Joseph Beuys, Eurasia at MOMA

Joseph Beuys, Eurasia, installation at the Museum of Modern Art
(MOMA), New York, my photo. The text in the lower part has something to do with body temperature. Clicking on the image makes it bigger.

Joseph Beuys

A few weeks ago I watched a video about Joseph Beuys on YouTube, "I Like America and America Likes Me" (link in an earlier post). It consists of extracts of a famous performance, with some commentary and other video clips spliced in, a 16-minute mini-documentary. I had also seen the "Eurasia" installation in MoMA and was drawn to it.

I don't know what it is about Beuys. Maybe it's Benjamin's "aura". I think it has to do with his gentle attitude to animals; he projects a genuine positive attitude towards everyone, live and let live.

It's a sort of political art. I can respect this sort of performance (the coyote) -- the bits shown on the video were quite powerful. It means something, I don't know what, it's just moving in some way. The way the coyote tried to engage him. I can't get my mind around that. It makes me think that solitary confinement must be very cruel. It makes me think of ancient times, before technology.

Paul Klee's Line

Paul Klee, from his diary, 1908:

"831. The line! My lines of 1906/07 were my most personal possession. And yet I had to interrupt them, they are threatened by some kind of cramp, perhaps even by finally becoming ornamental. In short, I was frightened and stopped, although they were deeply embedded in my emotions. The trouble was that I just couldn't make them come out. And I could not see them around me, the accord between inside and outside was so hard to achieve.

The changeover was complete: in the summer of 1907 . . . "

Joseph Beuys video

A Joseph Beuys video on YouTube, about 16 mins (parts of I Like America, America Likes Me)

The video has since been removed from You Tube.

Still Life Studio

Last Saturday the Plein-Air Picassos held a Still Life Studio at the Art Society headquarters. I was asked to "lead" it, which meant helping to set up the arrangement and being available if anyone asked for help, but it was definitely not a workshop or a teaching session. It went well enough and was a good experience.

An early difficulty was evolving the arrangement, which I tend to do during the preliminary drawing stage. This wasn't very practical with several people working on the same arrangement at once. People didn't appreciate having objects added and removed after they were well into their drawings.

Mine evolved from horizontal to half-horizontal to vertical. At first I wasn't displeased with the end result, and I let Peter take a shot of it. After bringing it home I didn't feel as good about it as before. Everything was a little too small. So, since I had taken the objects with me, and had brought them home again, I set up an arrangement in my studio with the same objects and did it over. The second one came out very different from the first and I'm not sure what to make of it. This is it, acrylic on canvas, approx. 18 x 14".

Reclining foal

Another drawing from that day at Bonanza with the Plein Air Picassos. It shows one of the foals lying down for a rest.
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Bonanza Farm

I didn't produce much during the April 6th trip to Bonanza Farm, organized by the Plein-Air Picassos, a sub-group of members of the Trinidad and Tobago Art Society. But it was a good day all the same. I remembered to put on sun block, for one. The place was beautiful with loads of space for the group to spread out, a working horse farm with paddocks and wide open spaces, bounded by the Caroni River and fringed by bamboo.

In one small paddock there were two mares with foals. I spent maybe two hours drawing there, fascinated especially by the foals. They have a sort of confidence, an insouciance, a certainty of their right to be in the world as independent, individual beings. But they don't stray far from their mothers either. One of them took off all of a sudden and galloped round and round and round the perimeter of the paddock, its delicate long legs at full stretch. It made five or six rounds, maybe more. Was it just an expression of the joy of life and youth and energy? Or was it frustration at being fenced in? And then just as suddenly it swerved towards the centre and came to an abrupt stop beside the mother.

The drawing below is the best of a bad lot. I was striving for the relationship between mare and foal but didn't get enough in before they inevitably moved off somewhere else. But even so, if you look really hard, you can just about see the hindquarters of the foal and its tail and hind legs to the left of the grazing mare.

Drawing horses at Bonanza, photo courtesy Peter Sheppard.

Read Peter Sheppard's account of the day.

In conversation

Pencil in letter-size sketchbook

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Art and Philosophy

This week's library book is Key Writers on Art: The Twentieth Century.

The book consists of encyclopedia-type articles in alphabetical order, starting with Theodor Adorno and ending with Wilhelm Worringer. Each article describes and explains briefly the person's ideas, thinking and major contributions to the field and is about one to two thousand words long. Each article is written by an expert on the person's life and work and ends with a brief biography and bibliography. There are no illustrations.

I read it all the way through. The "key writers" are art historians, art critics, cultural theorists, and (the largest proportion) philosophers. The list includes Clement Greenberg, Meyer Schapiro, Roger Fry and Clive Bell, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, Julia Kristeva, Griselda Pollock, and so on -- all names that ring some bell or press some button; and many more, famous or less well-known, for a total of forty-nine.

