Piet Mondrian
mdeli
On Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:12:26 -0700, dean rookes <dro...@direct.ca>
wrote:
>Balinofski questions:
Snip
>Balinofski is curious;
But is he horney?
> We certainly spent time with "Boogie Woogie" at art college.
snip
> There is no question that this painting has garnered a corner in our
>art world. What is it besides squared dobs of color? Are we reading to
>much into it; are there layers there that will continue to speak to us?
> It is interesting that Mondrian recently had a representational
>painting go at auction for about 50,000 dollars. It was a windmill,
>quite wonderfully done.
It is just as stupid a nothing as the rest of his crap. Were it signed
R. Mutt hanging in an outdoor art show it wouldn't get a second
look..
> At the same time, a more typical later work
>went for 5 million. Does the industrialist who purchased the later work
>see 100 times the value in it. Would he have seen this if not told by
>"authorities?" Does he "get it" when so many others seem to miss the
>point?
He got the painting; probably as a gambling chip hoping some future
sucker will pay more.
You can ask the same questions about any painting, so what?
> Just questions.
> Balinofski (wondering aloud)
So what's Herr professor Balinofski's opinion?
Mani DeLI
...no skill no art
G*rd*n
zi...@interport.net:
| ...
| The other thing you need to do is learn how to read paintings. This is
| a pictorial event which has a long tradition to it. My favorites in
| book form for learning this, if you have no teacher who can do this
| are Allan Leepa's book with a title something like "Understanding
| Modern Art", and the two books by Andre Lhote one on landscape and the
| other on figure painting.
You're attributing narrativity to Mondrian. I would do so
with many Modernists, but having seen a comprehensive
exhibition of his work, and how he came to his most famous
style, I have my doubts about this -- I tend to think he
went through a progression of visual or graphic ideas that
had little to do with symbolic representation.
It is true that the human _power_to_read_ is such that it
can make running water, cracks in the pavement, and the
chance arrangement of the stars speak -- even Andy Warhol
paintings are tortured and made to speak. But for a
painting, this may be a defeat.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
zi...@interport.net
dean rookes <dro...@direct.ca> wrote:
Dear people,
The interchange about Mondrian is astonishing to me. I remember that
in my poor Italian I had to [as a young Fulbright scholar] tell a
famous Italian scholar who had just written a book about Mondrian that
his statmenet about Mondrian as "Cold, Icy and Northern" had no
reality. At that time I told him, [1962] there were many of his
disciples still alive whom he could have written to, if not talked to.
I knew of, at that time, in New York alone, Harry Holtzman, Burgoyne
Diller, Ilya Bolotowsky and Charmian Von Wiegand. I also said that it
would be a good idea to read Mondrian's own writings and take them
seriously to understand his work, his direction and the meaning of
individual paintings.
Both of you need that advice, now! Read Mondrian and take what he says
seriously ar motication for his art. Wittenborn's anthology called
"Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art" went through many editions and
should be easily available.
Mondrian, least of all was not a formalist. Both of you think he was
one! He was involved in make a symbolic statement about our lives and
our psyches. It is an explicit statement. It is also interesting to
read it in relation to the essay on parallelism of Fredinand Hodler of
1888 which was very famous in Mondrian's early manhood, as was Hodler.
If you want to take it back further, read Kant and finally Edmond
Burke. You might aslso look at the artist's who come out of all of
this. The First generation of French landscape painters as well as
Caspar David Friedrich. You should also look at Mondrian's early
landscapes. By the way, the person you quote mentions Mondrian as an
impressionist. Thagt is one thing he never was. He starts influenced
by the Barbizon school, but as a post-impressionist.
Please note, I have told you to do your own research. I have not told
you what you will find. If you don;t know what an artist thought he
was doing and only what academic art-educators say about him, aren't
you trapped in other people's understandings, without your own?
The other thing you need to do is learn how to read paintings. This is
a pictorial event which has a long tradition to it. My favorites in
book form for learning this, if you have no teacher who can do this
are Allan Leepa's book with a title something like "Understanding
Modern Art", and the two books by Andre Lhote one on landscape and the
other on figure painting.
