Best Paintings in London
Thur
given a list of "Best" paintings in London.
For your information, here are the titles:
1) Self Portrait with two Circles: Rembrandt (Kenwood House)
2) Norham Castle, Sunrise JMW Turner (Tate Britain)
3) The Wilton Dyptych Unknown,(National Gallery)
4) The Arnolfi Portrait Jan van Eyk, (National Gallery)
5) The Uncertainty of the Poet Giorgio de Chirco (Tate Modern)
6) Red on Maroon (The Seagram Murals) (Tate Modern)
7) Landscape with Psyche Outside the Palace of Cupid, Claude
Lorrain (National Gallery)
8) Adoration of the Kings Jan Gossart (National Gallery)
9) The Music Party, Watteau (Wallace Collection)
10) Bathers at Asnieres (Seurat)
For those who might be interested:
All can be Googled, and all have sufficient size for
viewing or can be zoomed.
Rothko designed his paintings for the Four Seasons
Restaurant in the Seagram Building, New York.
Instead of the interpretation made by those who saw
and assumed they were to induce "reflective quietude",
considering where they were made for; he said he
wanted to ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who
eats there.
Out of his own mouth he eloquently exposes the stupidity
of paintings which cannot be interpreted without an explanation
from the artist.
I have seen these works myself, and while they dont
upset my appetite in any way, they do challenge one's
faith that the world of art has not gone mad.
--
Thur
CB
"Thur" <no-per...@z.com> wrote in message
news:ZWZOf.63591$Dn4....@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net...
There's a good article on this in the Guardian (though somewhat overblown in
typical Guardian style):
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/critic/feature/0,1169,931796,00.html
(Or http://tinyurl.com/fj8dh if the above breaks).
Upsetting complacency (his goal) isn't such a bad idea; it's certainly an
essential component for any dynamic, secular society. I think however that
perhaps Rothko realized that his work was not going to do it, no matter how
hard he tried. Unlike Michelangelo - whose vestibule to the Laurentian
library inpsired Rothko (see the article), the latter's work is not grounded
in an artistic language accessible to his intended viewers. As he put it
after eating in the Four Seasons - "Anybody who will eat that kind of food
for those kind of prices will never look at a painting of mine". So he
returned the money, and sent the paintings to the Tate. And shortly after,
committed suicide.
The question for is is whether it was a failure of Rothko's, or a failure of
Abstract Expressionism, in that the goal was not acheived. I personally
think that the human ability to abstract in visual language is not as
sophisticated as (say) musical language; certainly we can be profoundly
affected by music that has little immediate interpretation in terms of
everyday experience, while equally (using that term guardedly) abstract art
does not seem so naturally powerful.
Cheers;
CB
Thur
"CB" <caldwell...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:hY1Pf.39518$VV4.5...@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
whose visual references were shaped by the host of rectangles
there, from the millions of windows to the shape of the concrete
canyons themselves.
Suggesting that Abstract Impressionism might have had it's
failures is for me stating the blindingly obvious, because I have
never travelled down that road of acceptance.
Gossaert's work for me is as fresh and relevant and inspirational
as if it were painted yesterday.
I see Rothko's rectangles like a babe, and compare them to
the rectangles that a child has been pasting in a book yesterday.
Whatever passion he may have had, he chose to create images
that cannot be decyphered, and by their simplicity cannot
visually communicate anything other than the immediate.
Once you have seen a rectangle, well hey, what's a couple
more going to say that's different?
There has to be a limit where the capability of an image to suggest
to the subconcious is restricted, by adopting a minimalist approach.
I think this has been the lesson of Minimalism.
Surely it comes as no surprise that the several movements in art
which claimed to push at the boundaries of what we see as art
have actually broken such boundaries and moved into a non-art
phase or even a hamstrung or restricted position.
This is the result we see of Pop Art, and Minimalism, and to a great
extent Abstract Expressionism.(as examples)
I like the ideas of cross pollinating art with other art forms,
as we see in some oriental paintings which include a poem,
and which is the basis of inspiration for the painting.
Wherever art goes, the fundamental limits of the beholder's
capabilty of interpreting the images and the undeniable influence
of the historic culture of a society will remain impenetrable barriers.
