br /><br />David Apatoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-30122448728689883672020-12-27T00:05:23.293-05:002020-12-27T00:05:23.293-05:00Pyle's ill will toward cartooning was no doubt...Pyle's ill will toward cartooning was no doubt conditioned by those he saw in his own time. Who knows what he might have thought of Disney's classics.<br /><br />I don't agree that his work on Pepper and Salt and The Wonder Clock, though simplified, is 'cartooning' in the same way that I thought we were meaning. There is far too much sensitivity in the drawing, far too much accuracy and anatomy and depth; just too much illustration generally. <br /><br />Pyle's earliest drawings for children of the 1870s are rather bad, in my view. And given that he had a dim view of his accomplished work even in his peak years, I can't imagine he would think much of that inchoate work. Possibly what he saw in the weak cartoons of his day reminded him of what he struggled to overcome in his own work in his first decade. That kind of thing happens.<br /><br />Anyway, the cartoonaphobic anecdote was relayed by Dunn. It was in direct reference to drawing, of poorly 'cartooned' figures lacking in structure or anatomy, and a particular point was made about badly cartooned "animals of the forest" being most offensive to his teacher.<br /><br />I cannot speak for Rockwell on Cartooning. But he, like all illustrators, 'cartooned' their gesture drawings/basis for figures and compositions. But what makes Rockwell and those others in his league so great is just how they justified their cartoons with a torrent of informed imaginative anatomy, and justified their pictorial dreams with real world data, and memories of appreciated moments from experience. (Not to mention all the other stuff I constantly mention.) <br /><br />I have not enjoyed any of my interactions with JG. And the one text I read of hers, for a Parrish book, was riddled with errors and horse hockey. So we probably share a view there. However, both Parrish and Leyendecker are indeed Imagists in the sense of the poetic movement I'm discussing, despite her saying so. <br /><br />Since my technical discussions of Imagism seem not to be your cup of tea, no matter how often I make the offer, you might as well read Ezra Pound on the subject. Just know that Edgar Allen Poe and Coleridge in letters, and Homer, Remington, Pyle, Waterhouse, The Wyeths, and many other in Art beat him to the punch, although without hitting on the excellent term Imagist/Imagism. kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-15209549759259731542020-12-26T22:55:45.432-05:002020-12-26T22:55:45.432-05:00David Wrote
"I've been very impressed wi...David Wrote<br /><br />"I've been very impressed with how some animation, paused at any given scene, offers images with all the traditional beauty of a painting in a gallery."<br /><br />A big part of the issue is art in the past had always address specific contexts. Just consider the size of Sargent's painting Gassed to Otto Dix's paintings. Moving paintings to a "gallery," has rob art of some of it's vitality. Making it "special," and more a topic of connoisseurship, comparsion and privilege. Painting and sculpture originally existed in specific contexts and contribute to the whole assemble of architecture. It had to harmonize with the great planes and coordinates of that architecture. After proceeding through the Vatican museum one entries the museum's modern collection and one immediately feels how this great sense of strength disappears from the newer works and a general feeling of cattywampusness emerges. Like the the Frederick Hart sculptures over the portals at the National Cathedral which feel simply hung onto to the tympanum with no consideration for the larger controlling planes of the architecture.<br /><br />Paintings where meant to be seen in the light and to contribute to the meaning of a room, or function as grand decorations to the larger project of the architecture. Placed at specific heights and orientations. to be seen from both near and far. Movies have a different relation to the viewer, who must take a seat, not move and be quiet in a completely darken room that could be anywhere like your local mall. The mass production of images all viewed on the pages of a book or a magazine or the internet is not the same as seeing actual works. Or living and seeing works for years.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04641223414745777056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-26084800264905337332020-12-26T22:14:53.287-05:002020-12-26T22:14:53.287-05:00Kev Ferrara wrote: "How can you be 'sure&...Kev Ferrara wrote: "How can you be 'sure' of a dead artist's opinions unless they specifically spoke on the subject???"<br /><br />A fair point. I use my ouija board, of course, but beyond that we're extrapolating the same way we extrapolate about what a cave painter was doing 30,000 years ago. For example, we know that Rockwell admired Disney and called Walt "one of the really great artists." We can tell that a cartoon was often at the heart of Rockwell's big oil paintings, and that Rockwell had an open mind about quality, welcoming animation and cartooning into the curriculum for the Famous Artists School and placing tearsheets from "new fangled" illustrators such as Al Parker and Fuchs on his "wall of fame" alongside Durer and Rembrandt. The Federal Trade Commission would tell me that this circumstantial evidence is still not enough to impute a legal endorsement of an animated movie, but Rockwell sounds to me like the kind of artist who would admire the achievements of these animators.