The New Figurative & History Painting

In 1936, the curator Alfred Barr declared by way of a famous diagram, that the development of modern art climaxed, with a certain inevitability, in “non-geometrical abstract art” and “geometrical abstract art.” In 1954, the critic Clement Greenberg asserted that “abstraction is the major mode of expression in our time; any other mode is necessarily minor.” In 1968 the critic-painter Andrew Forge said that “it is no longer possible to imagine figurative painting as an alternative tradition.” In the 1970s, painting itself was declared bankrupt and backward, not to say quaint and mindless—not purely “conceptual,” as pseudo-philosopher Joseph Kossuth pompously asserted, in admiring emulation of Duchamp’s preference for an “art in the service of the mind” rather than “retinal art.” “Painting is washed up,” Duchamp said, “Who will do anything better than [a] propeller?,” preparing the way for the techno-art, particularly video and digital works, that have triumphantly replaced painting as the premier media. More nihilistically, Duchamp’s aim was “the disintegration of the concept of art,” as Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia noted in her account of a trip with him, Picabia, and Apollinaire—a “foray of demoralization,” she called it.

All of these remarks—the dismissal of figurative art; more broadly, representational art; and of painting as a mode of significant expression as well as a method of making art—seem arrogant, authoritarian, destructive. They parallel Picasso’s assertion that his art is a “sum of destructions,” suggesting that it is the quintessential, emblematic art of the 20th century: “the hundred years after 1900 were without question the bloodiest century in modern history, far more violent in relative as well as absolute terms than any previous era,” according to the historian Niall Ferguson. More particularly, the historian Eric Hobsbawm notes that “a recent estimate of the century’s ‘megadeaths’ is 187 million…more human beings [that] have been killed or allowed to die by human decision than ever before.” The dismissal of figurative painting as “minor” implies that human beings are “minor” and as such not worth the trouble of being painted. More broadly, it suggests that 20th-century art is complicit in the destructiveness and inhumanity of the 20th century—unwittingly in tune with the violent times, confirmed by the violence it does the human figure.

Just as the Nazis distinguished between Ubermenschen and Untermenschen, so Barr, Greenberg, Forge, Kossuth, Duchamp distinguish between Uberkunst—abstraction, conceptualism—and Unterkunst—figurative painting, that is, an art that respects human beings rather than dismisses them as beside the aesthetic point of pure abstraction and the intellectual point of so-called idea art or conceptualism. No doubt this is an absurd, insane parallel, but I suggest that it makes a certain unconscious sense—all the more so in view of the cultural historian José Ortega y Gasset’s famous essay, “The Dehumanization of Art.” “Modern art,” he wrote, “is inhuman not only because it contains no things human, but also because it is an explicit act of dehumanization. In his escape from the human world, the young artist cares less for the ‘terminus ad quam,’ the startling fauna at which he arrives, than for the ‘terminus a quo,’ the human aspect which he destroys…” For the modern artist, aesthetic pleasure derives from such a triumph over human matter. That is why he has to drive home the victory by presenting in each case the strangled victim.

Art became distinctly “modern” when Kandinsky saw The Haystack of Claude Monet… and didn’t recognize it. Before that unexpected experience, he “had known only realist art,” but now he realized that “objects were discredited as an essential element within the picture.” Thus non-objective art—abstract art—grounded on what he called “internal necessity” rather than “external necessity,” was born. What Paul Valéry called “slow, disinterested, close-up communion with any object…a given thing” was “abolished.” “The only judge, guide, and arbiter should be [the artist’s] feelings,” Kandinsky wrote in 1912, echoing Baudelaire’s assertion in 1846 that “it is by feeling alone that art is to be understood.” It seems clear that Kandinsky—and the non-objective artists who followed in his footsteps—had no feeling for the human body, the object human beings are closest to, the object they are in constant communion with, wittingly or unwittingly. The New Objectivists, as I call the “postmodern” figurative realists that have emerged in the 21st century—appeared in the aftermath of subjectivist modern art, become feelingless in post-painterly abstraction and emotionally empty in minimalism, and suicidal in conceptual art—resurrect the body from the grave in which the Kandinsky-esque non-objectivists and Duchampian anti-artists buried it.

