The Visual Arts: Exploring the History of "Fine Art" and Beyond

[Cioran]

No, I didn’t sidestepped the issue. I have shared my experience with art and how it left me depleted and drained after watching for a few hours. Are you surprised that I started to research how and why art has such a deep and negative impact?

I'm sorry art has had a deep and negative impact on you (unless it's banal and insipid art, I guess, in which case it's OK) but the main point is that while this might be true for you, it is untrue for practically everyone else. You shouldn't confuse your personal experiences with general experiences.

[ftil]

Michel Parkes


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkcD7LCWoM8

[Cioran]

Michel Parkes


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkcD7LCWoM8

Yep, totally insipid paintings, of no significance, but thanks for "sharing," as it were.

I should say a few of them are OK, the ones that tend to be more concerned with abstraction rather than banal literary content.

[ftil]

Oh, Cioran you can’t give up…….even though you know that you are on my ignore list.

It is a Christmas gift for your persistence….....You are going you like it.

Wojtek Siudmak and L'Infranchissable Obstacle (The Impassable obstacles)


http://theromanticqueryletter.blogsp...log-chain.html

[Cioran]

If I am on your ignore list, why are you reading and answering my posts?

BTW, the paintings that you like are insipid, and of no consequence.

[stlukesguild]

...totally insipid paintings, of no significance...

Of course the same can be said of the vast majority of the Modern/Post-Modern/Conceptual crap churned out by art school grads.

I should say a few of them are OK, the ones that tend to be more concerned with abstraction rather than banal literary content.

I'm a little wary of any sweeping dismissal of art based upon terms such as "literary" or "narrative". When I attended art school Greenbergian formalism was still the dominant theory and "literary", "narrative" and "illustrative" were virtually the worst insults that could be directed at your work. The result was that not only were works of unrepentant kitsch (such as Thomas Kinkade) vilified... but also artists of real merit: Andrew Wyeth, Lucian Freud, Odd Nerdrum... even the whole of Pop Art. I think the pendulum has begun to swing the other direction... at least toward a recognition that there is no great single monolithic "art world" but rather a great many smaller "art worlds" with different audiences, values, and standards.

Having said that... I agree that Parkes' work is largely kitsch... although very skillful kitsch.

Now... if I were to offer up some art works as Christmas gifts I think I would include the following:



Giorgione's (Bellini's) Adoration of the Shepherds is one of the most exquisite paintings ever. I never fail to spend a good many minutes before it whenever I visit Washington. The composition is almost Baroque... brilliantly structured... yet in such an organic... natural manner (not unlike Titian and later Rubens) that one might almost imagine it just fell together. The figures are equally natural and real. The landscape is one of the most marvelous... especially from this early period when nature and the landscape were not idealized as they were to the Romantics. And then the color! The painting glows... like stained glass.



Fra Filippo Lippi is one of those painters who should be far more known. His Holy Family is simply a brilliant little painting. Like his masterful student, Sandro Botticelli, Lippi employs the linear elements to such an elegant use. Line simply weaves and dances throughout this painting. I love the many little exquisite details: the manner in which the Virgin breaks from the painted frame (an idea Michelangelo will later put to a far more forceful and expressive use) and the clever framing of the second angel who looks out at us from between the arms and legs of the Christ child and the praying hands of the Virgin.

Another marvelous painting appropriate to the holiday was produced by the combined efforts of Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi. The Adoration of the Magi (tondo)...



is another of favorite paintings in the National Gallery, Washington. The composition of this painting brilliantly leads our eyes around the painting... from the farthest distances... as the crowds rush to view the spectacle. In the distance (on the left) we see collapsing white architecture and figures in robes symbolizing the collapse of the old Greco-Roman Pagan world. Hovering over the Virgin on the roof of the humble stable is a peacock... symbol of the Queen of Heaven. This painting always reminds me of another favorite "Adoration":



Gentile da Fabriano's Adoration of the Magi is one of the most resplendent paintings of the period and the style that became known as the "International Gothic". As a result of the horrors of the "Black Death" there was a shift toward a greater conservatism which reached its peak with Girolamo Savonarola and the "bonfire of the vanities". The International Gothic was epitomized by a shift away from Renaissance innovations in terms of "realism" and classicism, back toward an art rooted in the Gothic with an emphasis upon decorative pattern and such artificial elements as the shaped panel and a radiant use of gold leaf. Elements of the International Gothic continued through the work of Botticelli, who became a follower of Savonarola. Ironically, the paintings of the International Gothic are far more lavish and luxurious... far more expressive of vanity... than the more "modern" Renaissance paintings.

Gentile da Fabriano's Adoration of the Magi again portrays crowds coming to witness the miracle from afar. In this instance, the scene takes place at night with the figures literally glowing by the light of the halos and the Star of Bethlehem (immediately above Joseph's head). This glowing effect is further heightened as a result of the contrast with the warm and sumptuous gold framing.

Perhaps the greatest painting of the International Gothic, after Duccio's Maestà (which was really a collection of multiple paintings), was Simone Martini's Annunciation...



