Thinking About Art

Stieglitz, Modern Art, and New York City

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:14:00 +0000

ALFRED STIEGLITZ, MODERN ART, AND NEW YORK CITY - Early 20th Century

BELOW

STIEGLITZ AND THE NEW YORK ART SCENE (1905-46)
1 hour, 9 minutes, 31 seconds

This video, produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, contains two (illustrated) lectures given the same day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the fall of 2011. Note that it takes over an hour to watch this entire video!

The first lecture is called "Alfred Stieglitz: His Time, Influence, and Vision," and the speaker is Lisa M. Messinger, associate curator, Dept. of 19th-Century Modern and Contemporary Art.

The second lecture is called "Extreme Modernity: The Avant-Garde Looks at New York, 1910-40." The speaker is Jessica Murphy, research associate in the Dept. of 19th-Century, Modern and Contemporary Art.

These lectures are related to the exhibition (which ended January 2nd, 2012) at the Met Museum called Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe - on The Metropolitan Museum of Art."

There were three short films shown after these lectures. The films are not included in this video, but you can see them on YouTube videos (below, on this page).

In the first lecture we learn about Stieglitz's promotion in America of modern artists, including Matisse, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Georgia O'Keeffe (who would become his wife), John Marin, Arthur Dove, and Charles Demuth, among others.

In the second lecture we are shown what New York City was like in the early 1900s, and what it was becoming and how the artists Stieglitz promoted...especially John Marin and Arthur Dove, Charles Demuth and Georgia O'Keeffe...represented it.

We think of Georgia O'Keeffe mainly as a painter of New Mexico landscapes and of flowers, but when she still lived with Stieglitz in New York City in the 1920s she painted in NYC, and some of those paintings are shown in the video. Also, look at this website for paintings by O'Keeffe of New York skyscrapers (and one of the East River).
BELOW: THE THREE SHORT FILMS THAT WERE SHOWN BETWEEN AND AFTER THE LECTURES YOU'LL SEE ON THE ABOVE VIDEO:

MANHATTA (1921)
7 minutes, 23 seconds

This film was created by painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand. It is based on their photographs of New York City.

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MANHATTAN MEDLEY (1931)
10 minutes, 30 seconds

This film looks at a day in the life of Manhattan in 1931.

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CONEY ISLAND AT NIGHT (1905)

3 minutes, 18 seconds

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See earlier post on photographer Alfred Stieglitz

Painting Away from the Daily Grind - Vicariously

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:18:00 +0000

Drawing and Painting Away from the Daily Grind - Vicariously

Do you have a hard time actually getting around to drawing or painting even though that's what you want to do more than anything else? One thing after another comes up that you "must do" first, right? And then there's just no time. In my case, even on those rare occasions when I'm able to begin, I'm seldom able to finish the projects I was so anxious to work on. It can get really depressing.

Recently I've been under lots of pressure, having many things that really are urgent and much more important than drawing that I must concern myself with, but I found one way to feel a little less depressed about this situation, if only for a few minutes at a time. It's a kind of daydreaming, actually, but it seems relatively "real" and is very refreshing. I've been watching videos of artists drawing and painting away from home, in the city or way out in the country...really getting away from the daily grind. I vicariously join up with these individuals and see the world through their eyes for a while. They are doing what I wish I was doing, and I'm doing it with them. And when they do a good job, I feel I've done it. :-) Best of all, though, I'm away from the usual grind, outdoors, trying to bat away hungry mosquitoes or keep from freezing to death or from falling over the side of a cliff -- annoying or miserable or frightening things that do a really good job of keeping my mind off very worrisome problems that aren't so simple. And sometimes the artist is having no problems at all, just having a wonderful time. That's good, too! Besides, it's really interesting to see how others draw and paint, especially in such challenging conditions.

I've gathered several of these videos that I particularly liked for one or more reasons (some may make you wonder about me!). The artists are from all over the world. I'm going to put them together into several posts. I hope you'll enjoy some of these, too.

Below are five videos - Come back for more posts with more videos of more artists, painting and drawing outside all around the world - Next ones coming up soon.

BELOW

ED COOPER - PAINTING LANDSCAPES OUTDOORS
2 minutes, 16 seconds

I don't know where this video was made. It seems he paints in many places. Here he's on a grassy bank under shady trees, looking out at the water, with another grassy bank and trees beyond. There are foothills, and mountains in the distance. A lovely peaceful-looking place. Here is Ed Cooper's website.

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BELOW

PAINTING IN A FLORIDA SWAMP
7 minutes, 37 seconds

I'm not sure I really, really want to go along with this fellow. I don't like a lot of heat, especially humid heat, and I don't like the idea of being covered with mosquito bites, stepping on snakes, having my legs cut up by sharp-edged undergrowth, or having slithery creepy-crawlers climbing up my legs. But it does take one's mind of their own troubles. You have to admire this guy.

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BELOW - AN ARTIST DRAWING IN BARCELONA, SPAIN

DRAWING WITH INDIAN INK IN OPEN AIR
8 minutes, 27 seconds

"Spanish artist drawing in the open air with a wooden stalk, Indian ink and water, on paper. The subject is the main door of a noble farm in Montmeló (Barcelona, Spain)."

Wait 'till you see what a beautiful job he does.

I love the sounds in this video: Lots of birds chirping along with very light traffic. What a pleasant place it must be to sit and draw. It reminds me of when I lived with a couple of different families over several months in Morelia, Mexico while I attended language school. I used to think back then how much I'd love to come back some day and draw and paint there.

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BELOW - AN ARTIST IN AUSTRALIA

A PASSION FOR PAINT: HERMAN PEKEL (a"trailer" for a DVD)

Several subjects in and near Melbourne, Australia
2 minutes, 58 seconds

This is a trailer for a DVD, but it's fun to watch, and even more fun to listen to. It's "art instruction," but it's not at all tedious. He is obviously having fun when he goes out to paint, and that's the best part to me.

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BELOW - AN ARTIST IN THAILAND

SKETCHING AT ERAWAN WATERFALLS, THAILAND - KHWAN BARTON, ARTIST
2 minutes, 26 seconds

And finally, here is an artist who really gets close to her subjects, in a location that seems idyllic...She doesn't mention mosquitoes or snakes, anyway. But really, it's a beautiful, peaceful place and she blends right in with it - and she does make some very nice drawings under somewhat distracting conditions.

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More artists working outdoors in many different places, in more posts (coming up soon).

Vivian Maier - Street Photographer

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:18:00 +0000

"Vivian Maier (February 1, 1926 – April 21, 2009) was an American amateur street photographer who was born in New York but grew up in France, and after returning to the U.S., worked for about forty years as a nanny in Chicago. During those years she took about 100,000 photographs, primarily of people and cityscapes most often in Chicago, although she traveled and photographed worldwide." (Quote from Wikipedia article on Vivian Maier)

Below
VIVIAN MAIER
9 minutes, 33 seconds

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VIVIAN MAIER SLIDESHOWS ON VIDEO

VIVIAN MAIER - STREET PHOTOGRAPHY - Part 1
9 minutes, 56 seconds
VIVIAN MAIER - STREET PHOTOGRAPHY - Part 2
10 minutes, 17 seconds
Below
VIVIAN MAIER - STREET PHOTOGRAPHY - Part 3
6 minutes, 5 seconds
The woman shown below, before the video starts, is not Vivian Maier. She is one of Maier's subjects.

Many of Maier's Chicago pictures remind me of some of Bruegel's paintings where there are many, many people packed into the overall scene and much going on -- one to a few people in clusters acting out their own tiny dramas and paying no attention to the others all around, yet all of them fitting equally well into the larger setting.

Netherlandish Provers, 1559, by Pieter Bruegel, the Elder

I feel intrusive when I'm looking at Maier's photographs. I feel that I was right with her as she butted in on other people's private moments. Many street photographs look artful but not intrusive ... They look too carefully composed and they just don't seem to relate to human life in any meaningful way; they may be a "slice of life" but it's not a slice that matters. Many street photographs are neither artful nor intrusive. Many look as if they were not taken by a human being...Somehow they seem to have taken with an invisible camera. Vivian Meiers' photographs look both artful and intrusive -- artful not meaning that her photos look carefully thought out ahead by an "artist," but that she knew exactly when and where to point that camera to best capture the essence of what she was observing; plus the subjects do look in many cases as if they were intruded upon (and sometimes they knew it, and she apparently didn't care that they knew it).

Most of her photographs that I have seen were taken in downtown Chicago, the streets of which seem to have been filled with an unending supply of human interest vignettes that Maier, with camera in hand, must have been constantly on the lookout for. Obviously she was fascinated by human life. She had a sense of humor and a sense of the absurd. She was sympathetic to some, and simply fascinated by others -- by what they were doing, how they presented themselves (wittingly and/or unwittingly) in public and how they related to others (including to her) and to their surroundings.

She knew instinctively what looks odd together, such as the woman holding a doll, the man in a suit, sleeping in his car, his hat hanging on the gearshift, the old gentleman sleeping on his back on the steps of a doorway, his hat to the side (an especially odd sight since we cannot see the man's head). In another picture a well-dressed man's head is missing due to a balloon being held in front of it by a baby he's tending, and in another picture a man, smoking a cigarette, is looking in a window (we see this from inside the room) at second- or third-story level (must be a window washer), and then there's the man with a long beard and dressed as if on safari waiting to cross a street. And lots more.

One reason her photographs, at least the ones I've seen, are so powerful (I think) is that she caught people "living their lives," not posing. Even when someone stops what they're doing to look at the camera because she called their attention for that purpose, as Maier apparently did now and then, it's only for a brief second of their lives and they do not get "out of character" while watching her watching them. So although they're looking right at the photographer the result is not a "posed" picture, but rather a revealing look at the subject's immediate and natural reaction to the situation they suddenly encounter (i.e., they are being photographed), their facial expressions reflecting their own personalities and concerns.

I think we're very lucky that the man who bought Maier's pictures at that auction realized how extraordinary her photos were and has devoted himself to scanning and preserving and sharing them.

A Painting of Frans Post by Frans Hals

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:54:00 +0000

In my last post, about painting "civilized" people (i.e., people in good control of their body language), one of the pictures I commented on was a portrait of Frans Post painted by Frans Hals in about 1655. As I wrote in that post, the comments I made on each of several pictures, including this one, were my first impressions of the personality and character of the people portrayed. Some pictures tell me a lot more than others about the people in them, and this was the one that told me the most.

Here is the picture I am referring to:

Frans Post
Artist: Frans Hals (c. 1580-1666), Dutch painter

And these were my comments (my own "first impressions") on this subject, having not yet taken any time to try to analyze the picture: "A modest yet friendly man who would be nice to be stuck sitting next to while waiting for something. He looks like a good listener, and sympathetic and probably encouraging. It would probably be nice to have supper with him...and keep him for a friend."

I did not know anything about Frans Post when I saw this picture for the first time. And I still have not looked to find out anything about him or about other people's opinions and observations about the way the painting was composed and why it was composed that way. So, what follows are my own ideas based on my understanding of how these things work.

The main thing to get across here, as it helps so much in the interpretation of the personality of Mr. Post, is that where the subject is placed in relation to the center of the picture tells us a lot about it. (Of course there are also other factors that help us understand the subject, and I will point out a few of those shortly.)
It seems at first surprising to realize that so much of the subject's "personality" is evident when only a part of his face and one side of his collar are seen with any clarity. Everything else is in the dark.

How do we get such a strong idea of what he's like, then? It's not only the expression in his face, though that is part of it. What tells us even more is where his face is in the picture, and how it's tilted. And not just his face, but also his body.

Someone who was in dead center and straight upright, especially with head and body both facing directly toward the viewer, would seem (all other things being equal) perfectly composed, steady, like a rock, unchanging, hardly affected by outer events. You don't often see a portrait like that, as most people are not like that, though some are. Here is a good example of such a subject:

Senju Kannon ("Thousand-armed Bodhisattva of Compassion"), 12th Century - Hanging scroll, color on silk, Tokyo National Museum
Source: Wikimedia (picture is in the public domain)

This is not an individual with a unique personality but the personification of compassion and mercy. We would expect someone like this to be serene, "like a rock, unchanging."

And here is another example:

Mary Turner Austin, 1880
Artist: John Singer Sargent
Source: The Athenaeum

The subject (or her head and neckscarf, anyway, which are all we can see) in the above picture is not in the center between top and bottom, but she is in the center between left and right, and her head and body are both facing directly toward the viewer. However, rather than giving the appearance of calmness and stability, as does the Senju Kannon, above, to me at least this woman looks like she's barely able to control strong emotion. She does not have "a thousand arms" reaching out in compassion, but instead seems to have all of her energy concentrated in her seemingly disembodied head. She projects that highly concentrated energy through her eyes, out of the darkness below her brows, causing her to look as if she's not at peace but, rather, stubborn, willful, and about to explode. She is quite literally "self-centered." She looks as if she would have only one position on things - her own, unchangeable, position. I would not want to be left alone with this person.

