artamaze by Katherine Hilden

https://www.dw.com/en/why-beethoven-snubbed-princes-and-put-his-music-first/a-19544501

Beethoven’s 250th birthday

Posted in inspiration, Quotes, Therapy, tagged Beethoven on December 16, 2020| 1 Comment »

Ludwig van Beethoven was born on this day 250 years ago. It was customary to baptize babies the day after they were born and since his baptismal record in Bonn shows December 17^th as the date, it’s safe to assume his birth date is December 16, 1770.

The inexpressible depth of all music, by virtue of which it floats past us as a paradise quite familiar and yet eternally remote, and is so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain. In the same way, the seriousness essential to it and wholly excluding the ludicrous from its direct and peculiar province is to be explained from the fact that its object is not the representation, in regard to which deception and ridiculousness alone are possible, but that this object is directly the will; and this is essentially the most serious of all things, as being that on which all depends.– Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

All art constantly aspires to the conditions of music.— Walter Pater (1839-1894)

Beethoven once stopped playing when an aristocrat was talking in the front row: “I’m not playing for such pigs.” (Für solche Schweine spiel ich nicht.)

Being an Artist takes courage, it’s work and you have to risk being misunderstood.

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/12/06/kitsch-101/

Capturing beauty—gotcha!

Posted in Composition, Fluxus, Illustration, Imagination, inspiration, Seeing, Surreal, Technique and Demo, tagged capturing beauty on December 12, 2020| 2 Comments »

In the last post we started by looking at something beautiful and ended up by suggesting that beauty may be a trap. A breathtaking view becomes a trap if you think you can –how to say this—trap it. The common word for this is “capturing it.”

“Oh, you captured that perfectly.”

“That is so beautiful; I want to see if I can capture it in my painting.”

People talk about “capturing” all the time. In music, painting, in a novel, a movie. As if art making were some sort of hunting sport: you hunt the beauty down and then—gotcha!–you corral it in a fenced lot. You killed it!

So, art making is a form of execution. If that’s too strong a word, how about strangulation.

In any case, “capturing” results in lifelessness.

We don’t want lifelessness, do we.

The reason that a painting that duplicates a photo would result in lifelessness is that it would make something monumental, i.e. static, out of a fleeting moment. That would be a lie.

So, how can you allow yourself to be inspired by this image without deceiving yourself?

You can allow yourself to be mesmerized by a small passage that does not refer to a recognizable corner of reality. It does not illustrate anything.

Now, that you can paint—or draw! Not as a copyist, not directly, not in detail, but in gesture, in complete self-abandon. If you pivot your mind into that level of fiction, you may be onto something.

Onto what? We can’t predict. Let’s see.

Imagine the Shock

Posted in Achievement, Color, Imagination, inspiration, Landscape, Semiotics, tagged Andre Derain, Fauvism, Henri Matisse, Les Fauves, London paintings., Louis Vauxcelles, Maurice de Vlaminck on November 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »

It’s 1906. Imagine these law-abiding citizens of Northern Europe, who dress well, behave politely and enjoy going to cultural events, like art exhibitions. One Sunday afternoon they put on their hats and tell their coach man to take them to that new art exhibit in the hope of finding edification in high art. They find themselves confronted by this.

André Derain was born near Paris in 1880. He grew up in Victorian clutter, in rooms with flowered wallpaper; velvet tasseled curtains; heavy carved furniture; and gilded this and that. His family was comfortably middle class. He had the means to travel. When he came back from a trip to London, his family and friends must have eagerly awaited nice touristy paintings, like scenic post cards. Instead, he had this to show.

In 1906 nobody knew that this was the art of the future and that 100+ years later people like us would paint our walls white so that nothing would distract us from contemplating the painting.

The critic Louis Vauxcelles called these artists –Derain, Matisse and Vlaminck—“Les Fauves,” which means “the wild beasts.” To be called a wild beast was pretty close to being called an idiot.

Imagine what it took to paint like this at that time. That’s all, just imagine that.

