[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking. Baren Digest Sunday, 25 April 1999 Volume 07 : Number 541 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mkrieger@mb.sympatico.ca Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 09:34:25 -0500 Subject: [Baren 4166] tradition or "where do I get these crazy ideas?" I think it is time to connect this up with tradition (Yes, there is such a thing as tradition in abstraction or at the very least, historical precedent) From the Realists (mid 1800's), the emphasis on the real or physical world as opposed to an ideal one. Courbet is supposed to have said that he could not paint an angel because he had never seen one. From the Impressionists (mid 1800's to late 1800's), the idea that perceived light is all the artist has to base his work on. Ceaseless change of position and ceaseless change of colour - but they had a rather scientific view of it. (Their attitude laid an important foundation for 'pure' abstraction. All objects in the picture plane are equally important. Even in portraits, the person and their surroundings contribute equally to the effect. ) From the Post Impressionists (late 1800's), emotion returning to the equation - (Munch and Gauguin, finally some woodcuts). Woodcuts were the advertising medium of the time - particularly wood engravings. Gauguin's woodcuts are rough, almost hacked out of the wood. He distanced himself from the commercial engravings in the same way he left France for 'primitive' Tahiti. The artist could use the materials and methods available to express a personal emotion about the subject. German expressionists bring this into the early 1900's. From Cubism (early 1900's), the idea that truth in a depiction can include more than its appearance to a single viewer at a single moment in time. From Dada (early to mid 1900's), a spontaneous intuitive approach to art. From Surrealism (early to mid 1900's), the use of ambiguity and dissonance to create tension in an image. The use of accident to enrich imagery. From Abstract Expressionism (mid 1900's), the artist's gesture. Whew.. I think that's enough for now Mary Krieger ------------------------------ From: Jean Eger Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 08:42:13 -0700 Subject: [Baren 4168] Re: Baren Digest V7 #540 Dave, I love the video. I think the part about sharpening knives was made just for me. Jean Eger ------------------------------ From: Gary Luedtke Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 12:14:00 -0400 Subject: [Baren 4171] tradition or "where do I get these crazy ideas?" O.K. Mary, you've been holding out on us. You are really an Art History Professor. But this "history" isn't bringing me any closer to an understanding or appreciation of Abstract Art. Your more personal insights were leading that way but now you've veered off some, stood back, and substituted history for personal insight. I am somewhat familiar with the history, from Impressionism forward, but I still look at it this way. All art is made up of abstract elements. In other words, you could take any painting or print, and cut it into pieces which would in themselves be abstract, or unrecognizeable as far as the sense of representing something goes. The "artist" composes these elements into a meaningful arrangement that has some recognizeable features to it which clues in the viewer as to its basic theme, but uses these abstract elements to enhance its overall effect. The moment the viewer has some recognition of something in the composition, they can begin to relate to it. I seem to need in art, something which provides a footing for appreciation, and new enhancements of that with a skillful and artful composition which show me some aspect of it in a new light. If I am familiar with none of it, I do not have that footing, and can find nowhere to begin appreciating it. If it has no core of meaning, what good are the periferal abstractions? If you look at Seurat's Pointillist technique, this may help illustrate it. If you stood up close to a painting of his, you might view it as an abstract painting because it would seem to be nothing but a collection of multi-colored dots in no particular order or significance. If you stand back however, you perceive that this is a composition which has meaning, because now you see how it was put together and what it attempts to represent from the real world, which you have some familiarity with. Impressionist technique could also be considered abstract if you stood up too close, and lost the impact and effects of how the technique uses your vision to convey natural effects of light on the scenes portrayed from a recognizeable real world. What I am trying to say, is that abstract elements are used in art, but if the artist does not compose them or arrange them in such a manner as to convey some meaning which the viewer can recognize, how can the viewer appreciate it? If the abstract elements remain abstract, or floating about without a recognizeable relationship to something, they remain abstract elements and are meaningless. Cut any sentence apart into letters, put the letters in a bag, shake it up, draw one letter out at a time and lay it down, and when all of the letters have been laid beside each other in the order drawn, see what