Sincerely,
Gabriel LAderman
zi...@interport.net
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
>Dear Gordon,'
What is "narrativity". It is not a owrd in any dictionary I know of
nor does it have anything to do with my comments. I am talking about a
purely visual action which most living artists and all living art
critics of high repute seem to know absolutely nothing. Yet doezens of
living artists still practice it. It is basic toi an understanding or
ability to enter into all modernist work including the "french" half
of the abstract-expressionist movement.
So it may seem like "narrativity" to you but that is because you are
in pristine ignorance. Now this might seem like a mean thing to say,
but it isn't. I have met one person in my life who was able to learn
how to "read" art pictorially without any contact with a knowledgable
teacher, a photographer named Karen Welborn. I think her something of
a genius, but she had a starting point. She loved the work of Atget
and she studied it until it took hold in her own quite different work,
but still full of forming!
From where you stand Andy Warhol is an unquestioned artist from whose
standpoint other things and ideas can be judged. From mine he was a
very bad artist who wanted to be one. He never knew how to read a
painting because noone at Carnegie did, so his reaction to the forms
of modernism was a reaction to a misunderstanding of it. He wanted to
be original and he was, after a fashion. From where I stand he is
original and irrelevant.
Mondrian will continue to be relevant and a problem for the artist of
the future. If they are bored by him, they should look to their own
competence. Boredom can flow from ignorance as well as from greater
knowledge.
Mondrian couldn't paint a picture until after cubist influence.
Picasso didn't know what it was about until 1910 and cubism found him.
Braque seemd to have learned in the last few years of his Fauve
period. There is no awareness of the existness of this read in Max
Ernst, who might be valued for other things on occasion [I do value
him thus]. Brancusi could do it in any number of dimensions and even
in his photographs. Klee was aware of it in everything he did,
although most of the time his work is about other things or about
violating normative reading for metphoric reasons-but always informed
by this kind of reading.
If all of this sounds weird, objectionable or like nonsense to you, be
advised it is operational painter talk to me and not criticism. And,
strangely enough I am not alone in these perceptions. If you tell me
what state you are in, I can probably direct you where there is
someone else who understands painting in these ways.
Narrativity indeed! And have you read Mondrian yet! What does he say?
Here is an old Ad Reinhardt joke from PM or the Compass.
It shows an abstract painting pointing at a person and saying: "And
what do you represent?"
Sincerely,
Gabriel
Richard Haynes
<<<Mondrian will continue to be relevant and a problem for the artist
of the future. If they are bored by him, they should look to their own
competence. Boredom can flow from ignorance as well as from greater
knowledge.>>>
Funny, I always thought it was the failure of the artist to communicate
if he bored his audience.........either that or he isn't saying anything
new........
Rich Haynes
Richard Haynes
G*rd*n
zi...@interport.net:
| What is "narrativity". It is not a owrd in any dictionary I know of
| nor does it have anything to do with my comments. I am talking about a
| purely visual action which most living artists and all living art
| critics of high repute seem to know absolutely nothing. Yet doezens of
| living artists still practice it. It is basic toi an understanding or
| ability to enter into all modernist work including the "french" half
| of the abstract-expressionist movement.
|
| So it may seem like "narrativity" to you but that is because you are
| in pristine ignorance. Now this might seem like a mean thing to say,
| but it isn't. I have met one person in my life who was able to learn
| how to "read" art pictorially without any contact with a knowledgable
| teacher, a photographer named Karen Welborn. I think her something of
| a genius, but she had a starting point. She loved the work of Atget
| and she studied it until it took hold in her own quite different work,
| but still full of forming!
Well, you'll have to explain what you mean by "reading",
then. To me, it strongly suggests a sequence, even a
structure of sequences, of symbols which are taken in and
interpreted. That's what people do when they read books or
listen to stories, and a lot of visual art can similarly
taken to be "narrative" in this sense -- hence
"narrativity." If you mean something else is going on,
you'd better explain it (unless, of course, it's ineffable
and inexplicable, in which case you're skating on pretty
thin ice yourself.)
