Art And Artists
Jan. 31st, 2009 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloAilz's course in 20th century art starts round about now. The first tutorial is next week; there are books full of pretty pictures all over the house and we lie in bed at night and talk about Cubism.
I don't get Cubism. I don't get why exactly it should be considered such a good idea to chop things into little cubes or shards or whatever those things are. I get Cezanne- who builds his paintings as if he were building a wall- and I get the primitivism of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon- and I get the pure abstraction of people like Mondriaan. But Cubism? No. Even after 100 years there seems to be some uncertainty as to what it was all about - and I note that the artists who came up with the theory- or theories- were the second-raters like Whassisname and Whojamiflip. The guys who invented the brand- Braque and Picasso- said nothing. They just got on with it. I prefer to think of it as a transitional style, a bridge between primitivism and whatever comes next- dada or surrealism. Also rather academic and constricting- and it doesn't surprise me that Picasso got bored with it sooner rather later. Maybe Ailz, who thinks it's wonderful, will be able to persuade me otherwise.
The other artist in my life at the moment is Renoir. I'm working on a jig-saw of his Le Moulin de la Galette. It's tough. With most jigsaws you get lines and well-defined shapes, but with Renoir it's all blibs and blobs of colour that only resolve themselves into an image when you step a long way back. My old art teacher- Tom Griffiths- used to say that Renoir was the greatest of all painters because he painted joy. Myself, I think that Renoir is largely crap- he couldn't draw for starters- but I'll allow that a handful of his early paintings- the big compositions with lots of people having a hell of a good time- are really rather splendid. Le Moulin de la Galette is one of them.
I don't get Cubism. I don't get why exactly it should be considered such a good idea to chop things into little cubes or shards or whatever those things are. I get Cezanne- who builds his paintings as if he were building a wall- and I get the primitivism of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon- and I get the pure abstraction of people like Mondriaan. But Cubism? No. Even after 100 years there seems to be some uncertainty as to what it was all about - and I note that the artists who came up with the theory- or theories- were the second-raters like Whassisname and Whojamiflip. The guys who invented the brand- Braque and Picasso- said nothing. They just got on with it. I prefer to think of it as a transitional style, a bridge between primitivism and whatever comes next- dada or surrealism. Also rather academic and constricting- and it doesn't surprise me that Picasso got bored with it sooner rather later. Maybe Ailz, who thinks it's wonderful, will be able to persuade me otherwise.
The other artist in my life at the moment is Renoir. I'm working on a jig-saw of his Le Moulin de la Galette. It's tough. With most jigsaws you get lines and well-defined shapes, but with Renoir it's all blibs and blobs of colour that only resolve themselves into an image when you step a long way back. My old art teacher- Tom Griffiths- used to say that Renoir was the greatest of all painters because he painted joy. Myself, I think that Renoir is largely crap- he couldn't draw for starters- but I'll allow that a handful of his early paintings- the big compositions with lots of people having a hell of a good time- are really rather splendid. Le Moulin de la Galette is one of them.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 05:24 pm (UTC)Picasso is okay. He did a lot of "stealing" from other artists and sometimes his work was very mediocre. He certainly traded on his fame. I do like many of his pieces, including the monumental sculpture that is in Chicago, but I prefer the work of many other artists.
As an example, the Demoiselle's painting(s) was created after he attended a display of African Art. (African being one of my favorite kinds of art.)
Put into a nutshell...
Cubism was meant to show many viewpoints combined into one piece. It was often quite ugly looking. That did not matter because true art does not need to be "beautiful". Early Cubism involved rejecting color, using only neutrals. It showed the most of Cezanne's influence. Later Cubism involved using color again, but was very limited. Braque (who really was more of the originator) and Picasso rejected classic perspective, working with very flat plains. It rejected realism. It even rejected individuality. If you see a lot of the Cubist works and don't know which artist painted which painting you won't be able to tell which belongs to Picasso, and which belongs to Braque. They also "invented" collage during that period by using "artificial texture" - meaning they added "fake" parts made from various materials, such as wallpaper, to the artworks.
That period was SO influential to modern art! I don't particularly love the works, but I do really appreciate them. It was one of the periods in art that marked a huge turning point in art history.
The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution. (Paul Cezanne)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 07:48 pm (UTC)My take on Picasso is that he kept on getting better and better. I know that's an eccentric view. It comes out of stumbling across an exhibition of his late work in Avignon in 1970 and being knocked sideways by it.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 08:04 am (UTC)(My icon is a Picasso)