Mani de Li is wrong on Cezanne's skill
spino...@msn.com
>Subject: Re: Mani de Li is wrong on Cezanne's "skill"
>From: Brother Alphabet <ja...@isis.msstate.edu>
>On Thu, 18 Dec 1997, mdeli wrote:
>> Distortion isn't a lot of formless misproportioned schmier. All
>> artists distort...
>I agree completely.
>All art, regardless of style, even photorealism, is abstraction.
>If it were reality, it would not be an image, but the actual item.
The problem with this is that it completely contradicts Mani's offensive
comments on Modernists including Cezanne and Matisse. It is illogical to
approve of Dali, who distorts, and disapprove of Matisse, who distorts in
a different way. Either art is to be rated by the canon of traditional
"skill" or it is not.
We have, then, to search for a reason why Mani approves of Dali. It may
be because of Dali's right-wing politics and support of Franco: or it may
be that Mani is not aware of Dali's political views.
It may also be because although Dali does not compose representationally
in the large his detail has what appears to be traditional craft and
skill.
It seems, Jason, that you and Mani are made uncomfortable by "painterly"
Modernism: visible signs of the painting process that do not combine into
a traditional image. I'd guess that you'd not be offended by John Singer
Sargent, for his "painterly" touches add up to traditional images. But
Mani seems offended by Matisse, whose painterly style adds up to an image
that is not a 2-dimensional projection.
You seem to be looking for some way of determining that the artist is not
a bum or layabout before allowing yourself to take pleasure in his work.
Consider the possibility that pure vision is a pleasure, and that we do
not need to give ourselves or others permission to enjoy or create
something in such a way that does not tread on another's rights.
It is paradoxical that the artistic neoconservative has such resentment
against the supposed workings of an artistic marketplace in which elite
critics and collectors rule the roost by their fiat, since this is part
of the free market which they often support in areas outside of art. If
some rich guy wants to pay a million bucks for painted tin cans, the
neocon should say bless his heart if he believes that the market is the
arbiter of taste.
The suspicion is that the artistic neocon, sociologically emerging from
the middle and lower middle class, bears a wounded resentment of
pleasure, aided and abetted by a media competing to deprive him of
pleasure in all but extreme spectacle.
Matisse had fun painting the 1907 Blue Nude, is my guess. His patrons
took pleasure in seeing something new: the very distortion of Blue Nude
means that they would not see it in the streets or boudoirs of Paris.
People like to look at it. In a free society, this should be the end of
the story.
Mani seems to believe that the pleasure they feel needs to be
deconstructed, and shown to be a form of false consciousness: he feels
that elite appreciators of the avant-garde are either perpetuating a
conscious fraud on the public or else kidding themselves. This is an
unconscious use of a left critique of popular support for capitalism
which has no reflective basis.
What appears to Mani as a false consciousness, however, is merely a more
evolved ability to project awareness. An infant is unaware that a canvas
represents anything, prior to language: for this reason, you never see a
pre-linguistic infant confuse a painting with reality. So recognising a
representational canvas is itself a learned skill, albeit one of low
order because biologically our eyes map 3-space on 2-space (and the eyes
of other animals use, it is possible, different projective systems.)
Artistic pleasure in Matisse's "distorted" Blue Nude sees a structural
relationship between the rhythym of a real figure, the projections its
limbs make as it moves in space, and that of Matisse's canvas, and this
more evolved consciousness says after training, aha, that's what the
figure is doing. Likewise, viewing a Cezanne is a form of training
which tells us that perhaps our labels "green and orange" oversimplify
the visual continuum.
The fact that this training is intimately linked to pleasure makes it
profoundly suspect in our society. I am reminded here as a sometime
computer teacher of the profound gloominess that people untrained in
digital systems bring to computer classes, and the almost complete
absence of *jouissance* and play in computer output.
>> When you think about it carefully you will find the phrase 'true to
>> life' has no real meaning.
>Agreed here also. "True to Life" could only apply to a singularity, for we
>all carry around our own versions of reality. Our versions might collide
>or overlap in places, but none are duplicate. There is no way an artist
>could render a work that was completely 'True to' the life of anyone but
>him or herself.
>This is not a pipe.....Rene Magritte.
>I'm an advertisement for a version of myself.....David Byrne.
The core of this view is a sad nihilism. You and Mani have shown me a
fissure in Modernism created by its commodification.
You believe that perceptions cannot be communicated. This excuses you
from learning anything about the artist. Instead, there is just your
unmediated perception, which finds Surrealism superficially attractive
because its industrial gloss reminds you of commodities.
