delacroix quote
william deraymond
expression of an incomplete intelligence."
Seagull Manager
"william deraymond" <artr...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:MvVUa.26470$BM.87...@newssrv26.news.prodigy.com...
> On viewing Ingre's exhibition Delacroix commented, " It is the complete
> expression of an incomplete intelligence."
Ingres and Delacroix hated each other's approach to art. Plenty of nasty
comments can be found by each about the other. In my opinion, Ingres was the
better artist. Delacroix admired Rubens, but he wasn't one thousandth as
good as his hero (nor was he as good as Gericault).
Jeremy
> Ingres and Delacroix hated each other's approach to art. Plenty of nasty
> comments can be found by each about the other. In my opinion, Ingres was
the
> better artist. Delacroix admired Rubens, but he wasn't one thousandth as
> good as his hero (nor was he as good as Gericault).
>
Delacroix was the textbook Romantic and the
artist who fairly defined the movement in
France, Ingres the successor to David as the
leading Neo-Classicist.
These were certainly two of the most bitterly
opposed viewpoints yet seen in art.
It is fairly silly at this point to discuss who
was the "better" artist.. but what the hell.
Delacroix was master of the brush and a
supreme colorist even when his canvases
failed, which they often did. He had a
fluid ability to handle paint, vibrantly
and vigourously defining his subjects with a
marvelous energy and economy of effort.
Delacroix obviously owes a debt to Rubens,
one of the masters, along with Rembrandt,
of the painterly tradition.
Ingres is the archetypal technician, precise
and careful. His ability to define form with line
alone is rarely seen; I can't think of another
example. His technique was subtle, often
relying on the optical effect that binocular vision
produces when viewing curved forms at varying
angles. His view was that an artist only need
be able to draw and he claimed that an artist
could learn all he needed to know about color in
an afternoon's study.
While Delacroix was certainly no Rubens,
neither is Ingres a Leonardo. Both are rather
secondary figures in the history of art, and their
squabbles of little importance outside of France
in the nineteenth century.
While I love much of Ingres work for its technical
power, particularly his drawings and portraits in oil,
Delacroix is without a doubt the better painter.
Seagull Manager
"Jeremy" <jer...@tytan.net> wrote in message
news:bg21bl$k304g$1...@ID-91018.news.uni-berlin.de...
>
> His view was that an artist only need
> be able to draw and he claimed that an artist
> could learn all he needed to know about color in
> an afternoon's study.
Nevertheless, he was a great colourist - perhaps instinctively. He preferred
to stress local colour rather than incidental effects of light.
> While Delacroix was certainly no Rubens,
> neither is Ingres a Leonardo.
Maybe, but he was a great inventor of compositions, and devised the most
curious abstractions and distortions for aesthetic effect. His paintings are
more original than they probably look at first glance.
> While I love much of Ingres work for its technical
> power, particularly his drawings and portraits in oil,
> Delacroix is without a doubt the better painter.
"Without doubt" to you. To me, the reverse is the case.
william deraymond
> neither is Ingres a Leonardo. Both are rather
> secondary figures in the history of art, and their
> squabbles of little importance outside of France
> in the nineteenth century.
>
> While I love much of Ingres work for its technical
> power, particularly his drawings and portraits in oil,
> Delacroix is without a doubt the better painter.
Just wanted to note without to much complexity my disagreement with regards
to your assessment of the value of the "squabbles" outside 19th C. France.
This very statement by Delacroix is a signal of the recognition that
painting was a lot more than simply the ability to recreate the illusion of
so called reality. Delacroix was beginning to see the possibilities of the
medium in terms of consciousness which is the hallmark of modernism,
whatever the historic context. And of course the next generation of
painters in France were the so called impressionists and post
impressionists, who brought these realizations and possibilities into much
greater clarity in their work.
While I don't wish to squabble with you, regarding your post, as it is
regreshing to me to hear your intelligence, I disagree as to the value of
both Ingres and delacroix in relationship to Rubens and Da Vinci. Da Vinci
is the least of them all, in my opinion, and I certainly admire Ingres.
However if you pursue the path of Ingres, I am of the opinion you miss the
ecstasy of self expression that Delacroix begins to explore....
Seagull Manager
>
> Just wanted to note without to much complexity my disagreement with
regards
> to your assessment of the value of the "squabbles" outside 19th C.
France.
> This very statement by Delacroix is a signal of the recognition that
> painting was a lot more than simply the ability to recreate the illusion
of
> so called reality.
As a neoclassicist, Ingres' concerns go far beyond recreating the "illusion
of so called reality".
> Delacroix was beginning to see the possibilities of the
> medium in terms of consciousness which is the hallmark of modernism,
> whatever the historic context.
What became the dominant tendency in art in the generation succeeding
Delacroix? REALISM! Whatever possibilities Delacroix may or may not have
seen in painting, most artists of the next generation took a totally
different direction from his own.
> And of course the next generation of
> painters in France were the so called impressionists and post
> impressionists, who brought these realizations and possibilities into much
> greater clarity in their work.
Impressionism was an offshoot of realism. It has little or nothing to do
with Delacroix (or Ingres). Post-Impressionism was rooted in Symbolism and,
in turn, in Romanticism, but Delacroix was not its major inspiration.
Instead, the big influence is Moreau, who in many ways is much more of a
classicist than Delacroix, and shows distinct affinities to Ingres in his
style of drawing and composition.
> However if you pursue the path of Ingres, I am of the opinion you miss the
> ecstasy of self expression that Delacroix begins to explore....
You seem to suggest that Ingres wasn't expressing himself. If that is what
you believe, why?
Erik A. Mattila
Fortunately the history of art, as an academic discipline, is built on
criteria other than the "like begets like" inference. If one is going
to argue that Delacroix was influenced by Rubens or Leonardo, you need
to have something as evidence other than appearance. Maybe there is
such evidence, for all I know. Delacroix authored a 10 volume set of
"letters" that can be found in a good library, and he would likely have
mentioned these artists if they played an influencial role in his
artistic thinking.
Erik
>
>
>
>
Erik A. Mattila
> "william deraymond" <artr...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:23aVa.27477$BM.89...@newssrv26.news.prodigy.com...
>
>>Just wanted to note without to much complexity my disagreement with
>
> regards
>
>>to your assessment of the value of the "squabbles" outside 19th C.
>
> France.
>
>>This very statement by Delacroix is a signal of the recognition that
>>painting was a lot more than simply the ability to recreate the illusion
>
> of
>
>>so called reality.
>
>
> As a neoclassicist, Ingres' concerns go far beyond recreating the "illusion
> of so called reality".
>
>
>>Delacroix was beginning to see the possibilities of the
>>medium in terms of consciousness which is the hallmark of modernism,
>>whatever the historic context.
>
>
> What became the dominant tendency in art in the generation succeeding
> Delacroix? REALISM! Whatever possibilities Delacroix may or may not have
> seen in painting, most artists of the next generation took a totally
> different direction from his own.
You're time traveling, S&M. You can't project the realism/abstraction
polarity back in time before it ever became an issue. Read some Foucault.
Erik
Jeremy
"Seagull Manager">
>
> "Without doubt" to you. To me, the reverse is the case.
>
You must know that I was baiting you with that choice of
words. I restrained myself from using an emoticon.
Note also that I said "painter", not "artist". I haven't yet
become comfortable with a definition of what makes an
"artist" good, or valuable, and I am deeply suspicious of
anyone who has.
However, and I confess that I am applying a personal
definition here, there are certain things that I admire in a
painter, such as economy and boldness that succeeds in
preserving a certain subtlety of approach. Here Delacroix
is a model to study. I study Ingres for his draughsmanship.
Interestingly, I became interested in both of these artists
separately without knowing even that they were such close
contemporaries and rivals; I was attracted to each of their
opposite styles. As I read more, the gossipy interaction
between them made the learning process even more fun.
That said, of course neither is "without a doubt" better than
the other. That was also partly my point. Value judgements,
if not made with humility and with the acknowledgement of
fallibility and some component of doubt, lose something in terms
of credibility in my eyes.
Jeremy
> If one is going
> to argue that Delacroix was influenced by Rubens or Leonardo, you need
> to have something as evidence other than appearance. Maybe there is
> such evidence, for all I know. Delacroix authored a 10 volume set of
> "letters" that can be found in a good library, and he would likely have
> mentioned these artists if they played an influencial role in his
> artistic thinking.
Good point.
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Jeremy" <jeremy@fiercedragon_N*()*S+P&4*M_.com> wrote in message
news:QwfVa.13945$Vx2.6...@newssvr28.news.prodigy.com...
>
>
>
> That said, of course neither is "without a doubt" better than
> the other. That was also partly my point. Value judgements,
> if not made with humility and with the acknowledgement of
> fallibility and some component of doubt, lose something in terms
> of credibility in my eyes.
>
responses of the reactionaries or the conservatives (the most common divide
in this newsgroup) are only credible as mirrors to illuminate those with the
knees and have little to do with the art in question or art in general.
However, the other extreme, of completely even-handed treatment of
everything, even the decorative stuff so popular with the conservatives,
leads to an uncritical acceptance of too much and no exercise of proper
aesthetic judgement - which is not all a judgement of value.
So, as usual, some element of balance is required - and not a journalistic
procrustean attempt at balance either!
--
"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple." - Oscar Wilde
Erik A. Mattila
Speaking of divides, Art Criticism, Art Appreciation and Art History
certainly do overlap, but nevertheless stand as discrete fields of
academic practice. I think in our day to day speech they tend to get
all meshed together. In art history, however, I think the work of art
is best regarded in an even-handed manner, relativism nowithstanding.
The practitioner simply regards the existence of the object in a
historical context without questioning whether or not it should be there
in the first place according to some ahistorical criteria. It's
fascinating, however, to query why it ended up "as art" in a particular
historical setting. I'm thinking of Umberto Eco's comment in a Bill
Moyer's documentary on the art of Florence (and I paraphrase): "The
only thing that was "invented" in the Renaissance was capitalism."
Erik
Jeremy
> Speaking of divides, Art Criticism, Art Appreciation and Art History
> certainly do overlap, but nevertheless stand as discrete fields of
> academic practice.
Yes yes yes. I actually started to write along these lines, but felt
I lacked enough technical knowledge of the fields to make the proper
distinctions
>I think in our day to day speech they tend to get
> all meshed together. In art history, however, I think the work of art
> is best regarded in an even-handed manner, relativism nowithstanding.
> The practitioner simply regards the existence of the object in a
> historical context without questioning whether or not it should be there
> in the first place according to some ahistorical criteria.
Yes
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@oco.net> wrote in message
news:3F258EDD...@oco.net...
different ways of looking at the matter.
'The past is another country - they do things diffently there' is a factor
that influences all historical enquiry, of course, but the influences in art
are, I think, more subtle and difficult to avoid than, for example, in
political history.
I have been reading a fascinating account of the art of the San (Bushmen) in
Natal in South Africa (it has lovely illustrations as well). It has some
views of San art that I had not encountered before, they make a lot of
sense. Interestingly though, some are only possible to be understood through
very recent work in neuropsychology [building on Huxley's 'Doors of
Perception' and, more recently, Michael Persinger's 'Neuropsychology of god
beliefs']. So, even though the art has been studied for nearly 150 years, it
is only now that it is starting to make real sense - and the descriptions by
San contempories of the artists that appeared gnomic in the extreme then can
now be seen as quite straight forward descriptions of real psychic belief.
I accept that much art is not going to require quite such analysis (van Gogh
and his appeal might, though, just as it has taken David Horrobin to produce
a coherent explanation for the sudden appearance of the vast Victorian
lunatic asylums), but, and I am certainly not arguing relativism here, I
don't think it is even as simple as taking objects in context.
--
The happiest people on earth are those few fortunates who seem to be in a
state of mild, stable hypomania. - David Horrobin 'The Madness of Adam and
Eve' (How schizophrenia shaped humanity)
Jeremy
> > However if you pursue the path of Ingres, I am of the opinion you miss
the
> > ecstasy of self expression that Delacroix begins to explore....
>
> You seem to suggest that Ingres wasn't expressing himself. If that is what
> you believe, why?
>
Of course he was expressing himself. Its just that he was
expressing the artistic sensibility of a stodgy bore who believed
in nothing so strongly as tradition and social propriety. And doing
it damn well, with impeccable technique and... craftsmanship!
Jeremy
>
> Just wanted to note without to much complexity my disagreement with
regards
> to your assessment of the value of the "squabbles" outside 19th C.
France.
> This very statement by Delacroix is a signal of the recognition that
> painting was a lot more than simply the ability to recreate the illusion
of
> so called reality.
Yes yes I get it. Excuse my facetious
turn of phrase. "All posts are trolls"
Though... its my view that Delacroix was not
accusing Ingres of being simply able "to recreate the
illusion of so called reality." Ingres was indeed
concerned with other and larger issues, and it is
these things that Delacroix disagreed with. Ingres used
his rather staid talent and skill to promulgate a philosphy
that Delacroix opposed.