<br /><br />As for Pyle, I'm not sure how we know he "detested cartoons" as he did so many of them over his career-- not just the "comics" he drew in the 1870s but the cartoons that illustrated Pepper and Salt, The Wonder Clock and other projects. Some of the attributes you ascribe to cartoons may be found in those books. <br /><br />Whatever Pyle may have said about animated cartoons in his lifetime, he died well before Gertie The Dinosaur came out so it's difficult to predict from such a statement what he might think about cartoons that move. I'm basing my presumption on my view that great animators have taken Pyle's core lessons (such as projecting yourself and your emotions into the picture) to heart, and that Pyle seemed to be a pretty pragmatic guy about artists being resourceful, growing with the times and looking for ways to bring quality to new platforms. Do you really believe that Pyle would "detest" Pinocchio or Snow White if he'd lived to see them? We'll never know, but I'd debate that with you.<br /><br />You are correct that I was thinking of "image" in the broader, generic sense. I recognize that "imagist" is also a term of art, but to tell the truth, I became less interested in investigating that category when I heard Judy Goffman Cutler bragging about how she had popularized the term (originally borrowed from literature, I believe) while marketing Leyendecker and Parrish, two of the hottest painters in her gallery inventory. I looked it up at the time and found there were all kinds of self-proclaimed imagists-- "The Chicago imagists," modern art imagists, etc. It made the category imagism seem less worth investing in. However, I respect your thought processes and if you want to send me to a worthwhile discussion of imagism as you intend it, I will gladly go. David Apatoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-89106690933887643322020-12-26T20:48:26.752-05:002020-12-26T20:48:26.752-05:00...some animation, paused at any given scene, offe...<b>...some animation, paused at any given scene, offers images with all the traditional beauty of a painting in a gallery. I defy anyone to freeze frame the character of Nigel in the movie Rio and come up with anything less than an excellent composition, with great colors and brilliant character design. You can't persuade me that the artists responsible for Nigel don't belong to the same club as Howard Pyle. Similarly, Sergio Pablos' astonishing Klaus is just one lovely tasteful image after another-- images I'm sure Hokusai and Norman Rockwell and Sargent would all recognize and welcome.</b><br /><br />How can you be 'sure' of a dead artist's opinions unless they specifically spoke on the subject??? <br /><br />And as beautiful as these movies are, the constant use of intense oppositional color is cartoony, and should not be considered 'traditional' in its beauty. (Nor is blocking, framing, pointing, and design the same thing as composition.)<br /><br />Leaving aside that both Pyle and Sargent detested cartoons as grotesque caricatures of nature divine, I feel these pictures you mention are indeed wonderful animated movies with great character work and lovely set creations with nice lighting, values, atmospherics, shape design, blocking, direction, imagination and so on.<br /><br />But we're talking about two different meanings of the word 'image.' For you, it seems, image means 'picture you liked and found striking.' I'm speaking about Images made by Imagists rooted in Imagism. A different thing.<br /><br />In animation the figures move, therefore complex composing is not required in order give the illusion of movement. Blocking and framing suffice. Similarly, because the characters actually move, they easily attract attention in otherwise static environments. (Other techniques of light are used to shine various types of rimlights, spotlights, with moving subsurface effects on the figures.)<br /><br />The figures are cartooned already, so they need not use other composing methods to make realistic figures more gestural. They don't require sensitive drawing at the edges of the form, because with movement, such cannot be inspected anyway. The camera can move to cause parallax sensations into depth, therefore there is no need to project and inject space (or the forms of the face or body) using compositional means.<br /><br />In an animated story, changes in a belief, an emotional state, a mood, the drama, an attempt, the theme... it all plays out over time. While in an image, it plays out as instantly as our eye can apprehend it within a single picture of a single moment. Still shots don't do this, nor should they. <br /><br />And so on.<br /><br />So while it may be so that the talent level of some of the artists working on animated films may rise to the level of a Sargent, Pyle, or Wyeth, or one of their students, they aren't working the same artistic back 40 and they're riding a different horse to the rodeo. They are trained to do their job well and they do their job well. But that job does not include being American Imagists of the same nature as Remington, Pyle, Wyeth, Dunn, or Rockwell. <br /><br /> kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-42737346834575344072020-12-26T16:47:08.496-05:002020-12-26T16:47:08.496-05:00Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays to all