--
Thur
Jiri Borsky
I read your thoughtful comments with great interest, and largely agree
with your conclusions.
Best wishes,
Jiri Borsky
http://www.borsky.com
CB
OTOH, I think you've inadvertently nailed precisely what is wrong with most
of the criticism levelled at abstract art in general, and Ab-Ex in
particular. The criticism tends to be based on the critic's unconcious
experience - i.e., the experience he has not deliberately shaped - rather
than on the critic's attempt to expand his own awareness in order to
understand art that is foreign to him.
Take what you say about Rothko - that you feel that his vision was strognly
shaped by his New York. Given that there are millions of other peoiple who
have shared that sense through their own experience; then approaching art in
a manner that allowed him to communicate on a shared ground with those
people - the millions of other New Yorkers, for example - is perfectly
reasonable, is it not? That it doesn't wash in Peoria should be of no more
worry to a painter like Rothko than the fact that a Descent from the Cross
is not appreciated in Mosul should be a worry to Ruben's ghost.. Artists
tend to address an audience that shares their culture, and don't worry about
the judgement of others.
Critics, on the other hand, have the task of helping translate the artist's
vision across cultures; translating Rothko to Peorians; Rubens to the
Taliban. They also need to take a much longer view - the acceptance or
rejection of art happens of the course of centuries (look at the popular
fortunes of Shakespeare, Rembrandt, even Michelangelo); as conservative as I
am I would still say that it is far too soon to dismiss the work of
Ab-Ex'ers, Minimalists, what ever. The experiments they carried out are not
yet complete; my impression is that as we come increasingly to grips with
the notions of the underlying chaos of existence, and the fundamental
weakness of Newtonian perception (and positivist philosophy) their work is
going to become more, not less, important.
I'd also like to add that when I talk about Rothko's failure, or Ab-Ex
failure - that is a failure in a specific agenda, in the same way Newton
failed to encompass the entire universe under physical laws. But their
attempts give further generations a place to stand, and their failures give
their children a reason to reach higher. OTOH, if you want to look at
complete failure, browse ARC.
Cheers;
CB
Erik A. Mattila
Chris, you might be interested in Peter Bürger's "Theory of the Avant
Garde." His reading of the "failure" you're talking about is that it
was just "exhaustion." Because all the "isms" of so-called High
Modernism were targeted at some specific idea that was thought of as neo
this or neo that, the movements quickly exhausted themselves. It's hard
to say where it ended: abex was right there at the end - maybe
minimalism was the last gasp of High Modernism - at any rate
Postmodernism came along and saved us (heh). Since you cite ARC, I
would like to say that this is postmodernism, which tends to spill out
of the typologies of modernism. Atavistic movements are simply
appropriations from the past - a very vital aspect of Pomo. If we look
around, most of the claims of contemporary surrealists, abexers,
neo-whatevers, are appropriations.
George Kubler wrote in his theoretical piece, "The Shape of Time", that
painting could be categorized in terms of grand-themes (I forget his
term for this) which, say, in the case of landscape painting, would put
Roman murals in the same category as Diebenkorn's "Ocean Park" series.
The problem is that such an idea implies a historical connection between
Rome and Santa Monica. A challenge to this idea is, for example, Irwin
Panofsky's concept of "disjunction" - which looks at culture, politics
and art and seeks to identify those historical moments when historical
continuity ruptured and what came after the rupture was something
different that what came before. The modernism/postmodernism rupture is
a case in point. The proof is in the pudding, I think. Whatever broad
social energy fueled the isms of modernism is no longer with us.
Everything is changed. The only way a contemporary painter who wishes
to convince us that surrealism is as vital and genuine in 2006 as it was
in 1930 is to try to make the argument that the artist works and
produces in a vacuum, unaffected by the world immediately outside the
artist's head. I think that's a crock, personally.
Thur
"Erik A. Mattila" <e...@nospamimpix.com> wrote in message
news:QJidnRSOS_2-upLZ...@adelphia.com...
I hope you will accept that I have not yet read the texts you
make reference to, yet am seeking to counter some of your
post.
I like the idea of the "rupture" in historical continuity.