The Fauvist painters:

André Derain, 1880-1954

Henri Matisse, 1869-1954

Maurice de Vlaminck, 1876-1958

P.S. Some of our contemporaries now want to make a quick buck by teaching you a formula: “How to paint Fauvist style.” Such trash! You can find this mindless how-to on Pinterest, for example.

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/11/24/attention/

Momentary Constellation

Posted in Fluxus, inspiration, Seeing, Technique and Demo, tagged attention, constellation, Derain, practicing scales on November 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Last post I said you can practice turning your attention to ON. Yes, you can, and it’s wise to practice.

Musicians, for example, practice. Even very advanced performers practice scales. This practice will shine through when they’re performing on stage in thrilling, ecstatic passages of a piece. The practice itself made this ecstasy possible, but the practice itself is not ecstatic. It’s discipline.

I walk into my kitchen one morning, my to-do list for that day writ large in my brain. As I turn to the fridge, my jaw drops and my eyes pop. I either had never seen this light effect before or it happens every morning but I’m just always behind in my “attention practice.”

I grab my camera and click.

This is not a great moment in the history of photography.

Why, then, is it valuable? Because it records a constellation: the alignment of

the angle of the sun
the placement of that bamboo plant
the moment I entered that room
my attention on ON

The photo reminds me that such an alignment is possible. It happened. It doesn’t happen every day and it’s worth paying attention when it does happen.

Next, we’ll look at Derain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw7tkgVnRTw

Pierre Soulage

Posted in abstraction, Achievement, Color, Composition, Imagination, inspiration, Semiotics, Technique and Demo, Texture, tagged beyond black, outrenoir, Pierre Soulage, Rodez on November 14, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Even as a child, Soulage says, he liked black because it made the rest of the paper look all the more white.

When he was sixty, his paintings became all black, a black he calls outrenoir, which translates roughly as “beyond black.”

He doesn’t think of himself as painting with black paint, but with light. The light reflects off the thick, textured black paint and that is what you see. “I made these because I found that the light reflected by the black surface elicits certain emotions in me. These aren’t monochromes. The fact that light can come from the color which is supposedly the absence of light is already quite moving, and it is interesting to see how this happens.”

He was born December 24, 1919. Approaching 101, he says he’s looking forward to more ideas to come to him.

The Musée Soulage, in Rodez , Southern France, is devoted to his work.

I recommend the following links for more images of his work and of interviews with him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azb6K-R_q8M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylZGz3NuidA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eydws5jJ6ys

https://www.google.com/search?q=pierre%20soulages&tbm=isch&tbs=rimg:CR8aTYMxIqhvYaEYr1reAWak&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBsQuIIBahcKEwjQo_2WloPtAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQFw&biw=1294&bih=836#imgrc=R9rQFXyA7wEFTM&imgdii=4-kpwBo3-mMrfM

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk01-AFktcIGO9n0dcMT9GRy-irtSdw:1605223481914&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=pierre+soulages&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3oLK7k_7sAhVSgK0KHVh7AGIQiR56BAgPEBA&biw=1378&bih=836#imgrc=Tj_-pYUAPfkJYM&imgdii=AM1Kn5-I38wLFM

Two days ago I was reminded of Pierre Soulage when I took the photo posted as “Not Levitating.” When I framed the shot I saw the uncanny light that was coming through the front doors glass panel in late afternoon. On the photo, which is unedited, the light “column” at the left appears so substantial that its weight equals that of the blue sphere, which would otherwise have to dominant the composition.

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/not-levitating/

Not Levitating

Posted in Composition, inspiration, Seeing, Semiotics, Surreal, tagged Blow Up, Michelangelo Antonioni on November 12, 2020| 1 Comment »

Time to watch “Blow Up” again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80fb7Lt0z58

“The Architecture of Happiness”

Posted in Architecture, Imagination, inspiration, Semiotics, tagged Alain de Botton, Archtecture of Happiness., The perfect home on September 22, 2020| 1 Comment »

Alain de Botton published this book in 2006. His prose can be purple and dense. You’ll be inclined to read slowly and thoughtfully. That’s a good thing because you’ll want to reflect on our built environment. How does the space you live in effect you—your view of life and your imagination?

