GH: Modern Art (and a little about Kevin) - LONG!

[Julia A. M. Hayden]

Warning: this is long, all about art, and is eminantly skippable.

"More like Picasso. Interesting." -- Lucy Coe

Kevin has definitely been working on his Mother and Child since we last
saw it - I barely got a glimpse of the latest version. The tend to film
Kevin's art-in-progress from the side, where there is more glare and it is
harder to differentiate between forms and shapes and shading. I want a full
head-on image. If I am forced to stare at that awful picture of Lily, than
they should at least counteract that with decent shots of Kevin's art - art
that is far more interesting and competantly done.

In any case, it seems that Kevin has worked on further defining the image,
both in color and line. Bright primary colors (red, blue, yellow)
predominate, and the basic geometric construction remains - triangles,
squares, circles. I am fairly sure that it is the Mother and Child - the
layout of the image, the placement of fields of color are the same. Kevin
hasn't exhibited a tendency to paint the same thing twice.

Lucy is right: Kevin's art is more like Picasso than Michaelangelo. But
Kevin's art, while influenced by Picasso is rooted in a school that is
further north and more modern. Picasso's palette and the cubism he was so
instrumental in developing have impacted on Kevin's art, but Kevin's art is
more akin to the neo-cubism developed in Switzerland, Germany, and the
lowlands in the 30s.The palette reminds me of some of the Russians,
particularly Gorky, and of artists like Mondrian whose most famous works
are those abstractions of black and white grids with fields of primary
colors. Abstract art is about representing the basic truth of an image;
when it took off in first decades of this century, Cubism was descibed as
looking like " a field of broken glass." It was an insult, but there is a certain truth in it. Picasso and his colleagues were shattering traditional understandings of representation.

At the same time that abstraction was emerging, so too was the new science
of psychiatry or psychology (I'm not up on the history of the disciplines
beyond the basics; I don't know which came first, which grow out/around the
other). These two disciplines that grew out of the turbulence of the first
three decades of this century have a lot in common, which may be very
simplistically defined as "looking beyond the surface." That Kevin is
steeped in these two disciplines is fascinating to me. Highly appropriate.
There is a viable case to be made that Kevin's upbringing and the events
of the first three decades - political, military, social - bearing a passing
similarity. Disturbances, the European rifts that were opened and deepened,
the increasing polarization in almost everything, the

Bored? Wanna look at some great art? These are the artists to look up
in your Gardner, Janson, or any number of books on modern art, expressionism,
cubism, etc.

Gustav Klimt - his "The Kiss" is the most famous of his artwork. He often
creates a patchwork of color and texture that hides and reveals the subject
simultaneously. This patchwork effect is similar in spirit to the patchwork
effect of the colors in Kevin's Mother and child.

Picasso -- One of the most prominant artists of this century, he set into
motions many schools of art (or was in at the start). Up until 1925/6/7,
Picasso often painted in multiple styles, feeling that just one wouldn't
meet his needs. His fellow modernists felt betrayed when Picasso painted
neo-neoclassicist art. The figures in these works were sculptural and
and defined and very dimensional, often monumental. They were clearly
inspired by the works in musuems and the works of antiquity and the
Renaissance. Picasso was creating cubist and neo-classical works at the
same time, and taken together (For instance the Tree Musicians and his
Mother and Child, both done in 1921), they fortell what his art will
become when he finds a way to combine the two styles (Three Dancers, 1925).
In terms of Kevin's art, Picasso is useful to understand in terms of
Background; his influence on the following artists is great, and these
artists inspired the painter of Kevin's art.

Paul Klee, Henry Rousseau and Marc Chagall were in the vanguard of Fantasy, which later influenced Magic Realism. These artists viewed creating art as
a product of the inner eye. Fantasy is also known as dream art, and is a
direct result of the impact of Rationalism (this split imagination and
reason further apart), social divisions, and Romantic trends. I suspect that
if Kevin had been an artist in the first three decades of this century,
he'd certainly be a member of this school.