it says. Is this meaning? Can you relate to this? Is it profound? It may be suggestive, but it will be so ambiguously so that you would certainly not pretend it is great literature, would you? Or that it even constitutes an idea. If the artist cannot arrange the abstract elements into his composition so that they can be read, if even slightly, by the viewer, then I contend that the artist has no meaning to convey, or the very statement which he is trying to express would compell a recognizeable order for that idea so the communication of that idea can be understood. If a writer wishes to jumble letters and write a book this way, fine, he can do as he pleases. It may mean something to him, but if he can't communicate what it means, what has he accomplished? This style of writing can be categorized as a style, because it exists now, but nonetheless, what does it mean? Is that person a writer? An "author"? Not in my book. Gary ------------------------------ From: Ruth Leaf Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 11:40:25 -0700 Subject: [Baren 4172] Re: Baren Digest V7 #540 I love this discussion of abstract versus the "understandable image". Sometime ago I saw a series of monoprints by Nathan Olivera based on Goyas Taurquemania (Bull ring series) What was so fantastic was that the emotion in both read the same although in the Goyas you know exactly what was happening but in the abstract images of Nathan olivera you felt the same emotion even though you didn't see the bull or the toreador. Oliveras images were enormously powerful, not that the Goyas weren't . I think what I'm trying to say is that Olivera took the essence of the image while Goya gave you all the detail. They were both wonderful. As for myself a landscape or a person will thrill me enough to use the shapes I see to express myself in a recognizable way but very often when I play around with the computer I will have expressed something that says oh that's like what ,music or dancing would look like if you could see or feel it ...I even have a print I call "dirty dancing' because that's what I see. But people who look at it can see anything or nothing or just like or dislike the colors and shapes . In the second Baron exchange I'm sending a recognizable landscape if I had the time I would send an abstraction instead, maybe another time. Ruth ------------------------------ From: Jack Reisland Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 10:15:35 +0000 Subject: [Baren 4173] Re: tradition or "where do I get these crazy ideas?" Gary wrote: > If I am > familiar with none of it, I do not have that footing, and can find nowhere > to begin appreciating it. If it has no core of meaning, what good are the > periferal abstractions? One way to look at this is the idea that all artistic representations are symbolic. The paint on the canvas is arranged into patterns that are symbolic of a landscape, obviously it is not a real landscape. Throughout history the successful communication between an artist and his/her audience has depended on the use of culturally recognizable symbols that could be "read" by the viewer. Even as the cubists began to introduce new symbols, they were still readable. Once Klee began to use even less readable symbols, he usually helped the viewer by giving something of a "key" to translate the symbols by the titles of his work. To discuss the concept of "abstract" in art, it helps to see that there is a wide range of abstraction. At the time, most people found Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase" to be completely unreadable. One critic labeled it "Explosion in a Shingle Factory". Now that our culture is more literate in the symbology of cubism, I think most people wouldn't have so much trouble "reading" it. Abstractions like Mary's are perhaps readable only if she also supplies the dictionary of symbols, in the form of an explanation of the process of her own translation from landscape to abstraction. However, at the extreme of abstraction, for example Pollock, there is no attempt to use any symbols at all. We have no chance of reading a "message" in his work, because he has used his own language, and now, there is no attempt to symbolize anything. The painting is self referential. The painting is about the process of painting, the interaction of the artist and the canvas. This is a compete breakdown of the centuries old contract between the artist and his audience to try to communicate something using culturally recognizable symbols. It may be a statement, but it is no longer "readable", and all the old rules of art "appreciation" are out the window. Without an artist's statement, or an art critics professional "interpretation", we are clue less, it is just a painters drop cloth. Yikes! Sorry about this ramble! I guess my point is that the very idea of abstract art is as far as I know a brand new one in human history, and the centuries old rules for viewing, or "reading" art do not apply. Jack Reisland ------------------------------ From: "Jeanne N. Chase" Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 16:40:41 -0400 Subject: [Baren 4174] Re: tradition or "where do I get these crazy ideas?" Dear Jack This conversation re; abstraction is so esoteric that it is mind boggling. You mentioned, Jackson