A great deal of rhetoric has been uttered about Mondrian,
often not about the work in general, but imposed directly
on each painting, suggesting often enough that the painting
can be "read" according to the rhetoric. But maybe you mean
something else.
| From where you stand Andy Warhol is an unquestioned artist from whose
| standpoint other things and ideas can be judged.
Sensually or intuitively, maybe, but not rhetorically.
Warhol was quite explicit about that -- he emphasized that
there was nothing _behind_ his paintings. So how could
someone use Warhol's work (or other manifestations of his
standpoint) to judge something else?
Actually, there are a few things behind Warhol's works --
the desire to make them look good in a very immediate way,
and the desire to make a lot of money -- but these are too
basic and too universal to afford us much of an aesthetic
philosophy.
| From mine he was a
| very bad artist who wanted to be one. He never knew how to read a
| painting because noone at Carnegie did, so his reaction to the forms
| of modernism was a reaction to a misunderstanding of it. He wanted to
| be original and he was, after a fashion. From where I stand he is
| original and irrelevant.
Relevancy is, of course, in the mind of the relater. It's
hard to say whether you have any idea what Warhol was doing,
so I guess I can't argue with you.
| Mondrian will continue to be relevant and a problem for the artist of
| the future. If they are bored by him, they should look to their own
| competence. Boredom can flow from ignorance as well as from greater
| knowledge.
|
| Mondrian couldn't paint a picture until after cubist influence.
| ...
So you're just blowing off the early obsessive,
expressionistic work? Personally, I like it a lot better
than the famous stuff -- but I concede the latter is more
influential. I guess somebody had to do it.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
zi...@interport.net
First this note. As I understand it this is not a moderated group.hen
how come this article which is listed as sent by my server is not on
the group or dejanews? Am I being paranoid?
Let me start with the first last: "Paint a picture" is a technical
word which artists understand. It means produce a painting which can
be read. So in an interesting way you have made me realize I was
committing a tautology. Of course Mondrian could not construct in
those terms until he learned them. But you made a mistake in getting
from my words the idea that I blew off the earlier work. It had and
has interest but not THAT interest, because it is uninformed by that
kind of knowledge.
Before I read your new letter I realized what you were talking about
by narrativity. I have been so long away from the world of art
criticism and especially the post post post critics that I had
forgotten what they knew and didn't know.
Let's get it straight, once and for all. You are talking
unhistorically about your own time. The idea of a painting which could
not be "read" but only looked at all of a piece and in one glance was
invented [YES INVENTED] by the minimalist artists. It was one of their
chief claims to being an avant garde. They knew, to some degree, as
you apparently do not, that the abstract artists of earlier
generations did not compose like "that".
Of course I am talking about art as something to be experienced
sequentially. Where the hell did you ever manage not to learn that
that is what art has been about from time immemorial?
So obviously in your terms Mondrian painted narratives all his life.
This means that the viewer is supposed to fly around over the surface
investigating it and responding to it and its tensions in a long term
series of different paths predicted by and controlled by the artist's
actions in paint. There is nothing new about this statement. Hans
Hofmann who taught out of Mondrian, whatever he painted, taught in
these terms. I drew like that under his tutelage. Be advised you are
not getting it from the horse's mouth but, but pretty close. Besides
Hofmann, I studied with deKooning in 1949-50, Ad Reinhardt from 1949
to 1952 Rothko in 1951 and 2 among others.
Ad Reinhardt painted narrative paintings in your terms, so did
deKooning. So did Barnett Newman in any of his paintings which have
more than one line, and in fact in some terms in those which have
only one. I think Rothko, after a while almost painted without
"narrative", except that his shapes jostle with each other and don't
all sit on the same plane right away-which would be narrative in your
terms. Only the minimalists do what you would have Mondrian do and
that is why I find them uninteresting. The things just sit there and
do nothing. And Don Judd's have to be looked at from only one spot-he
said so himself and in writing. So they aren't sculpture but the
picturesque three dimensional version of a Newman as he saw him.
There is not the slightest doubt about my pictorial interpretation of
the artists I have mentioned. You should read Barnett Newman's first
public lecture on the great Snake Mound in Ohio-I heard it at the
club, when he first delivered it. It makes perfect sense in relation
to his paintings, but not by your way of thinking. I had him come and
repeat it at my school, then - in 1950 or 51.