Frans Post, in Hals' painting, far from being in the center with face and body aimed directly toward the viewer, leans far to our left of the center of the picture. Recall:

He is also sitting behind the back of a chair, making him seem more "caged in," whereas the staring woman has nothing in front of her that protects us from her, should we need protection.

Mr. Post is a person, we understand, who is not afraid to look into our eyes (he has nothing to hide and seems open and honest). He, leaning comfortably against the back of the chair, has no fear of us, either, but, unlike the fearless Ms. Austin, he is not ready to pounce on us (physically or verbally). He doesn't seem to be leaning away from us, but, rather, is leaning a bit toward us. That, along with the focus (because of the light) on his facial expression, with its unforced friendly smile, is very endearing. He looks comfortable and content, and his body language seems to say "It's so good to see you. Please come and talk to me. Let's spend a while together."

I admit that it's true that in some portraits where the head is tilted back amost in the same way the subject does not look so friendly and welcoming as does Frans Post. For example, here is another portrait by Frans Hals in which the subject is placed in a similar pose:

Portrait of a Man - 1635
Artist: Frans Hals

What are the differences between these pictures that account for how we interpret the two subjects so differently? For one thing, the man (no name is given) in this last picture does not look as relaxed as Mr. Post. He has a pleasant face with a sweet little smile (though it's almost sarcastic looking - try on that smile yourself and find out how it feels), but he looks very stiff, which in my opinion has a lot to do with the diagonal row of buttons or decoration down the front of his jacket, which makes his head look like a piece of candy on the end of a lollipop stick. He does not look "relaxed," but simply leaning away from us as if he didn't want us to get too close. Also, he is not looking at us. He is looking at someone (or something) behind us and to our right, as if he couldn't care less about us but was only interested in whatever he's looking toward. His gaze also has the effect of straightening him up, which is one of the reasons he looks so tense. The overall effect is to make him look like a very alert, superficially accommodating person who, however, is impatient, fidgety, and not very thoughtful.

Furthermore, his clothing does not blend in so well with the background as does Mr. Post's. It is much more noticeable because it is well-lit and lit from the side so that the folds and creases are very noticeable, making his clothing appear to be aggressively confronting us. Also, we are able to see that the fabric looks as stiff as the row of buttons, and that his right arm is thrust forward toward us, almost into "our" space; this seems "unfriendly," as if he's trying to put up a threatening barrier between himself and the viewer.
In other words, he does not look comfortable and he does not look welcoming. The message I get is: "I'd like to get out of this chair and this situation ASAP, and, by the way, I do wish you'd stop pestering me. I have better things to do."

There are more portraits by Hals where he has his subject in this same basic position, and it would be fun to compare more of them, but those will have to wait for other posts.

The Difficulty of Portraying Civilized People

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 20:52:00 +0000

... or GET UNDER THE MASK - OR WORK AROUND IT

A CIVILIZED PERSON LOOKING QUITE BORING. (BELOW)

ABOVE: Mr. Morley, before 1802 (Wikimedia)
artist: George Romney (1734-1802), English painter

ANOTHER CIVILIZED PERSON JUST A TAD LESS BORING LOOKING (BELOW)

ABOVE: Nikolay Karamzin,1818 (Wikimedia)
artist: Vasily Tropinin (1776-1857), Russian painter

RENOIR NOT "GESTURING" BUT SITTING IN AN ODD PLACE, WHICH IS ALSO EXPRESSIVE. HE LOOKS SELF-CONFIDENT, AND COMFORTABLE IN CASUAL CIRCUMSTANCES. HE ALSO LOOKS ALERT, AND "RECEPTIVE" (NOT OVER-ASSERTIVE, JUST PAYING ATTENTION) (BELOW)

ABOVE: Renoir, 1867 (The Athenaeum)
artist: Frederic Bazille (1841-1870), French painter

A WOMAN WITH PLENTY OF SELF-ESTEEM YET WHO WISHES TO BE ALONE. BUT WILLING TO FACE WHAT SHE MUST FACE...SIGH (BELOW)

ABOVE: Eleanora Duse, c. 1893 (Wikimedia)
artist: John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), American

A CHEERY, INTELLIGENT AND KIND BUT HONEST WOMAN I'D LIKE TO BE BEST FRIENDS WITH. SHE'S NOT LOUD AND AGGRESSIVE, BUT SHE GETS ALONG FINE WITH PEOPLE - YET SHE'S COMFORTABLE BEING ALONE. (BELOW)

ABOVE: Lucie (Wikimedia)
artist: Robert Henri (1865-1929), American

A MODEST YET FRIENDLY MAN WHO WOULD BE NICE TO BE SITTING NEXT TO WHILE WAITING FOR SOMETHING. HE LOOKS LIKE A GOOD LISTENER, AND SYMPATHETIC AND PROBABLY ENCOURAGING. IT WOULD PROBABLY BE NICE TO HAVE SUPPER WITH HIM...AND KEEP HIM FOR A FRIEND. (BELOW)

ABOVE: Frans Post
artist: Frans Hals (c. 1580-1666), Dutch painter

A WOMAN WHO EVIDENTLY DID NOT WANT HER PICTURE PAINTED - SHE WANTS TO BE LEFT WITH HER OWN PRIVATE THOUGHTS. SHE LOOKS NOT SHY SO MUCH AS EMBARRASSED AND UNCOMFORTABLE BEING IN THE SPOTLIGHT. AND SHE IS NOT IN FULL CONTROL OF HER EMOTIONS. SHE MAY BE QUITE AN INTERESTING PERSON, AND PROBABLY IS, BUT THE PICTURE DOESN'T SAY "WHY" SHE MIGHT BE INTERESTING, ONLY THAT SHE'S VERY UNCOMFORTABLE, LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER.(BELOW)

ABOVE: Katherine Pratt
artist: John Singer Sargent

JUST A PERSON - A GENERIC WOMAN - NOT INTERESTING (BELOW)

Jane Needham
artist: Mary Beale (1646-1692), English painter

(Comments above the pictures are my first reactions to the subjects, the point being that some pictures tell me a lot more than others about the people in them.)

THE MASKS "CIVILIZED PEOPLE" WEAR

Most everyone who has reached the self-conscious age (what is it now, about eight years old? It used to be about age thirteen) has a "mask" that they wear while around other people (often they wear slightly different masks for different occasions...in many cases even in their own homes, and occasionally when alone). This "mask" (or "persona") is "how they wish to appear to others." The mask often consists solely of self-control, but sometimes it includes dress, hairstyle, makeup, and other accessories, even the milieu in which they allow themselves to be seen.

Some people don't have a mask, because they are quite unself-conscious or they just don't care what others think of them or whether they're upsetting people. But most of us with self-awareness try to control to some degree our facial expressions, language, and gestures so that we don't appear like five-year-olds or savages and make everyone wish we would just go away.

We are born with no mask at all, of course, as is so easily seen in babies, who let loose with every possible expression and gesture without any restraint during every waking moment ... and sometimes while sleeping. Of course there are some adults who seldom even try to hold back their emotions and in any case are unable to...jumping with joy at the slightest delight, crying easily, hitting or slapping people they feel offended by, stomping their feet when angry, and so on, but these people, who embarrass most of the rest of us, are few and far between. Generally, when we paint a portrait, the subject is a person who is not so unrestrained at least most of the time - they are "civilized" people, after all - and showing them with contorted faces and unconstrained body language would not portray them as they usually are (physically, at least), and there would be no point in making the portrait in that case.

Yet we don't want to simply show the mask...the mask, after all, is what covers up important things that we don't want people to know about us -- our attitudes and feelings toward life that may be in conflict with how we attempt to appear. The mask is important, as it is something the person has chosen, but what's underneath the mask is also important. In other words, we want to show both the inside and the outside of a person. Otherwise the person will look very, very boring, as uncomplex people are.

THE CHALLENGE OF MAKING A TRUTHFUL PICTURE OF SOMEONE WHO IS WEARING A MASK

In "civilized" societies we are taught from childhood to control our gestures and the looks on our faces (and our language) in order to cover up actions and reactions that come naturally to us. We are especially made to control ourselves when we are in public. And so we begin to acquire our mask very early in life, though it isn't until we are really self-aware (as mentioned above) that the mask starts to set. Once set, we may still experience strong feelings inside, but perhaps not as strongly after we become accustomed to not displaying them outwardly. In any case, painting portraits of individuals is often a difficult challenge because we are not able to use dramatic gestures and facial expressions to make clear the personality of a person, but must rely on less obvious clues to show what a person is typically like as far as their relationship with the outside world ... or, in fact, with the inside world -- with themselves and their own private thoughts.

And so we must figure out how to portray people's attitudes, and how they meet life's challenges -- or, in other words, we have to show their true "character" -- without relying mainly - or only - on facial expression and bodily gestures. Unless, of course, we want to portray someone who is very physically expressive, and this kind of person is probably fun to paint, and easier to paint (or draw), because their bodies are so helpful in revealing what kind of people they are. These subjects include babies and young children, as well as some adults.

Those who want more of a challenge, however, will choose a subject who is at least somewhat reserved in demeanor when it comes to their public persona, but who has a strong personality nonetheless. The challenge is to show the personality and character of that person even though he or she is sitting or standing still and not contorting his or her face like an old-time stage actor. (Painting or drawing people with very lackluster personalities with the intention of trying to show their personality is impossible because there is no personality; if you want to use them as subjects that are meant to look like they have no "life force" within them, that's a different story.)

THERE ARE MANY, MANY PORTRAITS OF BORING-LOOKING PEOPLE

I look at pictures of paintings and drawings just about every single day, sometimes dozens and dozens of them at one sitting, and I have seen many, many portraits that are quite "boring" even though done by very well thought of artists ... sometimes even well thought of by myself. They are often very fine pictures in a way, but they are - again - boring. The pictures themselves may be very interesting and well-done but the subjects look like there was no reason to paint them because they look painfully dull. I'm sure they were painted for the sitter or his or her family and represent the way the sitter wished to appear to others or the family wanted them to appear to others, and this is only natural (I would be the same way, hoping the artist would show me as I think of myself as being). Perhaps the artists hardly know their sitters in many cases, and don't have much to go on besides the demands and/or expectations of the person who is paying for the portrait.

So many of these portraits look the same -- and the person portrayed is just not interesting. You hope and wonder if they have a life (or a "personality"), because it sure doesn't look like it in the picture. They look like they might as well be invisible.

SO WHAT CAN BE DONE, THEN?

Assuming the artist wants to show a person's unique "self," i.e., to make a picture of an individual person rather than a generic one, it seems obvious that they absolutely must get to know the subject as well as they possibly can, or at least find out what the sitter wishes to project. But how do they show what someone is "really like" if they're sitting or standing in a typical pose that shows nothing other than that the sitter has learned to look composed, pleasant, and "natural" according to the style of the day? Or else they are wearing the type of clothing the artist has chosen, posing against a background the artist has put them in, and assuming a pose the artist - or photographer - has coached them into -- the clothing type, background, and pose being chosen by him or her from a limited amount of "standard" choices. (And by the way, how many studio portrait photographs have you seen that look like this? Tell me, are they not truly boring, too?)

What has to be done is this: The entire picture must be composed in such a way that it will help us understand the personality and character of the subject. Copying the person's exterior appearance is not nearly enough and often the exterior appearance may tell you very little about that person; in fact it isn't important or even desirable that you get every detail of what you see in front of you - as it would be seen in a detailed photograph. Only what contributes to your idea of what this person is like should be there, or should be emphasized, not every single thing that your eyes see in front of them.

The human being (perhaps I should say "the body") in front of the artist is not the only thing he or she must be concerned with. The body should be in a context. The entire picture contributes to our idea of what the person is like, and this is where "composition" comes in. In fact, it occurs to me that a good (and interesting) exercise might be to use a painting of a person that someone else has done, getting the physical "likeness" as it is in that picture (same basic facial expression and pose, etc.), and try to change the person's perceived personality and character by how you re-compose the picture around these basic facts.

HOW DO YOU DO THIS?

How do you do this? Some examples: change colors and/or darkness and lightness and intensity of colors, change dark/light contrasts, change the size and/or placement of the subject and other objects in relation to the outside edges of the picture, change values, change the direction of the light, change what is emphasized, change the style of the chair, add appropriate (to your idea) objects and remove inappropriate ones. And, also, you can and even should use a certain amount of bodily gesture, just so it's subtle, and very natural to the person and helps us to understand what he or she is like. There is much more you can do - you will think of things as you go along. It would be important to always keep in mind exactly what you want to say about the subject so that you don't just do whatever might be "fun" or "interesting" to do and end up with a different personality than you intended. The result might be exciting to look at, but if it wasn't an exercise and were a real portrait of someone you were painting then you would not have done them justice. The idea isn't to have fun (though you might have fun anyway; I would hope so) but to do the person justice.
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NOTES:

1) If you try the above-suggested exercise, maybe you could leave a comment in which you add a URL that would lead us to the "before" and "after" pictures. I would love to see them and probably others would, too.
2) I will write more on portraits.