Pollack who said; "It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well for me." Perhaps the "key" is "Harmony of all elements , real or unreal. Jeanne ------------------------------ From: Jack Reisland Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 11:01:01 +0000 Subject: [Baren 4175] Re: tradition or "where do I get these crazy ideas?" Jeanne wrote: > You mentioned, Jackson Pollack who said; "It is only when I lose contact > with the painting that the result is a mess. Sorry, I was trying to simplify the issue by shifting the point of reference. Mr. Pollock may have achieved harmony, but without the artist's statement of purpose, all we have is decoration. Jack Reisland ------------------------------ From: mkrieger@mb.sympatico.ca Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 16:25:19 -0500 Subject: [Baren 4176] What is meaning? Sorry guys, not an art history professor, never got my MFA just my BFA. I did that little history with my old 'survey' text sitting on my knee. The point of that last post was that I am not inventing this stuff at random. I am creating within a tradition which stretches back at least three generations. I usually remember my debt to the Impressionists and to the abstract expressionists but I thought it was worth considering the others. Gary wrote: >If the artist cannot arrange the abstract elements into his composition >so that they can be read, if even slightly, by the viewer, then I >contend that the artist has no meaning to convey, or the very statement >which he is trying to express would compel a recognizeable order for >that idea so the communication of that idea can be understood. I feel that you are limiting the word 'meaning' to a representation of the visible world. Part of that art history illustrated the movement away from that idea from the end of the nineteenth century up until today. Artists expanded the idea of subjects suitable for art to include things that were not visible, things that our culture was thinking about outside of art - psychoanalysis, the understanding of light as reflected waves, molecular theory, the theory of relativity, etc. Jack wrote: >However, at the extreme of abstraction, for example Pollock, there is >no attempt to use any symbols at all. We have no chance of reading a >"message" in his work, because he has used his own language, and now, >there is no attempt to symbolize anything. The painting is self >referential. So for me the meaning of a Jackson Pollock is the painting itself. The drips and marks are like tracks in the snow. By looking one can trace the motions, the sequence of colors, the different actions of spattering and trailing. I don't feel that it is a breakdown in the contract. Someone understood it - it didn't get into the museum just because Jackson Pollock thought it looked good.. Now you may not agree that this change in the kinds of meaning conveyed by art is a good thing. It has certainly made communication with one's audience more difficult, but it happened and we are stuck with it. Today as Ruth described, two artists can use very different methods, one abstract and another representational and succeed in communicating a similar emotion to a viewer. Next post will return to the question about developing the image - "What determines where you go with it, how you develop it? What are you using to judge its development and its completion? (That is if you are still up for it - maybe I should have been an art history professor - I'm long winded enough.) Mary Krieger ------------------------------ From: Jack Reisland Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 12:20:37 +0000 Subject: [Baren 4177] Re: What is meaning? Mary wrote: > ...So for me the meaning of a Jackson Pollock is the painting itself. I choose Mr. Pollock on purpose because, if I remember my art history classes correctly (and that was a long time ago) he himself refused to attach any "meaning" to his paintings. They were to him, as you say, records of his process with paint. my point is that up until a very short time ago in the history of art, a record of process couldn't even be considered art, but rather an anthropological artifact at best. > Now you may not agree that this change in the kinds of meaning conveyed > by art is a good thing. It has certainly made communication with one's > audience more difficult, but it happened and we are stuck with it. I would also like to point out that I do appreciate and enjoy much abstract art, and am not unhappy with the change in what is accepted as "art". I just find it more interesting and useful for myself to keep in perspective the place of art, new and old, in the communication of humankind. The changing communicative role of purely visual art through the ages in response to the invention of writing, then printing, then photography is fascinating to me. Jack Reisland ------------------------------ From: Mariten@aol.com Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 18:44:47 EDT Subject: [Baren 4178] Re: Abstract From Maria in LV Someone mentioned the analogy between abstract art and a foreign language? When I first came into this country at the ripe age of 14, not only the language but the culture seemed foreign (obviously) and somehow not quite "right." So many strange people, strange