Read, study, look at paintings and if at all possible draw and paint.'
I wish you well but the first thing you find it hard to learn is that
you don't already know. You need to learn. And you need to learn from
knowledgable artists.l
You remind me of students I had in the far west once[Arizona to be
precise], as a visiting artist, one of whom was trying to paint like
Ad Reinhardt, but she thought the paintings did what you think
Mondrian does, so her paintings were just awful. They just sat there
blackly and did nothing much. She had never seen one in th eflesh and
the ones inbooks didn't do anything but just sit there for her.
Have you seen any of the art of these people in quantity in the flesh?
The people you are talking about? Have you seen much Mondrian? Have
you seen Ad Reinhardt? None of them reproduce very well. Stand in
front of them for a while and see if something happens or if you even
know what to do with yourself. If you have already seen them and If
the paintings all did nothing but stare back at you, you might be in
deep trouble. If you still believe that is what they should have done
and that you need to beat me in argument, good luck with your life in
art.
I will not try to teach you how to read a painting in words. It is the
least written about thing in art. And to write about it to a friendly
audience would be difficult. It cannot be written polemically. Can you
write about love polemically? Reading a painting is one of the great
sensual experiences of life-like music should be. But you could learn
if you wanted to. There are some people in every state [some young,
some near retirement] who are still teaching it in studio classrooms.
If you want to know something about art, find them. I offered to tell
you before but you are too busy arguing. I did give you the names of
some books which try to teach it a little. I can't remember the name
but there was a California artist who wrote a book once showing the
secrets of Cezanne's composition. I think it was Erle Loran. He shows
you photographs of the sites and the paintings and he draws diagrams.
Well, the diagrams are wrong, but they are half right. He gets you
into the painting, but he doesn't get you back out again so you can go
in for another trip. But his book is a place to start.
What do you think Monet meant when he said he would stop composing and
just paint the light as it fell on things for a short bit of time?
What was he giving up? He was giving up the eye's movement over and
through. Monet never did accept it again, but he made something new in
the cathedral facades and the nympheas. But the other impressionists
did not give it up. You can read Sisley, Renoir, the later Degas[after
1886 most of the time]. So they continued something which Monet, the
radical got rid of. What was it?
By the way I did not impose anything on Mondrian. I told you to read
his writings for clues. You have still not admitted to having done so.
Here is a new idea. Stop reading modernist critics and read the
artists. Start with the ones you like best. Ask yourself questions
about them as you read them don;t read with blind faith. Read Paul
Klee's "The Thinking Eye". Are you prepared for that sort of stuff?
What can you do with it? It isn't hip. You might even find some of my
articles in old issues of Art Forum or Art News or other publications.
Go back far or you won't find them. Try not to read me when I wrote as
a critic.
Many years ago, in my first published article in 1967 I said that if
we weren't careful we might become provincial to the past.
Sincerely,
Gabriel Laderman
zi...@interport.net
mdeli
On Sun, 31 Aug 1997 05:44:28 GMT, zi...@interport.net wrote:
HUge snip
>So obviously in your terms Mondrian painted narratives all his life.
>This means that the viewer is supposed to fly around over the surface
>investigating it and responding to it and its tensions in a long term
>series of different paths predicted by and controlled by the artist's
>actions in paint. There is nothing new about this statement. Hans
>Hofmann who taught out of Mondrian, whatever he painted, taught in
>these terms. I drew like that under his tutelage. Be advised you are
>not getting it from the horse's mouth but, but pretty close. Besides
>Hofmann, I studied with deKooning in 1949-50, Ad Reinhardt from 1949
>to 1952 Rothko in 1951 and 2 among others.
The guy has a pedegree. He's seen the horses ass.
>There is not the slightest doubt about my pictorial interpretation of
>the artists I have mentioned.
Indeed. This should convince all here.
> You should read Barnett Newman's first
>public lecture on the great Snake Mound in Ohio-I heard it at the
>club, when he first delivered it. It makes perfect sense in relation
>to his paintings, but not by your way of thinking. I had him come and
>repeat it at my school, then - in 1950 or 51.