But looking at specific moments in history that conform
in some way I, see that most of them are caused by
invasion and war, with cultures being swamped and
destoyed by the newer.
I suppose that American Art was never the same again
after the hordes of immingants from Europe took their
land, and reduced their populations to begging outside
miltary camps. USA is so different because immigration
has significantly influenced it over generations, and not
in just one big event.
The end of the Greek culture is well noted as they
eventually became a province of Rome.
The Romans too, who suffered invasions from the North,
and eventually were ruled by them.
I think the the rupture caused by thinkers and artists in
the 20th Century is a construction in the mind.
The admitted attempt to outwit the critic by making art
that defies criticism is for me case proved.
Eventually the artist and the beholder will find some kind
of art that allows them to play their necessary parts.
That art will necessarily make reference to the culture from
which it springs, and will make common visual references
and be sufficiently complex to allow confident interpretation.
The idea that we are going to have art which is made by a
new "priest" order who know the secrets of what they do,
and are meekly worshipped by an unthinking and compliant
public has got to be nonsense.
Cheers,
--
Thur
Erik A. Mattila
No problem, Thur. Have at it...
> I like the idea of the "rupture" in historical continuity.
> But looking at specific moments in history that conform
> in some way I, see that most of them are caused by
> invasion and war, with cultures being swamped and
> destoyed by the newer.
I can agree with that, but "disjunction" as Panofsky used the term is
more subtle. Let me see if I can construct an example. George Kubler,
who I cited above, had his expertise in Precolumbian art and
architecture. One argument he made in the course of his career was that
the Cathedrals of Mexico deserve a unique category instead of being
classified as "Spanish Baroque" as they are. Why? Because they were
built by Indian stone masons who used several techniques derived from
their native architecture tradition. For example, the Indians sloped
the exterior walls inwards, like a pyramid, which eliminated the need
for flying buttresses to resist the lateral pressure of the vault. You
know, it's the kind of thing that a tradesman in a seismic zone such as
Mexico would know.
Translating this into Panofsky, this difference would be disjunctive -
something that interrupted the clear historical trajectory or the
basilica form, which spans 2000 years from Roman public buildings to
16th century cathedrals. You could say that the introduction of an
exotic technology (the Precolumbian component) was the cause of the
rupture in this tradition.
> I suppose that American Art was never the same again
> after the hordes of immingants from Europe took their
> land, and reduced their populations to begging outside
> miltary camps. USA is so different because immigration
> has significantly influenced it over generations, and not
> in just one big event.
True. Even today, indigenous art forms that are contrived to mimic
antique forms are different, even though thay might be wonderful in and
of themselves. I have one of those funerary dogs from Western Mexico -
it's one of those "precolumbian fakes" - but I really love it. In fact,
a little research showed me that those "pottery pueblos" in Jalisco and
Michiocan where the dogs are made, were doing the same thing before
1519. They manufactured clay dogs that were commercial products that
were purchased in a broader economy. The only thing that has changed is
that the market has expanded to folks who purchase them as "objects d'
art' instead of for funerals.
> The end of the Greek culture is well noted as they
> eventually became a province of Rome.
> The Romans too, who suffered invasions from the North,
> and eventually were ruled by them.
>
> I think the the rupture caused by thinkers and artists in
> the 20th Century is a construction in the mind.
> The admitted attempt to outwit the critic by making art
> that defies criticism is for me case proved.
Well, I don't agree with you here. If you start adding up all the
influences on the production of works of art during this time, the most
significant are cultural, which can and should include the wars, but not
limited by just wars between nations. Urbanization and industrialization
are perhaps bigger ticket items, and in fact are integral to the cause
of the great wars themselves. Look what was going on in Germany during
the time of Die Bruke and Blue Rider, for example. Germany began to
industrialize big time around 1870 - 1880, and by 1910 urbanization was
in full swings, with cities from Hamburg to Munchen swelling to the
breaking point with people who were lamanting their recent paradise-lost
in the farm villages. That's what I found so compelling about German
Expressionism - those jagged razor-edged depictions of "the city" were
so threatening, and still are. What I'm saying, as a disagreement, is
that the thinkers and artists were responding to this, rather than
creating it.
> Eventually the artist and the beholder will find some kind
> of art that allows them to play their necessary parts.