The book turned out to be about as far as I want to go with the philosophy of art (and aesthetics, of course, which falls in the field of philosophy). It was a good overview of the field however and I'm glad I read it.

To me, the anthologies of writings by actual practicing artists covering different periods are more valuable to the painter or the art student -- the Renaissance to the 19th century edited by E.G. Holt; the first half of the 20th century edited by Herschel B. Chipp; and Post WW2 to the mid 1990s, edited by Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz ("Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art").

Key Writers on Art: The Twentieth Century, edited by Chris Murray, published by Routledge, 2003; 314 pages with index.

Crocodile drawing

A crocodile (or alligator or caiman) at the Emperor Valley Zoo, 20th October 2007.
Pencil in 8.5 x 11" sketchbook

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Cheever's Uncle George

A few weeks ago I went looking for a funny quote I remembered from many years ago in The Stories of John Cheever. It was something about nude statues in Italy. I wasn’t sure if it was in the stories or in the journals. Anyway, I tried the Stories first. It’s a fat 819-page book, so I checked the contents for a likely-looking title, and found The Bella Lingua round about the middle of the book. Sure enough this was the right story and I soon had the quote I was looking for. However, on reaching the end of The Bella Lingua, I turned the page and went on to the next story, and then I kept on reading all the way to the end of the book, over many evenings. And after that I went back to the beginning and read the first half. How I enjoyed those stories! Some were tragic or horrifying but there was lots of humour too. I found pleasure on every page with unexpected and vivid descriptions, perceptions that are still fresh, and an absence of clichés. A surprising plus for me was that Cheever’s imagery reminded me very much of painting – not the images per se, but the kinds of details he chooses to reveal some sort of significance. The common ground between writing and painting became more clear.

I felt sad coming to the end of the book, or rather arriving back at the middle where I’d begun. But luckily I have Cheever’s Journal as well, so I’m reading that now.

As for the quote, the context is as follows: Uncle George is an American tourist in Italy. His purpose is to bring his widowed niece and her son back to America and to have his first vacation in over forty years. He’s something of a stereotype, saying loudly to the Italian waiter who brings him his continental breakfast, “You gotta no hamma? ... You gotta no eggsa?” He then goes on a sightseeing tour and gets conned by the guide. The guide lures him into a trap with a promise of seeing a special place:

“Very special,” the guide said. “For men only. Only for strong men. Such pictures. Very old.”

Uncle George takes the bait and gets mugged and robbed of four hundred dollars.

Later on while he’s having dinner with Kate, his niece, the story continues:

“It’s an immoral country,” Uncle George said, sitting down in one of the golden chairs. “First they rob me of four hundred dollars, and then, walking around the streets here, all I see is statues of men without any clothes on. Nothing.”

Kate rang for Assunta, and when the maid came in she ordered whiskey and ice, in very rapid Italian. “It’s just another way of looking at things, Uncle George,” she said.

“No, it isn’t,” Uncle George said. “It isn’t natural. Not even in locker rooms. There’s very few men who’d choose to parade around a locker room stark naked if a towel was handy. It’s not natural. Everywhere you look. Up on the roofs. At the main traffic intersections. When I was coming over here, I passed through a little garden -- playground, I guess you’d say -- and right in the middle of it, right in the middle of all these little children, is one of these men without anything on.”

“Will you have some whiskey?”

By John Cheever, from The Stories of John Cheever, Ballantyne Books, New York.

Steinberg on Rauschenberg

Yesterday I went to one of my favourite places, the Port of Spain Public Library. I hadn't been for over a year, and was surprised at the changes -- for one, the shelves are much better stocked than before. The librarians have been doing a terrific job.

My card had expired and the machine for making new ones was down so they extended my old card for a month. I had only a few minutes to spare so I dashed back up the stairs and grabbed a book about Robert Rauschenberg who I've recently begun to like a lot. Here is a a quote from its author, Leo Steinberg:

"In an interview with Barbara Rose (1987), Rauschenberg said [...] that in his early years he "loved to draw". It now occurs to me -- looking over Rauschenberg's work after 1953 -- that he hardly draws anymore. Even his brushwork, when he spreads paint on a surface, is never an Abstract Expressionist stroke, which usually forms a trajectory. Rauschenberg's laid-back pigments are the cool substance of paint, never describe anything, refuse to transfigure. In a word, no draftsmanship. And even in 1953, he sensed where he was heading -- toward a visual art that had no further use for the genius of drawing."

By Leo Steinberg, from Encounters with Rauschenberg, published jointly by The Menil Collection, Houston, and the University of Chicago Press, in 2000.

The book is not a monograph exactly. It's the text of a lecture Steinberg gave at the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1997, and again at the Menil Collection in Houston in 1998, for a Rauschenberg retrospective. It's a pleasant and informative read and is well illustrated.)