Making a Giant Look Immense and Powerful

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:00:00 +0000

What makes The Colossus look so gigantic?
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GIANT, noun: (in folklore) a being with human form but superhuman size, strength, etc.
Dictionary.com

There are very tall people among us now, and no doubt there always have been. Here are photos of just a few of them:

Zhan Shi Chai (1840s-1893), Chinese, Eddie Carmel (1936-1972), Israeli-American, Ralph Madsen (1897-1948), American, and Sultan Kosen (1982-still living), Turkish.

These unfortunate people have often ended up being exhibited as freaks in circuses, and as there are few other job openings for them or anyplace where they "fit in," they usually grudgingly accept their fate and allow themselves to be exhibited. Their abnormal size is usually a result of a tumor on their pituitary gland (which regulates growth). Rather than being super-healthy, their condition often causes them to die young. These people are startlingly tall compared to the rest of us, but of course none of them have been "giants" of the kind that we know about from legends and fairy tales. They are not the type to cause an earthquake when they walk or eat a pile of whole roast oxen for dinner.

The giants of mythology and stories and movies and so on are always huge beyond a size that humans have ever grown to, and are extremely strong and powerful and often looking for a fight with gods, or with other giants, or else they're looking for a meal. No matter if they might be supposedly "friendly," such a giant would be frightening, as even the most careful and courteous giant might inadvertently step or sit down on people or animals or houses, etc., or knock over a building. He (sometimes she) would also use up the resources of the local "little people" in a hurry.

Though it's obvious that giants of this type have never actually existed in real life, they've been invented by writers, artists, and storytellers as metaphors to fill different needs. For instance, it is likely that the giant ("Colossus") in the painting shown below is meant to represent the Spanish people resisting Napoleon's invasion.

The Colossus - 1808-10
A clearer reproduction
Artist: This painting was formerly attributed to Francisco de Goya, but some experts now believe it is by Asensio Julia (1760-1832) (Here is a much better article on Julia, but in Spanish), a pupil and friend of Goya (Spanish - 1746-1828)
Picture, from Wikimedia, is in the public domain

To me this giant looks definitely of gargantuan size and strength, in addition to appearing somber, serious, and powerful. One would think mountains would crumble as he walked by.

What are some of the things the artist has done that make this giant seem so gargantuan and powerful? It's not just the size he has made the figures in the foreground, which are tiny in relation to the giant. If we are able to see this picture more clearly and in a larger size, we'll see there are people and animals in the foreground fleeing the area, but I didn't even notice them when I first looked at this dark reproduction of the picture, and wasn't aware of them until I read about them later; they just looked like specks of debris to me. When I saw another reproduction, I could see them, but even when I didn't know they were there the giant looked extremely gigantic. In fact, it seems to me that you could remove the bottom third or so of the picture, leaving out all the comparatively tiny humans and animals, and he would still look of monstrous size.

And what if we leave the bottom of the picture intact - Why is it that we don't see the Colossus as a man of normal size and the fleeing people and animals as being very tiny?

There are several things I can think of that the artist has done to make the Colossus look so gigantic and powerful. Here is what I've been able to come up with so far:

Borrowing the immensity of the sky

- There is the fact that he blends in with the black sky, making him "as big as the sky," since in many places you can't really see where he ends and the sky begins. I think that is one of the most effective methods the artist has used to imply monstrous size. What is bigger than the sky?

Making the giant appear to be rooted in the earth

- Although he seems to be part of the sky - or the sky seems to be part of him, at the same time he seems to be "rooted" in the earth (his body from the thighs down is either in a very deep valley or at the bottom of the ocean...neither one of which seems likely...or he is supposed to be buried from feet to thighs in the earth, not immobilized, but in order to appear figuratively deeply of this place and not about to be unsettled by mere interlopers), and this secure attachment to the ground gives him a look of great stability, adding to the impression of power and invulnerability.

Comparing his height with the height of the clouds

- He rises above the clouds...that alone makes him seem huge.

Contrasting his size with that of the clouds

- There is also, of course, the contrast in size between the clouds and the giant.

Contrasting his size with that of figures in the foreground.

- Mentioned above.

Having his eyes closed to show control of a huge reservoir of emotional energy

- The giant appears to have closed eyes. To me at least the closed eyes add to the feeling of power and strength contained within his massive and stable body. The closed eyes remind me of closed vents on a steaming pressure cooker. They show that he's holding back extremely strong emotions in order to keep them under control, presumably in order to make the best use of them, though he could explode with fury and action at any second.

Making him appear reddish
- One thing that helps make him look powerful is the lighting, which presumably is caused by a setting sun, making him reddish, and therefore hot looking, which causes him to appear very "alive" and possibly angry or otherwise possessed by a powerful emotion about to erupt.

Illuminating the giant from a low angle

- The light shining on the giant is coming from a low angle, illuminating him as a just-setting sun would throw dramatic reddish light on a monstrous thundercloud to the east. Lighting him from "below" helps make him seem even taller.

Positioning his body so that he looks even bigger

- His raised arm and fist make him look bigger -- It gives him more bulk; and although his back is in blackness, much of its outline is clearly defined by the lighted clouds beyond it, so that we are aware of the thickness of the middle of his body -- If the background behind his back had also been black, he would not have looked so big and powerful. He would have look very tall, but "flimsy," not thick and strong.

Positioning him so that he appears to be rising

- Also, the raised arm, capped by a huge fist aimed upwards, along with the nearby head of the giant (which so strongly pulls our attention so near the top of the picture), makes it seem as if he's rising (and, as Arnheim [see Note 3, below] points out, what is rising is what we are alarmed by -- what is drooping or lying flat does not scream out "danger" to us; it calms us down as it is non-threatening). A rising giant (and/or the rising arm and fist of a giant) is definitely alarming.

Using a strong diagonal to show action

- The raised arm is the only really noticeable diagonal in the composition. We all know that a diagonal that is not supporting something signals "action," though that action could be "rising" or it could be "falling." The arm does look like it's rising, rather than falling, as the fist seems to "pull it up." Action, especially "rising" action, implies energy and power.

Providing a viewpoint that makes the giant look huge

- Another thing that adds to the impression of hugeness is how the giant appears from our viewpoint. Even though he is a great distance away, we are looking "up" at the giant from approximately the level of his thighs, knowing that the rest of his lower body is far below our eye level. Just imagine how it would affect us if we saw such a thing from this viewpoint in real life.

Putting him in the upper part of the picture

- There is also the fact that objects that are higher up in a picture seem heavier than they would if they were lower in the picture. The giant is the only thing in the upper part of the picture, other than the clouds (which are "floating"). His raised arm and fist plus the thickness and three-quarter view of his body give him great width in this part of the picture. If his arm had been at his side and the hugeness of his back not defined by the light-colored clouds behind it, he would have looked tall but not massive. But he does have a raised arm and fist and etc. Not only that, but as mentioned, just because these things are so high up in the picture it makes him seem even heavier, and stronger. (If a person can easily hold up that much weight - the weight of his monstrous body - we can assume he is very strong).

Putting him in the distance

-- Oddly enough, something else that makes him look huge is putting him at such a distance from the foreground. How do we know that the giant is far in the distance? One way we can tell is that the mountains are in front of him (i.e., between the giant and the viewer) -- We may not assume that those dark shapes are mountains but even then we know that the entire foreground, whatever it is, is between him and us, cutting him off at the upper thighs, thereby, to our eyes, pushing him back behind something, which of course indicates that he is in the distance.

-- Another thing that implies distance is the dramatic difference in lighting between the foreground and background. Where the giant is, in the distance, the evening sunlight is still trickling through, but in the foreground you can hardly see what is going on; it is as if it's already nighttime there. Such a difference in lighting indicates a difference in depth. Knowing he's at a great distance, the fact that he still looks enormous is rather stunning.

Putting him in the vertical center

- He is basically, as far as the legs and main trunk of his body is concerned, in the vertical center of the picture (though turned toward the left). Being in this position stabilizes him and makes him seem invulnerable.

Having him turn toward the left
- The fact that he is turning toward the left might show an attempt to push back at something that is coming at him from that direction. Action in a picture generally is imagined to begin at the left side and in this case the giant stops it and keeps it from going further. (Due to the fact that his base is firmly "planted" along the central vertical of the picture, the giant does not seem to have come from elsewhere, but to be defending himself from his home base, there in the center of the picture.) Having him turned toward the intrusion shows that he is quite aware of the danger and is able and prepared to do something about it ("the sleeping giant" has been awakened and he is furious).

Including fleeing people and animals

- Although these are hard to make out (at least in the copies of the painting I've seen), when you do notice them, they appear to be moving at top speed away from the giant, indicating, I would guess, one of three things:1) The giant is scaring them; 2) They know that something horrific is about to happen involving that giant and whatever he is facing; or 3) They are trying to escape whatever the giant is confronting, leaving him to take care of the problem. In any of these cases the giant, be he friend or foe, is having a terrific impact on these people and their animals.

Selecting a suitable format

- The picture is in the shape of a vertical rectangle, though not far from being a square. That is, it's "squat." This format reinforces the stocky, sturdy, powerful look of the giant.
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Although I have not seen the original painting, and I have probably not even seen a good reproduction (the picture shown here is the only one I've studied; I chose it because it was explicity said to be in the public domain), the ways in which it appears to me that this picture makes the giant look tremendously huge and powerful are still valid. My point is to reveal ways in which to make something look immense and fightfully strong and energetic. Certainly techniques such as these have been, and are, used not only in stories and drawings, paintings, photographs, etc., but also in other art "products"...from architecture to advertising...to make something - anything - appear to have similar qualities.
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NOTES:

1) The thoughts presented above on how the artist has made the giant appear to be so huge and powerful are my own, based on what I have read and understand; I am not pretending to be an expert, but I am very interested in composition and study the subject constantly.

2) I'm aware that The Colossus is now considered by some (most importantly, the Museo del Prado) to be the work of Goya's apprentice, Asensio Julia, yet it is very much in the spirit of what Goya himself would have done and some experts still believe it was painted by him. It doesn't matter here (in this post) who the artist was, as we're talking about how the composition makes the giant look gigantic, but it's interesting.

Here are some articles on this subject that you might want to read:
Wikipedia article on The Colossus (El Coloso), in English

Wikipedia article on El Coloso (The Colossus), in Spanish - This one is much longer and more interesting than the one in English.

"Does it matter who painted The Colossus - Goya or his apprentice?", Article in The Guardian (U.K.),

January 27, 2009, by Adrian Searle

Museo Nacional del Prado on the attribution of El Coloso
This is in Spanish, though Google will translate it. It's a long, very detailed, illustrated explanation of why they consider that El Coloso was not painted by Goya.

3) Rudolf Arnheim

Books by Arnheim consulted for this post:
--- The Power of the Center
--- Visual Thinking
--- Art and Visual Perception

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Andre Kertesz

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:00:00 +0000

ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ, PHOTOGRAPHER

(Born in Hungary in 1894; died in New York City in 1985)

Photographers Robert Doisneau at left, André Kertész at right, during a talk in Arles, France, in 1975 - Photo provided through Creative Commons License 3.0 by Wolfgang H. Wogerer, Wien

AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDRÉ KERTÉSZA IN FOUR VIDEOS - Watch Them Below

There are many of Kertész's photographs shown in these videos. Don't be put off by the first video because of his difficult-to-understand English. It is definitely worth the trouble of trying to pick up what one can (and the interviewer, as well as the photos shown, do help). You will be glad you were patient when you get to the second and third videos, especially. The second and third time I went back through the interview, I understood what he was saying better and better, and of course I was able to see the photographs again and again.

After Kertész moved to the United States, to New York City, in 1936, his work, in the style he had always worked in, was rejected by magazines here (though his pictures had been published in European magazines) because it was too "human," too "sentimental" and "tells too many stories." Yes, he said, they were right, as that is what his photographs are about, those are the kinds of pictures he took. He said that they wanted photographs that were mechanically perfect, that were "documents," but his were, instead, sensitive and human, and "real."

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"He left behind him a successful career and many close friends. New York was a disaster. His kind of photography was not understood, and magazines would not print his tender and sober images." (From second video, see below)

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Nevertheless, he did some magazine work here in the U.S., though not able to fully exercise his unique creativity in the assignments he was given (for example he worked for House and Garden from 1945 to 1962), and he was very disappointed, but he stayed. After he left House and Garden he was finally able to take the kinds of pictures he wanted to again. Now he is recognized as the fine photographer that he was.

Note that you can watch these videos in a much larger size in the Thinking About Art Library.

