Sunday, 7 December
Good Morning
Jacob…
The rate of technological
change we experience as individuals can give us the impression that humanity’s
lot steadily improves. Growth in
scientific knowledge generally improves the quality of life by most people’s
estimate. Whether humanity has similarly
progressed in the realms of politics, philosophy and the arts is something passionately
argued. These are areas guided as much
by the human heart as they are by intellect.
Yet a convincing argument can be made that governance has benefitted from
the development of democratic institutions; mankind is more compassionate when the
inviolable rights of the individual are honored; and the visual arts has
broadened its impact with the development of perspective, photography and
motion pictures. Who would argue we are
better served if we turn back the clock and give up any of these developments?
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| Nicolas Poussin: Orpheus and Eurydice - 1651 |
Nicolas
Poussin’s 1651 painting, Orpheus and Eurydice,
skillfully renders the illusion of a three dimensional world though painted onto
a flat surface. It takes full advantage
of techniques developed by Renaissance artists, using single-point perspective
as well as the lesser appreciated atmospheric perspective – acknowledging colors
appear less saturated the further they are from the viewer. The use of chiaroscuro, the treatment of
light and shade, makes for a persuasive depiction of form. Poussin provides a window onto his world, a
civilization that celebrates the power of human reason to overcome age-old
obstacles to mankind’s progress. This approach
was powerful during the Age of Enlightenment because it was a refreshing,
inspirational view of mankind’s condition.
This expression by the masters of 16th century art became a
convention that dictated the style of Western art for nearly three hundred
years. By the 19th century
these methods were considered stale theater by artists demanding more personal
expression; with its emphasis on creativity, sensuality, and immediate,
authentic emotion.
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| Claude Monet: Water Lillies - 1914 |
The
Impressionists of the late 19th century created a new palette suited
to portraying their spontaneous reaction to what their eye caught before them. They moved their easels to the bright
outdoors from their isolated studio and became enchanted with a landscape bathed
with sunlight. The shimmering light, the
ever-changing tone and mood as the sun traveled across the sky, was
intoxicating. Impressionist painters
like Monet abandoned most all considerations in order to capture light’s
elusive effervescence.
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| Vincent Van Gogh: The Sower - 1888 |
The Dutch artist
Vincent Van Gogh employed the Impressionist’s vivid colors to dramatically
externalize his personal sympathies upon the landscape. These works of the period burst forth with a
passion that was suddenly free from deadening constraints. The energies of youth radiated onto unvisited
avenues with newly minted unimagined forms of creativity. It was inevitable that someone substantial
would eventually call a halt to the excesses and attempt to reinstate something
of the traditional.
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| Paul Cezanne: Houses at L'Estaque - 1880 |
Paul Cezanne
felt Impressionism had abandoned much that was still essential to Western art. The romance with color had pushed a reverence
for form nearly out of the picture. It
was time to reestablish structure. There
was legitimate need for the illusion of substance, providing dimension on the flat
painted surface. Without dimension there
is no dynamics. Painting becomes a
simple decorative design. But the dark
contrasts of chiaroscuro were out.
Cezanne would instead employ contrasting cool and warm colors to give a
sense of depth and dimension. His
experiments would result in a fresh, recasting of Western art with a clean,
simplified geometric look. Detail was gone. Verisimilitude: sacrificed in favor of the sensual brushworking
of oils onto canvas. After all, we’re
not making reality here. We’re doing
paint.
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| Chokwe Mask |
The colonialist ambitions of Europe exposed artists
of Western civilization to new approaches of expressing the human form and
psychology in art. These mysterious,
exotic masks and sculptures were exciting; powerful images, direct in their
appeal and intuitive in their creation.
Flesh need not appear as flesh. The
head can be any assemblage of eyes, mouth and nose. Extremes of imagination work to dramatize a
human essence that is otherwise near impossible to portray. About this same time Western thought is
shaken with new ideas of the intellect.
Freud publishes his Interpretations
of Dreams in 1900. We are confronted
with evidence that our minds remain basically instinctual and sexual desire
permeates our everyday lives. In that
same year Max Planck’s revelations on the indeterminate nature of physical
matter, his theory of Quantum Mechanics,
undermines our Newtonian certitude. Five
years later Einstein releases his Special
Theory of Relativity. The
conclusions are revolutionary. Matter is
a form of energy. Space and time are
related, not separate and distinct. What
time it is depends on where you are in the universe and how fast you are
going. We don’t all experience the same
reality.
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| Pablo Picasso: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon |
Art is not
created in a vacuum. Artists may be made
subliminally aware of dynamics that shift great civilizations like tectonic
plates on a suddenly agitated molten sea.
Take a look at Picasso’s iconic statement of 1907. No single 20th century painting portrays
the unhinging of Western society from its traditional mooring like this bizarre
portrayal of the women of Les Demoiselles
d’Avignon. We are here confronted by
the nude women of a brothel. Our anticipation
of erotic pleasure is instead replaced with feelings of dread and anxiety. Picasso has presented us with an
indeterminate reality. The love and
tenderness we normally associate with femininity is replaced with judgmental
stares and insinuations of barbaric acts.
Picasso bids good-bye to our long, confident love affair with the Enlightenment. We are now cut adrift in a cold, uncertain
world.
As it turns
out the Twentieth Century was a time of both unparalleled human catastrophe and
scientific progress. Despite two global
wars our civilizations rose to unprecedented heights in economic prosperity and
technological development. The art of
the Western world has pursued numerous avenues of creative exploration,
including cubism and various forms of abstraction. Painters in oil have brought new approaches
to representational art with works by artists ranging in vision from Lucian
Freud to Francis Bacon. Movies are all
the rage and photography has democratized art.
Can we say these
revolutionary strides in the visual arts demonstrate progress over the last
couple of centuries? Or is it reasonable
to conclude, as did Picasso, that art has a timeless quality – it expresses an immutable
human essence – traits not subject to alteration by scientific advancement. Maybe the craft of art is more likened to the
nature of a love shared by two people for one another. Couples of long ago fell in love by the warmth
of a fire, beneath the inky night stars.
Today they express their love sharing a bed, each with a smart phone in
hand or casually browsing their iPad. In
each instance the need for love is maintained but its expression is determined
by the nature of its context.
Love,
Dad
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