behaviors, definitely a stupid strange language--sounded like everyone was barking and chewing gum at the same time, much unlike the beautiful soft melodic sounds of the Spanish I knew. How could I ever learn to understand such barbaric sounds, and produce them??? Agony!!! What seemed so difficult to understand and to accept then as communication, is just plain ol' English today. I don't even speak with an accent anymore. Abstract art may just be another seemingly incomprehensible language to some. Learning, as you all know, takes patience, time, willingness, an open mind, a tolerance for frustration... all that. On the other hand, there are some things (C+++ programming, as an example) that I have no desire to learn about, abstract art not among them. Either way it's probably okay, no? Like a beautiful melodic voice speaking poetry in a foreign language--who cares what the meaning is!? Would we or would we not recognize it is poetry? And should we in order to enjoy? (great, more questions!) I find Michael's and Ruth's prints inspiring, beautiful (like the rain on the street) images that make me stop and look twice, three times, and more, without needing to know what they are about or what they mean. Yet I still find the darned White Canvas incomprehensible despite all the readings I have read and all the explanations I have heard, and it doesn't grab my attention, hold my eye, inspire me, energize me... Health to all, Maria ------------------------------ From: Gary Luedtke Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 20:18:37 -0400 Subject: [Baren 4179] Re: tradition or "where do I get these crazy ideas?" Jack wrote: >I guess my point is that the very idea of abstract art is as far as I know >a brand new one in human history, and the centuries old rules for viewing, >or "reading" art do not apply. Jack, I think they do. I don't consider them "rules" however, simply roads to understanding. Mention has been made of different styles of art since the late 1800's. Impressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, into pure abstraction. The direction is toward less and less of a recognizable substance. Look at it this way. I was not born in the 1860's when Impressionsism was getting started, nor was I alive during the development of many of these other styles. When I learned of art, basically all of these styles were already there for me to experience, it didn't matter which one came first, they were _all_ new to me. So I did not have the benefit of learning their language and seeing it morph into the next movement, I had a wonderful overview of all of them. So I contend that I am not biased against the newer forms from that standpoint. How could I be when they are all the same age to me? What I am saying, from purely my view, from analyzing my own feelings, i that the type of art known as Abstract Art is meaningless to me. Let me lean on literature and language once more. There have been different styles of writing for as long as there has been language. One author writes stream-of-consciousness, one writes using no capital letters, one writes with a well developed vocabulary, another with the simplest words, yet all are based on a language which is used and understood by the audience the writer is writing for. Creativity comes by varying the width and thickness of that strand of common language with the addition of new techniques, new words even, but which in a context can be understood, and form the basis of creativity and originality. Shakespeare was marvelous at this. But drop the thread of common understanding, and suddenly the thing is directionless, obtuse, up for anything, down for nothing. Just my view. Gary ------------------------------ From: Gary Luedtke Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 20:36:46 -0400 Subject: [Baren 4180] What is meaning? Mary wrote: >Someone understood it - it didn't get into the museum just because Jackson >Pollock thought it looked good.. Boy, Mary, there's another subject to digress upon, whenever we run out of steam on this subject! > It has certainly made communication with one's audience more difficult, > but it happened and we are stuck with it Why are we "stuck" with it? We do not have to follow the footsteps of our immediate predecessor. We have the terrific advantage of looking back thru art history and striking off from any of those directions we may choose. Or, strike off into a totally new one if you can create one. Who knows, you may originate a new language which the following generations may wish to learn and use, however I believe the work will go relatively unnoticed if it doesn't communicate something using a common language. It's a gamble, but you're free to try it. > Next post will return to the question about developing the image - "What > determines where you go with it, how you develop it? What are you using to > judge its development and its completion? (That is if you are still up for > it - maybe I should have been an art history professor - I'm long winded > enough.) I don't know but what I may have you beat there Mary, concerning long-windedness. But _I'm_ ready. My mind is so wide-open I'm getting a wind-chill in here! Gary ------------------------------ End of Baren Digest V7 #541 ***************************