George Rouault, a Fauve (literally,a wild beast - an appellation for the
group of artists who begain painting in the first decade with distortions,
bold colors, and a shocking style) who used this new style of expressionism
to express "the passion mirrored on a human face." He was a fervant Catholic,
and his work was highly inspired by stained glass - and the colors of it.
Actually, the Fauves were all really groovy - Matisse was a Fauve, his "Joy
of Life" is usually nominated as the painting that most exemplifies the
Fauve movement. The Fauves were a movement mostly in that they were reviled
as a group - there were almost as many subset Fauve movements as there
were artists. Indeed, the Expressionist movement with it's many schools
grew out of Fauvism. Gaugin was among the greatest influences of the Fauves.

Gorky. Joseph Stella. Kandinsky. Russians. Their palette reminds me of
Kevin's palette, almost more than Piet Mondrian's colors. Kevin's fields
of yellow and red and blue are not the monochromatic fields that adorn
Mondrian's most famous - and some would argue, influential - works. There
are dozens of shades, layered on each other, vivid and subtle in each brush
stroke jostling to express that light, that dress, that darkness. These
Russian palettes feature bold primary colors in the 30s and 40s that infuse
the lighter, the more subtle, the almost pastel tones with bristling life.
So the touches of bright blue and green in a Gorky make the blue shadows
on a wall dominate, electrifying the shafts of yellow and magnifying the
pale blue figures. Stella's work is more Dynamic than Kevin's (Dynamic is a
variant of cubism - engineering/architecture meats cubism. Perspective is
delineated strongly in these works), focusing on structural items more than
the dreamlike images of Kevin's art. His colors, too are more muted, more
akin to some of Kevin's earlier works where greys and slates and darker
colors have small subdued infusions of primary colors, but this palette is
even more industrial than Kevins, where color shocks and draws your eye to
that oddity in the image. The blue of a sky and a river; the red of a violin,
the golden light are all muted in Stella's works, at least in the teens and
twenties. Kandinsky's colors are riotous - far more so than Kevin's, his
colors dominate the image, but the variety of colors is akin to Kevin's.
Whereas Stella was too linear, too architectural in his cubism, Kandinsky
for all intents and purposes escapes cubism; the defining lines are still
there, but the color breaks eout beyond the lines, everything is reduced
to essential form, but the forms are not the cubism of Braque and Picasso.
Kandinksy revelled in his images being totally non-representational, and
his work is a watershed in American Art. Kevin is highly unlikely to ever
in a Kandinskyesque manner, but it's art that incites passions, pro or con,
and sometimes in between. If you want to get to know modern art, Kandinsky
is a must-see.

Edvard Munch for the way in which the brush strokes lie next to each other
and combine the linear and the curvilinear with the emotional and the
spirit. Munch's most famous painting, The Scream, sits behind Kevin's desk,
at GH.

Emil Nolde's brush strokes are more like Kevins - short, heavy with paint,
arranged side by side in a curious example of careful abandon. They are used
to add emotion to the images - a flushed cheek in one stroke, a clenched jaw
in another. They add life to the images that are, like Munch's, dark. Nolde
and Munch share a certain spirit with Kevin's - all three are/were beset by
emotional demons, whether they be despair, fear, or the unknown.

Oskar Kokoschka was tormented and tortured, all within his own brain. Manic
depressive on his good days, his paintings are disturbing, as much for the
brush strokes (Nolde meets Munch) as they are for the spirit of his images.
There's a self portrait in which the eyes are painted with pain rather than
pigment. The hand shakes, the chin retreats in a prescient fear. The self-
portrait can break your heart; this person is suffering, this person is
tormented, this person has seen horrors.