The painting portrays the Angel of the Annunciation, Gabriel, as he informs Mary that she has become the chosen one... mother of God. Mary recoils and clutches her cloak as the angel's words etched into the gold leaf ("Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum...") move toward her. The central narrative is flanked by two saints: Ansanus, the patron saint of Sienna, and St. Giulitta. Sienna was heart of the International Gothic style.

The last painting I'll offer up for the holidays is a single illuminated page from the Limbourg Brothers' Très riches heures du Duc de Berry... one of the finest illuminated books ever produced... literally an equivalent of the Sistine Ceiling in book form.



This particular is from a series of plates illustrating the months. In this case we are presented with the Month of February. The Limbourg Brothers were active in France and Burgundy at around the same period as Simone Martini and Gentile da Fabriano. The Très riches heures du Duc de Berry dates from the early 1400s and like the nearly contemporaneous writer, Chaucer, the Limbourg Brothers were masters at portraying all the details of the late Medieval/early Renaissance world. We are presented with an image of a farmer chopping down trees for firewood... and a farmer and his wife and a visiting lady of some rank gathered the fireplace in the farmhouse. Note how the lady daintily raises her skirts... but only so far... to warm her legs... while the farmer and his wife have no such thoughts of modestly as they hike their clothes up in an effort to warm their... "cockles".

Happy Holidays!

[Cioran]

I'm a little wary of any sweeping dismissal of art based upon terms such as "literary" or "narrative". When I attended art school Greenbergian formalism was still the dominant theory and "literary", "narrative" and "illustrative" were virtually the worst insults that could be directed at your work. The result was that not only were works of unrepentant kitsch (such as Thomas Kinkade) vilified... but also artists of real merit: Andrew Wyeth, Lucian Freud, Odd Nerdrum... even the whole of Pop Art. I think the pendulum has begun to swing the other direction... at least toward a recognition that there is no great single monolithic "art world" but rather a great many smaller "art worlds" with different audiences, values, and standards.

I couldn't agree more.

This was the point that I made earlier about how the Abstract Expressionists had founded their own Church of Art, in which all figurative and literary elements were to be ruthlessly expunged on pain of excommunication. Thankfully all that has gone by, just as have the the strictures of a century before the abstract expressionists, when it was claimed that all art must be done in an insipid classicist figurative style. Those strictures were exploded by the arrival of the Impressionists and especially by the arrival of Van Gogh and Cezanne. The latter prefigured the great Picasso.

I wasn't making a sweeping dismissal of all art that is based on "literary" or "narrative" terms, just the particular art that ftil was putting forth.

There is, was, and always will be, some wonderful figurative, literary, realistic art. Some of it is currently on display in Washington, D.C., paintings and photos of the Civil War/Reconstruction era, including some real beauties by the great Winslow Homer. Highly recommended!

Keep up the good work, sir!

Ah, you mentioned Lucian Freud. What a wonderful artist!

Check out the online studio of Clifford Wilton, with whom years ago I was once honored to share art studio space.

http://www.cliffordwilton.com/Artist...&Akey=7T557WEJ

[ftil]

Originally posted by stlukesguild
Having said that... I agree that Parkes' work is largely kitsch... although very skillful kitsch.

Of course, it is kitsch even though very skilful kitsch. But it was not the reason that I posted it.
His work is full of occult symbolism and from that point of view…..interesting.

[ftil]

If I were to choose some art works as Christmas gifts it would include the following:



Rembrandt, Aristotle contemplating a bust of Homer

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/R/r...stotl.jpg.html



Salvator Rosa, Diogenes Casting away his Cup

http://baroqueart.tumblr.com/post/32...-salvator-rosa



Raffaello Sanzi, Woman with a Veil (La Donna Velata)

http://www.china-art-discount.com/Ar...3/03velata.jpg



Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, Basket of Peaches

http://www.jean-baptiste-simeon-char...768-large.html



Willem Claesz Heda, Still Life

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...-_WGA11244.jpg



And especially for St. Luke.


Tamara de Lempicka, Women Bathing

http://www.tamara-de-lempicka.org/Wo...929-large.html


Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Je...sque,_1814.jpg



John Maler Collier, Lilith

http://www.john-collier.org/Lilith,-1887-large.html


Andrew Atroshenko

http://pinterest.com/pin/254383078923061722/

[stlukesguild]

The Rembrandt...



The Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino)...



and the Ingres...



... are all especially fine paintings... although I don't see that they have much connection with the Holidays or the Season. Of all the paintings you offered, I think the Raphael would be my personal favorite. Andrew Atroshenko's paintings, on the other hand, are just pure schlock.

[ftil]

... are all especially fine paintings... although I don't see that they have much connection with the Holidays or the Season. Of all the paintings you offered, I think the Raphael would be my personal favorite. Andrew Atroshenko's paintings, on the other hand, are just pure schlock.

No, they don’t have connections. If you received a red convertible for a Christmas gift, would you complain that it has nothing to do with the Holiday Season?

You may call Atroshenko's paintings “pure schlock”. I like this painting as I appreciate beauty. She is very different than that of Egon Schiele that I can’t stand.