We can look back and see that their argument can
symbolize our modern views on schools of painting
but I doubt these were primary in the minds of the
artists.
Mani Deli
<emat...@oco.net> wrote:
>Delacroix authored a 10 volume set of
>"letters" that can be found in a good library, and he would likely have
>mentioned these artists if they played an influencial role in his
>artistic thinking.
>
Having read many of his letters and diaries I found him shallow,
jealous and unhappy. I don't recommend his writing .
...no skill no art!
Want to get away from the indecipherable imbecilities and absurd pretensions of the modern art establishment?
Check out my web page http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/
Mani Deli
>comments can be found by each about the other. In my opinion, Ingres was the
>better artist. Delacroix admired Rubens, but he wasn't one thousandth as
>good as his hero (nor was he as good as Gericault).
>
I find D's color surprisingly poor. It always amazed me that his brown
sauce palette is considered by critics to be an example of a colorist.
His composition isn't any better than of the worst academics critics
hate. His drawing is no better then that of a second rate academic. He
is highly over rated along with Corot and Courbet.
Erik A. Mattila
> On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 12:03:17 -0700, "Erik A. Mattila"
> <emat...@oco.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Delacroix authored a 10 volume set of
>>"letters" that can be found in a good library, and he would likely have
>>mentioned these artists if they played an influencial role in his
>>artistic thinking.
>>
>
> Having read many of his letters and diaries I found him shallow,
> jealous and unhappy. I don't recommend his writing .
Yes, it's not the kind of writing for recreational reading. Have you
tried Zane Grey?
Erik
Seagull Manager
"Mani Deli" <ma...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:jmbgivc4kt27a3mv1...@4ax.com...
> >Ingres and Delacroix hated each other's approach to art. Plenty of nasty
> >comments can be found by each about the other. In my opinion, Ingres was
the
> >better artist. Delacroix admired Rubens, but he wasn't one thousandth as
> >good as his hero (nor was he as good as Gericault).
> >
>
> I find D's color surprisingly poor. It always amazed me that his brown
> sauce palette is considered by critics to be an example of a colorist.
> His composition isn't any better than of the worst academics critics
> hate. His drawing is no better then that of a second rate academic. He
> is highly over rated along with Corot and Courbet.
> ...no skill no art!
I agree. Delacroix is being praised as a precursor of modernism solely
because of his brushy handling of paint, but his brushiness is nothing more
than a somewhat clumsy attempt to imitate Rubens (of whose paintings he made
numerous direct copies), so we can say that if Cezanne is the father of
modernist clumsiness in handling paint, Delacroix is its grandfather. Like
Cezanne, Delacroix was not a radical - he was more interested in recreating
the art of the past (in his case, his main heroes were Rubens and
Michelangelo, while Cezanne's were Poussin and Delacroix himself), than in
creating novelty.
Anyway, the inconsistency of those who love Delacroix dearly, but deplore
his modern descendants such as Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo is
interesting.
william deraymond
----- Original Message -----
From: "Seagull Manager"
<seagull...@nospamthanksbecauseisayso.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.fine
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 8:20 AM
Subject: Re: delacroix quote
>
> "william deraymond" <artr...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:23aVa.27477$BM.89...@newssrv26.news.prodigy.com...
> >
> > Just wanted to note without to much complexity my disagreement with
> regards
> > to your assessment of the value of the "squabbles" outside 19th C.
> France.
> > This very statement by Delacroix is a signal of the recognition that
> > painting was a lot more than simply the ability to recreate the illusion
> of
> > so called reality.
>
> As a neoclassicist, Ingres' concerns go far beyond recreating the
"illusion
> of so called reality".
I think Ingre was truly a great neo-classicist...Not classicist. I heard a
story about Degas walking by
some Ingres paintings with some students and saying..."Take off your hats,
but look away..."
What would you say Ingres was trying to do besides recreate the illusion of
so called reality?
>
> > Delacroix was beginning to see the possibilities of the
> > medium in terms of consciousness which is the hallmark of modernism,
> > whatever the historic context.
>
> What became the dominant tendency in art in the generation succeeding
> Delacroix? REALISM! Whatever possibilities Delacroix may or may not have
> seen in painting, most artists of the next generation took a totally
> different direction from his own.
I always thought so called impressionism was the major movement of the 19th
C. It certainly is for me.
>
> > And of course the next generation of
> > painters in France were the so called impressionists and post
> > impressionists, who brought these realizations and possibilities into
much
> > greater clarity in their work.
>
> Impressionism was an offshoot of realism. It has little or nothing to do
> with Delacroix (or Ingres). Post-Impressionism was rooted in Symbolism
and,
> in turn, in Romanticism, but Delacroix was not its major inspiration.
> Instead, the big influence is Moreau, who in many ways is much more of a
> classicist than Delacroix, and shows distinct affinities to Ingres in his
> style of drawing and composition.
Without writing a dissertation, I respectfully disagree...Impressionism and
Post-impression are rooted in the very real values of painting, ie.
brush and color applied with freedom and intelligence...in relationship to
the subject matter...
> > However if you pursue the path of Ingres, I am of the opinion you miss
the
> > ecstasy of self expression that Delacroix begins to explore....
>
> You seem to suggest that Ingres wasn't expressing himself. If that is what
> you believe, why?
He allowed himself to dominate the motif with his idea of technical mastery,
the brush to him had no value other than a means to an end...the image.
He was expressing to the best of his ability what he saw as a classical
Ideal. In doing so both his technique and the motif dominate the
"self-expression".
As long as your main focus is the image at the expense of all else, in my
experience, self expression is really not the issue. Cezanne actually
expresses himself in a vastly more superior way...It is much harder to
understand Cezanne....than Ingres, and you certainly can not understand him
through a conceptual lens..though when you do experience his self expression
, again in my experience, Ingre too is understood much more profoundly. It
truly is an advance in consciousness, once more, in my experience, from the
neo-classical to the modern.
>
>
william deraymond
"Jeremy" <jeremy@fiercedragon_N*()*S+P&4*M_.com> wrote in message
news:QwfVa.13945$Vx2.6...@newssvr28.news.prodigy.com...
>
This final statement is , simply put, an expression of your own
doubt...along with the idea that one can not know...
Are you sure...if so where did that knowing come from. What source of
reality taught you that or informs you of that?
Erik A. Mattila
Woooohahahahahahhehehehe....sorry, I couldn't restrain myself.
Your buddy, Erik
>
>
Seagull Manager
>
> From: "Seagull Manager"
> <seagull...@nospamthanksbecauseisayso.demon.co.uk>
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.fine
> Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 8:20 AM
> Subject: Re: delacroix quote
>
>
19th
> C. It certainly is for me.
It may be your personal favourite, and it may be the most written about
today, but at the time, it was not all that big. Rather, Neoclassicism and
Romanticism dominated. Impressionism, as part of of Realism, would rank
number three among 19th century art movements. It only began to make it big
in the last quarter of the century, while Neoclassicism continued to thrive
until the end of the century, eventually becoming marginal during the first
quarter of the 20th.
> Impressionism and
> Post-impression are rooted in the very real values of painting, ie.
Post-Impressionism is a label given to a variety of artists who came to
notice in the 1890s. Some of them had close stylistic or phisosophical links
to Impressionism, most didn't. Their main roots, as I said earlier, were in
Symbolism and Romanticism. (Indeed, Symbolists is precisely what the Nabis
called themselves.)
> brush and color applied with freedom and intelligence...in relationship to
> the subject matter...
That could apply to many kinds of good painting. It doesn't apply better to
Impressionism or Post-Impressionism than it does to Rembrandt or Rubens
(less, I would say).
> He [Ingres] allowed himself to dominate the motif with his idea of
technical mastery,
And why shouldn't he?
> the brush to him had no value other than a means to an end...the image.
Nothing wrong with that.
> He was expressing to the best of his ability what he saw as a classical
> Ideal. In doing so both his technique and the motif dominate the
> "self-expression".
Nothing wrong with that, either.
> As long as your main focus is the image at the expense of all else, in my
> experience, self expression is really not the issue.
The image expresses his ideas and his attitudes. The perfect smoothness of
the painted surface is in itself an expression of Ingres' personality and
values, just as much as the brushiness of Delacroix' style expresses
Delacroix' values. Indeed, if only a brushy style were expressive, it would
be expressive of nothing, since anyone expressing themselves through paint
must express themselves the same way. As it is, in general, extremely brushy
painting doesn't express anything except haste, and is a favourite
affectation of lazy or bored painters.
Anyway, your argument is way out of date. Most of the art world got bored
with brushy painting back in the 1960s, when Abstract Expressionism was
replaced by Post-Painterly Abstraction, Minimalism, and Conceptualism,
which, in case you haven't noticed, tended towards extreme smoothness. There
is still some brushy painting around, but it is not the dominant trend. In
fact, a lot of fashionable painters now are using household gloss, poured or
rolled, to make a very smooth, reflective surface.
> Cezanne actually
> expresses himself in a vastly more superior way...It is much harder to
> understand Cezanne...than Ingres, and you certainly can not understand him
> through a conceptual lens..though when you do experience his self
expression
> , again in my experience, Ingre too is understood much more profoundly.
It
> truly is an advance in consciousness, once more, in my experience, from
the
> neo-classical to the modern.
The neoclassical is infinitely better than the "modern" in every way.
Modernism and postmodernism have given us mostly bad art, some of it is the
worst "art" that humankind has ever produced.
Seagull Manager
"Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@oco.net> wrote in message
news:3F2988ED...@oco.net...
>
> Seagull Manager wrote:
> >
> > Anyway, the inconsistency of those who love Delacroix dearly, but
deplore
> > his modern descendants such as Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo is
> > interesting.
>
> Woooohahahahahahhehehehe....sorry, I couldn't restrain myself.
Feel free.
Jeremy
william deraymond
> This final statement is , simply put, an expression of your own
> doubt...along with the idea that one can not know...
> Are you sure...if so where did that knowing come from. What source of
> reality taught you that or informs you of that?
Yes, an expression of my own doubt. And the idea
that one cannot know. How can one know that one cannot
know? We can degenerate into paradox rapidly with that
line of reasoning. I'm sure there is a school of philosophy
that expresses those ideas much more elegantly than
we are likely to here. Anyone?
Knowing for certain requires an objective and common
value system. Does such a thing exist in regard to
aesthetics?
Jeremy
Seagull Manager wrote:
> It may be your personal favourite, and it may be the most written about
> today, but at the time, it was not all that big.
Is the popularity of art in its own day what makes it important?
Or is it its apparent contribution to an evolving visual language?
Is a work of art valuable in and of itself, or for what it represents
as an individual slice of history? ( I don't know the answer)
>> "william deraymond" wrote:
>> He [Ingres] allowed himself to dominate the motif with his idea of
>>technical mastery,
>
> And why shouldn't he?
This is silly, but... Why should he?
> > the brush to him had no value other than a means to an end...the image.
>
> Nothing wrong with that.
And of course the converse
> > He was expressing to the best of his ability what he saw as a classical
> > Ideal. In doing so both his technique and the motif dominate the
> > "self-expression".
>
> Nothing wrong with that, either.
Again.
> since anyone expressing themselves through paint
> must express themselves the same way.
Huh?
> The neoclassical is infinitely better than the "modern" in every way.
"It may be your personal favourite"
Erik A. Mattila
Jeremy wrote:
> william deraymond
>
>> This final statement is , simply put, an expression of your own
>>doubt...along with the idea that one can not know...
>>Are you sure...if so where did that knowing come from. What source of
>>reality taught you that or informs you of that?
>
>
> Yes, an expression of my own doubt. And the idea
> that one cannot know. How can one know that one cannot
> know? We can degenerate into paradox rapidly with that
> line of reasoning. I'm sure there is a school of philosophy
> that expresses those ideas much more elegantly than
> we are likely to here. Anyone?
Epistemology, with a pinch of hermeneutics, lightly roasted over a bed
of hot linguistics.
> Knowing for certain requires an objective and common
> value system. Does such a thing exist in regard to
> aesthetics?
Not in a universal context, there are several competing and contentious
theories of aesthetics. Personally, I like a cultural explanation, for
many reasons but more specifically because it does provide for "an
objective and common value system." Challenging that is, of course, the
idea that there is a universal common denomiator for aesthetics that is
trans-cultural. It's an interesting idea, I think, but I've not been
convinced that it is true.
Erik
>
>
>
>
Jeremy
> > I'm sure there is a school of philosophy
> > that expresses those ideas much more elegantly than
> > we are likely to here. Anyone?
>
> Epistemology, with a pinch of hermeneutics, lightly roasted over a bed
> of hot linguistics.
Somehow I was sure that Erik would come through ;-)
> > Knowing for certain requires an objective and common
> > value system. Does such a thing exist in regard to
> > aesthetics?
