 Drawing 11·14·2018, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Approach can swing from fully intellectual to fully emotional. The sweet-spot must be somewhere in-between. The sweet-spot is not-too-soft, not-too-hard, but just-right; yes it is something Goldilocks would enjoy!
Yesterday's drawing consumed my entire studio time. That drawing is intricate and it is thoughtful, but it felt dry in-the-making. This drawing was born mostly from my intellect and less from my emotions. Does it fail the viewer because it is not fully human? This is my worry. Living well, making art well, both are not fully intellectual nor fully emotional. Art, if done well, contains a balance of intellect and emotion. So how do I do this in a way that fully represents me? Perhaps, if this drawing were a bit different it would be more emotionally successful. For instance, if the form on the bottom right were larger, would its contrast create emotional stress through a dramatic emotional juxtaposition of forms? Instead it is so well balanced as to be comfortably numb. I do not want to represent this drawing as poor, or inadequate. It is an excellent drawing; but it just does not speak with a striking amount emotional energy. I want more. OK, I know how to put together a nicely balanced composition, one that is intellectually satisfying. Again; I want more! I want to see the stresses of existence in my art; the push and pull between my intellect and my emotions. The quest is truth and representation of the authentic consequence of living. I am getting closer. Writing, as I am today, is a call for my instigating a great effort to move closer to full satisfaction, me delivering a performance that fully and completely represents all I feel and know. (Beethoven's Ninth Symphony come to mind!)
0 Comments
 Drawing 10·18·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  "Chaos, Stillness & Prayer" (2018 No.9, state 1), oil on canvas, 54x36 inches {"Art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm.... an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction." -Saul Bellow, "Writers at Work: Third Series", 1967} Making art, making life, is full of distractions; there is a lot of chaos. Ordering emotions, placing them in front of myself, rooting them out despite the distractions, separating truth, attempting to clarify truth by making images; this is my job. I bring order to my living by giving attention to the stuff I can order. It is understanding I seek. I will not allow the distractions of chaos to stop me from my effort to make sense of this state of being.
Yesterday was a good day. I did follow my need to use visual motion to exude personal emotion. I did this in a drawing, I followed it with a new painting, Chaos, Stillness & Prayer.  Drawing 10·17·2018, pencil n paper, 16x20 inches I did prepare a new canvas for a new painting. It is ready to go, and I am too! The drawings from the last two days tell me this: these drawings illustrate a direction I do NOT want to go. They are too static. Each develops compositionally around a firm set of forms. These forms give spatial direction, and solidity, but movement is restricted. I enjoy loop-da-looping within a rectangular piece of paper or canvas. Yesterday's drawing does drive the viewer from lower right to upper left, but then what? It is play, but in a static space. This is dull. It could be nice for a different kind of artist. Even Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) made static compositions at the bringing of his mature period (around 1920). Mondrian was the most staid and sober of artists, yet ultimately his static use of bars and colors transformed to images of great animation. I show you an early Mondrian (1921), and a late one (1944); see both below this post.  Piet Mondrian, "Tableau I", oil on canvas, 1921  Piet Mondrian, "Victory Boogie Woogie", oil on canvas, 1944  "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 11), oil on canvas, 63x66 inches {"What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory." -T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"} Paul Cézanne said that his act of painting was based upon "little sensations." Mine too! Big sensations are also important! Yesterday's changes in Burnt Norton were comprehensions of big sensations. I was looking for direct quotes from Cézanne, ones that referred to "little sensations." I could not find any. In my search I did find quotes important to my way of thinking, from Cézanne and from F. David Peat. I show these below. As I paint these ideas are present in my mind. I do think of myself as an artist very involved with nature, such as Cézanne spoke of it in 1884. "Who we are and how we appear to the world is always filled with paradox. Being ourselves is like Cézanne painting a landscape — he who was always tentative, always questioning, never fully sure but always attempting to respond honestly to his 'little sensations' as he called them." - F. David Peat (2002), in From Certainty to Uncertainty
 "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 7), oil on canvas, 55.5x66 inches {"What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory." -T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"}  Drawing 09·25·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Happiness has not yet arrived. This ain't easy. The painting, Burnt Norton, ain't yet right. It is taking a toll; an emotional toll. I am in a humongous effort. There is desolate, lonely weight upon me, but I am optimistic. Confusing? This is a mountain worth climbing. The required humongous effort is this: I am at the bottom of a mountain. It is very far to the top and I am looking up! I do not want to be distracted by my feelings. I do not want to be overwhelmed by the difficult, arduous, strenuous journey that lies before me. Being here and now, taking one step, then another, is my responsibility. I will achieve this. However, when contemplated, I am daunted by being in this position, at the bottom. I will stop contemplating; I will act! Before I take another step, I leave you, and myself, looking at a wonderful drawing by Vincent Van Gogh. The more I study Vincent van Gogh's work the more I find kinship between him and I, between his artistic endeavors and mine. I am talking about consistency in research & development, the constant quest for greater depth of knowledge, and our ardent desire to be relentless in finding personal visual truth. Vincent and I share a yearning to connect with every single bit, snippet, shard of paper or canvas that we use as ground for drawings and paintings. We want to touch these surfaces with marks denoting we have been here, that we have touched every scrap and portion of every bit of surface with thought and feeling.  Vincent Van Gogh, "Wheat Field with Sheaves and Arles in the Background", ink on paper, 31.5x24 cm. 1888  Drawing 09·22·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches One more worry: Is my work too complicated, too subtle? Is it beyond the grasp of most viewers? I see visual connections across wide expanses of canvas and paper. I do not think I am deluding myself. Yesterday's drawing does work well. There is a solid core, there are rhythms and rhymes, there is movement and motion, there is value contrast, there are a large variety of forms, there is light, there is structural integrity. So, why is it not a hit? I believe it does hit well. Then why are viewers not begging that it be put in public venues? What are they not begging to see it up close and personal? Art that speaks truth should be seen. Perhaps Vincent Van Gogh wondered the same.