These last three artists, in particular, although most of what is considered
'Modern Art'; after 1890, were despised by Hitler. He called it Degenerate
art, and he set out to ruin the artists, hold up the art for public disgust,
and to eradicate such awful stuff. An artist himself, he was tied to the
traditional, the rational, the sentimental, the candybox. He was highly
invested in art and what it meant. He looted every country he entered, and
he took the "German Art" (if it wasn't created by a German, he could find
some German influence in all of the great masterpieces and mediocre art he
loved) home to his museums, including the Linz Museum he was building to his
own glory. He forced German museums to get rid of the degenerate art after
a few famous exhibitions (which inspired apathy among most, and inspired
quite a few artists in 1938), often selling it to the west (which saved
some important pieces). Lynn H. Nicholas has an excellent book, The Rape
of Europa, which details the Nazis and art, and is really interesting, from
the twin passions of Goering and Hitler for Europe's art to the political
and diplomatic currents that were tied to Europe's art.

Now that I've gotten to the end, I'll add a caveat emptor.

Modern Art is not my forte, so if I've messed something up, please correct
me.

-- Julia.

--
____________________________________________________________________________
Julia Hayden <@> Ju...@Virginia.edu <@> ha...@ruby.ils.unc.edu
URL <-> http://atlantic.evsc.virginia.edu/julia/Julia.html

[IshtarLHP]

I confess to knowing even less about art than Julia Hayden, a brilliant
and educational piece BTW. "But I know what I like".<vbg>

I cannot comment constructively on Kevin's "Madonna and Child", but I
would like to talk, briefly, about his other work - the mushrooms gone mad
in his office, and the emergency entrance at the light house.

The two styles are so vastly different that I am not sure that I can buy
into their coming from the same artist. I'll take Julia's word about the
influence of other artists on the Madonna piece, since what I know about
those schools wouldn't fit on the head of a pin.

The other two pieces have a surreal quality that reminds me of Michael
Parkes. Parkes is obviously influenced by Salvador Dali, a little bit by
Bruegel (I think. The Garden of Earthly Delights tryptich), and by
Caldecott winner Chris Van Allsberg.

His 1983 work "Waiting for Alice" features the headless body of a woman in
Edwardian clothing holding a lorgnette in her right hand and the Ace of
Spades in her left. A faceless helmeted bird sits on her left shoulder
and a Borzoi lays at her feet with a hand held dominoe/kabuki mask across
its paws. She stands on a grassy patch with no landmarks and the faint
suggestion of clouds in the background.

I see Van Allsberg in the perspective, especially his earlier work in
black and white Dali is in the surreal absurdity. And Bruegel (if that is
whom I am thinking) in the sinister overtones.

Around 1977/78/79 Parkes work "Broken Promises" was the cover art for an
issue of OMNI Magazine. I fell in love with it on the spot and saved the
magazine for years. About 7 years ago I was shopping along Union Street
and passed an art gallery with 'Broken Promises" displayed in the window.

The work features a woman, possibly a Nun, with an armor breast plate and
a winged wimple-type helmet floating above a body of water with her back
turned to the viewer. Directly behind her a Himalayan Cat floats holding
an egg and shedding a tear from its left eye. To the left of the cat a
bird with a green human face and arms floats and also clutches an egg.
Below the bird, about to fall into the water, is a shattered egg shell
from which the bird has just emerged. Faintly in the background are two
giant heads from Easter Island and beyond that, and even fainter, is Mt.
Fuji.

I saw this piece and went crazy (figuratively speaking), took out a loan
from my credit union, and bought it.

Isht...@aol.com
FM FOC Patrick, Seneschal of Patrick's Poetic Soul
Trustee, FOC The Ficus - Official Houseplant of the '96 Olympic Games
Founder, The Penitent Supporters of Michael Malone
Member SESIDAR; Supporter of TAFKAS (The Acronym Formerly Known as SIDAR)

[IshtarLHP]

ba...@rohan.sdsu.edu (barry) writes:
>Hieronymous Bosch painted the Garden tryptich. Gardner calls
>him "the poet of the nightmarish subconscious". Bruegel was
>strongly influenced by his work, and is best known for painting
>peasants back when that just wasn't done.

Kate, a thousand thanks. I couldn't remember Bosch for the life of me,
and to substitue Breugel ! I am ashamed. Those Art History classes that
I unofficially audited at age 10 while my mother was finishing her degree
were too long ago. At least I got the "B" right.