>
> Not in a universal context, there are several competing and contentious
> theories of aesthetics. Personally, I like a cultural explanation, for
> many reasons but more specifically because it does provide for "an
> objective and common value system." Challenging that is, of course, the
> idea that there is a universal common denomiator for aesthetics that is
> trans-cultural. It's an interesting idea, I think, but I've not been
> convinced that it is true.
>
Which idea? That there exists a universal common denominator?
I can't see how this could be true.
Erik A. Mattila
There may be a genetic basis, for example. It's a fledgling science, so
we'll have to see. But studies suggest that humans are wired to
recognize the human face at birth, and may respond to symetry and such,
which is easily extensible into a vague sort of aesthetic idea. It's
provocative, but as it stands, I don't see how it could be stretched
into a full-fledged aesthetic theory.
Another of course is archetype theory. It's provocative also. But if
you could figure out a way to measure intellectual effort, I'll bet the
number representing the work of seeing similarities in myth and religion
is ten times or more the work of seeing the differences. It's not
surprising, as the legacy of the tremendous intellectual investigations
of the 19th century is that knowledge was being collected and organized
in huge catalogs and encyclopedias along a sort of Darwinian principle
of shared feature. Naturally the attention would bias comparable
details, while ignoring the unique. So Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand
Faces" may eventually be rewritten as "Ten Thousand Heros with a Face"
or something:-)
Erik
>
>
>
>
>
>
william deraymond
"Jeremy" <jer...@tytan.net> wrote in message
news:bgcvak$nct7l$1...@ID-91018.news.uni-berlin.de...
I like to say that an artist's job description is to make the subjective,
objective and the objective, subjective.
Yes in terms of aesthetics it is an absolute neccessity to deepen our
understanding of the subjective connections to the art objects and to try to
recieve the "objective sensory frequencies without prior judgement" then
you can begin to "know" the real values of a work because you will be
allowing them to work on your nervous system and you can note the changes.
Over time this evolves into true connoisseurship. Knowing at this level is
very different to pidgeon holing and is not primarily intellectual. Anyway,
my best to you!
>
william deraymond
"Seagull Manager" <seagull...@nospamthanksbecauseisayso.demon.co.uk>
wrote in message news:bgc2uc$4hh$1$8302...@news.demon.co.uk...
>
> "william deraymond" <artr...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:ICcWa.30022$BM.97...@newssrv26.news.prodigy.com...
> >
> > From: "Seagull Manager"
> > <seagull...@nospamthanksbecauseisayso.demon.co.uk>
> > Newsgroups: rec.arts.fine
> > Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 8:20 AM
> > Subject: Re: delacroix quote
> >
> >
> > I always thought so called impressionism was the major movement of the
> 19th
> > C. It certainly is for me.
>
> It may be your personal favourite, and it may be the most written about
> today, but at the time, it was not all that big
the neo-moderns
would say they owe it all to the so called impreasioists and post
impressionists. In any case, I can't help you very much with regards to
your consciouusness, in the same way that neo-classical sentiment still
seems to reign supreme in the minds and hearts of the masses.
so you relate the history as you know and see it. I disagree with the way
even the history is taught in academic circles, and you seem to be in that
circle and all I can do is wish you the best...obviously there will always
be differences of taste and opinion.
Rather, Neoclassicism and
> Romanticism dominated. Impressionism, as part of of Realism, would rank
> number three among 19th century art movements. It only began to make it
big
> in the last quarter of the century, while Neoclassicism continued to
thrive
> until the end of the century, eventually becoming marginal during the
first
> quarter of the 20th.
Your reasoning, while sound for you I am sure is of a different orderr than
mine.
> > Impressionism and
> > Post-impression are rooted in the very real values of painting, ie.
>
> Post-Impressionism is a label given to a variety of artists who came to
> notice in the 1890s. Some of them had close stylistic or phisosophical
links
> to Impressionism, most didn't. Their main roots, as I said earlier, were
in
> Symbolism and Romanticism. (Indeed, Symbolists is precisely what the Nabis
> called themselves.)
>
> > brush and color applied with freedom and intelligence...in relationship
to
> > the subject matter...
>
> That could apply to many kinds of good painting. It doesn't apply better
to
> Impressionism or Post-Impressionism than it does to Rembrandt or Rubens
> (less, I would say).
On this I agree completely, there have been many true painters thruout
history. I don'e espouse 'isms.
Rembrandt, Titian, Giotto, Cimabue, Michelangelo, to name a few were very
conscious of the psychlogical valences of brush.
> > He [Ingres] allowed himself to dominate the motif with his idea of
> technical mastery,
>
> And why shouldn't he?
It certainly earned him a great deal of respect, but my feeling is the same
as delacroix's - ...the complete expression of an incomplete intelligence...
> > the brush to him had no value other than a means to an end...the image.
>
> Nothing wrong with that.
If you are a painter and don't recognize the values of brushwork other than
to try to make believe it isn't apart of your work you are missing a great
deal. You might impress a lot of people, and make a lot of money based on
the adolescent aesthetic based in neo-classicism, but you will miss an awful
lot of exploration and discovery and ultimately great bliss as well.
Everyone lives with the decisions they make. Don't you think?
> > He was expressing to the best of his ability what he saw as a classical
> > Ideal. In doing so both his technique and the motif dominate the
> > "self-expression".
>
> Nothing wrong with that, either.
Not if you think that is the best reaso for doing art.
> > As long as your main focus is the image at the expense of all else, in
my
> > experience, self expression is really not the issue.
>
> The image expresses his ideas and his attitudes. The perfect smoothness of
> the painted surface is in itself an expression of Ingres' personality and
> values, just as much as the brushiness of Delacroix' style expresses
> Delacroix' values. Indeed, if only a brushy style were expressive, it
would
> be expressive of nothing, since anyone expressing themselves through paint
> must express themselves the same way.
Wrong, in fact I would say Cezanne is the perfect example of total
originality in terrms of how he expressed the brush, he certainly doesn't
look like that other master Monet, and so on...
> As it is, in general, extremely brushy
> painting doesn't express anything except haste, and is a favourite
> affectation of lazy or bored painters.
There is always something to be said for understanding....
> Anyway, your argument is way out of date. Most of the art world got bored
> with brushy painting back in the 1960s, when Abstract Expressionism was
> replaced by Post-Painterly Abstraction, Minimalism, and Conceptualism,
> which, in case you haven't noticed, tended towards extreme smoothness.
There
> is still some brushy painting around, but it is not the dominant trend. In
> fact, a lot of fashionable painters now are using household gloss, poured
or
> rolled, to make a very smooth, reflective surface.
I don't concern myself with being out of date in the sense you speak of,
truth is I am very present, and express myself as I feel, in terms of the
medium. that is the school I follow.
> > Cezanne actually
> > expresses himself in a vastly more superior way...It is much harder to
> > understand Cezanne...than Ingres, and you certainly can not understand
him
> > through a conceptual lens..though when you do experience his self
> expression
> > , again in my experience, Ingre too is understood much more profoundly.
> It
> > truly is an advance in consciousness, once more, in my experience, from
> the
> > neo-classical to the modern.
>
> The neoclassical is infinitely better than the "modern" in every way.
> Modernism and postmodernism have given us mostly bad art, some of it is
the
> worst "art" that humankind has ever produced.
>
Like I said I am not into pidgeon holing. most people don't have a clue as
to what modernism means or classicism either for that matter.
Some one said this...If a fool would persist in his folly he would become
wise.
I think we should all persevere....
Seagull Manager
>
> Seagull Manager wrote:
>
> > It may be your personal favourite, and it may be the most written about
> > today, but at the time, it was not all that big.
>
> Is the popularity of art in its own day what makes it important?
Yes.
> Or is it its apparent contribution to an evolving visual language?
Evolving to where? Do you know the future? How do you know that what looks
at present like the mainstream of artistic evolution is not a dead end?
After all, few in the 1880s would have predicted that the Renaissance
tradition *and* Realism would be completely marginalized within a few
decades.
> Is a work of art valuable in and of itself, or for what it represents
> as an individual slice of history? ( I don't know the answer)
To a historian, the answer need not matter.
> >> "william deraymond" wrote:
> >> He [Ingres] allowed himself to dominate the motif with his idea of
> >>technical mastery,
> >
> > And why shouldn't he?
>
> This is silly, but... Why should he?
He chooses to. He should do what he chooses. Why shouldn't he make his own
free aesthetic choices?
> > > the brush to him had no value other than a means to an end...the
image.
> >
> > Nothing wrong with that.
>
> And of course the converse
I didn't say there was anything wrong with the alternative choice; but
William DeRaymond said that there is something wrong with Ingres' choices.
>
> > > He was expressing to the best of his ability what he saw as a
classical
> > > Ideal. In doing so both his technique and the motif dominate the
> > > "self-expression".
> >
> > Nothing wrong with that, either.
>
> Again.
>
> > since anyone expressing themselves through paint
> > must express themselves the same way.
>
> Huh?
If everyone paints in the same style, then the style tells us nothing about
the individuals who paint in that style, therefore that style is not
expressive.
> > The neoclassical is infinitely better than the "modern" in every way.
>
> "It may be your personal favourite"
Not necessarily. There are other choices besides neoclassicism. However,
compared to ANY genre of art produced by the West since the late middle
ages, most modernism is worse, and compared to ANY genre of art produced in
the entire world since the dawn of time, some modernism is worse.
Seagull Manager
>
> > It may be your personal favourite, and it may be the most written about
> > today, but at the time, it was not all that big
> Not true. It was a major shift in consciousness and focus, and even most
of
> the neo-moderns
> would say they owe it all to the so called impreasioists and post
> impressionists.
You talk of the Impressionists and post-Impressionists in the same breath as
if they were the same people with the same ideas - or even nearly the same.
They were not.
And Impressionism, regardless of whether it represented a "major shift in
consciousness" was not the dominant style of art in the 19th century. Until
the last decade of that century, there were no more than half a dozen or so
Impressionists who were selling well, compared to many dozens of
Neoclassicists, Romantics and non-Impressionist Realists.
> In any case, I can't help you very much with regards to
> your consciouusness, in the same way that neo-classical sentiment still
> seems to reign supreme in the minds and hearts of the masses.
If it is true that the people at large still like neoclassical art despite a
hundred years of denigration, perhaps it is time for the detractors to give
up.
> so you relate the history as you know and see it. I disagree with the way
> even the history is taught in academic circles, and you seem to be in that
> circle and all I can do is wish you the best...
A strange thing to say. I have pointed out that the way art history
customarily teaches the 19th and 20th century is full of lies and
distortions. I emphasise the relative importance of the academics, who you
will find, if you check almost any standard text on the period, are almost
completely wiped out of the record, so that most art and even many art
history graduates are unfamiliar with the work of the 19th century's most
famous and successful artists, but instead only know about the
Impressionists and the early modernists.
> obviously there will always
> be differences of taste and opinion.
That Impressionism was not the dominant style of art in the 19th century is
not a matter of opinion. It is a fact.
> Rather, Neoclassicism and
> > Romanticism dominated. Impressionism, as part of of Realism, would rank
> > number three among 19th century art movements. It only began to make it
big
> > in the last quarter of the century, while Neoclassicism continued to
thrive
> > until the end of the century, eventually becoming marginal during the
first
> > quarter of the 20th.
>
> Your reasoning, while sound for you I am sure is of a different orderr
than
> mine.
Tell me where you think it goes wrong.
> there have been many true painters thruout history. I don'e espouse
'isms.
If you don't espouse isms, then you should have room for Ingres, and be
willing to accept that although he did not follow the path of Romanticism,
he was nonetheless a great painter.
> If you are a painter and don't recognize the values of brushwork other
than
> to try to make believe it isn't apart of your work you are missing a great
> deal.
No. You are making a valid aesthetic choice. You can choose to show the
brushwork or to hide it. Hidden brushwork does not mean no surface at all.
The smooth surface has its own beauty.
> You might impress a lot of people, and make a lot of money based on
> the adolescent aesthetic based in neo-classicism
It is Romanticism that best fits the label "adolescent", with its melodrama
and self-infatuation. But I don't want to attack Romanticism, just your
blinkered intolerance for classicism.
> Wrong, in fact I would say Cezanne is the perfect example of total
> originality in terrms of how he expressed the brush, he certainly doesn't
> look like that other master Monet, and so on...
Cezanne doesn't look like any master because he was an incompetent idiot who
repeatedly failed exams in drawing, never won a top prize in anything,
repeatedly submitted his paintings to the Salon and was rejected, sold very
few paintings throughout his entire long career (and most of those to his
friends), exhibited with the Impressionists but was ignored even after they
began to enjoy success. Why? Because everyone could see that his paintings
were shit. They were shit then and they are still shit now. They are murky,
badly drawn, crudely structured, badly worked, and often not finished. They
look far worse in the flesh than they do in reproduction, incidentally (most
good paintings look better in the flesh than in reproduction).Cezanne wasn't
even trying to be original, particularly. He wanted to paint classical
paintings that looked naturalistic. He must have envied Bouguereau to the
point of loathing.