> That art will necessarily make reference to the culture from
> which it springs, and will make common visual references
> and be sufficiently complex to allow confident interpretation.
Funny...in Derrida's "deconstruction" you'll find that all
interpretations are confidant. That's taking the "beholder" schism to
it's furthest extent.
>
> The idea that we are going to have art which is made by a
> new "priest" order who know the secrets of what they do,
> and are meekly worshipped by an unthinking and compliant
> public has got to be nonsense.
Nah...I'm not advocating such a view. There are no priests of art. I
sincerely see art making as consumption rather than production. Artists
are as intimately involved in the same social process that art viewers
are.
>
> Cheers,
>
s_l_a...@hotmail.com
Thur wrote:
> The admitted attempt to outwit the critic by making art
> that defies criticism is for me case proved.
> Eventually the artist and the beholder will find some kind
> of art that allows them to play their necessary parts.
> That art will necessarily make reference to the culture from
> which it springs, and will make common visual references
> and be sufficiently complex to allow confident interpretation.
>
> The idea that we are going to have art which is made by a
> new "priest" order who know the secrets of what they do,
> and are meekly worshipped by an unthinking and compliant
> public has got to be nonsense.
>
> Cheers,
>
> --
> Thur
Well yes it is nonsense. But its mostly a function of your
generalizations rather than from familiarity with the work at hand or
the critical reaction to it.
Once again we're dealing with rather silly "straw man" arguments in
which you cite an unnamed and possibly non-existent critic who proposes
one interpretation and because the purported criticism does not
correspond with the artist's claimed interpretation of the work you
decide to dismiss the work itself--in fact the entire genre to which
the work belongs--rather than the critic.
'Tis a failure of everything ARC touches, rather than servents of
logic, the arguments are in thrall to predetermined dismissive
conclusions.
Thur
<s_l_a...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1141958993....@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
by others, but just in case you are willing to forward an
argument of your own, I ask for it.
Like a number of others, you seem to be inspired only when
you feel you can refute other's posts.
A simple search on Google "Rothko" and "ruin the appetite of
every" would have provided the author of my quote:
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/critic/feature/0,1169,931796,00.html
"This is what Rothko told John Fischer, a fellow tourist he bumped into in
the bar of an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic in the early summer of 1959
after he had been working for several months on the paintings. Fischer was
an editor of Harper's Magazine and their conversations over drinks have
therefore been recorded - Fischer published Portrait Of The Artist As An
Angry Man, a memoir of Rothko, in Harper's Magazine in July 1970.
....
<snipped>
.....
Fischer quotes Rothko describing the room in that very expensive restaurant
in the Seagram Building as "a place where the richest bastards in New York
will come to feed and show off".
Rothko didn't seem to Fischer in the least unworldly, let alone spiritual
about his intentions. "I hope to ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch
who ever eats in that room," he gloated, with paintings that will make those
rich bastards "feel that they are trapped in a room where all the doors and
windows are bricked up".
Read it all for yourself.
You can the other interpretation referred to at:
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/CollectionDisplays?roomid=2653
where the Rothko murals are displayed.
>your generalizations
If you had offered anything in the way of an argument
then perhaps I would have worried about it slightly.
> rather silly "straw man" arguments
The whole of my post poses and supports the supposed
"straw man"
What's the function of your non-existent argument?
> possibly non-existent critic
What's the betting that you try to call them liars, or
incompetents unfit to support your chosen view?
> rather than from familiarity with the work at hand
you've seen them too?
> 'Tis a failure of everything ARC touches, rather
> than servants of...
ARC? what have they to do with me?
--
Thur
s_l_a...@hotmail.com
related) interpretations based on the same source material. Neither of
which justities your outright dismissal of the works or the genre.
The presence or absence of an argument on my part does nothing to
improve your own, which as usual can be safely dismissed.
zeno
Thur
"zeno" <ze...@sonic.net> wrote in message news:4421BE1B...@sonic.net...
> At the Tate:
>
> http://www.tate.org.uk/home/press/2006/tb_hodgkin_02-02-06.htm
>
Better link for those who have not seen his works is:
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/hodgkin_howard.html
Cheers.
--
Thur