[stlukesguild]

I thought I'd offer up a few more works of art appropriate for the season:

Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow is one of the paintings from his series known as the "Seasons" (perhaps originally 12 paintings... one for each month)...



One might almost proclaim Bruegel to have been the first great landscape painter. I can think of no one else at this early age with as astute of an eye for capturing details of the landscape... the color... the atmosphere... the sense of space... We can almost sense the noise and excitement of the dogs barking as they enter from the left silhouetted against the snow, along with their masters, the hunters. The dark greenish-gray sky is mirrored in the frozen ponds below where tiny people skate upon the ice. The trees... silhouetted against the snow and sky... lead our eye... like four great notes in a symphony... toward the distant recesses of space... in an era before the Netherlandish painters have mastered the technique of linear perspective.

Gerard David was one of the lesser known painters of the Netherlandish Renaissance... but a painter of some truly exquisite works... including The Holy Family: Rest on the Flight into Egypt:



This painting has an almost classical sense of simplicity and clarity of form and an almost Impressionistic sensitivity to touch and brush-work. The painting is organized upon a harmony of primary colors: limpid blues, golden and greenish yellows, and a few perfectly placed accents of rose. In spite of the simplicity of the painting, there are the most delicious details: the delicately rendered basket, the flora in the foreground, the bunch of grapes the Virgin feeds to her child, and Joseph in the distance engaged in an effort to gather nuts from the trees.

Perhaps an even less-known painting of the Netherlandish Renaissance is Geetgen Tot Sint Jans. Sint Jans was a painter from the Northern regions of what were the Netherlands... that area which would later become Holland. A vast majority of the paintings from this area and era were lost as a result of the iconoclastic upheavals including burning and looting of Catholic churches that resulted in response to the brutal anti-Protestant crackdown by the Duke of Alba and the Spanish against the predominantly Protestant states of the Western Netherlands. Geertgen Tot Sint Jans is known for but a scant few paintings... but they are absolute jewels. One of the most marvelous is surely the Nativity or Adoration of the Shepherds:



Sint Jans offers one of the first truly believable night-time Nativity scenes. The Virgin and the delicious tiny doll-like angels are illuminated by the glow emanating from the little Christ-child. Looming in the shadows we see the cattle, Joseph... and in the distance, the tiny angel Gabriel announcing the miraculous birth to the shepherds. The entire scene has a magical, child-like wonder to it that I find utterly charming and irresistible.

Its quite easy to find paintings appropriate to the Christmas season by the "old masters"... but what of "modern artists"?... what of art from the late 19th century to the present? This has proved a bit more of a challenge. Sure, there are plenty of schlock paintings that are little more than pastiches of dated styles... but what of paintings of real merit? I dug around a bit and found a number of interesting works which I shall post tomorrow.

[ftil]

Its quite easy to find paintings appropriate to the Christmas season by the "old masters"... but what of "modern artists"?... what of art from the late 19th century to the present? This has proved a bit more of a challenge. Sure, there are plenty of schlock paintings that are little more than pastiches of dated styles... but what of paintings of real merit? I dug around a bit and found a number of interesting works which I shall post tomorrow.

We can't forget about Edward Burne-Jones's intriguing painting. Dark angel or just light-bearer?


Sir Edward Burne-Jones, The Star of Bethlehem

http://www.pre-raphaelite-brotherhoo...-91-large.html

[mortalterror]

I'm not disagreeing with a whole century of artists, but rather suggesting that your own interpretation is a tad muddled.

As it seems that you find my appreciation of Anselm Kiefer to be one example of such "muddled" thinking, how much have you actually looked at Kiefer? How many paintings or sculptures by him have you seen in person? I know, you assume that is irrelevant, but it really isn't. It's hard to gain a grasp of a 20 or 30 foot wide painting from a 4 inch image on the computer screen. In spite of the fact that you would have us believe that Kiefer is an example of "bad" and "esoteric" art, his work is admired by a broad range of curators, art historians, and art critics... including a number that might be deemed "conservative" in their opinions: Robert Hughes, Donald Kuspit, and Hilton Kramer among them. One might also consider the fact that Kiefer demands some of the highest prices per painting or sculpture of any living artist... in spite of the fact that he is largely unknown to the general public, lacking the shock value that makes Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, or Jeff Koons overpriced art stars.

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a radical paradigm shift coming in the art world that would devalue much of the art of the last sixty or seventy years.

[Cioran]

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a radical paradigm shift coming in the art world that would devalue much of the art of the last sixty or seventy years.

There is no reason to think this. Quite the opposite is likely to be the case. With the increasing use of computers in the visual arts, and the possibility of, say, combining video animation with paint on canvas, the visual arts will become more free, radial and creative than ever.

The problem in rejecting modernism I think lies in lack of visual education. Many people are stuck with the idea that pictures must be of something in reality, and must be done as realistically as possible. Visual art certainly can be that, but the point is it does not have to be that. The hold of realism and story-telling on the visual arts began to vanish with the introduction of photography, and it's not coming back.