> I don't concern myself with being out of date in the sense you speak of,
Good for you.
> truth is I am very present, and express myself as I feel, in terms of the
> medium. that is the school I follow.
Then allow that other good painters will follow their own schools, which may
be different from yours.
Jeremy
Seagull Manager wrote:
> "Jeremy" wrote
>
> > Is the popularity of art in its own day what makes it important?
>
> Yes.
Interesting. Why do you think this is true?
> > Or is it its apparent contribution to an evolving visual language?
>
> Evolving to where? Do you know the future? How do you know that what looks
> at present like the mainstream of artistic evolution is not a dead end?
> After all, few in the 1880s would have predicted that the Renaissance
> tradition *and* Realism would be completely marginalized within a few
> decades.
No. First of all, evolution does not imply a goal or an endpoint.
I am referring to the possibility that one may look at art historically
as a continuum and one in which the language has changed
over time. It seems then that the important points in describing
art as a whole, objectively, are those that describe this line:
the points where it changes direction or branches.
I am certainly not concerned with the mainstream at present.
> I didn't say there was anything wrong with the alternative choice; but
> William DeRaymond said that there is something wrong with Ingres' choices.
Every choice is a compromise.
> If everyone paints in the same style, then the style tells us nothing
about
> the individuals who paint in that style, therefore that style is not
> expressive.
Almost every artist I can think of can be specifically distinguished
by his style; even when compared to others of the same movement.
Matthew Parry
>
> Knowing for certain requires an objective and common
> value system. Does such a thing exist in regard to
> aesthetics?
The great personality theorist Hans Eysenk did some work in this
area. He found that there were two categories in aesthetics
that could be measured, good taste and personal taste.
Good taste is things that almost everyone agrees on, and those
who dissagree with the majority can't agree with each other. An
example of this is colour harmony. Almost everyone agrees on which
colours go well together and which ones clash, while those people
who dissagree with the majority don't agree with each other on which colours
go well together. The same applies to balance. Eysenk created
a test to measure how good a person's taste is and then gave it
to art students - The better the student's score on the test the
higher his eventual mark in the course.
The other category in aesthetics is personal taste. This is all of
the things where there are more than one group of people who
agree with each other. For example, There is a group of people
(extroverts) who tend to prefer abstract art over figurative art,
while there is another group (introverts) who tend to prefer
figurative art over abstract art. And so on for other
personality characteristics. The point here is that introverts
all tend to agree that certain figurative paintings are better,
while extroverts all tend to agree with each other as well. So
there is no single standard, just a difference in taste depending
largely on one's personality.
So, things such as colour harmony, balance and
composition are a matter of good taste and the degree to which
you posess good taste can actually be measured.
Things such as figurative v. abstraction, emotional v. cool,
harmonious v. dissonance, on the other hand are a matter of
personal taste. Your personal preference mostly depends on
your personality.
--
Matthew Parry, <me...@tpg.com.au> <URL:http://users.tpg.com.au/mettw/>
"Remember that early release of `rn' that prevented a posting
unless it contained more new lines than included lines? That
was actually a pretty good idea." - Peter van der Linden.
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Matthew Parry" <me...@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:ospfgb...@127.0.0.1...
> Jeremy <jer...@tytan.net> wrote:
> >
>
> The other category in aesthetics is personal taste. This is all of
> the things where there are more than one group of people who
> agree with each other. For example, There is a group of people
> (extroverts) who tend to prefer abstract art over figurative art,
> while there is another group (introverts) who tend to prefer
> figurative art over abstract art.
>
suppose that extroverts liked before abstraction was invented?
>
>And so on for other
> personality characteristics.
>
--
"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple." - Oscar Wilde
Seagull Manager
>
> Seagull Manager wrote:
>
> > "Jeremy" wrote
> >
> > > Is the popularity of art in its own day what makes it important?
> >
> > Yes.
>
> Interesting. Why do you think this is true?
What other objective criterion of importance can you offer? If an artist has
a huge presence in the market, and numerous imitators or pupils, it is
proper that art historians should note it. If that artist's work is somehow
distinctive, art historians ought to investigate what it was about the style
or content of that art that made it popular. If that art was admired and
written about by the many of the cultural elite at the time, art historians
ought to look seriously at the nature of the taste that gave weight to that
art. If these things are to be ignored, what alternative criteria can the
art historian use? Or are measures of "importance" in art history purely
arbitrary? This is what some art historians practice. They declare an
obscure artist important; then they publicize the work of that artist,
hoping to create a nexus of influence, so that their prophecy of importance
comes true. That's not history, it is marketing.
You could of course choose to document only art that you consider to be
*good*, but you'd better be willing to defend your taste.
>
> > > Or is it its apparent contribution to an evolving visual language?
> >
> > Evolving to where? Do you know the future? How do you know that what
looks
> > at present like the mainstream of artistic evolution is not a dead end?
> > After all, few in the 1880s would have predicted that the Renaissance
> > tradition *and* Realism would be completely marginalized within a few
> > decades.
>
> No. First of all, evolution does not imply a goal or an endpoint.
Glad you acknowledge that. Therefore, when we look at the past with an aim
to understanding it, we ought not to ignore or downplay the importance of
art that is not ancestral to the art we (presumably) prefer today. Would a
history of the Pleistocene make any sense if it paid attention only to
primitive mammals, and ignored the dinosaurs?
>
> I am referring to the possibility that one may look at art historically
> as a continuum and one in which the language has changed
> over time.
There are *continua* in art - multiple branching traditions and streams of
influence, sometimes with cross-currents between them. An honest history
would not simply refuse to study some of those streams because they do not
fit a lovely, elegant narrative that we have dreamt up. For instance,
Classicism, Romanticism and Realism didn't die out, they merely got
marginalized, pushed out of the "high art" realm, and into the realms of
"popular art" and illustration, where they've been thriving ever since. This
is historically interesting, but is ignored by all the standard art-history
texts.
Incidentally, Impressionism is not really a precursor of modernism, despite
the what some texts will lead you to believe, but a branch of Realism, and
it, too, got marginalized early in the 20th century, though it remained
popular with artists and markets alike. The chief reason why Impressionism
gets such good press in the art history books is that it was to some extent
anti-establishment.
> It seems then that the important points in describing
> art as a whole, objectively, are those that describe this line:
> the points where it changes direction or branches.
Well, there have only been two big changes in Western art: the Renaissance,
and the emergence of Modernism. The Renaissance is fairly uncontroversial,
except in that it was actually more gradual than some histories make out,
and the origins of Modernism are distorted in the record, because the
writers of text books are ideologically biased. The rest, well, let's forget
it. Why study Rembrandt, since he had no great impact on the next generation
of Dutch painting? Why even bother with Impressionism, since the next
generation rejected the key Impressionist ideas? If, on the other hand, we
want to look at the relatively small changes in style and subject that occur
between, say, Velasquez and Goya, then the changes between David and
Bouguereau are just as big and just as interesting.
> Every choice is a compromise.
That's not necessarily true with aesthetic choices. The point about
aesthetic choices is that they are made in freedom.
> Almost every artist I can think of can be specifically distinguished
> by his style; even when compared to others of the same movement.
Artists these days are taught to value highly the idea of "finding their own
voice", etc. This usually entails developing a "signature style", which can
be any gimmic at all - indeed, it could amount to nothing more than, for
instance, writing the same seven-digit number boldly on every canvas, just
so long as it makes their work instantly distinguishable from that of
rivals. That signature style does not necessarily say anything interesting
about the artist. (What do short, straight brushtrokes imply, as opposed to
long, curved ones?) Outside of modernism, in the West and elsewhere, artists
never considered this very important. Therefore, artists who had received
the same training were often difficult or even impossible to distinguish by
style. Yet such art is often able to express those artists' values, tastes
and interests just as effectively as, or even more effectively than, the
supposedly expressive art of modernism. For instance, it is impossible to
tell anything about the personality, interests or even the milieu of an
abstract expressionist painter just from looking at the paintings, but a lot
can be told about Johannes Vermeer or Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres or
Caspar David Friedrich from their work, despite the tight drawing, the
naturalism and the deemphasis of brushwork.
Seagull Manager
> There is a group of people
> (extroverts) who tend to prefer abstract art over figurative art,
> while there is another group (introverts) who tend to prefer
> figurative art over abstract art.
I don't think that's right. I believe, (and the following link supports me),
that Eysenck found that extraverts preferred flashy pictures, but introverts
preferred calm ones.
http://www.astrology-and-science.com/eysenck.htm
I would bet that extraverts would prefer pictures with lots of people in
them more than introverts would, though I don't know if anyone has tested
that scientifically. There has been depressingly little research into
pictorial aesthetic taste.
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Seagull Manager" <seagull...@nospamthanksbecauseisayso.demon.co.uk>
wrote in message news:bgg541$8s4$1$830f...@news.demon.co.uk...
>
> "Matthew Parry" <me...@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
> news:ospfgb...@127.0.0.1...
>
> > There is a group of people
> > (extroverts) who tend to prefer abstract art over figurative art,
> > while there is another group (introverts) who tend to prefer
> > figurative art over abstract art.
>
> I don't think that's right. I believe, (and the following link supports
me),
> that Eysenck found that extraverts preferred flashy pictures, but
introverts
> preferred calm ones.
>
> http://www.astrology-and-science.com/eysenck.htm
>
though it is true that astrologers suddenly started using the new planets
once they were discovered by scientists.
>
> I would bet that extraverts would prefer pictures with lots of people in
> them more than introverts would, though I don't know if anyone has tested
> that scientifically. There has been depressingly little research into
> pictorial aesthetic taste.
>
that!
--
"We pride ourselves on our peace and stability" - Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe
Seagull Manager
"Seagull Manager" <seagull...@nospamthanksbecauseisayso.demon.co.uk>
wrote in message news:bgg3ag$9m$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk...
>
> Would a
> history of the Pleistocene make any sense if it paid attention only to
> primitive mammals, and ignored the dinosaurs?
Erk. I meant Cretaceous. Obviously, there weren't any dinosaurs during the
Pleistocene era. (Slaps forehead.)
Seagull Manager
"Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
news:bgg6sj$bo3$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net...
>
> > http://www.astrology-and-science.com/eysenck.htm
> >
> What a peculiar URL! Astrology has nothing at all to do with science -
Yes, a peculiar and interesting site. Some psychologists have taken it upon
themselves to investigate the claims of astrology, such as that date of
birth affects success in particular careers.
> I suppose that artists don't make enough money to fund market research
like
> that!
I think one reason is that until fairly recently, it was relatively
difficult and expensive to study responses to pictures with much rigour.
There's been a boom in research into facial attractiveness since computer
graphics became good and cheap. Maybe there will eventually be a spread into
a wide range of visual stimuli.
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Seagull Manager" <seagull...@nospamthanksbecauseisayso.demon.co.uk>
wrote in message news:bggcl3$fb2$1$8302...@news.demon.co.uk...
>
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
> news:bgg6sj$bo3$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net...
> >
> > > http://www.astrology-and-science.com/eysenck.htm
> > >
> > What a peculiar URL! Astrology has nothing at all to do with science -
>
> Yes, a peculiar and interesting site. Some psychologists have taken it
upon
> themselves to investigate the claims of astrology, such as that date of
> birth affects success in particular careers.
>
mode of death. I took mortality data from the northern and southern
hemispheres and did the calculations. There was a pattern in the northern
hemisphere - presumably being born at a cold time of year affects your
life-long health - but no pattern at all in the southern.
>
> > I suppose that artists don't make enough money to fund market research
> like
> > that!
>
> I think one reason is that until fairly recently, it was relatively
> difficult and expensive to study responses to pictures with much rigour.
> There's been a boom in research into facial attractiveness since computer
> graphics became good and cheap. Maybe there will eventually be a spread
into
> a wide range of visual stimuli.
>
win the lottery, I should do it...
Flying_Naked_People
>
> "Seagull Manager" <seagull...@nospamthanksbecauseisayso.demon.co.uk>
> wrote in message news:bgg541$8s4$1$830f...@news.demon.co.uk...
> What a peculiar URL! Astrology has nothing at all to do with science -
> though it is true that astrologers suddenly started using the new planets
> once they were discovered by scientists.
What are you referring to (in history) Peter? Astrologists existed in ancient
Maya, Egypt, etc. and so did the discovery of these planets - including ones
"modern man" haven't even found yet!
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Flying_Naked_People" <http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl/email.htm> wrote in
message news:vintbdo...@corp.supernews.com...
> In article <bgg6sj$bo3$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net>, pe...@new.co.za says...
> >
> > "Seagull Manager"
<seagull...@nospamthanksbecauseisayso.demon.co.uk>
> > wrote in message news:bgg541$8s4$1$830f...@news.demon.co.uk...