Whereas the "high" modernists, whom you reject (Picasso, Cezanne,
Matisse, as opposed to Magritte and Dali) had the traditional program of
intersubjectivity. Picasso's portraits of his mistresses say, here, here
is what I see in my mistress when she is happy, or sad, or asleep. I do
not see with the eye alone, so I have added extra stuff in the form of
distortion and color...no extra charge, whatta deal.
Whereas the adolescent, ignorantly viewing Magritte or Dali, is
immediately excited by seeing industrial strength renditions of familiar
objects that have in some way been destroyed, thus having his rage
reflected. He does not have to know a goddamn thing about Magritte or
Dali to get this particular *frisson*.
The association of low modernism with Fascism is well-documented, from
Marinetti and the Futurists, to Paul de Man's wartime writings, to Dali.
In the related field of music, Martha Bayles has documented how
art-school rock deprives the blues of Robert Johnson of ryhthm and
feeling in order to make ugly music that is part of German neo-Naziism
and fueled ethnic hatreds in the Balkans.
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
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Brother Alphabet
It seems to have stuck in Spinoza1111's head that I am against
'Modernism'.
For the 100,000th time, I will try to clarify this matter:
I am not in suuport of the abolition of any valid form of art, be it
non-objective, distorted, grotesque, surreal or anything else.
I merely expect anything labelled 'Fine Art' to show signs of actual
artistic ability (talent/skill) on the part of the creator of that work.
I favor more detatched or surreal compositions. In my own work, I
choose to represent imaginary and dream-oriented objects and situations. I
find the quest for perfect representation useless in any context outside
artistic excersize.
I have no problem with anything beyond the act of pretending or the act of
glorifying pretense. Those who claim to be 'artists' should be held
accountable to that claim.
My preferences are not based upon any stylistic value. I have and
always have had the ability to comprehend and appreciate art of all
styles and forms. This ability is what gives me the added
capacity to recognize fraudulent examples. Through experience and research
I have cultivated a set of visual filters which have led me to be able to
identify and refute 'crapola'. I know when *I* have created crapola, and I
know when OTHERS have done the same. The crapola *I* have created gets
destroyed or reworked. I refuse to allow works in which I have failed to
continue to exist. Every serious artist I know has the same ethic. I
expect all serious artists to have the same ethic...Whether by
destruction, or by at least acknowledging failure...
Where I run into problems is with those with either no artistic ability,
or too much emotion for their own good. When an artist-wannabe has no
ability, yet has a stern desire to be one of us, they tend to whine about
the unfairness of being harshly criticized. Then, some of them get into
the education system as bad teachers and go around saying stupid things
like 'everyone can be an artist'. Those with too much emotion are afraid
to tell someone that they have produced a dog-turd of a painting. This has
the same outcome...It allows someone of no talent to coast through without
real discipline.
An artist is not a dainty little limp-wristed creature. An artist has
spine, and power. Those attributes come from the formulation of
discipline. Discipline comes from learning to take criticism.
Many people probably think from reading my posts that I think my art is
the best on the planet, or that nothing I ever do is wrong. This is true.
Hehe. No, this is NOT true. I screw up on a daily basis. In fact, I make
bigger screw-ups out of small screw ups in attempts to deny that I've
screwed up. I have been told some very harsh things throughout my
education...Things that made me sit down and seriously question whether I
was supposed to be doing art or sweeping floors...Those questions in
themselves forced me to find an answer, and forced discipline down my
throat.
An artist needs confrontation. An artist needs to be faced with
do-or-dies. An artist needs to be told that he or she's screwing up.
Sometimes artists cannot see these things without being told. Sometimes
wanna-be's need to be forced to make a decision...and many of them will
opt out. Constant challenge from my mentors and my educators and my
colleagues is what has made me into the artist I am now...And it has been
what has shown me that I ALWAYS have room to grow, and that my work is
NEVER at its best. On one hand, I am never satisfied with what I have
done, and on the other, my work keeps improving and improving.
This whole debate is not geared toward hurting or destroying, it is about
making people into GOOD ARTISTS, or letting them know that they should try
something else instead.
Art is not a game, or a whim or a happy-go-lucky good-time party...Art is
a brutal and chronic education that reveals more to oneself about oneself
than any analyst or philosopher could ever postulate. It is not for
everyone, nor will it ever be.
Hutto
-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-
"I paint what I think, not what I see..." - Pablo Picasso
"You're not the boss of me!..." - J. A. Hutto (Pre age 3)
http://www2.msstate.edu/~jah10 + ja...@ra.msstate.edu