André Kertész - Part 1

Master Photographers BBC series (1983)
9 minutes, 55 seconds

When first video finishes, scroll down to the next video

WHEN THIS VIDEO FINISHES, SCROLL DOWN BELOW TO THE NEXT ONE
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André Kertész - Part 2
Master Photographers BBC series
10 minutes, 20 seconds

WHEN THIS VIDEO FINISHES, SCROLL DOWN BELOW TO THE NEXT ONE
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André Kertész - Part 3

Master Photographers BBC series
7 minutes, 33 seconds

WHEN THIS VIDEO FINISHES, SCROLL DOWN BELOW TO THE NEXT ONE
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André Kertész - Part 4
Master Photographers BBC series
3 minutes, 53 seconds

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Here is another interview with Kertész, which you can read rather than listening to. It appears to be a transcription of a filmed interview. This is quite different than the interview in the videos, above. Almost every bit of this is regarding his experiences with photography from childhood until before he came to the U.S.

An excellent NY Times article on André Kertész (2005)

"Everything is a subject. Every subject has a rhythm. To feel it is the raison d'être. The photograph is a fixed moment of such a raison d'être, which lives on in itself." - André Kertész

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Robert Hughes on Art Collectors

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:16:00 +0000

Robert Hughes: Commentary on Art Collectors (excerpt)
9 minutes, 58 seconds

Robert Hughes interviews an art collector who has paid millions of dollars for what hangs on his walls. Hughes obviously didn't tell the person being interviewed ahead of time what he (Hughes) thought of the paintings, or of the artists who made them.

Robert Hughes' biography

I would be interested in reading your comments on this.

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Article on the same subject by Charles Saatchi: The hideousness of the art world
(This link added on December 5, 2011)
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THE MOULIN ROUGE

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:38:00 +0000

The Moulin Rouge, a cabaret in the Montmartre section of Paris, opened in 1889. It featured a large orchestra, dancing, and other live entertainment (but of course all entertainment was "live" back then).

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was there as an invited guest at the opening, and after that there was a table permanently reserved for him. Although the Moulin Rouge and its dancers, management, and customers were not his only subjects after that, he spent a great deal of time there and one can't think of one without the other.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril at the Moulin Rouge
The Courtald Institute, London
3 minutes, 55 seconds

I saw this video just after it was uploaded as I subscribe to the Courtald Institute's videos (there are two other videos below in this post that came out a little later). If you knew what I have been reading lately (which I will not at the moment divulge, as I'm preparing a post that has to do with the subject!), you would understand why this reminder of the Moulin Rouge and Toulouse-Lautrec, et al, in the exciting, risqué Montmartre of the 1890s seemed so jarring to me. A clue: I felt a little embarassment when I realized that I actually appreciate the art and the style of Lautrec and others associated with the Moulin Rouge. I myself am an introvert and prefer to be alone in a quiet place with a book or a pen, but I very much appreciate styles that honestly reflect the milieu, whatever it may be, and that express the individual character of the subject(s) -- in spite of the fact that there are people I admire and whose views I respect who seem to make a lot of sense when they say that this, and most popular art, is not respectable "art" at all, and those of us who think it is have a lot to learn. I'll go into more about that when I have the time for it, in future posts.

Below is another video on this subject from The Courtald Institute. There is quite a lot more about Jane Avril in this video, and many more pictures of her by Lautrec. (There is more yet in the third video, further below.)

Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril Beyond the Moulin Rouge: Introduction to the Exhibition
The Courtald Institute, London
3 minutes, 43 seconds

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 – 1901)

was a French post-impressionist artist.

Lautrec in Fernand Cormon's studio in Montmartre, Paris, 1885

In the photograph you will see by clicking on the link just above, Toulouse-Lautrec is in left foreground, seated on a stool.

Vincent van Gogh was also a student in Cormon's studio and allegedly he is one of those pictured in the photograph, somewhere on the right side of the picture. I myself can't figure out which of those people he might be, if any.

Jane Avril Leaving the Moulin Rouge

Artist: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril: Avril in Public and Private

The Courtald Institute, London

3 Minutes, 45 Seconds

"Post-Impressionists extended Impressionism while rejecting its limitations: they continued using vivid colours, thick application of paint, distinctive brush strokes, and real-life subject matter, but they were more inclined to emphasize geometric forms, to distort form for expressive effect, and to use unnatural or arbitrary colour." -- from Wikipedia aticle on post-impressionism.

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Here are links to pictures by three other artists who painted (inside or outside of) the Moulin Rouge in the same years that Lautrec did:

Le Moulin Rouge
Pierre Bonnard, c. 1893

The Moulin Rouge and the Rue Lepic as Seen from the Place Blanche
Frank Myers Boggs, do not have the date

Bal du Moulin Rouge (poster)
Jules Chéret, 1892

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Ronald Searle - Artist, Satirist, Cartoonist

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 01:32:00 +0000

Ronald Searle in video interview, March 2010

Ronald Searle, born March 3, 1920 in Cambridge, England, is mainly known in that country for his humorous (and wickedly satirical) cartoons about the beastly girls who attend the fictional St. Trinian's school for girls and for his Molesworth cartoons about a boy named Nigel Molesworth who attends a terrible boy's school. I had not heard of these much-beloved "school" cartoons or the books of cartoons or movies based on them...Well, in fact, I still have not seen them other than a few examples of each when I came across an interview with Searle recorded at the time of his 90th birthday; but I recognized his name right away and knew he was a famous cartoonist and that I have enjoyed his cartoons...probably I had seen them in magazines as I have always loved political and social commentary cartoons of a satirical nature and have never been able to get enough of them. Charmed by the interview and amazed that he was still alive (apparently many people are similarly amazed, since he left England to make his home in France and left behind St. Trinian's et all in 1961), I dove in and found out more about Searle so I could write this post on him.

Nigel Molesworth - Picture is from video interview with Ronald Searle

Although the "school" cartoons are quite famous, Searle has done much, much more and in fact was very glad to leave them behind so he could devote himself to other subjects. I've put together a page on Searle in the Thinking About Art Library. As the "Library" is actually an annex to this blog, I'll let you go there to watch a couple of videos in a much larger size than would fit in the format of this blog; one of the videos is of an interview with Searle at the time of his 90th birthday (in 2010) and the other shows illustrations he made for Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." There are also some links on the page to interesting articles on Searle, and a link to a site where you can find hundreds of his books (used) at low prices.

From Searle cartoon shown in video interview with Ronald Searle

Searle's forte is satire, sometimes very strong satire. He has said that his experience as a prisoner of war made him take everything more seriously from that time on, inclining him to see the "dark side" of things.

Already an artist who had been obsessed with drawing since he was a child, his four years as a POW (held by the Japanese) when a very young man gave him "purpose," he says. He felt that he had to record what was happening, to illustrate what he and his fellow prisoners of war were going through which he felt people should know about, and so he drew prolifically while a prisoner, on whatever blank surface he could get his hands on, trading cigarettes for scraps of paper (he traded drawings for the cigarettes). He hasn't stopped drawing since. He is amazed himself at how much he has drawn during his lifetime. The interview video will give you a good idea of how much he has done. And he continues drawing even in his nineties, and why not, as it's what he loves. Currently he is drawing for the Paris daily "Le Monde." "It is the illustrations for Le Monde by which he now wishes to be judged, and he hopes they will appear next year in an English- language version of a book already in print in France. They are simple, stark and highly political condemnations of political chicanery and double-dealing, corporate greed and global inequality." (Quote is from a December 2006 profile on Ronald Searle in The Guardian.)

Drawing Searle made as a POW - from
video interview (see link below)

Searle is a man with a point of view, with strong feelings...with something he wants to say (though sometimes he's kidding, as in the "school" cartoons), and what he wants to say comes out very, very strongly in his drawings - though of course his feelings are exaggerated - that's what makes them "comic." His caricatures are all expression. He doesn't worry about making something look superficially "realistic," as that isn't necessary and in fact would get in the way of what he wants you to know about it/him/her/the situation - It's the exaggeration of some characteristics (and contraction or even absence of others), and gestures, proximity, etc. that tell us what the characters are really like or what they're thinking.

From a cartoon by Searle - from video interview in 2010

Ronald Searle has illustrated dozens and dozens of books, has drawn for animated films, has made many, many cartoons for such magazines as Punch, The New Yorker, and Holiday, and also has created advertisements...among other things.

Ronald Searle Videos and links in the Thinking About Art Library.

From a cartoon by Searle, shown in a 2010 video interview.

Note: My posts always "fall apart" when they're first published, with too much space between some things and not enough between others. I will correct these things as I can as I can.

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Alfred Stieglitz

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Tue, 10 May 2011 19:40:00 +0000

Alfred Stieglitz - 1902
Photographer: Gertrude Kasebier

Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was "an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form." (Quote is from Wikipedia article on Stieglitz.)

Although Stieglitz was born in Hoboken, New Jersey (January 1, 1864), his parents were from Germany. In fact, the family moved back to the home country in 1881, when Alfred was a teenager. There he attended the equivalent of high school in Karlsruhe, then studied mechanical engineering in Berlin. He fell in love with photography at that time and traveled through the countryside in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands taking pictures (he received a large allowance from his father). All of the family except Alfred returned to the U.S. in 1884 - Stieglitz stayed on until he was called back by his family in 1890. By then he was thoroughly dedicated to photography, had read extensively on the subject, and had written regular articles on photography for magazines in England and Germany. Also, he was winning prizes for his photographs.

When he got back to the U.S. in 1890, he was in his twenties. He already considered himself an artist (with a camera) and did not look for employment and did not have to as his father continued to support him. Later, his first wife was also able to support him. And so, with his natural talent and sensitivity, constant hard work, unflagging enthusiasm, and unwavering love for his photographic art - and usually no need to work at anything else - he lived quite a fascinating life that ordinary people could only dream of.

Below I am including three of his photographs (one is of his second wife, artist Georgia O'Keeffe), and also one very good video. Please note that you can see this video in a much larger size and also see more videos on Stieglitz in the Thinking About Art Library.

Above: Fifth Avenue, Winter (New York City) - 1892
Photographer: Alfred Stieglitz

"My picture, 'Fifth Avenue, Winter' is the result of a three hours' stand during a fierce snow-storm on February 22nd 1893, awaiting the proper moment." - Alfred Stieglitz

Above: The Hand of Man - 1902
Photographer: Alfred Stieglitz

Above: Georgia O'Keeffe - Hands - 1918
Photographer: Alfred Stieglitz

"The ability to make a truly artistic photograph is not acquired off-hand, but is the result of an artistic instinct coupled with years of labor." - Alfred Stieglitz

ALFRED STIEGLITZ - EARLY WORK/PICTORIALISM
9 minutes, 15 seconds

VIEW THIS VIDEO - AND OTHER VIDEOS ON ALFRED STIEGLITZ - ALL IN A MUCH LARGER SIZE - in the Thinking About Art Library. There are other art-photography videos in the Library, also.
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Alfred Stieglitz - Biographical material

There are several articles on the web on Stieglitz. I liked these:

Article on Stieglitz on Wikipedia. This is a thorough one-page biography that includes many facts that are not necessary to know and yet do make him seem more like a person who is connected to the past, to what was going on in the world while he was alive, to his unique experiences in that world, to his family, to his friends, to people who didn't like him, to his lovers, and to his wives. If one believes that a person's achievements all come entirely from within that person without outside influence of any kind, then it would not be necessary or of interest to read anything other than, for example in this case, how he composed and developed his pictures and what he did with them in the darkroom afterwards, what kinds of cameras he used, what his subjects were, etc. There is nothing wrong with keeping an article to these sorts of facts, but neither is it a crime to place the photographer in his world, and that is what this writer has done, although certainly there are many more details than I personally think were necessary to do this effectively. Still, if you feel like taking the time to read it, it's a good story.

New York Times article on Alfred Stieglitz - February 13, 1983 This article refers to an exhibition of Stieglitz' photographs at the National Gallery of Art. The author mentions that Stieglitz's earliest pictures (taken in Europe) were reminiscent of quiet rural genre scenes by painters such as Courbet and Millet (this kind of treatment is known as "Pictorialism"), but when he began taking his late-19th-early-20th century photographs in New York City the scene was so different that Stieglitz's style changed dramatically as he reacted to a city where much was happening and rapidly changing; and later his familiarity with and admiration for modern art seems to have made him look for more abstract compositions.
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NOTE: There is a new post on Alfred Stieglitz (Jan. 25, 2012)

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HENRI EDMOND CROSS

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:52:00 +0000

Antibes - Afternoon - 1908
Artist: Henri Edmond Cross (1856-1910)

Henri Edmond Cross was a French "Divisionist" painter, though he did not paint in that style until after he had met Georges Seurat and Paul Signac who had invented the technique (they had each come across
this technique separately, then met and developed their ideas further together). Divisionist painters did not "mix" colors, but applied them as small dabs or strokes side by side so that they would "mix" when seen at a distance. This made the colors appear more vibrant.