>
> > What a peculiar URL! Astrology has nothing at all to do with science -
> > though it is true that astrologers suddenly started using the new
planets
> > once they were discovered by scientists.
>
> What are you referring to (in history) Peter? Astrologists existed in
ancient
> Maya, Egypt, etc. and so did the discovery of these planets - including
ones
> "modern man" haven't even found yet!
>
as it is now. Ancient astronomy did discover planets. However the most
recently discovered planets were unknown to astrology until introduced by
astronomy.
What planets are you referring to that are claimed to exist?
Flying_Naked_People
>
> "Flying_Naked_People" <http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl/email.htm> wrote:
> > What are you referring to (in history) Peter? Astrologists existed in
ancient
> > Maya, Egypt, etc. and so did the discovery of these planets - including
ones
> > "modern man" haven't even found yet!
> >
> In those days the division between astronomy and astrology was not as clear
> as it is now. Ancient astronomy did discover planets. However the most
> recently discovered planets were unknown to astrology until introduced by
> astronomy.
>
> What planets are you referring to that are claimed to exist?
The planets that "modern man" haven't found? The infamous "Planet X" is one
that comes to mind. (yeah, go ahead and laugh.) But this is a planet that
(supposedly) the Mesopotamians and Mayans were aware of. Curiously we *still*
claim it doesn't exist. Now I certainly can't recall any more planetary names,
but I remember hearing about them when excavators were fooling around in
Egyptian pyramids (a Richard Hogland reference).
But about the role of astrologists during that time... I recall the "Wise Men"
in the W(hole)y Bible being astrologists and making predictions about the
birth of Heppy Jesus. I don't know the date of that event, but certainly it's
a B.C. thang - certainly before NASA. And the Mayans were certainly aware of
the (radiation) effect that planets (particularly the sun) had on our
personalities.
I learned this from Maurice Cottrell, author of the Mayan Prophecies, etc. I
love that man!
Erik A. Mattila
> I followed up as study that found that the date of birth corresponded to the
> mode of death. I took mortality data from the northern and southern
> hemispheres and did the calculations. There was a pattern in the northern
> hemisphere - presumably being born at a cold time of year affects your
> life-long health - but no pattern at all in the southern.
Wouldn't you have to run the planets backwards in the south to get
results? the Coriolis Effect, you know :-)
Erik
william deraymond
Renaissance,
> and the emergence of Modernism. The Renaissance is fairly uncontroversial,
The truth is in terms of art history, even conventionally oriented
historians agree that the Renaissance was in fact the beginning of the
modern period, but to note, I am of the opinion that it starts with the
cave paintings.
Lauri Levanto
Precice astrology is extremely difficult in this satellite era.
The man made satellites seem minimal on an astrology chart.
One must, however, bear in mind that the effect equals
the force multiplied by the distance.
Therefore even the small communication satellites in low orbit
distort the whole astrological power field.
Keeping track of the whereabouts of hundreads of these willains
is a task I wouldn't even try.
-lauri
Peter H.M. Brooks
> In article <bgh675$sc3$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net>, pe...@new.co.za says...
> >
> > "Flying_Naked_People" <http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl/email.htm> wrote:
>
>
> The planets that "modern man" haven't found? The infamous "Planet X" is
one
> that comes to mind. (yeah, go ahead and laugh.) But this is a planet that
> (supposedly) the Mesopotamians and Mayans were aware of. Curiously we
*still*
> claim it doesn't exist. Now I certainly can't recall any more planetary
names,
> but I remember hearing about them when excavators were fooling around in
> Egyptian pyramids (a Richard Hogland reference).
>
Einstein, to establish if there are any massive bodies undiscovered - there
aren't.
>
> But about the role of astrologists during that time... I recall the "Wise
Men"
> in the W(hole)y Bible being astrologists and making predictions about the
> birth of Heppy Jesus. I don't know the date of that event, but certainly
it's
> a B.C. thang - certainly before NASA. And the Mayans were certainly aware
of
> the (radiation) effect that planets (particularly the sun) had on our
> personalities.
>
Stonehenge is believed to be an astronomic erection. There is nothing
astrological about either of them - even though, as I said before, there was
still some mumbo jumbo mixed up in astronomy back then.
Peter H.M. Brooks
When you calculate the possible forces that planets exert on people the
force that your washing machine exerts on you is far, far greater.
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Lauri Levanto" <laur...@netti.fi> wrote in message
news:3F2CADBE...@netti.fi...
> It is a sad thing.
> Precice astrology is extremely difficult in this satellite era.
> The man made satellites seem minimal on an astrology chart.
> One must, however, bear in mind that the effect equals
> the force multiplied by the distance.
> Therefore even the small communication satellites in low orbit
> distort the whole astrological power field.
>
washing machine and the tree in your garden bugger up any possible
'astrological power field' - satellites are the least of your worries.
I suppose that they are a good excuse for astrological predictions never
working though...
Mani Deli
by reality. In their passion to know the future they willingly accept
vague pleasant self delusion of a generally happy outcome by means of
superstition.
Its religion without the violence; harmless until Hitler types get a
hold of it.
...no skill no art!
Want to get away from the indecipherable imbecilities and absurd pretensions of the modern art establishment?
Check out my web page http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/
Matthew Parry
>
> I don't think that's right. I believe, (and the following link supports me),
> that Eysenck found that extraverts preferred flashy pictures, but introverts
> preferred calm ones.
I was just quoting from what I remembered from one of his books. I
remember him saying that extroverts probably tend to prefer abstract
art because it was considered a bit `rebellious' so to speak, and
extroverts are attracted to those sort of things. But maybe I
remembered wrong.
Matthew Parry
>
> What other personality characteristics go with which art?
In his book "Genius: The natural history of creativity" he quoted
the work of another researcher who found that tough-minded people
tend to prefer complex shapes and rough drawings, while tender-minded
people tended to prefer simple shapes and clean drawings. I'm not
sure exactly how that would match up with styles of art.
Peter H.M. Brooks
> Seagull Manager <seagull...@nospamthanksbecauseisayso.demon.co.uk>
wrote:
> >
> > I don't think that's right. I believe, (and the following link supports
me),
> > that Eysenck found that extraverts preferred flashy pictures, but
introverts
> > preferred calm ones.
>
> I was just quoting from what I remembered from one of his books. I
> remember him saying that extroverts probably tend to prefer abstract
> art because it was considered a bit `rebellious' so to speak, and
> extroverts are attracted to those sort of things. But maybe I
> remembered wrong.
>
paintings because abstract and even decorative paintings are now the
mainstream.
Peter H.M. Brooks
> Peter H.M. Brooks <pe...@new.co.za> wrote:
> >
> > What other personality characteristics go with which art?
>
> In his book "Genius: The natural history of creativity" he quoted
> the work of another researcher who found that tough-minded people
> tend to prefer complex shapes and rough drawings, while tender-minded
> people tended to prefer simple shapes and clean drawings. I'm not
> sure exactly how that would match up with styles of art.
>
minded people those who weep at sad films, and like puppies and children -
Hitler was one of those.
Seagull Manager
> >
> > What became the dominant tendency in art in the generation succeeding
> > Delacroix? REALISM! Whatever possibilities Delacroix may or may not have
> > seen in painting, most artists of the next generation took a totally
> > different direction from his own.
>
> You're time traveling, S&M. You can't project the realism/abstraction
> polarity back in time before it ever became an issue. Read some Foucault.
You seem to have missed what I was getting at. William DeRaymond wants us to
believe that Delacroix invented modernism, but in fact Delacroix wasn't
followed by modernism, and there's no direct lineage from Delacroix to
modernism.
Seagull Manager
"Jeremy" <jeremy@fiercedragon_N*()*S+P&4*M_.com> wrote in message
news:uDfVa.13959$Vx2.6...@newssvr28.news.prodigy.com...
> "Erik A. Mattila"
>
> > If one is going
> > to argue that Delacroix was influenced by Rubens or Leonardo, you need
> > to have something as evidence other than appearance. Maybe there is
> > such evidence, for all I know. Delacroix authored a 10 volume set of
> > "letters" that can be found in a good library, and he would likely have
> > mentioned these artists if they played an influencial role in his
> > artistic thinking.
>
> Good point.
Appearance does count as evidence in art history, though by itself it is not
always conclusive. It is more weighty as evidence if the similarity is
profound, rather than slight or superficial. For instance, the trace in
Spencer-Stanhope's "Love and the Maiden" of the style of Botticelli cannot
be coincidental, and any claim that it is must surely invite ridicule
(http://posters.seindal.dk/p321021_Love_and_the_Maiden.html). If the
resemblance is backed up by evidence that one artist studied under another,
or studied the other's work, or by written evidence that one artist admired
or intended to imitate that work, then the visual evidence gains extra
weight still, and Delacroix both copied Rubens' paintings and wrote of his
admiration for Rubens. For instance, at one point, he says that Rubens
"carries one beyond the limit scarcely attained by the most eminent
painters; he dominates one, he overpowers one, with all his liberty and
boldness."
That said, I could fish out endless numbers of examples where a critic or
art historian found a slight and superficial resemblance between one
artist's work and that of another, more famous artist, and used this
resemblance to create an argument for a connection.
Seagull Manager
"Jeremy" <jeremy@fiercedragon_N*()*S+P&4*M_.com> wrote in message
>
> That said, of course neither is "without a doubt" better than
> the other. That was also partly my point. Value judgements,
> if not made with humility and with the acknowledgement of
> fallibility and some component of doubt, lose something in terms
> of credibility in my eyes.
I did say that Ingres was *in my opinion* the better painter. On the other
hand, I think there's no doubt at all that Rubens is a better painter than
Delacroix.
Seagull Manager
"Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
news:bglart$j41$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net...
>
> "Matthew Parry" <me...@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
> news:sqcigb...@127.0.0.1...
> > Peter H.M. Brooks <pe...@new.co.za> wrote:
> > >
> > > What other personality characteristics go with which art?
> >
> > In his book "Genius: The natural history of creativity" he quoted
> > the work of another researcher who found that tough-minded people
> > tend to prefer complex shapes and rough drawings, while tender-minded
> > people tended to prefer simple shapes and clean drawings. I'm not
> > sure exactly how that would match up with styles of art.
> >
> That's a dimension of personality that I'm not familiar with. Are tender
> minded people those who weep at sad films, and like puppies and children -
> Hitler was one of those.
Here's a good summary of trait theories of personality:
http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/index.html, and here's
another one, specifically about Cattell's 16PF scale, of which one of the
factors is tough-mindedness-tender-mindedness:
http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/index.html.
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Seagull Manager" <seagull...@nospamthanksbecauseisayso.demon.co.uk>
wrote in message news:bgo969$p8n$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk...
Mani Deli
<seagull...@nospamthanksbecauseisayso.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>That said, I could fish out endless numbers of examples where a critic or
>art historian found a slight and superficial resemblance between one
>artist's work and that of another, more famous artist, and used this
>resemblance to create an argument for a connection.
>
My favorite is how Mondrian influenced Vermeer.
Erik A. Mattila
Well, Greek classical art wasn't followed by "neo-classicism" either. I
think William is on solid ground. The texts are full of citation's of D
being an influence or the main influence of modernism.
But the connection isn't necessarily a matter of formalism. D seems to
have been, for example, keen on concepts such as "bohemianism" and
"avant garde" although not explicitly stated that way. We all know that
he was a flaneur, a Dandy, but remarkably "flaneurship" itself was
elevated (or lowered) to the status of the marginal in the course of
modernism. Give Walter Benjamin's "The Arcades Project" a whirl for
more on this.
This is the key, I think. It's a matter of what is treated in a work of
art. The ignoble, the common and the vulgar became interesting to the
Barbizon's, for example, and they paid the price because the French rank
and file rejected it as "non-art" since they believed that art should be
noble. Delacroix nearly obliterated the "subject" altogether, replacing
it with a sort of "art for art's sake" flourish. His "orientalism"
pales besides the quality of the canvas - the color, composition, focus
on emptiness, and the aesthetic qualities of paint itself.
"The majority of the public," wrote Charles Baudelaire, poet, provoker
of public morals and art critic, "have long since, indeed from his very
first work, dubbed him leader of the modern school."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/feature/0,1169,916884,00.html
Erik
>
>
>
Erik A. Mattila
Easily done. George Kubler's "The Shape of Time" is a classic example
of this. Kubler's argument is that there exists grand themes in art
that span huge amounts of time - and he uses "landscape painting" as an
example. But following Kubler's lead, one would see a historical
connective tissue between Roman mural painting and Richard Deibenkorn's
"Ocean Park" paintings. So it's not remarkable that Kubler's
theoretical work isn't well-regarded by the Art History crowd (even
though the rest of his work is well regarded, I should add.)
But the example you provide really shows that artists regularly copy the
works of other artists. We all know this is true. But can that be
extrapolated into art history. I don't think so. It's like arguing
that Delacroix was influenced by History Painting because he satirized it.