I recommend you savor the book at your own pace whenever you get to it, but watch the three episodes that he narrates on you tube—as soon as possible:

Why the urgency and why now? Simply put, because we go for walks now. It’s nice to head for the woods, but it’s also stimulating to walk through the half deserted streets of our towns. Alain de Botton will nudge you to observe and question why buildings are the way they are. Do the buildings you encounter and the spaces you enter make you feel happy, optimistic, resourceful, energetic? Or, do you feel, ermm, locked down?

Fairfield Porter and your interesting junk mail

Posted in Composition, Illustration, inspiration, Landscape, Negative space, Seeing, Technique and Demo, tagged Ann Ireland, East Coast painter, Fairfield Porter, L.L.Bean, negative space on August 30, 2020| 2 Comments »

PinesLake1

If the concept of negative space eludes you or you don’t quite see what the big deal about it is, consider this painting. Notice how the lake pushes against the pine trees. I don’t mean the actual lake, of course. I mean the surface on the painting that represents the lake.

Notice how this technique flattens the 3-dimensional landscape into a 2-dimensional surface. That sounds so banal, doesn’t it, and the word “flatten” sounds so blah.

But the visual thrill of this technique is undeniable. Even after you have it figured out, your mind loves playing this game: now it’s foreground, now it’s background.

PinesLake2

Fairfield Porter (1907-1975) excelled at this. I’m grateful to him for making the modern way of seeing so accessible.

Why am I bringing up Fairfield Porter now? Because of a bit of junk mail. When I got the L.L.Bean catalog in the mail yesterday, I immediately thought of Porter. At first glance I thought L.L.Bean, an East coast company, was using one of his paintings on their cover. Was this a passage from a Fairfield Porter landscape?

LLBeanCatalog

Porter was born in Winnetka, Illinois. He moved to the East coast to attend Harvard, then stayed and became a celebrated East coast painter. His influence in this painting on the catalog cover is undeniable.

Could the artist be from the East coast? I looked for the fine print on the inside cover. Yes. The artist is Anne Ireland and the L.L.Bean cover painting, inspired by the Maine coast, is titled “Changing Weather.”

Moral of the story: 1) see if you can switch negative space to positive and 2) notice how interesting your junk mail is.

Edward Hopper in Paris

Posted in Galleries, Illustration, inspiration, tagged Amedeo Modigliani, Andre Breton, Constantin Brancusi, Edward Hopper, Fernand Leger, Hemingway, James Joyce, Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt, Roaring 20's on August 10, 2020| Leave a Comment »

In the 1920’s Edward Hopper was working part time as an illustrator for the Hotel Management industry. He hated the job since he thought of himself as a fine artist, but he needed the money. To get away from the illustrator’s grind he traveled to Europe three times in that decade.

A generation of writers and artists woke up after the horrible butchery of the “Great War” to realize that the old war-honoring culture of their forefathers had to be thrown out, the whole corseted, velvety, tasseled, lacy, medallioned, epauletted, pious-pompous thing. The new generation invented new ways of seeing and thinking.

During his trips to Europe Hopper stayed mainly in Paris. Ah, Paris in the 20’s! The city was buzzing with Cubism and Surrealism. Recently starving artists were now being shown in major galleries: Picasso, Modigliani, Gris, Leger and Brancusi, to name a few. When you went out for coffee you might spot James Joyce, André Breton or Hemingway at the next table. So much to see and learn!

Edward Hopper wanted none of it. His indifference to new ideas was so thorough that, as he later recalled, he hadn’t even heard of Picasso then.

What about the roar of the roaring 20’s. Would he have buttoned his spats and stepped out one night to catch Josephine Baker showing off her knees in the Charleston? Unlikely.

JosephineBaker

But we know he took the train to Amsterdam where he admired Rembrandt’s paintings.

Did he ever hop a train to, say, Berlin to visit museums and galleries there? He might have been interested in German museums. But galleries in wild, experimental Berlin showing modern art?

No chance of that. But let’s imagine he did. Next.