Cross' original surname was Delacroix but he changed his name to an English version to avoid confusion with Eugene Delacroix. He was born in northern France and settled in Paris in 1881. His early paintings were in the Realist style, but he started painting in lighter colors after he met Claude Monet in 1883; in that year also he spent time in the South of France where he became interested in landscape painting. He met Georges Seurat and Paul Signac in 1884.

Although very interested in the Divisionist (also referred to as "Pointillist" and "Neo-Impressionist") technique, Cross didn't begin painting in the Divisionist style until the year Seurat died, in 1891, beginning with a painting of his wife. In the same year Cross moved to the Mediterranean coast for health reasons.

After 1895 Cross' colors became more intense and he changed from dots to larger brush strokes. He continued to modify his style (but kept to a form of Divisionism) and for a while he painted nudes and mythological figures into his landscapes. In 1897, his friend Paul Signac moved to Saint-Tropez, close to where Cross lived in Saint-Clair. In 1904 Cross met Matisse in Saint-Tropez and they became friends. Cross made two trips to Italy before the end of his life. He died in 1910.

Rocks at Trayas - 1902
Artist: Henri Edmond Cross

Note in the following painting by Henri Matisse how he had been influenced by the Divisionist technique of Seurat and his followers, as were many other artists. Divisionism (as well as other post-Impressionist styles, for instance that of Gauguin and of Van Gogh) had a particularly strong influence in the development of Fauvism, of which Matisse was a leader.

Les toits de Collioure - 1905
Artist: Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

VIDEO

Henri Edmond Cross
10 MINUTES, 14 SECONDS
(There is no sound with this video.)

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The Square Format - Example 3

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 19:54:00 +0000

Fiesta Gallega ("Galician Festivities") - no date
Artist: Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923)

This is the third post with an example of the square format used in a painting.

The first example was a painting by Alfred Sisley titled The Rest by the Stream. The second example was a painting by George Bellows called Cliff Dwellers.

THE ROLE OF THE SQUARE FORMAT IN ACHIEVING THE MOOD THE ARTIST WISHED TO CONVEY

I don't know how it looks to you, but I would characterize the mood of Fiesta Gallega as intense, vibrant, and serious.

This painting has quite a different mood to it than that of either the peaceful, restful, and refreshing Rest by the Stream or the tense, stifling, claustrophobic Cliff Dwellers, and yet they were all painted in a square format which does strongly affect the mood and the "message" in all of these pictures, no matter that the mood and message are not the same.

In the Cliff Dwellers there seems to be no possible relief from the tension that is produced to a great extent by the four "walls" of the square painting's edge, which push inward toward the center, contributing strongly to the feeling that the people are not able to escape the scene.

In the Rest by the Stream the "pressure" applied to the scene by the four sides of the square is not able to achieve a depressing mood because of many other factors that have quite the opposite effect; instead it gives just enough of a gentle push inward to make the scene seem cozy and secluded.

In Fiesta Gallega, while the four sides of the picture do seem to press in and hold the people snugly together (it looks like they've been collected and set down inside a crowded little box in which they still stand, not sure what to do), the background seems to offer an area of escape and refreshment that would be available to all of these people should they wish to simply walk away from where they are all tightly gathered together; yet it also somehow reminds me of the bit of landscape you see in the background of such paintings as the Mona Lisa -- not on the same plane as the ground the subject stands on, but more like a picture on the wall behind the subject. In any case, although the pressing in from the edges of the square frame in Fiesta Gallega does make things look "intense," the mood is not oppressive; in fact other compositional factors (colors, value contrasts, overall texture, etc.) decide how much "compacting" influence a square format contributes, though virtually always it will have some influence.

WHY THIS IS SQUARE AND NOT HORIZONTAL

As this is not a horizontal picture, we of course do not see any space to either side of the tight group of people who are packed into a square box-like shape. It's not that we can't imagine space, and people, extending to either side beyond the frame, and in fact we can see "parts" of people at both the left and right edges, suggesting the crowd is larger than what we see within the square frame. However, most paintings are meant to give us their message without our having to imagine parts that aren't there - unless it has been strongly suggested by the artist that something outside of the picture is important to what's going on on the inside (e.g., by adding the tip of a lightning bolt striking the ground at one edge). The viewer will bring his or her imagination and knowledge to the picture, but the composition is that of the artist, who has certain aims in mind, and one thing the artist did to accomplish those aims in this case was to make the composition square rather than horizontal. To either see, or imagine, the people spread out to left and right would take away from the intensity and feeling of common purpose and predicament the painter presumably was trying to communicate by "painting them into a box."

WHAT IS IN THE CENTER OF THE PICTURE

A solid blue hat on the head of a young woman is found right in the middle of this picture. It is the only sizable area of solid blue in the whole crowd of people. It is natural - one does not even have to think about it - to look at the center of a square picture in order to orient yourself (the same as if you were trying to find your way around in a square plaza - it will probably have something in the middle that everything else in the plaza will relate to, for example a fountain or a bandstand, and by keeping track of where that central object is you can find your way around), and in some square pictures you'll find the main subject right there in the middle ... or if it isn't there it's often close by. Being a different color than all that surrounds it makes this blue hat even more eye-catching. Obviously this hat on the head of a young woman is not the main subject, though; instead it serves as the "balancing center" of the picture (like a fountain is to the plaza), to which everything else in the picture is related.

THE SUBJECT AND THE CENTER

So, what is the main subject? Actually, we should probably ask instead what is the "dominant center," as Arnheim calls it (or you might call it the "focal point") in the picture, as to me at least, the main area of interest in this picture is not its subject, but, rather, an anonymous example of what the festivities mean to these people. That is, the people (more about them below) who are at the "dominant center" or "focal point" of the picture are probably not any particular people and what they are doing is not making history, even in their local group, but the relationships that we observe between these three people show a certain seriousness in the mood and the importance, to them, of carefully and conscientiously following customs.

It seems to me that the subject is, as the title says, "Fiesta Gallega." All of the people, the sunshine and the shade, the green grass and the trees and the feeling of being outdoors and of sharing a common heritage and customs -- These are all, together, the subject.

MORE ABOUT WHAT'S IN THE DOMINANT CENTER

The dominant center (or "focal point") of the picture includes the man in the red jacket and the woman facing him, and also the man in black and white directly behind the red-jacketed man. There are several reasons these three people seem "central" to the picture in spite of their not being at its geometrical center. One of those reasons is that they are positioned directly beside the head of the girl in the blue hat and in fact the man in black and white is actually positioned on the central vertical and the back of the man in the red jacket it up against that central vertical (the woman in the dominant center, although further away from the balancing center than the men, is part of the little group). The reason this group is not actually at the very center is that this position in a square (as in a tondo) is usually reserved for a subject that is rooted deeply, that is "timeless," unchanging, unmovable. You must be away from the center if you are to be seen as active
-- as "living" rather than "existing" (or "being").

EVIDENCE OF THE CARTESIAN GRID

There is quite a lot on this blog, in other posts, about the Cartesian Grid, so I won't go into much detail in this post about why it's used and how it works. Ultimately - believe it or not - it has to do with the fact that we live on a planet with a strong gravitational pull and so an artist who wishes to represent life as it is lived here on Earth must be aware of the grid, whether consciously or unconsciously. Evidence of the grid is seen in verticals (sides of buildings, fence posts, tree trunks, standing people, etc., etc.) and horizontals. This probably is not new to you, but if it is, you can read some of my other posts, perhaps especially Art, Gravity, Life, and the Cartesian Grid.

The square format alone (with its two vertical and two horizontal edges) is strong evidence of the Cartesian Grid being taken into account, but also there is other evidence of the grid in this picture. It doesn't matter that there are no perfectly straight lines or shapes inside the picture. The trunk of the tree at upper left and the small (because it's "distant") but noticeable yellow trunk of a tree at the upper right of the picture both provide evidence of the artist's awareness of the grid - He is showing verticality in these shapes.

There are also full top-to-bottom views of the two (standing, thus vertical) people who are at the dominant center of this picture, plus there is the woman standing in the left foreground who provides a vertical shape all the way to the bottom of the picture.

Verticality is especially strong in the case of the man in the red jacket. He is wearing dark clothes from the hat on his head down to and including his shoes, so he blends right in with the dark ground at his feet, making a long vertical shape that goes from the top of his head to the very bottom of the picture, anchoring him (and the other two people he is with) solidly to the ground in the right foreground thus helping to offset the general tilting of the picture's contents toward the left (as the thick dark trunk and leafy branch of the tree are also helping to do - by "lifting" - at upper left); in this way the artist makes the entire picture look lively and energetic (due to the "balancing act" that's going on) even though we see no apparent movement among the people. (There are also other factors which contribute to making the scene look "lively" in spite of the fact that the people are as quiet and still as mourners at a funeral, but in this post I'm focusing on "squareness" and the "grid" and the roles they play.)

The one (but very strong) horizontal is the brightly-lit background scene at the top of the picture, and by the way it seems all the more slanted because of the proximity of the verticals which frame it to the left and to the right as well as the comparison with the horizontal edge of the picture just above it. (Yet slanted or not, it works as a horizontal.) Incidentally, you may have noticed that the people are not on level ground, either, but apparently are standing on the same slope that is shown in the background. This is not immediately obvious, though, because the tilting is balanced by counterforces, including those mentioned in the last paragraph.

There is much more that it's tempting to say about this picture, but I've tried not to stray too far from a discussion of the effects that "squareness" has contributed to it.
keywords: center, composition, gravity, horizontality, Sorolla (Joaquin), square, square format, verticality

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Video on The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 22:22:00 +0000

THE HARVESTERS - 1565 - by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

(c. 1525-1569)

This painting is also called The Wheat Harvest. It's one of a series of paintings of the months that Bruegel made for a client (Niclaes Jonghelinck) in 1565. One of the paintings is missing, leaving five in different museums. This painting, The Harvesters, was made to represent the months of August and September.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an interesting five-and-a-half-minute video in which they talk about this painting. In it they call The Harvesters "the first modern landscape in western art." I would like to have shown the video here, but it is only available at the site, so click here to watch it. Look just below on this post to see the other paintings in this series that have survived.

The Hunters in the Snow - December-January

The Dark Day - February-March

April-May is the missing picture

The Hay Harvest - June-July

August-September is the picture at the top of this post:
The Harvesters, also known as The Wheat Harvest

The Return of the Herd - October-November

The best biography of Pieter Bruegel the Elder that I have been able to find online.

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The Thinking About Art Library

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 16:38:00 +0000

I have very little money to spare, yet I find many interesting art books to read and to own -- both old-style books made of paper, and ebooks. There are also lots of art videos online that I really enjoy watching and learning from - though they're often hard to find among the zillions of videos that are a waste of time to watch (after wasting a huge amount of time looking for the good ones in the vast sea of not-so-good ones).

For a while I've thought about adding a "library" to this blog, in which I'd put links to the art ebooks I've found that I particularly like, and also the art videos that I think have something to offer other than just pictures that we could easily find for ourselves along with music that we might find distracting and/or inappropriate (yes, I know, I could just turn the sound down, but sometimes I'm hoping for some commentary). It would be a very "personal" Library, reflecting my own tastes and interests, and to tell you the truth it would be very handy for me!

I have finally put together such a library, though it had to be on a website of its own so that I could utilize a different format that would be better for the ebooks and videos (for one thing, the videos are much larger in the new Library than they are on this blog).

I began work on the Library just about a month ago, but it already includes dozens of art ebooks and dozens of art videos (and a few audio files), along with a page about finding other free art ebooks on the web, and another page on which I tell you how to find real art books at bargain prices on the web. I hope you enjoy looking around in the Library. You might want to bookmark it after you've glanced at it, and come back when you have time to explore.

The Thinking About Art Library

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The Square Format - Example 2

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:22:00 +0000

THE SQUARE FORMAT

Cliff Dwellers - 1913
Artist: George Bellows (1882-1925)

This is the second post with an example of the square format used in a painting. The first example was a painting by Alfred Sisley titled The Rest by the Stream.
The square format of The Rest by the Stream, helps achieve a very calm, restful effect. In the painting shown above, by George Bellows, the square format helps achieve a stifling, compressed, claustrophobic, "no way out of this place" effect. (It makes me think of the trash compactor scene in Star Wars.)

WHAT IS GOING ON IN THIS SCENE

Obviously these are poor people who cannot stand the heat inside these brick buildings they live in (and I assume their apartments are small and crowded, adding even more pressure). Of course there was no air conditioning back then. They have to go outside in order to get any relief at all, though they can't go far - either onto their tiny balconies or onto the crowded street and sidewalks directly below. One gets the feeling that the people in this scene are trapped, unable to get any real relief before they'll have to go back inside. Although outside of their rooms, they are still virtually imprisoned between the high apartment walls.