In yesterday's blog I quoted a New York Times article from March 22, 1992. The following paragraph, from the same article, is relevant to my worries of today: "Cezanne's career might have been as grim as Van Gogh's -- and as short -- had he not been the son of a banker and, ultimately, his heir. As it is, his progress from clumsy Expressionism to a sublime fusion of the monumental and the ethereal has attracted scholars from Roger Fry to Meyer Schapiro and John Rewald." (from the New York Times article, ART; How Cezanne Evokes a Bach Fugue, published March 22, 1992)  Drawing 09·20·2018, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Never! Always! The edge of description is life as animated joy. Henri Matisse did it before anyone else. Matisse's Joy of Life is a grand display of compositional stress and color invention; it depicts the joy in creation. Joy of Life is reality itself. Joy of Life is based upon that which we see, i.e., the reality we know; the flat plane of the canvas is respected while three-dimensional-perspective is forced and enforced. Around and around we go, in and out we see. It is more than a test of compositional possibilities; it plays with simple contrast too, light to dark. Joy of Life is one of Henri Matisse's most important contributions to painting and the visual arts. I set about yesterday's drawing with Joy of Life in mind. My drawing achieves a high level of compositional energy, and rigor; in two-dimensions and in three-dimensions. Also, it runs with wild circles around its solid, anchored center.  Henri Matisse, "The Joy of Life", oil on canvas, 175x241 cm, 1906  "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 4), oil on canvas, 55.5x66 inches {"What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory." -T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"}  Drawing 09·19·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Just when I thought I was getting somewhere I find out there are many, many miles to go before I sleep! There ain't no Fat Lady here to tell me it's over. The painting, Burnt Norton, took a revolutionary stance. There is no going back. My commitment is large. My ambition is large. This compositional play, round versus static, is fascinating. Interesting it is that Picasso has been called a classicist because his compositions tend to be frontally centered and read like a facade. Matisse is thought to be the compositional revolutionary. Me, I am a revolutionary looking to animate by contrast, side to side, in and out. Bring it on!!!  Pablo Picasso, "Musicians with Masks", oil on canvas, 203.2x 188 cm, 1921  Henri Matisse, "Dance (II)", oil on canvas, 260x391 cm, 1910  Drawing 09·16·2018, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches In my last post I queried the efficacy of static frontal compositions versus compositions filled with rotations. The drawing shown today is a visual inquiry into rotation as compositional animator.
Perhaps Florence, the recent Hurricane, has instigated wonder.  Drawing 09·13·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Never perfection, always questionable; art is like life, i.e., striving to be better is a noble thing with no end. There should be a better way to see clearly, to see well, to get it right. There is not. Work is the only way. Yesterday's drawing is me trying circular composition. It is like dancing on a stage without any indication there is the possibility to exit. Is this a better way to make a composition? Henri Matisse often did it this way. Matisse must be respected! Notice the Matisse paper cut (below): There is a circular dance of forms against playful, various sized and colored, terra-firma-like blocks as ground. Those blocks solidly secure the stage, thus allowing the circles to dance in contrast to the rectangles they dance upon.  Henri Matisse, "The King's Sadness", gouache on paper cut & pasted, 1952 |
To read my profile go to MEHRBACH.com.
At MEHRBACH.com you may view many of my paintings and drawings, past and present, and see details about my life and work. Archives
December 2018
|
RSS Feed