Before th...<br />Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays to all<br /><br />Before the holiday I was following the discussion about images versus cinema, and while I have nothing to contribute on the subject of whether cinema is now THE art form, the DOMINANT art form or the POPULAR art form, I had a few reactions I wanted to share:<br /><br />First, I note that many of the most important illustrators of any era were the ones who embraced new technologies: Howard Pyle was a visionary who saw the field of illustration opening up as new technologies in reproduction and printing created new mass appeal for art. He taught his students to train for the future when color would be reliably reproduced. Mucha was a pioneer in the use of photography and modern marketing. Bob Peak jumped on the use of new Day Glo colors. The first tentative computer artists eventually opened a whole new world of art applications. They didn't always know where the new technologies would take them, but they didn't shrink from them.<br /><br />Rather than assuming that cinema was qualitatively different, illustrators from Bernie Fuchs to Phil Hale made films with great enthusiasm/curiosity, believing that there were ways to apply their traditional talents to the new medium. So many commenters seem intent on drawing a bright line between painting defined as a static moment in space and film defined as action over time, but Einstein long ago revealed that there was a continuum between time and space. This required him to rise above first impressions. Are we content to let a physicist be more imaginative about space-time than artists?<br /><br />With the exception of one comment from Kev, I’m surprised that no one seems to be looking in the most likely places for a bridge between static images and moving pictures. One might say that graphic novels, sequential art and storyboards are slow motion versions of cinema, with many overlapping attributes. They pick up speed in animated films which still rely on the traditional qualities of painting.<br /><br />Kev Ferrara writes about animated film: "A painting has time to drill down, to stack layer upon layer of meaning; intervals are used in all graphic relations to break open gaps where the imagination is prompted to produce the closure. While Film needs to spool forward in time, accruing meaning as it goes; its most natural closure-gaps are between beats and in the cuts. It doesn’t have time to build a wholly imagined, aesthetically-generated, yet believable world in every frame twenty four times a second." Kev may "drill down" and "stack layer upon layer of meaning," but the next time you're in an art museum watch to see how many visitors pause at a painting longer than the second or two that an animated film pauses to establish a landscape. Animators get to establish their own tempo and rhythm. The animator can linger as long as they want.<br /><br />I've been very impressed with how some animation, paused at any given scene, offers images with all the traditional beauty of a painting in a gallery. I defy anyone to freeze frame the character of Nigel in the movie Rio and come up with anything less than an excellent composition, with great colors and brilliant character design. You can't persuade me that the artists responsible for Nigel don't belong to the same club as Howard Pyle. Similarly, Sergio Pablos' astonishing Klaus is just one lovely tasteful image after another-- images I'm sure Hokusai and Norman Rockwell and Sargent would all recognize and welcome.<br /><br />Taking the next step from animation to filmed live action is a second stretch in the relationship between painting and film, but I think the overlapping qualities of excellence in paintings and animated films is encouraging evidence of a continuum. Regardless of which came later in time, some paintings will continue to be superior to some films and vice versa.David Apatoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11293486149879229016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-17435047353423898412020-12-24T18:13:45.924-05:002020-12-24T18:13:45.924-05:00Laurence wrote
"You're fixating on the di...Laurence wrote<br />"You're fixating on the differences between the two mediums (paintings being hand made, and motionless) when I've been arguing since the start of this thread that it's the shared similarity in narrative possibilities of the two mediums that make them comparable." <br /> <br />You also stated that ".. that cinema has assumed dominance as being, THE narrative medium of the present." <br /><br /> "The reason I persist with my 'painting is irrelevant now / cinema is THE art form' argument is because I haven't heard a good rebuttal yet."