Erik
>
>
Seagull Manager
>
> It's like arguing
> that Delacroix was influenced by History Painting because he satirized it.
Delacroix no more satirized History Painting than did Delaroche. They each
gave it their own twist.
Erik A. Mattila
"But it is Delacroix who makes insubstantiality and inconstancy of space
his organising principle, so that emptiness is not just figured in his
paintings but seems to be what they are made of, or in. The Death of
Sardanapalus is his most radical parody of history painting. It hangs in
the Louvre, in a gallery that displays the great public paintings done
for the Paris salon in the 18th and early 19th centuries. So you can see
how the earnestness of David's Oath of the Horatii or his giant canvas
of Napoleon crowning Josephine is mocked by the decadent painted world
of The Death of Sardanapalus, in which every detail seems to revel in
its fatuity; in which colour is the only reality and bodies are
obviously insubstantial, transparent fantasies. "
Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, January 23, 2003
>
>
Seagull Manager
>
> Well, Greek classical art wasn't followed by "neo-classicism" either.
True, but not relevant. Anyone around today who's copying Delacroix is
operating outside the nexus of modernism, and is probably classified as a
"fantasy artist", or something similar. Modernism is not closely linked to
Delacroix, whereas, of course, "neo-classicism" is not just close to, but
defined by its intimacy with Greek classical art. Neoclassical sculpture, in
particular, is often indistinguishable stylistically from its classical
model.
> I think William is on solid ground.
I don't.
> The texts are full of citation's of D
> being an influence or the main influence of modernism.
He's an influence, but there are many influences, and he is not the main
one, by any stretch.
> But the connection isn't necessarily a matter of formalism. D seems to
> have been, for example, keen on concepts such as "bohemianism" and
> "avant garde" although not explicitly stated that way.
A lot of 18th and 19th century artists were.
> We all know that
> he was a flaneur, a Dandy, but remarkably "flaneurship" itself was
> elevated (or lowered) to the status of the marginal in the course of
> modernism.
Nothing to do with modernism. Dandyism has flourished among artists forever,
as the self-portraits Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and numerous others, abundantly
show.
> Give Walter Benjamin's "The Arcades Project" a whirl for
> more on this.
Realism. Nothing to do with Delacroix, and very little to do with modernism.
> This is the key, I think. It's a matter of what is treated in a work of
> art. The ignoble, the common and the vulgar became interesting to the
> Barbizon's, for example, and they paid the price because the French rank
> and file rejected it as "non-art" since they believed that art should be
> noble.
What's the linke between the Barbizon school and Delacroix? They barely have
anything in common. The Barbizon realists are coming from a completely
different place, and *they*, not Delacroix, are the main influence on the
Impressionists as regards their attitude to subject matter. Their preference
for vulgar subject matter and disdain for storytelling goes on to be an
important influence on Modernism, and is the main link between Impressionism
and Modernism.
> Delacroix nearly obliterated the "subject" altogether, replacing
> it with a sort of "art for art's sake" flourish. His "orientalism"
> pales besides the quality of the canvas - the color, composition, focus
> on emptiness, and the aesthetic qualities of paint itself.
This is nuts. Delacroix was the most enthusiastic of subject painters,
always looking for the grandest dramas and most exotic settings he could
find. His style did not, and was not meant to, overwhelm the subject. It was
meant to work with it. He was imitating Rubens, remember - trying to capture
both Rubens' compositional technique, in which rounded forms are connected
by swirling lines, and his handling of light, colour and paint. Delacroix is
not as good as Rubens, particularly in drawing, and it could be argued that
admiration for Delacroix is the beginning of the licensing of ineptitude.
As for "art for art's sake", Lord Leighton has a far stronger claim to be a
practitioner of that than Delacroix. The Aesthetic movement is more closely
linked to Neoclassicism than to Delacroix' form of Romanticism.
> "The majority of the public," wrote Charles Baudelaire, poet, provoker
> of public morals and art critic, "have long since, indeed from his very
> first work, dubbed him leader of the modern school."
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/feature/0,1169,916884,00.html
I can see where you got your idea that Delacroix' compositions focus on
emptiness - you obviously didn't get it from looking at Delacroix'
paintings. If you had, and you had made comparisons, you would see that
neoclassical painters make at least as much use of empty space in their
compositions as does Delacroix, if not more.
As for using Baudelaire to prove a link between Delacroix and Modernism,
that's a mistake. Baudelaire, writing in or before 1963, when the first
Impressionists were still students (not counting Manet, who wasn't really an
Impressionist, anyway), means a quite different thing by "modern school",
from what a naive person reading the quotation today would tend to assume.
The article you link also repeats the hoary fiction that Ruskin objected to
Whistler as a modernist. He didn't. It would be inconsistent, after all, for
the champion of Turner to object to a little loose handling of paint as we
find in Whistler. It was in response to this particular painting
http://www.abcgallery.com/W/whistler/whistler2.html
- an obvious failure - that Ruskin wrote, in the context of an essay on
socialism (Flors Clavigera, 1877) where he compared the essential work of
the labourer to the relatively frivolous, but well-paid, work of the
fashionable artist, almost as an aside, the following: "For Mr Whistler's
own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts
Lindsay ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the
ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of wilful
imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of cockney impudence before now; but
never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot
of paint in the public's face."
There are other things in the article you link that are dubious:
For instance, the author cannot see what Delacroix admires in Constable and
Turner, but the answer is obvious: the handling of paint, and in Turner, the
highly dramatic presentation of "sublime" nature.
He calls the Death of Sardanapalus an "abstract painting", which is absurd.
It is no more abstract than Michelangelo's Last Judgement. There are any
number of Renaissance and post-Renaissance paintings that have the
overflowing, boiling qualities the author finds in Delacroix' painting.
He associates modernism closely with bohemianism, and the rest of art with
puritanism. This is patently rubbish, and it ignores such tendencies as
purism and minimalism within modernism. It is also the whole basis of the
author's attempt to show Delacroix to be the father of modernism, so his
whole thesis falls down flat.
In sum, then, the article is a pile of cack, typically modernist in its glib
distortion of history.
Seagull Manager
> Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, January 23, 2003
Your argument from authority carries no weight with me. The paintings
themselves have far greater authority than any Guardian hack. Have you
looked at Delaroche's history paintings? He frequently inverts conventions
of the genre, so that his paintings can be said to mock those conventions,
but - just like Delacroix - his history paintings *are* unashamedly history
paintings, not simply mockeries of the whole idea of history painting. It
would be perfectly idiotic to move from saying that Delacroix parodies some
features of History Painting (dubious in itself) to suggesting that
Delacroix was rejecting the very idea of history painting - the genre was
the mainstay of his practice, and all his most ambitious works fall into the
category.
In case you doubt what I'm saying about Delaroche, look at this image:
http://www.wallacecollection.org/c/w_a/p_w_d/f/p/p738.htm
(hi-res:
http://www.artrenewal.org/images/artists/D/Delaroche_Paul/assassination_1834
.jpg)
Is this how important people are supposed to die in a history painting?
Why's everything happening at the edges of the canvas, instead of in the
middle? Why are we looking at what seems to be the aftermath of a dramatic
moment, instead of the moment itself? Does this portray a decisive turning
point in French history, or a confused squabble in which the future remains
uncertain?
Delaroche offers a lot of questions and surprises like these in his
paintings, and I defy anyone to show that Delacroix is more radical in his
treatment of the History genre than Delaroche.
Mani Deli
>"But it is Delacroix who makes insubstantiality and inconstancy of space
>his organising principle, so that emptiness is not just figured in his
>paintings but seems to be what they are made of, or in.
This is the sort of Artspeak I used to get in art school. This blowbag
can't write a clear sentence.
I can point out many examples of empty areas in academic style art.
> The Death of
>Sardanapalus is his most radical parody of history painting. It hangs in
>the Louvre, in a gallery that displays the great public paintings done
>for the Paris salon in the 18th and early 19th centuries. So you can see
>how the earnestness of David's Oath of the Horatii or his giant canvas
>of Napoleon crowning Josephine is mocked by the decadent painted world
>of The Death of Sardanapalus, in which every detail seems to revel in
>its fatuity; in which colour is the only reality and bodies are
>obviously insubstantial, transparent fantasies. "
Take a look at the painting instead of just reading the bullshit
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/delacroix/sardanapal.jpg
"The most radical parody of history painting", indeed! Its
conventional 19th century stuff; second rate compared to the best. I
might add that second rate is pretty good compared to what was to come
out of the double talk attributed to D.
The fact is that D's loose impasto brushwork gives modern critics
orgasms. Its amusing to see how little they know of 19th century work.
Half the academics used it and it was nothing new. The worst thing
about D. is his drawing and dull color. And by drawing I still mean D.
could draw well but he was no master. .
His detail is usually messy clutter and his Oriental paintings are
surpassed by leagues of better artists who are rarely represented in
today's museums.
Personaly I don't like how he poses his fat rubbery smelly figures
which are rather flat and schmiery and he can't paint drapery. There
is lots of that sort of stuff in 19th century academic work especially
the German variety.
Mani Deli
Compare that to Delacroix.
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2001/Alma-Tadema/tadema1.asp
Unlike D., Tadema could draw well, He knew how to compose detail, his
color and compositions are unique. His detail never deteriorates into
flat schmier and he knows perspective which in D. is very weak and his
figures are never rubbery.
Erik A. Mattila
> "Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@oco.net> wrote in message
> news:3F303B33...@oco.net...
>
>>Well, Greek classical art wasn't followed by "neo-classicism" either.
>
>
> True, but not relevant. Anyone around today who's copying Delacroix is
> operating outside the nexus of modernism, and is probably classified as a
> "fantasy artist", or something similar. Modernism is not closely linked to
> Delacroix, whereas, of course, "neo-classicism" is not just close to, but
> defined by its intimacy with Greek classical art. Neoclassical sculpture, in
> particular, is often indistinguishable stylistically from its classical
> model.
True in a sense: "copying" has become a hallmark of postmodernism. But
"modernism" is by no measure a matter of copying at all, and the same is
true of art periodization.
>
>
>>I think William is on solid ground.
>
>
> I don't.
>
>
>>The texts are full of citation's of D
>>being an influence or the main influence of modernism.
>
>
> He's an influence, but there are many influences, and he is not the main
> one, by any stretch.
I would imagine there are no "main" ones, actually. The question is one
of significance. Many art historians and critics are citing D in this way.
>>But the connection isn't necessarily a matter of formalism. D seems to
>>have been, for example, keen on concepts such as "bohemianism" and
>>"avant garde" although not explicitly stated that way.
>
> A lot of 18th and 19th century artists were.
>
>>We all know that
>>he was a flaneur, a Dandy, but remarkably "flaneurship" itself was
>>elevated (or lowered) to the status of the marginal in the course of
>>modernism.
>
> Nothing to do with modernism. Dandyism has flourished among artists forever,
> as the self-portraits Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and numerous others, abundantly
> show.
The point was that the flaneur was turned into an a socially marginal
idea in the course of modernism.
>>Give Walter Benjamin's "The Arcades Project" a whirl for
>>more on this.
>
> Realism. Nothing to do with Delacroix, and very little to do with modernism.
How is that responsive to what I just wrote about Benjamin's work?
>>This is the key, I think. It's a matter of what is treated in a work of
>>art. The ignoble, the common and the vulgar became interesting to the
>>Barbizon's, for example, and they paid the price because the French rank
>>and file rejected it as "non-art" since they believed that art should be
>>noble.
>
> What's the linke between the Barbizon school and Delacroix? They barely have
> anything in common. The Barbizon realists are coming from a completely
> different place, and *they*, not Delacroix, are the main influence on the
> Impressionists as regards their attitude to subject matter. Their preference
> for vulgar subject matter and disdain for storytelling goes on to be an
> important influence on Modernism, and is the main link between Impressionism
> and Modernism.
But what they do have in common is the abandonment of the neo-classical
theme, the Barbizon's in favor of everyday life and D in the favor of
formalism over content.
>>Delacroix nearly obliterated the "subject" altogether, replacing
>>it with a sort of "art for art's sake" flourish. His "orientalism"
>>pales besides the quality of the canvas - the color, composition, focus
>>on emptiness, and the aesthetic qualities of paint itself.
>
> This is nuts. Delacroix was the most enthusiastic of subject painters,
> always looking for the grandest dramas and most exotic settings he could
> find. His style did not, and was not meant to, overwhelm the subject. It was
> meant to work with it. He was imitating Rubens, remember - trying to capture
> both Rubens' compositional technique, in which rounded forms are connected
> by swirling lines, and his handling of light, colour and paint. Delacroix is
> not as good as Rubens, particularly in drawing, and it could be argued that
> admiration for Delacroix is the beginning of the licensing of ineptitude.
Could it be that that is all that you look for in a painting. Mind you,
nothing wrong with that, as far as I can see. It's only problematical
when you try to extrapolate it into art history, since most art
historians would criticize you for being too pedantic.