Below is a self-portrait of me reading the book, to celebrate going back to Mac.

Robert Rauschenberg

Here are some notes about Rauschenberg I made a few months back:

Robert Rauschenberg, b. 1925

I love these works and have no idea why. What was Rauschenberg’s intention in doing them? I'd like to know more. His composition is unusual and distinctive, and his colour too.

I'd like especially to know more about his process because several of these are quite big, as in 6’ x 4’ or bigger. The titles are mysterious but descriptive and might be helpful. But I’m thinking I’ll need a good monograph.

I like the informality, the way big blocks are slightly off the vertical or horizontal, plus the mix of drips, photo-type images, gestural brushmarks, hard and soft edges, and the subtle but exciting colour. All in all some of them are a formal feast for the eye, with no obvious antecedents that come to mind -- = original work. The juxtapositions don’t seem peculiar in the way that surrealist juxtapositions are peculiar. They’re puzzling but give a sense of some sort of link or logic.

His composition leans towards loosely geometrical division of the canvas, sometimes into thirds horizontally. The colour is usually muted with liberal use of chromatic greys. Some are more successful than others. The overall impression in those I like best is seductive and gorgeous.

(Some pictures at Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rauschenberg)

Naipaul: a creative moment

That afternoon, in the front room of the house, where the furniture was old but cared for, I looked for the first time for weeks at the typescript of the book I had tried to get started on in Victoria, the sequence about freedom and loss. I found it better than I had during the writing. I even saw the sentence where it had come alive – a sentence written out of concentration, from within the mood created by the words. That critical creative moment had been missed by me in Victoria, perhaps because of my anxiety about what was to follow in the writing; and perhaps as well because of my anxiety about what was to follow Victoria.

Now, recognizing the validity of that good sentence, I surrendered to the pictures the words created, the other pictures they trailed. I summoned up again, and sank back into, the mood of Africa, the mood out of which the sentence had been written. I heard – or created – snatches of dialogue from different stages of my story; this particular story in the sequence was full of dialogue. I made brief notes. And it was only when I came back from the mood or came out of the concentration that I understood how far away I had been.

-- V.S. Naipaul, in The Enigma of Arrival, 1987

Water, water

This was an effort to draw ripples on a pool. I see it as a drawing even though it's in paint and in colour, because I was trying to work out the forms and shapes of the ripples (which were in constant movement). I have yet to find a satisfactory definition for drawing that includes this kind of situation, but I most certainly felt I was drawing with the brush while doing this little piece (oil on linen, about 7" x 5").

Drawing movement

Charcoal on paper, approx 20 x 16"

Why not? No harm trying. One needs plenty of cheap paper such as newsprint, and a drawing tool such as charcoal that moves easily over the paper and leaves a good dark mark. The model performed a repetitive movement in one place, such as turning to one side and back, or sweeping (pretending to). After a while I put a sheet of tracing paper over the scribbled figure and continued to draw while the model continued to move.

It might seem daft. It’s hard to draw a thing when it’s still, let alone when it’s moving. But strangely enough, the results weren’t all that bad. Of course the drawings are only scribbles. I wasn’t looking for perfection, just an idea of what the person was doing. On the positive side, the fact that the model was moving made me freer and braver and less finicky about detail. I ended up with quite a few ideas from a series of drawings of this kind.

And it sort of broke a spell. Since this series I’ve been trying many more moving things, such as ripples on water and animals at the zoo. It doesn't matter if they turn out a mess, just one good scribble in a batch is enough to make me happy.

The best I can do

Impatiens, study, black and white Conté on brown paper, about 18 x 9"

How do I know something is the best I can do? This might sound like an excuse, but it’s not – everything can’t be “best”.

But that’s not what I meant to say. What I was thinking is . . . when I start to do something, it has a better chance if my intention is simple and clear. Not a great vague thing like “best I can do” (though that too, in a corner of my mind), but something much less ambitious. In a still life it might be . . . correct observation. The act of correct observation. When the going gets rough if I can remember to run this through my mind it nearly always helps.

"Talking Through the Wire Fence--the evacuees talk with visitors who were unable to gain admittance." by Chiura Obata, July 1942. Sumi, 11" x 15 ½"

"In the midst of this desert, we artists' job is not to discuss the war, nor waste time by gossiping and foment uneasiness among our residents. But our utmost effort should be given to develop culture and soften the people's hearts which somehow seem to have a tendency to harden under the circumstances.

Existence of an art schools is now more necessary and essential than ever before, especially in such a place as Topaz, where it is like a lone beautiful flower with a sweet fragrance in bloom....It is not for the mere existence of teaching technique, but also to foster infinite inspirations, emotions, and peaceful thoughts in the people, young and old."