<br /><br />Which is more a declaration that one medium, “is now irrelevant,” then describing the way two mediums are comparable. <br /><br />So it seems natural that Chris would "fixate" on the differences between the two mediums. If you just want to tell a story and you do not want to be bothered with the "how" of conceiving form, choosing a camera is a natural choice. Groping around with the problem of how to draw a foot will really slow down your narrative process and send you off into a world or problems and interest that a cameraman never has to think about. He can just take a picture of the foot or film it and carry on with his story. The forces that drive the two different creative acts are not the same. The "mediums," require different responses from the makers. You are simply reducing painting too how a movie functions. If that is all one wants, yes by all means choose the a movie. <br /><br />The cameraman never has too consider the fact that almost no plane of his subject is parallel with the picture plane. His choices are one of composition and decorative intent. He is not bother with the question of form, he simply skips over this whole aspect of nature that the artist engages in.<br /><br />As the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting," states, "Rocks should have three faces."<br /><br />Eugene Carriere , "nature is plane and volume it is all architecture." <br /><br />Or Leonardo "The painter, has true knowledge of all the limits(contours) of things as seen from whatever side..."<br /><br />Planes are at the heart of art making when using the tools of art.<br /><br /><br />MERRY! MERRY!<br />Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04641223414745777056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-87366943140737237692020-12-24T13:37:06.567-05:002020-12-24T13:37:06.567-05:00Chris: "Yes... but I have tried to argue that...Chris: "Yes... but I have tried to argue that they are only superficial resemblances"<br /><br />We'll have to agree to disagree on that point. <br /><br />You're fixating on the differences between the two mediums (paintings being hand made, and motionless) when I've been arguing since the start of this thread that it's the shared similarity in narrative possibilities of the two mediums that make them comparable. <br /><br />I don't think we're going to come to a resolution in this comment section, but I'm sure the issues will come up again. <br /><br />cheers :-)Laurence Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11988700485839219253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-17021920079614844532020-12-24T11:56:46.943-05:002020-12-24T11:56:46.943-05:00Cinematic stories are best told in cinema, literat...Cinematic stories are best told in cinema, literature best told through books, images best told as pictures, and so on.<br /><br />Each artform has its own language but all the main principles guiding the grammar are more or less the same at the deepest level. Each artform offers certain certain aesthetic affordances, certain plasticities, and certain limitations, and from those emerge certain kinds of notes and intervals that can be used for the purposes of statement and suggestion, fact and evocation. And each form can be organized to dramatize a stepwise play of thought, a narrative process that results in some kind of connective insight at the denoument or climax. And such a play of thought, if coherent, will naturally be governed by thematic content.<br /><br />Humans have awesome visual understanding, near-instantaneous cogitation of appearances of (what one would assume would be) bewildering complexity. No other ability in the brain compares in prowess. Thus it is easy to mistakenly believe, when we 'take in the scene at a glance', that the apprehension has actually been instantaneous. But it hasn't. We've still taken it in as a narrative - in flows and steps and sequences and relations and reads of various sorts - but at such a shockingly rapid pace that it seems incomparable to our other forms of perception. But it is comparable to the way those other senses understand.<br /><br />And this observation hints to us just how an Image can contain a whole story unto itself, how it can be complete and full of meaning, yet <i>in media res</i> as well. Which is to say, if you drill down on a moment inside an event, and hint at where it came from, how it came together into a unit, and where it might go or what its consequences might be, and what it all might mean or be similar to, and if you comment on it as you render in the rendering, therein is a complete thought, a complete aesthetic demonstration and analysis. <br /><br />As far as 'cyclic resonance of theme' - I wouldn't say that defines an Image and I'm not sure how you derived that, Chris. I wrote a bunch of stuff on Image earlier, which explains my view at least somewhat. However, it is true that no other artform needs to restart the experience as continually as visual art does. Which is why the recycling of the eye is usually an important consideration in composing. So cycling does happen. But of course if you read the same thing twice it will resonate with itself read to read. ;)<br /><br />Happy Holidays everyone! <br /><br /> kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-12524332082479163192020-12-24T08:43:13.914-05:002020-12-24T08:43:13.914-05:00If you don't see any common narrative devices ...<b>If you don't see any common narrative devices between painting / illustration and cinema then I doubt I'll be able to convince you otherwise.