The writings of these assigned twits is about as clear as this
writer's Artspeak
>Read, study, look at paintings and if at all possible draw and paint.'
>I wish you well but the first thing you find it hard to learn is that
>you don't already know. You need to learn. And you need to learn from
>knowledgable artists.l
This mound of infomation should help all artists here.
>
>You remind me of students I had in the far west once[Arizona to be
>precise], as a visiting artist, one of whom was trying to paint like
>Ad Reinhardt, but she thought the paintings did what you think
>Mondrian does, so her paintings were just awful. They just sat there
>blackly and did nothing much. She had never seen one in th eflesh and
>the ones inbooks didn't do anything but just sit there for her.
I told you this guy was a teacher, Sounds like he teaches a "Failure
for Beginners" course.
>Have you seen any of the art of these people in quantity in the flesh?
>The people you are talking about? Have you seen much Mondrian?
Sure and its no better than an average bedsheet.
>Have
>you seen Ad Reinhardt? None of them reproduce very well. Stand in
>front of them for a while and see if something happens or if you even
>know what to do with yourself. If you have already seen them and If
>the paintings all did nothing but stare back at you, you might be in
>deep trouble. If you still believe that is what they should have done
>and that you need to beat me in argument, good luck with your life in
>art.
Hold on to your teaching job you'll do no better.
>I will not try to teach you how to read a painting in words. It is the
>least written about thing in art. And to write about it to a friendly
>audience would be difficult.
Paranoid?
> It cannot be written polemically.
You can not write at all.
-Large snip
>By the way I did not impose anything on Mondrian. I told you to read
>his writings for clues. You have still not admitted to having done so.
>Here is a new idea. Stop reading modernist critics and read the
>artists. Start with the ones you like best. Ask yourself questions
>about them as you read them. Read Paul Klee's "The Thinking Eye".
All mystical mumbo-jumbo; Utterly worthless
>Are
>you prepared for that sort of stuff? What can you do with it? It isn't
>hip.
Nor even interesting, just the usual Artspeak double-talk
> You might even find some of my articles on in old issues of Art
>Forum or Art News or other publications. Go back far or you won't find
>them. Try not to read me when I wrote as a critic.
Are you referring to Stale Art News and Artspeak Forum? Your brand of
Artspeak isn't vitimine enriched enough for today's Artspeak mags,
stick to teaching and vanity. I'm sure you stand out in seminars.
>
Mani DeLi
...if it needs a long sermon to proclaim its art its probably
bullshit.
zi...@interport.net
hug...@interlog.com (mdeli) wrote:
>On Tue, 26 Aug 1997 20:12:26 -0700, dean rookes <dro...@direct.ca>
>wrote:
>>Balinofski questions:
>Snip
>>Balinofski is curious;
>But is he horney?
>> We certainly spent time with "Boogie Woogie" at art college.
>
>It is just as stupid a nothing as the rest of his crap. Were it signed
>R. Mutt hanging in an outdoor art show it wouldn't get a second
>look..
I believe in being "from Missouri" about all things. I think there is
a flaw in Mondrian. But a trained artist shouild have been trained to
see and understand his work. I think your art college stank because
you didn't learn how there-just got indoctrination which you properly
rejected.
There probably wasn't an artist in the place who understood forming,
let alone Mondrian. Tough luck, but more and more of the schools are
like that now.
Even in the worst school I went to -Cornell - whenI was there there
were at least two people on the faculty who understood forming and one
who understood Mondrian. He had been Leger and Ozenfant's assistant,
and actually came to the US with one of them during World War II when
they both set up their schools in NY.
Now I think it is hardto do. But you could still learn if you were
willing to admit that something the ARTISTS cared about for three
generations must have something worthwhile in it. Dekooning told me
that his two favorite abstract painters were Mondrian and Arp in 1949.
Do you think he couldn't draw either? Look at his portrait of
Elaine-probably the best figure drawing he ever did in his life. He
was in love with her, then. [although it was a little before my time]
Gabriel