Matsusaburo Hibi, in Beyond Words: Images from America's Concentration Camps. From an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution

Pencil drawing of a gift bag

Pencil on letter-size paper

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Leonardo on imitation

660:

That painting declines and deteriorates from age to age, when painters have no other standard than painting already done.

Hence the painter will produce pictures of small merit if he takes for his standard the pictures of others. But if he will study from natural objects he will bear good fruit; as was seen in the painters after the Romans who always imitated each other and so their art constantly declined from age to age. After these came Giotto the Florentine who--not content with imitating the works of Cimabue his master--being born in the mountains and in a solitude inhabited only by goats and such beasts, and being guided by nature to his art, began by drawing on the rocks the movements of the goats of which he was keeper. And thus he began to draw all the animals which were to be found in the country, and in such wise that after much study he excelled not only all the masters of his time but all those of many bygone ages. Afterwards this art declined again, because everyone imitated the pictures that were already done; thus it went on from century to century until Tomaso, of Florence, nicknamed Masaccio, showed by his perfect works how those who take for their standard any one but nature--the mistress of all masters--weary themselves in vain.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452--1519), from his Notebooks, available free from Project Gutenberg.
http://www.infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext04/8ldvc10.htm

Study of a head

Charcoal, A3 paper (approx. 16 x 12 in)

Cubism essay, update

I have now put the Cubism essay of the previous post into html which is much easier to access, approx. 50K vs. 1.6 MB, and I've removed the PDF file. The html file is at http://maryadamart.com/Cubism_The_Big_Picture.htm

Cubism, the Big Picture

I've put a PDF file on my website called "Cubism: The Big Picture", here. It's an essay I wrote last year on the origins of Cubism and its logic and rationale, focussing mainly on Picasso. It's just over 2000 words, about 10 pages. I will do it in html eventually, don't have time right now. The conclusion I came to was not what I've seen in standard sources such as Gombrich. Unfortunately I had to take out most of the images and put links instead. Comments would be great... and please do email me at folio@wow.net if the file gives any trouble to download or to open.

Dear Brutus

I've heard that J. M. Barrie comes out of copyright later this year, having died in June 1937. Best known (or only known) for Peter Pan, he was a highly successful dramatist in the first three decades of the 20th century, authoring dozens of popular grown-up plays. He's been accused of sentimentality, justly at times, but he was also a fine and compassionate observer of human nature, and his gentle wit and humour were legendary in his day. My favourite play, Dear Brutus, is (amazingly) available for download at Project Gutenberg -- http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4021.

Seated Figure on Cell Phone

Daumier's young artist

Honoré Daumier (French, 1808 -- 1879), after 1860, oil on canvas,
41 × 33 cm. National Gallery of Art, washington DC

Daumier is one of my favourite artists. I love his acute observation and his humour, and find endless pleasure in his drawings and lithographs, as the French public did during his lifetime. His ability to make recognisable and pointed caricatures of public figures got him thrown into jail, more than once I believe, but he continued as soon as he got out.

This piece is one of his rare paintings. It shows a young artist asking advice of an older one. I love how Daumier has managed to make the youth so callow, and how he has created a relationship of deference vs experience between the two men with a minimum of means. And I also love the way the feet of both figures are flat on the ground.

Image from Wikimedia

More Daumier images from Wikimedia

Klee on good pictures

"I want to find out whether or not I'm looking at a good picture and just what is good about this particular work. I don't want to examine the common feature of a series of works or the difference between two series of works -- no such pursuit of history for me -- but to consider the individual act in itself, and were it only a single work that had the luck to become good, as recently happened with two or three of my 'paintings.'
For the fact of my not painting good pictures with a certain measure of regularity results precisely from my imperfect knowledge of what makes a good individual work."

Paul Klee

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Untitled

Untitled, acrylic on panel, 14 x 10" approx, 2006

I decided to post two images today because I'm expecting to be busy for the next few weeks. The bottom of this one is cut off, it didn't quite fit on the scanner. It's based on a drawing of a heron and a gull on an estuary in West Cork, Ireland, and except for the birds it's imaginary. In fact it was done before my last show but it was so different from the rest of that work that I kept it back, and now it's all on its own, a strange and lonesome little piece. Maybe I'll do another to keep it company.

Hand study

Hand holding a book open. Conte crayon on brown paper

Sketch for an interior

On a letter size page, coloured pencils.

Something new is better than nothing?

Vendor, Port of Spain

Vendor, Port of Spain

It's been a productive week for me, I finished another assignment in one of my courses. Aaah! Not much time for drawing though, unless you count the technical kind, which gobbled up most of the available hours. I snatched this pencil drawing of a vendor in Independence Square sometime around the middle of January, and as always with drawing from life, discovered some odd little facts. Such as, the back legs of the woman's chair are resting on a low step and are therefore a little higher than the front legs. Of what possible significance could that be, I hear you murmur. I don't know at all, it's merely a fact, duly noted.