> As for "art for art's sake", Lord Leighton has a far stronger claim to be a
> practitioner of that than Delacroix. The Aesthetic movement is more closely
> linked to Neoclassicism than to Delacroix' form of Romanticism.
It doesn't matter. It's just a matter of who was paid attention to.
>>"The majority of the public," wrote Charles Baudelaire, poet, provoker
>>of public morals and art critic, "have long since, indeed from his very
>>first work, dubbed him leader of the modern school."
>>http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/feature/0,1169,916884,00.html
>
> I can see where you got your idea that Delacroix' compositions focus on
> emptiness - you obviously didn't get it from looking at Delacroix'
> paintings. If you had, and you had made comparisons, you would see that
> neoclassical painters make at least as much use of empty space in their
> compositions as does Delacroix, if not more.
But it's not a matter of using empty space - all compositions do this.
It's a matter of the focus of the paintings. I've looked a most of
Delacroix' works, a few in the flesh. The idea seems solid to me.
> As for using Baudelaire to prove a link between Delacroix and Modernism,
> that's a mistake. Baudelaire, writing in or before 1963, when the first
> Impressionists were still students (not counting Manet, who wasn't really an
> Impressionist, anyway), means a quite different thing by "modern school",
> from what a naive person reading the quotation today would tend to assume.
One would think that B meant something contemporary and worthy of a
unique title with his term "modern school." Reading Baudelaire will
show you this. And it is that quality that B chose to designate as
modernity that forms the nexus between D's work and modernism.
> The article you link also repeats the hoary fiction that Ruskin objected to
> Whistler as a modernist. He didn't. It would be inconsistent, after all, for
> the champion of Turner to object to a little loose handling of paint as we
> find in Whistler. It was in response to this particular painting
>
> http://www.abcgallery.com/W/whistler/whistler2.html
>
> - an obvious failure - that Ruskin wrote, in the context of an essay on
> socialism (Flors Clavigera, 1877) where he compared the essential work of
> the labourer to the relatively frivolous, but well-paid, work of the
> fashionable artist, almost as an aside, the following: "For Mr Whistler's
> own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts
> Lindsay ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the
> ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of wilful
> imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of cockney impudence before now; but
> never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot
> of paint in the public's face."
That's a strange reading of Ruskin. He's saying Whistler's work is not
art, and art to Ruskin includes modernism. So how can you claim that he
did not he isn't objecting to Whistler as a modernist?
> There are other things in the article you link that are dubious:
>
> For instance, the author cannot see what Delacroix admires in Constable and
> Turner, but the answer is obvious: the handling of paint, and in Turner, the
> highly dramatic presentation of "sublime" nature.
That may be the case, if we're playing guessing games. But of course
the Johnathan Jones was writing about other's issues in Delacroix that
are not evident in Constable and Turner. Those are the issues you are
not recognizing as either significant or as a basis from which to
construct art history geneologies.
>
> He calls the Death of Sardanapalus an "abstract painting", which is absurd.
> It is no more abstract than Michelangelo's Last Judgement. There are any
> number of Renaissance and post-Renaissance paintings that have the
> overflowing, boiling qualities the author finds in Delacroix' painting.
But Sardanapalus is that if you regard the painting for what it is -
paint applied on a two-dimensional carrier. This is very exciting
stuff, to me at least. For example, you can see Courbet doing the same
in some of his paintings, drawing the viewers attention to the fact that
this is a painting, not the thing(s) it represents. Look at Gauguin,
casting figure drawn in renaissance perspective in a patterned field,
creating a wonder tension...a push me pull you between the subject
matter and the physical truth of a painting. I realize I'm jumping
around in time, but it's just to make the point that this tension
between the subject and the painting itself coursed throughout
modernism, and Eugene Delacroix is an important precurser to this sort
of theme. Before his time the "truth" of a painting, if betrayed, was
considered it's flaw.
> He associates modernism closely with bohemianism, and the rest of art with
> puritanism. This is patently rubbish, and it ignores such tendencies as
> purism and minimalism within modernism. It is also the whole basis of the
> author's attempt to show Delacroix to be the father of modernism, so his
> whole thesis falls down flat.
Perhaps in your mind. I think most of us would disagree, well, at least
many of us. Social marginality was the jet fuel of modernism, precisely
because it provides a model of the "other" and was considered to be
"against" the status quo. Purism and Minimalism occupy the transitional
space between modernism and postmodernism, so they are not particularly
good examples for you to use.
> In sum, then, the article is a pile of cack, typically modernist in its glib
> distortion of history.
I thought it was pretty good, and handy to use. You haven't proven your
claim that history was in any way distorted by Jones' writing.
Cheers, Erik
>
>
>
>
Erik A. Mattila
Delaroche is a fine painter in my opinion. What you are citing is a
water color sketch - say, a bold experiment - certainly not
representative of the body of his work. And who knows, some modernist
may have looked at it and got all inspired. Lol.
Cheers, Erik
>
>
Erik A. Mattila
> "Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@oco.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>>"But it is Delacroix who makes insubstantiality and inconstancy of space
>>his organising principle, so that emptiness is not just figured in his
>>paintings but seems to be what they are made of, or in.
>
>
> This is the sort of Artspeak I used to get in art school. This blowbag
> can't write a clear sentence.
>
> I can point out many examples of empty areas in academic style art.
Yes, we understand your pov, Mani. After all, you've been saying it
non-stop for the last five or six years that I know of.
We get the message. No, let's "move on."
Erik
Erik A. Mattila
> Also, look at who did work in a similar technique which told a story.
> Compare that to Delacroix.
>
> http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2001/Alma-Tadema/tadema1.asp
>
> Unlike D., Tadema could draw well, He knew how to compose detail, his
> color and compositions are unique. His detail never deteriorates into
> flat schmier and he knows perspective which in D. is very weak and his
> figures are never rubbery.
Which means next to nothing in the context of this thread. In a way,
you are supporting the argument of D's influence on modernism.
Erik
Peter H.M. Brooks
"Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@oco.net> wrote in message
news:3F319134...@oco.net...
>
> Yes, we understand your pov, Mani. After all, you've been saying it
> non-stop for the last five or six years that I know of.
>
> We get the message. No, let's "move on."
>
> Erik
>
Mani Deli
>x-no-archive: yes
>I thought that those now discussing Delacroix might
>contemplate this work, which is the one he repainted
>after viewing Constable's plein air landscapes.
>
>http://www.understatement.com/pages/mouth1.htm
>detail:-
>http://virtualart.admin.tomsk.ru/delacroi/p-delacroix11.htm
>
>I wonder how it looked before?
>I suppose that the clouds may well look more interesting.
>He certainly learned nothing from Constable about painting
>humans, as Constable painted them worse than me. - even.
>Thur
>
Its an average style 19th century mess. Poor drawing and miserable
color. Constable's nothing landscapes excite art historians because he
anticipated all the bad no-skill-realism to come. No 19th c. French
landscapist could come close to the Hudson River school.
>> Ingres and Delacroix hated each other's approach to art. Plenty of nasty
>> comments can be found by each about the other. In my opinion, Ingres was
>the
>> better artist. Delacroix admired Rubens, but he wasn't one thousandth as
>> good as his hero (nor was he as good as Gericault).
>>
As I recall D. attended Ingres' last exhibition and commented that he
was indeed a great artist. (I don't have the exact reference at hand)
Mani Deli
<emat...@oco.net> wrote:
>Yes, we understand your pov, Mani. After all, you've been saying it
>non-stop for the last five or six years that I know of.
>
>We get the message. No, let's "move on."
>
Mattila is an excellent example of people who judge artwork through
the Modern Art Theologian's filter of artificially evangelized art
history. Until this changes, some people will continue to judge
artwork by what they are told to imagine, rather than what they really
see in front of them.
Erik A. Mattila
Mani Deli wrote:
> On Wed, 06 Aug 2003 16:37:24 -0700, "Erik A. Mattila"
> <emat...@oco.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Yes, we understand your pov, Mani. After all, you've been saying it
>>non-stop for the last five or six years that I know of.
>>
>>We get the message. No, let's "move on."
>>
>
> Mattila is an excellent example of people who judge artwork through
> the Modern Art Theologian's filter of artificially evangelized art
> history. Until this changes, some people will continue to judge
> artwork by what they are told to imagine, rather than what they really
> see in front of them.
I think you've said that about 500 times before too. Let's "Move On."
Erik
Flying_Naked_People
> > Mattila is an excellent example of people who judge artwork through
> > the Modern Art Theologian's filter of artificially evangelized art
> > history. Until this changes, some people will continue to judge
> > artwork by what they are told to imagine, rather than what they really
> > see in front of them.
>
> I think you've said that about 500 times before too. Let's "Move On."
What do you think would happen to the history of art if some people stopped
for a moment - re-evaluated what "they are told to imagine, rather than what
they really see in front of them," and discovered a whole new reality?
That could be considered "moving on" since it seems like some people are
"stuck" in their imaginations.
One of my (college) art teachers told the class that the reason people (yes,
the whole species) disliked the sound of fingernails running down a chalkboard
is because we all come from caves. And the sound (genetically) reminds us of
the sound that terydactiles made against the cave entrance in an effort to eat
what was inside (people)!
About 92% of the class nodded their heads in agreement. Me, and a few others
glared at her. (Any idea why?)
This same teacher insisted that specific colors (can't remember which) vibrate
when placed against another. Only two of the examples she provided did appear
to vibrate. The rest didn't.
I knew then that I wouldn't remain in the class. Instead, I "moved on."
> Erik
>
Erik A. Mattila
> In article <3F32CF3E...@oco.net>, emat...@oco.net says...
>
>>>Mattila is an excellent example of people who judge artwork through
>>>the Modern Art Theologian's filter of artificially evangelized art
>>>history. Until this changes, some people will continue to judge
>>>artwork by what they are told to imagine, rather than what they really
>>>see in front of them.
>>
>>I think you've said that about 500 times before too. Let's "Move On."
>
>
> What do you think would happen to the history of art if some people stopped
> for a moment - re-evaluated what "they are told to imagine, rather than what
> they really see in front of them," and discovered a whole new reality?
As they say, "history serves the needs of the present." Who said
that...I can't remember.
> That could be considered "moving on" since it seems like some people are
> "stuck" in their imaginations.
Well, you're talking about two things here - history and people's
imaginations. History doesn't change when people's imaginations change
- but certainly hitoricism does.
> One of my (college) art teachers told the class that the reason people (yes,
> the whole species) disliked the sound of fingernails running down a chalkboard
> is because we all come from caves. And the sound (genetically) reminds us of
> the sound that terydactiles made against the cave entrance in an effort to eat
> what was inside (people)!
Anybody who has ever had range-chickens knows where the Easter Egg Hunt
came from. But in this case, I think your professor must have learned
this from Ringo Starr's "Caveman" flick. Yes?
> About 92% of the class nodded their heads in agreement. Me, and a few others
> glared at her. (Any idea why?)
About 56 million years, for starters. But that didn't stop Alley Oop or
Fred Flintstone. Hey, remember the remake of "One Million B.C.?" When
the guy discovers Raquel Welch he pounds his chest and says his name:
"Tumtac, Tumtac." Welch pounds hers and says "Uwanna, Uwanna."
> This same teacher insisted that specific colors (can't remember which) vibrate
> when placed against another. Only two of the examples she provided did appear
> to vibrate. The rest didn't.
Hmmm, the two must have been the specific colors she was speaking of.
The one's they used to use in thos psychodellic Fillmore posters.
> I knew then that I wouldn't remain in the class. Instead, I "moved on."
Good for you. Art Class horror stories are neat...I should start
collecting them. Probably a good book there...like years ago when
someone published that book of letters to doctors, "Dear Doctor." "Dear
Doctor, I am slightly pregnant..." Funny stuff.
>
>
>>Erik
>>
>
>
Matthew Parry
> We are all much more complex than that which
> can be classified in such simple terms, I think.
> The author ( I have not read him, and going only on
> your quote) seems to be reaching for a simplification,
> which he has not found.
Most work in personality theory is really research into
averages. You can say that extoverts prefer such and such
but any particular extrovert might not fit that average. His
reasearch is really reasearch into how our personality affects
our behaviour. There are ofcourse more things affecting how
we behave than just our temperament, so you are right - but so
is Eysenk and other personality researchers if you properly
qualify their results.
--
Matthew Parry, <me...@tpg.com.au> <URL:http://users.tpg.com.au/mettw/>
"Remember that early release of `rn' that prevented a posting
unless it contained more new lines than included lines? That
was actually a pretty good idea." - Peter van der Linden.
Seagull Manager
> Seagull Manager wrote:
> > "Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@oco.net> wrote in message
> > news:3F303B33...@oco.net...
> >
> >>Well, Greek classical art wasn't followed by "neo-classicism" either.