Although I did not read about what was actually going on in this picture before I first saw it, I knew immediately that this was a crowded tenement scene in New York. Where else could it be? I knew of the Ashcan artists of New York and what their usual subjects were, and that George Bellows was associated with them (though I had only seen his boxing scenes). I was especially familiar with the tenement drawings of John Sloan, which I have spent a lot of time looking at and am still fascinated by. (See Sloan's drawing called Night Windows (1910), on the Phillips Collection website; also, there is an article on John Sloan on Wikipedia.)

However, I am assuming that even if I hadn't known anything about these artists or their typical subjects or about the living conditions of recent immigrants in New York City in the early years of the twentieth century, I would have had a strong inkling of what was happening here because of what the composition and the square format are "saying," and I'm pretty sure you would have come to the same conclusions.

But what if a stranger who had just arrived from another planet and had never before seen these types of buildings or human beings, nor knew what we know about the times, the place, and the local artists were to observe this picture. Might they be able to quickly figure out what this picture was about? The basic idea, I mean. It depends. If their home planet was large and dense and gravity was as important there as it is here (which would probably be the case), it seems likely to me that the stranger would at least be able to figure out the basics: these creatures have been forced outside, they can't go far, they are trapped. Also, the alien -- being some kind of intelligent creature (here alone, observing, and curious) -- might realize that the "people" were at least some kind of animal life, probably intelligent (they are not all doing the same thing, so one might guess they're self-guided), and so on -- but what I'm most interested in here are the basic forces and the forms and directions and such that reveal them.

THE SQUARE FORMAT AND GRAVITY

Although the square format has been much used since the early 20th century for abstract and semi-abstract pictures for the very purpose of eliminating the appearance of the effects of gravity (which are so much a part of "realistic" painting), Bellows obviously did not wish to disregard gravity and in fact the effects of gravity are very much taken into account by the artist, and used to help us understand what is going on. Just one example: The people, sapped of energy by the heat, seem to have spilled from their no doubt sizzling apartments downward toward the relief of a lower, comparatively cooler and airier, stratum, but now that they are there they appear to be weighted down and barely able to move (note that everyone at the bottom of the picture is sitting at or almost at ground level, or has both hands and knees on the ground, and they do not look like they're about to get up). Our intuitive understanding of how gravity works to pull and hold people down when they're weak or tired or injured or sick helps to suggest or reinforce the idea of these people's lack of energy and lack of ability to do anything about the situation.

THE SQUARE FORMAT'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE OPPRESSIVE LOOK OF THE SCENE

In this square format, all four sides seem to be pushing toward the center or at least holding it very firmly in their coordinated grip, giving a feeling of compression throughout the entire picture. Of course there is help in creating this squeezing effect from the vertical edges of the buildings which repeat the verticals of the inward-pushing sides of the square, plus there are the converging perspective lines which make it look as if we're peering into a brick box, at the far end of which is a lighter-colored building which appears to be marching forward right up the street toward the crowd of people ... who, as we know, cannot escape. (All I can say is, this picture must have been a lot of fun to think out).

WHAT IS IN THE CENTER OF THE PICTURE

In Sisley's square painting, The Rest by the Stream, there is nothing but a blur of leafy branches in the middle of the picture, but this central area of indistinct "leafiness" seems to be surrounded by a "circle," which transforms it into something like a pinwheel that seems to move around and around hypnotically, helping to give the effect of movement and breeziness that spreads to the edges of the picture. This is a very refreshing effect.

The center of Bellows' inner city scene is also virtually empty - There is nothing to focus on there. But just as is the case with The Rest by the Stream, the empty space is surrounded by a "circle." In this picture it is a virtually inert circle of people (in the foreground as well as at the windows and fire escapes) along with the clotheslines at the top (a weak link that makes the bottom of the circle seem heavier). A circle has somewhat of a mesmerizing effect; it holds your attention. The people are around the edges of it but they seem to be held to it, too. It seems that nothing is allowed to escape this confining circle, only to drop to the bottom of it.

Besides employing the tondo-like circle (Arnheim calls these "internal tondos" - see in The Power of the Center, p. 130, by Rudolf Arnheim) within the already confining square format, in order to, among other things, make us see the pattern of distribution of the people including those just outside their rooms, the artist has seen to it that no one is making a move toward the edges, not even at the bottom where most of the people are concentrated; the people seem held in place -- they have escaped the worst, but this is as far as they can go. They are "held to the center" by the artist's composition (including his choice of the shape of the canvas).

The verticals of the buildings, especially the one in dark shade, very effectively keep the "circle" from spinning (as the center does ever so slowly in The Rest by the Stream by Sisley), thus oppressively helping to keep the people weighted down at the bottom. Those verticals are reinforced by the nearby presence of the verticals of the edges of the picture. Also, the convergence of the buildings as they go into the background, where they meet even more buildings so that there is obviously no escape via that route, adds strongly to the effect of claustrophic confinement.

A Day in June - 1913
Artist: George Bellows (1882-1925)

A COMPARISON

In the above picture, painted by Bellows in the same summer that he painted the Cliff Dwellers, the effect is quite different. These are not the people who live in the tenements. These people can go to a park with cooling grass and shade trees and have a pleasant picnic when it's too warm in their homes. You will have noticed right away that the picture is not square - it is a horizontal rectangle. The horizontal rectangle allows the people the possibility of moving beyond where they are and accommodates well a feeling of peace and ease and conviviality. This rectangle is made even more peaceful and unstressful looking by its division into two shallower rectangles, the upper one a dark green mass that looks very deep and inviting. Also, there are views beyond of the blue sky with clouds (including at both upper edges, so that the dark mass of trees doesn't seem to continue on forever as do the buildings in the inner-city picture), and people appear to be moving beyond the confines of the frame as well as into the dark, cool interior. In other words, there is a feeling of "escape from stress" present everywhere. It makes Cliff Dwellers look like a pizza oven in comparison.

ALSO READ: The Square Format - Part 1 (The Rest by the Stream by Alfred Sisley)

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Rembrandt - The Public Eye - Simon Schama

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 02:40:00 +0000

Simon Schama wrote and narrates Rembrandt: The Public Eye. Watch it below in a series of five YouTube videos.

BELOW
Rembrandt: The Public Eye (Part 1 of 5)
Simon Schama
9 minutes, 5 seconds

BELOW
Rembrandt: The Public Eye (Part 2 of 5)
Simon Schama
9 minutes, 49 seconds

BELOW
Rembrandt: The Public Eye (Part 3 of 5)
Simon Schama
8 minutes, 22 seconds

BELOW
Rembrandt: The Public Eye (Part 4 of 5)
Simon Schama
9 minutes, 17 seconds

BELOW
Rembrandt: The Public Eye (Part 5 of 5)
Simon Schama
8 minutes, 32 seconds

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The Square Format - Example 1

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 21:12:00 +0000

THE SQUARE FORMAT

The Rest by the Stream - 1872
Artist: Alfred Sisley (1839-1899)

In this picture the square format helps achieve a peaceful, stable effect, much like a tondo (which is in the shape of a circle) does and for the same reasons (see Rudolf Arnheim's The Power of the Center, Chapter VI: Tondo and Square). The tondo shape, however, does not give a feeling of being grounded, which a square format is very capable of doing, and does here.

Although once you have seen this picture for the first time you may then look around the scene for details in other areas, your eyes are first and foremost drawn to the middle, where close and distant foliage mingle. For me, at least, that center area seems like a pinwheel that turns slowly and hypnotically, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left, and it's hard to glance away from it.

The intense focus on the center (in spite of there being nothing there but indistinct leafy branches) has as much to do with the square format as with the large shapes in the composition that lead you there. A horizontal format or a vertical format would suggest something is happening or about to happen, or relationships are being revealed, or etc., causing you to look all around the picture to get some clues as to what's going on. But a square scene seems to just sit there quietly, its outer four edges implying a central point that they're all equally distant from and related to so that you simply can't help but look toward that calm and steady central point when you begin to search for the subject.

The square shape, with four straight edges of equal length and at right angles to each other, imply the balancing center of picture is in the actual "geometric" center of the square. This central focal point makes the picture (or at least whatever is at the very center of it) seem very balanced, solid and stable, as if it's not going anywhere nor is it concerned with anything that is outside of the edges of the picture. (Certainly an artist could make the subject look as if it's concerned with something beyond the edges, but in general the square format is used for a self-contained picture and it is very suitable for it.) The scene is made to look even more stable in this particular picture because of the depth the artist has given the scene, giving it the look of being inside a square "box" (cube) that is solidly resting on the earth's surface.

The role of the Cartesian Grid

The feeling of stability is further reinforced by the tree trunks that repeat the verticals of the sides of the picture, as well as the lower edge of the brightly lit grass behind the tall trunks and the bit of horizontality seen in the distant footbridge and suggested on the roof of the house at left which repeat the horizontals of the top and bottom of the square frame. These large and small bits of vertical and horizontal "lines" that can be seen imply a stable structure beneath the rolling ground and other curving shapes that fill the canvas. They suggest that the Cartesian grid is being utilized in this painting. The Cartesian grid considers the earth to be fundamentally flat (though of course, those who use the Cartesian grid know the earth is spherical; it is just that for many practical purposes it is flat enough within the areas we make use of that it is most practical for us to consider it flat and even to flatten it if it's not, e.g. in the case of floors, roads, sidewalks, and building foundations). The Cartesian grid (or Cartesian Coordinate System) is made up of verticals and horizontals that are perpendicular to each other. These horizontals and verticals are seen to be stable (inactive but solid and secure). When the structure of the Cartesian grid is evident in the composition, you are able to notice when things are not in line with it (i.e., not strictly vertical, or not strictly horizontal), thus enabling you to detect movement, direction, slopes, curves, etc. To find out more about what the Cartesian grid has to do with art, you might want to read an earlier post: Art, Gravity, Life, and the Cartesian Grid.

The Cartesian Grid combined with the Centric System

In this particular picture being discussed here (The Rest by the Stream by Alfred Sisley - see above) the Centric System and the Cartesian grid system are both effectively utilized to bring about the feeling of calm restfulness the painting's title promises.

Combined Centric and Grid Systems

The above diagram, which so perfectly applies to this square painting by Sisley, and more on this subject can be found in an earlier post, entitled Centric Systems. In that post it is noted that the Introduction to The Power of the Center, by Rudolf Arnheim, begins with this sentence: "This book derives from a single idea, namely that our view of the world is based on the interaction of two spatial systems." Those two spatial systems are the Centric System and the Cartesian grid system.

The similarity to a mandala

"Mandala is a Sanskrit word that means 'circle'. In the Hindu and buddhist religious traditions, their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point." (This quote is from a Wikipedia Article on the mandala.) The article goes on to say that "mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of aspirants and adepts, as a spiritual teaching tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation and trance induction."

Note how the mandala seen below combines the Centric System and the Cartesian grid system in the same way they are combined in the Sisley painting.

Tibetan Sand Mandala
Uploaded by Mary Mueller [CC-BY-2.0], to Wikimedia Commons

The cubical "enclosure"

The feeling of a snug cubic "enclosure" surrounding this scene also adds to the serenity and satisfaction we feel when viewing it. It is like viewing a scene in a glass sphere except that in the case of the cube we feel as if we could actually enter the scene, whereas the sphere rejects us -- we can only look at it from the outside. (You can read about the scene within a sphere under the last picture in an earlier post, titled Round Artworks).

There are other factors, also, which contribute to the
"restfulness" of this picture, but they do not have to do with its "squareness."

The Square Format - Example 2

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The Last Flower

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 14:46:00 +0000

THE LAST FLOWER
Text and illustrations by James Thurber, 1939
Four minutes, Twelve seconds
(There is sound)

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Visiting Spirits - Where Are They Coming From?

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:56:00 +0000

When it comes to the entrance of spirits onto a scene, the main rule is this (as we all know): The exceptionally good ("holy") and powerful spirits come from above and the exceptionally bad (as in "they are coming from Hell") and powerful ones come from below -- while ghosts of ordinary dead people enter at ground level (unless they're raised from their grave six feet below the surface - but then they end up at ground level or just barely above).

Another "rule" seems to be that these visitors usually enter the scene to the left (i.e., the viewer's left) of the person or persons they've come to interact with. Of course there are exceptions, but it does seem that most of them enter from the left, especially if it's their idea (or the idea of their superior, who has given them orders) to make this contact with one or more living humans (and sometimes animals); on the other hand, it seems that in most cases if someone summons a spirit then the summoner is shown to the left of the spirit.

An Angel Appears to Balaam - 1866
Artist: Gustave Doré (1832–1883)
From Wikimedia, this picture is in the public domain

The angel, who at this point can only be seen by the donkey, has obviously entered the scene from the left (i.e., the viewer's left), and obviously from above, as we can see that she has wings of a size that would be awkward for regular use at ground level but very useful for flying purposes, plus of course it is common knowledge that angels live in Heaven (which is "above").