</b><br /><br />Yes, I do Laurence, but I have tried to argue that they are only superficial resemblances. So let me put the argument a different way in the hope that we can find an area of agreement:<br /><br />The premise that literary stories are better told by literature, drama and, by extension, cinema, is certainly true. However, theme by way of subject is not the same thing as theme by way of action (drama, say). So when the high modernists, using the 'painting is not literature' argument, removed subject from painting, the baby was thrown out with the bath water; the theme was thrown out with the subject. This was meant to reinvigorate the plastic arts and allow its 'true essence' or what distinguishes it from the other arts, to shine forth. Thus 'pure abstraction', an oxymoron if ever you want one, was looked to as the answer.<br /><br />Now here's the thing:<br /><br />The more a plastic art tries to embody the effects of the time-based arts the weaker its efficacy becomes. But the holy grail of 'pure abstraction' is to reach the condition of music, a time-based medium. Which means pure abstraction has the same fundamental weakness as 'literalism', in other words; plastic art that attempts to reach the condition of literature.<br /><br />So, all this begs the question: what is the essence of an ‘image' (a picture or sculpture depicting a subject) that distinguishes it from the essence of other art forms?<br />Myself, Kev and Tom have tried to answer that. But I'll have a shot at throwing a definition around it: An image is a theme in cyclic resonance. Something like that. It's the best I can do given my understanding at the moment*.<br /><br />*I should add that this understanding owes a lot to Kev's thoughts and research on the matter.<br />chris bennetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02088693067960235141noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-54098851324111121882020-12-24T08:32:00.451-05:002020-12-24T08:32:00.451-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.chris bennetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02088693067960235141noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-91528614293176107262020-12-23T20:59:53.758-05:002020-12-23T20:59:53.758-05:00Hey David, Ralph is on a podcast available on iTun...Hey David, Ralph is on a podcast available on iTunes and Spotify called the Lonely Palette. The link is<br /><br />https://open.spotify.com/episode/6ATGTrsy3VF9R0jYbwQZqH?si=DsVr7qL7QRuog7Vp9cTj-g<br /><br />I hope you enjoy it. AviPBNhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09261189895302416482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-71666330311297315352020-12-23T03:50:49.497-05:002020-12-23T03:50:49.497-05:00Chris: "But there is no aesthetic connection ...Chris: "But there is no aesthetic connection between painting or 'image-making' and cinema"<br /><br />If you don't see any common narrative devices between painting / illustration and cinema then I doubt I'll be able to convince you otherwise. <br /><br /><br />Chris: "In fact, often the weakest element in a movie, I find, is when it shoots for the set piece tableau for grand effect "<br /><br />But hang on, are you (in the next sentence) admitting that a 'tableau' is similar to a 'static graphic tableau' ? It contradicts your first statement doesn't it ? <br /><br /><br />Tom: "More people watch movies and TV which as a product is generally banal, boring and tends to point people in the wrong direction while failing to provide any revelation into the structure of things"<br /><br />Tom, "the structure of things" is your own pet interest, along with 'planes'. <br /><br />And, the fact that lots of cinema is crap is irrelevant. Do i need to point out that the majority of painting today is also crap ?Laurence Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11988700485839219253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-31670337700103717462020-12-23T03:48:39.678-05:002020-12-23T03:48:39.678-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Laurence Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11988700485839219253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-19127356363441715692020-12-22T17:12:27.108-05:002020-12-22T17:12:27.108-05:00Painting wasn't irrelevant to Bill Murray
I h...<b>Painting wasn't irrelevant to Bill Murray</b><br /><br />I happen to know that painting because it was also discussed by Harvey Dunn to his students: Jules Breton’s <a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71APWQfVWTL._AC_SL1200_.jpg" rel="nofollow">Song of the Lark.</a>kev ferrarahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09509572970616136990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12189014.post-59604907219415957052020-12-22T15:24:41.666-05:002020-12-22T15:24:41.666-05:00On the other hand I would say your a little bit be...<b>On the other hand I would say your a little bit behind the times, regarding "THE art form." The internet, politics, television, advertising and the news does a better job of creating and sustaining narratives today than movies do.</b><br /><br />Amen to that Tom. And at the moment it's shaping up to be The Worst Story Ever Told.chris bennetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02088693067960235141noreply@blogger.com