> >
> >
> > True, but not relevant. Anyone around today who's copying Delacroix is
> > operating outside the nexus of modernism, and is probably classified as
a
> > "fantasy artist", or something similar. Modernism is not closely linked
to
> > Delacroix, whereas, of course, "neo-classicism" is not just close to,
but
> > defined by its intimacy with Greek classical art. Neoclassical
sculpture, in
> > particular, is often indistinguishable stylistically from its classical
> > model.
>
> True in a sense: "copying" has become a hallmark of postmodernism. But
> "modernism" is by no measure a matter of copying at all, and the same is
> true of art periodization.
We're using "copying" in different ways here. Hirst ripping off Humbrol or
Warhol ripping off Campbells is copying of a different kind from what I
meant, namely a person working in the same mode as, and under the influence
of, Delacroix, producing works that are recognizably similar in style and
types of subject-matter, yet clearly of that person's authorship, not
Delacroix' (to the extent, at least, that there would be no risk of
copyright
infringement if Delacroix' art were not already in the public domain).
> >>The texts are full of citation's of D
> >>being an influence or the main influence of modernism.
> >
> >
> > He's an influence, but there are many influences, and he is not the main
> > one, by any stretch.
>
> I would imagine there are no "main" ones, actually. The question is one
> of significance. Many art historians and critics are citing D in this
way.
Delacroix' influence, as far as I can see any at all, is as an excuse for
the brushy style of painting adopted by the Impressionists. This is not a
direct influence, but one mediated by the writings of Baudelaire, who
described and prescribed Delacroix' approach to colour mixing and brushwork
in an essay that appeared when most of the Impressionist group were
students. In fact, Baudelaire's description is a far more exact description
of the way the Impressionists painted than it is of Delacroix' manner. The
main influence behind Manet's handling of paint, according to the man
himself, it seems, was Goya. Baudelaire was also the guy who encouraged
artists to paint "Modern Life", which, as you know, Manet and the
Impressionists took up with gusto. Delacroix had nothing to do with the
rejection of historical and mythological subject-matter.
If Impressionism is the precursor of modernism, then thank Baudelaire, not
Delacroix for modernism, because it is plain that Baudelaire was their god.
As the provider of a popular excuse for painting badly, Baudelaire is still
influential, as DeRaymond's post shows, and it is in that alone that
Impressionism is linked to a certain subset of modernism, being that subset
that concerns itself with so-called "gestural" painting.
> The point was that the flaneur was turned into an a socially marginal
> idea in the course of modernism.
The flaneur is not socially marginal. It is as popular as ever among both
the upper classes and some sections of other classes to affect dedicated
idleness and detachment as part of one's "cool". Probably, this is something
that has always been and always will be.
The particular role that Baudelaire gave to the flaneur, namely that of the
cool observer of urban life, was crucial for Manet and the Impressionists,
but it has had scant to do with any subsequent movement in art.
> >>Give Walter Benjamin's "The Arcades Project" a whirl for
> >>more on this.
> >
> > Realism. Nothing to do with Delacroix, and very little to do with
modernism.
>
> How is that responsive to what I just wrote about Benjamin's work?
The work is an adventure in a kind of Realism. It relates quite closely to
Baudelaire's "The Painter of Modern Life" (which is inspired by the drawings
of Constantin Guys), but has nothing at all to do with
Delacroix' approach to art.
> But what they do have in common is the abandonment of the neo-classical
> theme, the Barbizon's in favor of everyday life and D in the favor of
> formalism over content.
What you're saying here sounds crazy to me. Delacroix no more abandons
content for formalism than does any academic who happens to have an
identifiable style, or indeed any realistic fantasy illustrator today.
Baudelaire deplores the Barbizons for their lack of interest in
subject-matter, and heaps praise on Delacroix for being the most literary of
painters, noting that at Delacroix' funeral, there were more writers than
painters present, due to the fact that while other painters were not
terribly impressed by the formal qualities of his work, writers were
admiring of the way he brought Dante, Shakespeare and other sources vividly
to life. Baudelaire vastly overpraised Delacroix out of bias towards a
personal acquaintance, and out of nationalism.
By the way, Delacroix is not the first French painter to use optical mixing
and a brushy style. Watteau, working more than a century before, also did
so.
> > Delacroix is
> > not as good as Rubens, particularly in drawing, and it could be argued
that
> > admiration for Delacroix is the beginning of the licensing of
ineptitude.
>
> Could it be that that is all that you look for in a painting.
What, drawing? No. But if someone draws badly, I notice.
> Mind you,
> nothing wrong with that, as far as I can see. It's only problematical
> when you try to extrapolate it into art history, since most art
> historians would criticize you for being too pedantic.
Delacroix (and Guys) inspired Baudelaire, who inspired Manet and the
Impressionists. One of the
Impressionists was the exceptionally inept Paul Cezanne, whose "style" (if
it deserves such a label) is justified by reference to the ideas that
Baudelaire set down. Cezanne has been the excuse for many thousands of bad
painters.
> > As for "art for art's sake", Lord Leighton has a far stronger claim to
be a
> > practitioner of that than Delacroix. The Aesthetic movement is more
closely
> > linked to Neoclassicism than to Delacroix' form of Romanticism.
>
> It doesn't matter. It's just a matter of who was paid attention to.
It matters to the extent that to call Delacroix' art "art for art's sake" is
to practice anachronism. Art for art's sake was a reaction against what was
seen as the glut of preachy or socially critical art that came in the wake
of Courbet and Dickens, that neglected beauty to the point of philistinism.
Clearly, Delacroix was not around to be part of that
movement.
> But it's not a matter of using empty space - all compositions do this.
> It's a matter of the focus of the paintings. I've looked a most of
> Delacroix' works, a few in the flesh. The idea seems solid to me.
Yes, and I'm saying a lot of neoclassical painters make empty space central
to their compositions. If anything they do this more than Delacroix does.
> > As for using Baudelaire to prove a link between Delacroix and Modernism,
> > that's a mistake. Baudelaire, writing in or before 1963, when the first
> > Impressionists were still students (not counting Manet, who wasn't
really an
> > Impressionist, anyway), means a quite different thing by "modern
school",
> > from what a naive person reading the quotation today would tend to
assume.
>
> One would think that B meant something contemporary and worthy of a
> unique title with his term "modern school."
Are you repeating what I just said?
> Reading Baudelaire will
> show you this.
What gives you the idea that I haven't?
> And it is that quality that B chose to designate as
> modernity that forms the nexus between D's work and modernism.
No, at risk of repeating myself: Delacroix has nothing to do with modernism
except that his loose painting and weak drawing are misused as excuses for
artists who
want to paint even more loosely and draw downright badly.
This excuse is, by the way, illogical and stupid, and betrays a failure to
apply of sense of proportion. The fact that a particular stylistic feature
can work well or be acceptable in a painting does not imply that parodying
and exaggerating that feature to the point of caricature will also lead to
successful paintings. An equivalent would be to justify all-black canvases
by references to Caravaggio's tenebrism. It is a case of missing the point.
> That's a strange reading of Ruskin. He's saying Whistler's work is not
> art, and art to Ruskin includes modernism. So how can you claim that he
> did not he isn't objecting to Whistler as a modernist?
He is objecting to a particular bad painting - or, rather, remarking on it
in passing. Whistler had been around for years, and Ruskin had not bothered
him. Where's the general argument in Ruskin against the style or approach of
Whistler's major works?
> > There are other things in the article you link that are dubious:
> >
> > For instance, the author cannot see what Delacroix admires in Constable
and
> > Turner, but the answer is obvious: the handling of paint, and in Turner,
the
> > highly dramatic presentation of "sublime" nature.
>
> That may be the case, if we're playing guessing games. But of course
> the Johnathan Jones was writing about other's issues in Delacroix that
> are not evident in Constable and Turner. Those are the issues you are
> not recognizing as either significant or as a basis from which to
> construct art history geneologies.
Those "other issues" are not relevant to the question of why Delacroix
should see something to admire in Turner or Constable. I'm not the one who
started the guessing game; the Guardian hack is. I'm merely saying that good
candidate reasons exist for Delacroix to like both of these artists.
> >
> > He calls the Death of Sardanapalus an "abstract painting", which is
absurd.
> > It is no more abstract than Michelangelo's Last Judgement. There are any
> > number of Renaissance and post-Renaissance paintings that have the
> > overflowing, boiling qualities the author finds in Delacroix' painting.
>
> But Sardanapalus is that if you regard the painting for what it is -
> paint applied on a two-dimensional carrier.
ALL paintings are that, so all paintings are abstract, if that's what an
abstract painting is. Furthermore, neoclassicists are particularly concerned
with abstract design in their paintings. Singling out Delacroix this way
requires blindness to what other artists were doing at the same time.
> This is very exciting
> stuff, to me at least.
Why? Is it also exciting to you sandwiches involve slices of bread?
> For example, you can see Courbet doing the same
> in some of his paintings, drawing the viewers attention to the fact that
> this is a painting, not the thing(s) it represents.
First, why bother drawing the viewer's attention to something so obvious?
Second, it is, in the main, bad art that draws attention to its
artificiality, whether accidentally (signifying of ineptitude) or
deliberately
(signifying insincerity or poor judgement). Third, it is very easy to do,
and
usually happens unintentionally. Fourth, it is tiresome to be repeatedly
told the same thing, especially when it is a fact of so little consequence
as the fact that paintings are flat. Fifth, the *point* of making pictures,
generally, is to make the subject present to the viewer, *despite* the fact
that the image is not the subject - the fact that the image is not the
subject is beside the point. Sixth, Courbet was a horrible painter; there's
nothing wrong with his andscapes and nudes, but grim constructions on which
his art historical ranking stands are deeply unlikeable. Seventh, it is
highly doubtful that Delacroix intended any such thing as
what you suggest; instead, it is much more likely that his main concern was
to make his pictures as vivid as possible.
> Look at Gauguin,
> casting figure drawn in renaissance perspective in a patterned field,
> creating a wonder tension...a push me pull you between the subject
> matter and the physical truth of a painting. I realize I'm jumping
> around in time, but it's just to make the point that this tension
> between the subject and the painting itself coursed throughout
> modernism, and Eugene Delacroix is an important precurser to this sort
> of theme. Before his time the "truth" of a painting, if betrayed, was
> considered it's flaw.
I think you're engaging in backwards history, like when people say that
Turner
is an Impressionist, or El Greco an Expressionist. Only, in this case, you
have less excuse, because you're attributing to Delacroix's paintings
something that isn't in them.
> Social marginality was the jet fuel of modernism
It was, up to a point.
> precisely
> because it provides a model of the "other" and was considered to be
> "against" the status quo.
That's more important as a part of Romanticism and of Realism than it is in
Modernism.
> Purism and Minimalism occupy the transitional
> space between modernism and postmodernism, so they are not particularly
> good examples for you to use.
First, remember that I do not acknowledge "postmodernism" in art as a
separate category. I have already said that the dichotomy between modernism
and so-called "postmodernism" in art is a distinction without a difference.
Secondly, Purism was the style adopted by Le Corbusier, Ozenfant and some
others beginning in 1918. If the transition began that early, then modernism
was but a will-o-the-wisp. Thirdly, the spirit of minimalism is close to
that of Mondriaan, so, again, to place minimalism outside modernism raises
the question of how much of modernism really is modernism.
> > In sum, then, the article is a pile of cack, typically modernist in its
glib
> > distortion of history.
>
> I thought it was pretty good, and handy to use. You haven't proven your
> claim that history was in any way distorted by Jones' writing.
An article that in its first two paragraphs sets up a misleading equivalence
between Baudelaire's "modern school", referred to in his remarks on
Delacroix, on the one hand, and modernism on the other, is clearly
falsifying history. Baudelaire's "modern school" is NOT modernism. The whole
essay is built around that equation, therefore it is a glib distortion of
history. (And there are other distortions, which I have mentioned.)
Thur
it contains a simple mistake.
The horizon to the man's left is off level with the rest.
Thur
"Thur" <a@spamless.z> wrote in message news:...
> x-no-archive: yes
> Lovely stuff.
> I find the lighting and the fresh look is very rewarding.
> Thur
>
>
> "Mani Deli" <ma...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> news:hea2jvsruvg1nfena...@4ax.com...
> > Also, look at who did work in a similar technique which told a story.
> > Compare that to Delacroix.
> >
> > http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2001/Alma-Tadema/tadema1.asp
> >
> > Unlike D., Tadema could draw well, He knew how to compose detail, his
> > color and compositions are unique. His detail never deteriorates into
> > flat schmier and he knows perspective which in D. is very weak and his
> > figures are never rubbery.
> >
Seagull Manager
"Thur" <a@spamless.z> wrote in message
> Incidentally, in spite of the construction of this painting,
> it contains a simple mistake.
> The horizon to the man's left is off level with the rest.
> Thur
You're assuming the hill behind the man's head is not nearer than the hills
in front of it. That's not a valid assumption.