Gottvater mit Propheten und Sibyllen - 1497-1500
Artist: Pietro Perugino (1446-1524)

When God himself decides to communicate with people on earth, things are a little different. In pictures he very often seems to reveal himself from directly above - or very close to it - and doesn't come anywhere near ground level. He is often in something resembling a bubble, or large halo (aureola) when he is in this location. In addition to announcing his "holiness," these appear to seal him off from everything outside them. This appearance by God does not have to do with approaching humans at their level. This is not a "visit" so much as "vision," or some kind of a revelation, and is a one-way communication, apparently without any expectation of, nor desire for, immediate personal response from the human(s) below. The fact that he is near the top of the picture also makes it clear that this is a picture that is meant to imply a hierarchy wherein the person "on top" has power over those below even though they may not come into direct contact with them.*

* Please see other posts on this blog that have to do with gravity and how it influences our interpretation of what is going on in a picture. Not only does our understanding of gravity "tell us" that what is up higher has more weight (in a picture - not in real life) and thus (at least if it is not very close to or actually touching an edge of the picture) has power over what is below it, but also we are aware that something that is higher up can "observe" and perhaps understand better (and for that reason, too, have an advantage over) those who are below -- while those below, of course, for the same reasons are at a disadvantage.

Picture from a German church

From Wikimedia - Photo of this painting taken by Andreas Praefcke

I don't know the story behind the deathbed scene above, but this picture seems to me to be extremely easy to read, with its zigzag composition that includes all the characters, who are arranged in a way that tells us much more quickly than words what is going on here -- Without knowing anything about this, not even the title, it appears obvious to me that: the man is dying and receiving the last sacraments from a priest who is no doubt at that very moment pleading with Mary to intervene and ask that this man's soul be accepted in Heaven. Mary is placed between God (who is above, and not personally participating in the deathbed event) and earthly life, and she is (looking at and) begging God to have mercy on this man and either to let him live...because, as it also very obvious, the man has a wife and baby who will be left behind if he dies...or to let him into Heaven. Meanwhile the devil, rising from blackness below, and unseen by all, is surveying the whole scene and apparently waiting to take the man's soul down with him to Hell. The scene is pertinent to this essay because of the visitations of Mary (from above left) and the Devil (from below right) as well as the appearance of God to Mary, who has summoned him in order to make a request.

As mentioned earlier, whether the living person is purposely approaching or summoning the spirit, or the spirit is approaching the living human of his or her own volition, sometimes seems to make a difference with regard to which side of the picture they seem to have entered from. I have noticed that it is usually the one who has the idea of communicating who is at the (our) left. In the above picture the summoner is the priest on behalf of the man. The devil has taken it upon himself to enter the scene -- he was not summoned by anyone.

Magician raising a ghost

Illustration from Robert Cross Smith's The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century (1825)
The image is based on an 1806 illustration by Ebenezer Sibly.

In the above picture, the idea of communicating was that of the magician, not the ghost, yet the ghost is shown to our left. But if you look at the illustration this picture was based on, below, you will see that the artist, Ebenezer Sibly, shows the magician and his friend on the left and the ghost on the right.

Edw[ar]d Kelly, a Magician. in the Act of invoking the Spirit of a Deceased Person
Engraved by Ames of Bristol (1806), original drawing by Ebenezer Sibly

Ghost of humans who, upon death, did not graduate to Heaven nor plunge directly into the depths of Hell (they seem to still be entirely preoccupied with earthly affairs and want to be handy so they can interfere in them easily), may approach people from any direction (except from skies above or from below, with the exception of rising from their own grave or from a lower floor or basement), but generally they approach at ground level or at times floating, upright, just a tad above the ground (no doubt due to their weightlessness - It's hard to keep your feet on the ground when you're a ghost, apparently).

Cap'n Goldsack, Pirate Ghost
Artist: Howard Pyle (1853 - 1911)

Although the pirate ghost in the above picture appears to be approaching the viewer "from above," that is because he has been placed near the top of the picture; he is not actually descending from above (from the sky), but, rather, seems to be approaching at ground level (with no sign of having flown or floated in) and appears to be stumbling down into an indentation in the ground. His position at the top of the picture, in fact, (helped by the darkness of the head) gives him the "weight" that makes him appear to be stumbling heavily downward.

The Witch of Endor Raising The Spirit of Samuel.

c. 1800

Artist: Willliam Blake (1757 - 1827)

"The Witch of Endor, sometimes called the Medium of Endor, was a woman who called up the ghost of the recently deceased prophet Samuel, at the demand of King Saul of the Kingdom of Israel in the First Book of Samuel, chapter 28:3–25."

I am not sure which of these figures is the witch, but I'm assuming it's the person on the (our) right side of the picture, dressed in blue. "Her" arm is raised as if to "pull up" the spirit (yet the spirit seems to only have eyes for the fellow in orange, who must be King Saul, though I don't know). All I know about this story is what is quoted in the above paragraph, but the story the picture tells is what concerns me. We should be able to get the general idea of what's going on without knowing the story ahead of time.

The witch seems to have pulled up Samuel directly out of his grave. The relationship between the three, if we are to go by their positions in the picture seems to be that it is the man on the left who is the one who summoned the spirit, using the witch to do so, and that would fit the short description quoted in the last paragraph. In other words, the entity whose idea it was to make contact is to the left (i.e., our left) of the ghost (which tells us why the ghost is facing in that direction).

Brutus and the Ghost of Caesar - 1802
Copperplate engraving by Edward Scriven

(1775-1841) from a painting by Richard Westall (1765 - 1836). London, 1802

Brutus, visited by the ghost of Julius Caesar, whom he has helped to kill, is obviously feeling very worried here. The ghost is probably no taller than Brutus would be if he were standing, but still he seems quite threatening not only because of his gesture and his evil look, but because he (particularly his head - the center of his thoughts, which lead to actions) occupies quite a large area near the top of the picture and "above" Brutus who has been sitting in a casual fashion, not ready to run anywhere. Also, Brutus has been surprised from behind by the ghost and being penned in by the table (and apparently a wall or a drape to his left) is not prepared for a quick exit whether he can get his feet under him or not.

Nissaka Man Receiving Baby from his Wife's Ghost - 19th Century
Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Above: The description under this picture says that this man's murdered wife (the ghost) has just handed her baby to her husband, and that the woman's spirit lives in the rock that her blood flows from.

I don't know whether the man went to the rock to implore his dead wife to give him the baby, or if he was just there to visit her spirit as one normally visits a grave of a departed loved one and it was her idea to hand over the baby, or if perhaps he has just killed her himself, though I doubt the latter as it does say her spirit "lives" in the rock as if has been living there for some time.

She is looking toward her husband but there is some reason she has turned her back on him after handing him the infant. Perhaps he killed her some time earlier, and giving him the baby was her revenge - though if he had killed her, certainly he wouldn't want to visit the place where she was murdered as he'd probably be very worried about what her ghost might do to him.

The fact that she is "above" him in the picture, in the same area that Ceasar inhabits in the picture above, may tell us that she is the one whose idea it was to appear to her husband...that it was not his idea. I really don't know. I am not (at this time) able to "read" this picture clearly. Possibly if I had been raised in the Japanese culture it would be obvious.

The Approach of Doom - 1788
Artist: William Blake

When I first saw this picture I thought it was unfinished. Then I realized, or supposed, that it was not, that we finish it in our own minds, not with any "thing" that could be seen, but with a huge feeling of dread of the unknown.

Whatever it is, this "doom" that is approaching is coming from the left and it is filling the air over and under and around the people, nibbling away at them - dissolving them. They are backed up at the right as if they had gone in that direction to escape, but now have nowhere else to go as they have reached a dead end. Their legs are straight and their arms are entwined so they can be as close together and as far away from the dreadful thing as possible, and they are looking the only way there is to look, directly into whatever it is, which they can't see clearly but know means their certain death.

No monster could look as frightening as this cloud of "nothingness" that is enveloping them and that there is no escape from. The white tentacle-like shape at upper left that seems to be leaping toward the huddled group makes us realize that this is no innocent fog but something that contains a hellish element that seems to be throwing its light onto them, seeking them out in order to find and destroy them, very likely by dissolving them so that they become part of the cloud.

You may think I'm reading too much into this because I know the name of the picture ("The Approach of Doom"), but try to imagine this picture with a less morbid name, such as "A Lovely Summer Night's Walk in the Cooling Fog." You would probably then look at the picture and say to yourself: "I don't think so."

My hope is that this little essay will help the reader to realize that the placement of objects in pictures, in relation to each other and in relation to the perimeter of the picture, is very important to the viewer's understanding of what the picture is about.

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How to Make a Fat Man Look Even Fatter

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 23:22:00 +0000

(And Like a Fool As Well)

A vertical format can make a subject look more slender and tall than it actually is.

Philip II of Spain - 1551
Artist: Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490-1576), better known as Titian
From Wikimedia, this picture is in the public domain

But a vertical format can also accentuate fatness.

Porträt eines dicken Herrn, des sogen - 17th century

("eines dicken Herrn" seems to translate to "a fat lord")
("des sogen" seems to translate to "so-called")
Artist: Bernardo Strozzi (c. 1581-1644), Italian Baroque painter
From Wikimedia, this picture is in the public domain

This man, the artist seems to be saying, is not just fat - he's too fat (and not just fat but clueless - Strozzi did not like this guy).

A very large person can be made to look comfortable and quite acceptable and even admirable in his or her world -- the "world" of the painting. But Strozzi has made this large man look like he doesn't fit at all into the scene he has painted him into (even though the subject looks quite conceited, apparently completely unaware of how ridiculous he appears).

Other paintings by Strozzi show that those people he cared to flatter or whom he had something else to say about were not painted in the same way at all. For example:

David with the Head of Goliath - c. 1636
Artist: Bernardo Strozzi
From Wikimedia, this picture is in the public domain

David (as well as Goliath's head) blends in with the background (and foreground - let us just say with the "ground"), whereas the "fat lord" stands out as a dark figure against a very light background so that we can very clearly see his entire bulging contour. As we can see from the painting of David and Goliath, Strozzi did not paint all subjects alike - How he painted them had to do with what he wanted to get across about the subject, so obviously the artist made the "fat lord" look as fat as possible quite intentionally.

How the artist made the fat lord look bigger:

- First of all, he chose the shape of the overall picture: a narrow vertical rectangle. A narrow vertical format can help to lengthen and slenderize a bulky vertical subject but other factors have to be manipulated as well or the same vertical rectangle can make the subject look even bulkier than it is - because of the contrast between tall/slim and bulky/wide. This is especially true if the sides come quite close to the subject, indicating that it barely fits or even that it's expanding toward the edges of the composition. This is the case here.

- And of course the rectangular shape (rather than an oval or round shape) of the perimeter of the picture -- along with the straight vertical columns -- strongly suggests the "Cartesian grid" understructure of the painting, making it impossible for us not to notice the bulging shape of the man as contrasted with the straight vertical and horizontal lines of the grid.

- As mentioned above, there is the contrast of the very dark subject against the very light "ground," making his large and bulging profile extremely obvious, and in fact more immediately noticeable than anything else in the picture.

- The dark shadow the man's stomach casts on the column blends in with the adjacent stomach to make it seem even larger than it is. "Where the overlapping units together form a particularly simple shape, they tend to be seen as one and the same thing." (Rudolf Arnheim in Art and Visual Perception, page 121)

- The man is, for some reason, pulling up his hem. Not only does this show us that he has huge legs, but it also plumps up the fabric and adds more bulk to the profile on the side of the picture opposite the stomach.

- The slenderness of the sword, which reaches down to his feet, contrasts with the bulk of the body, making the body look all the larger. The sword is so narrow that it looks like it might snap under the weight.

- The sword also accentuates the protrusion of the stomach since it is directly in line with the stomach's profile beginning at its outermost extension and acts as an arrow that points out the outer edge of the frontal bulk. (Another function of the sword is to "pin down" the lord's balloon-shaped stomach, as it seems to be rising.)

- The "heavily planted" feet seem to be pushed downward by a great weight.

- The artist takes advantage of the fact that we perceive objects that are higher in the picture as being heavier than they would look in a lower position "[I]n a painting the higher an object is in pictorial space, the heavier it looks." (Rudolf Arnheim in The Power of the Center, page 24) Thus the stomach looks particularly heavy.

- The vertical shape (a column) that is closest to the man's body and to the front plane of the picture not only contrasts with the rotund shape of the man's body, making it stand out all the more, it (the column) also helps to "lift" the stomach up, making it seem all the more prominent (and even "active!") - as if it were being shown off. ("Look at my magnificent stomach!")

The reason the column appears to lift up the stomach is that it (the column) is seen to be rising like a rocket just starting to lift off the ground - and in doing so "pulling" the nearby stomach upwards with it. The reason the column appears to be rising is that although there is a very definite base attached to its bottom, essentially "blocking" any perceived downward thrust, in contrast there is no change in shape (like a bulge) or anything else (such as a capital at the top) that appears to slow down the "ascent" of the column at the top the picture, and so the column appears to continue rising upward and out of the scene. -- When something immediately adjacent to something else looks like it is reaching upward, as this column is, there is a tendency to perceive that almost-attached "something else" as being lifted along with it. (See The Power of the Center, by Rudolf Arnheim, pp. 21-23)

- The fat lord's maximum girth is above the horizontal center of the picture, attracting our attention to it more strongly than would be the case if it were lower in the picture where heavier objects, pulled down as they are in real life by gravity, are usually found.

- The man's hands seem to cradle a large globular mass (his stomach), thereby emphasizing its size and shape. And speaking of the cradling hands, notice the difference in their apparent size, with hand in the foreground looking much larger than the one in the background - yes, there is probably more of the hand that we can't see from that position but what is important is what we can see; also the hand in the background is darker by far than the very prominent and brightly lit larger foreground hand...This difference in hand size and brightness emphasizes the distance between the one and the other.

Hold cursor over pictures to read directions

Click on above pictures to see left divided into upper and lower halves, right divided into quarters
- The large pear-shaped face (which we can see clearly as it is lit from the side and is of a light color modeled by dark shadows) is similar to the shape of the main bulk of the man's body. The light/dark modeling makes the face and neck area look 3-dimensionally bulgy, suggesting that the adjacent similar (though much larger) shape is also 3-dimensionally bulgy.

- The fat lord's feet (it looks like only one foot is shown, but we assume the other is there beside it!) are shown sideways and they seem very long - Whether or not it's just that he has very long shoes, or whether part of what we see is the "flag" or whatever it is lying on the floor doesn't make any difference. It is the dark shape we see and where the foot ends and the shoe ends or where the material behind his foot ends makes no difference as it is all one dark mass that we see as "the feet." Even if we saw only a bare foot and knew where it ended, this sideways view of it is the largest image we could have of it; obviously the artist gave us this profile view of the feet to make them seem very large and virtually planted to the floor in order to emphasize the man's great weight pushing downward ... Look at that heavy-looking, downward aimed wedge-shaped calf directing all the weight of the body above into the shoe; the leg seems not to end at the bottom of the shoe, but, rather, the shoe that we see looks like it opens up at the bottom so that the wedge extends into a deep pit.

- Another way he has been made to look large and heavy is by seemingly rubbing up against the column, as if there wasn't room for him to stand without bumping into something.

How the artist made this man look foolish:

It has been implied by the artist that the man, who looks very conceited, and proud of his figure, is delusional and foolish. Here are some of the ways the artist shows that the man is not what he thinks he is:

- His facial expression shows that haughty and satisfied look just mentioned, in spite of the ludicrous figure he presents.

- He is holding a very odd pose in a very odd place, just barely fitting on that pedestal and facing in the direction of the column. Obviously there's nowhere to go in that direction; he has run into a blockade.

- Note the viewpoint, from a little below. The artist has put this man quite truly on a pedestal and has us (ironically) looking "up" to him. Actually it appears as if the fat man had put himself on that pedestal, having had to step up there in order to take that pose.

- The man is (awkwardly) turned to show his profile, as if showing off his huge stomach quite proudly. (I don't think the subject knew anything about this picture, do you?)

- Perhaps what looks like a crumpled flag under his feet and just behind his lower legs might be there to show that he is capable of crushing things easily. Or it could be the remains of a flimsy chair he had been sitting on. With the other "clues" we've been given, we tend to think that the reason that "crumpled fabric" is there probably has to do with this man's weight and/or size.

- Why is the man pulling up his hem and showing his huge leg?
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The artist must have really enjoyed creating this picture (and probably his other pictures as well). He knew what he wanted to "say" about this man (i.e., that this delusional fat man is a pompous fool), and in order to get that across he had to do a lot of thinking (or "problem solving") to figure out how to accomplish this goal. Sounds like fun to me.

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A Discussion About Creativity

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 21:52:00 +0000

THIS POST includes a half-hour (audio) discussion about "the creative mind in science and in art." The participants were Rudolf Arnheim, Margaret Mead, and Milton C. Nahm, and the moderator, Lyman Bryson.

This is a radio program produced in 1958 from a series titled The Creative Mind in the Twentieth Century, from the PBS-NPR Forum Network.

The "player" is embedded below on this page. There is no picture, as it is from a radio program, but you can listen to it. You can skip now down to the embedded program, or first read (just below) some information on the participants and on the subject they discuss, plus some excerpts I've extracted from the discussion, if you are interested.

PARTICIPANTS IN THE DISCUSSION

RUDOLF ARNHEIM
(1904-2007)
Professor of the Psychology of Art at Harvard University
American, born in Germany
Photo of Rudolf Arnheim

MARGARET MEAD (1901-1978)
American Cultural Anthropologist
Photo of Margaret Mead

MILTON C. NAHM (1903-1991)
Professor of Philosophy at Bryn Mawr College, and author of many books, at least one of which you can read online (The Artist as Creator)
Photo of Milton C. Nahm
MODERATOR
LYMAN BRYSON (1888-1959)

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FROM THE INTRODUCTION GIVEN BY LYMAN BRYSON, MODERATOR:

"We're going to look at the problem of how in a society like ours -- how in any society -- we can discover the conditions that make creative work more likely ... a little better harvesting of whatever genius we can produce in our population, and I suppose that problem...can be put this way: Since we know that in other times and in other places, there has been a high productivity of creativeness in art and science and other forms of expression, can we locate those conditions and describe them, and if we can describe them have we any real confidence in our capacity to reproduce them in our own society?" -- Lyman Bryson in the Introduction

SOME EXCERPTS FROM THIS DISCUSSION

(These are from my own notes that I took while listening to the conversation and any comments in brackets are mine - J.V.)

"I think that the greatest advantage you can give to your creative child...is to treat every child with the expectation of his creativity. You need an atmosphere of the expectation of creativity for all children, so that those few children [who are indeed capable of being creative] can flourish." - R. Arnheim

"One thing which I welcome very much is that we are beginning to think when we talk about creativity of something which is beyond the arts and even beyond the sciences. That is, that when you see nowawadays businessmen getting interested in creativity, and trying to train their executives in creativity. Now they are not after the arts, obviously. They may be using the arts or they may think they can get their cues from the arts, but what they are really after is a kind of alertness of mind, in a very general sense, which is not even served very well by technique. I don't think we ought to emphasize technique too much. What you need is that openness of response and that accessibility of your resources, which somehow doesn't seem to be there. You train these children about all sorts of techniques and they're technically very good about all sorts of things. What you don't have is that access to their spontaneity which make their work different from the work of other people." - R. Arnheim

"It seems to me that what we ought really to do is to subject them all to the same kind of technical discipline (or within the areas of their interest), and from this hope that the originality would come." -- M. Nahm

"[I]n the arts and in the sciences and so on, what we are not asking for is imitation. What we're asking for is in some sense for the creative mind to go past the mere copying, past the mere imitating, past the mere technique, although we all agree, I think, that this would be a condition for it." - M. Nahm

"There's a great danger in the misinterpretation of the word "spontaneity," to mean that somehow one should be "untrammeled" by tradition.....We tend to see tradition as something that's limiting, instead of being the thing that makes it possible to create." - M. Mead

"If we can make people see that the core of a society is genuine originality -- and this, it seems to me, is the primary function of fine art....That is, what the fine artist does is really very interesting because he does give us a picture of his society, but he does so much more -- and if we could take our audience and our critics and the people who have, to use a technical phrase, who have possibilities for aesthetic experiences...If we could make them see that originality is a value in itself, and then can be used to make other people creative, and use this technique in another way, then I think we could solve it....." - L. Bryson

"What is truly creative must come out of the experience of the creator -- his own experience, not something he got second-hand. That makes it valid. This is artistic honesty." - L. Bryson
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HERE IS THE PROGRAM
This is a radio program produced in 1958 from a series titled The Creative Mind in the Twentieth CenturyFrom the PBS-NPR Forum Network
Audio Only. 29 minutes,19 seconds
(Note: The woman, of course, is Margaret Mead, the man with the German accent is Rudolf Arnheim, and the other man is Milton C. Nahm)

video platform video management video solutions video player

Hold your mouse pointer at bottom of the above black rectangle to see controls (if they should disappear)
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There are videos on Creativity in the Thinking About Art Library.

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Verticality - Heaven is Up and Hell is Down

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:38:00 +0000

A vertical format strengthens the theme of the great desirability as well as difficulty of reaching Heaven and the ease of descending to Hell instead.

Why? Because Heaven is "up" and Hell is "down," and a vertical format, which so unmistakably shows who's on top and who's below (metaphorically speaking) is the best format in which to show a hierarchy, in this case the hierarchy that has Heaven at the top and Hell at the bottom.

But why is Heaven up and Hell down? It's gravity that gives us an up and a down, and it's the effects of gravity that make going "up" difficult and therefore admirable and "down" easy and therefore unworthy. Down is the direction in which gravity constantly pulls us toward the center of the earth. Up is the opposite direction ... toward the sky. Gravity holds us in place on the ground or...if we dare to try to defy gravity and move upward by some means...is ever capable of pulling us back to earth, in a most deadly fashion if we dare to attempt to go further than we safely can. For most of the time humans have noticed this they have not had airplanes nor were they able to go so far "up" that they escaped the pull of gravity, so when they imagined gods - beings superior to us - they imagined them like the clouds and stars and the sun and moon, apparently unaffected by this powerful force that we mere humans experience here on earth.

Lucifer - The Fallen Angel by James Donahue
For an angel who is no longer welcome in Heaven alas there is suddenly a very definite "down."
Source: Wikimedia

As for Hell, it is the opposite of Heaven and it is a place into which we "fall." Naturally it's "down." But it is not at ground level. It's even further down than that. We do not start out in Hell, after all, and so If we fall into it, it must be further down than the level at which we start out, even if we do not attempt to ascend to Heaven.

The Ladder of Divine Ascent - 1612
(The Heavenly Ladder of St. John Climacus)
Source: Wikimedia

According to an article in Wikipedia, St. John Climacus was "a 7th century Christian monk at the monastery on Mount Sinai." St. John's literary output included "The Heavy Ladder of Divine Ascent" in which he described the thirty "steps" one must take in order to reach Heaven.

One can see that it's a difficult climb to reach Heaven as there are many temptations by devilish types along the way which can lead one, no matter how high they have climbed to fall down further even than to the ground from which they began. It looks to me like a monster from below the ground has his mouth open ready to swallow up those who fall. In any case, obviously Heaven is Up (and a hard climb) and Hell is Down (and an easy fall), and a vertical format is very suitable to get this idea across.

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Paul Gauguin - Letters of Discouragement and Hope

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Self-portrait - 1889 - (Eugène Henri) Paul Gauguin, Born 1848 in Paris, died 1903 in the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia
Picture source: The Athenaeum

Have you ever been discouraged by your inability to make the art you want to make because your art doesn't earn you enough money to buy the basic necessities of life much less the art supplies you need, and/or because you are distracted due to difficult living conditions? Then you'll understand what Gauguin was talking about in these letters.

Video - A reading of some of Gauguin's letters
Watch a 14-minute video called Gauguin in his Words at The Guardian, U.K. website in which several of Gauguin's letters to his wife and to friends are read aloud.

Book - At amazon.com
Book: Paul Gauguin: Letters To His Wife And Friends

Watering Place - 1885 - Paul Gauguin
Picture source: The Athenaeum

"The future is to the painters of the Tropics, which have not yet been painted. Novelty is essential to stimulate the stupid buying public." (In letter from Paul Gauguin)

Tahitian Landscape - 1893 - Paul Gauguin

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Edward de Bono on Creative Thinking

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Vincent) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Edward de Bono

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There are more videos about Creativity in the Thinking About Art Library.

Thinking About Art

Stieglitz, Modern Art, and New York City

Painting Away from the Daily Grind - Vicariously

Vivian Maier - Street Photographer

A Painting of Frans Post by Frans Hals

The Difficulty of Portraying Civilized People

Making a Giant Look Immense and Powerful

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Andre Kertesz

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Robert Hughes on Art Collectors

THE MOULIN ROUGE

Ronald Searle - Artist, Satirist, Cartoonist

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Alfred Stieglitz

HENRI EDMOND CROSS

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The Square Format - Example 3

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Video on The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

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The Thinking About Art Library

The Square Format - Example 2

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Rembrandt - The Public Eye - Simon Schama

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The Square Format - Example 1

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The Last Flower

Visiting Spirits - Where Are They Coming From?

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How to Make a Fat Man Look Even Fatter

A Discussion About Creativity

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Verticality - Heaven is Up and Hell is Down

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Paul Gauguin - Letters of Discouragement and Hope

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Edward de Bono on Creative Thinking

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