Their ambition is to convey a lived experience of the human body, more broadly, a sense that the body is the first ego, as Freud said, giving it a certain mythical importance, making it the most privileged of all objects, and with that to re-humanize art. Some of them are history painters, some of them address the body in all its empirical complexity, all of them see it as “all too human,” suggesting they are humanists in spirit if not the letter. None of them are ideological spiritualists, as Kandinsky was. For him, the feelings aroused by the colors Monet used to render the haystack were more important than their use to render the haystack in all its corporeal complexity—its objective givenness in a very particular light and atmosphere. Monet lived his experience of the haystack’s bodiliness through his atmospheric, luminous color. For Kandinsky, only the feelings associated with the colors mattered; he devoted a long chapter to their psychological meaning in On the Spiritual in Art. He had nothing to say about the body. Dispensing with the object and elevating the subject—his failure (the failure of non-objective art) is that he couldn’t see their inseparability—his art lost human purpose: the psychosocial purpose of art is to show that object and subject—body and soul, if you wish—can be imaginatively reconciled, aesthetically integrated. The reconciliation is mythical and make believe—and carried out through cunning craft, ingenious execution, aesthetic perspicuity—but myth made believable through art becomes a model for life. One of the things that the new figurative art does is show the dubiousness—not to say severe limitedness—of what Baudelaire called the “cult of the emotions” that began with romanticism (non-objective art is a sort of rarefied romanticism) and dead-ended in Abstract Expressionism, said to have begun with Kandinsky’s delusion of spiritual grandeur, not to say grandiose gesturalism.
Resource : http://brooklynrail.org/2017/06/editorsmessage/The-New-Figurative-History-Painting

History Painting and the Problem with Art Education

Let me say upfront that I think it’s undeniable at this point that there is an explosion of new realism across the country, and at least some signs of a revival of history painting and monumental figurative sculpture. One need only look at two recent commissions for public works of art for the painter Adam Miller and sculptor Sabin Howard to see a return to the epic Grand Manner of the Baroque and Renaissance masters. Adam Miller was chosen to paint a large scale public mural depicting the History of the Quebec Secession Movement, and Sabin Howard’s design The Weight of Sacrifice was chosen for the National World War I Memorial at Pershing Park in Washington D.C. Both are enormous in scale, and feature complex compositions of over twenty figures in each.

I think it is an authentic resurgence, but we should all be aware that it’s been a slow build, with many different players involved, and that the movement is not completely formed yet. For the past forty years, artists have been picking up the lost threads of American narratives left by Edward Hopper, Thomas Hart Benton, and many others that were abandoned when Abstract Expressionism took over as the dominant force of Modernism in the United States in the 1950s. Artists as diverse as Andrew Wyeth, R. H. Ives Gammell, and Eric Fischl all contributed to this stream that has now become a torrent.

In my new book, The Figurative Artist’s Handbook, I go into great detail explaining much of this resurgence from an art historical perspective, and highlighting some fantastic narrative work that some young artists are making this very moment. While we in the Figurative Realist movement are very excited to see a revival of the genre of Narrative Painting, I believe there are still several inimitable obstacles that loom in the way of seeing a large-scale revival of actual history painting. Distinctions need to be made upfront regarding narrative painting and history painting, as they are not the same thing.

First, let’s define terms. Narrative painting can be simply described as any painting that tells a story, conveys a point of view. One of the best examples of this type of painting from recent art history is Eric Fichl’s Bad Boy, an important work that marked the return of Hopper-esque narrative to contemporary art in America, albeit in a new, darker context. History painting, however, was traditionally regarded as the highest form of Western painting, occupying the most prestigious place in the hierarchy of genres, ahead of landscape, still life and portraiture. Usually multiple figure compositions involving a narrative about religious, mythological or allegorical scenes from history. These latter images were sometimes confined to battle-scenes or scenes of formal surrenders and the like. One important requirement was/is to be epic in scale (think Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, towering over you in the Louvre), these paintings were meant to overwhelm and move the viewer on an emotional, experiential level. In short, history painting tells a big story.

One major obstacle to history painting is that painting on this level of sophistication requires enormous planning. An artist must create copious thumbnail sketches to perfect the overall composition, figure sketches to work out anatomical details, lighting, form, and color studies must be worked out globally. The groundplane and adjacent architecture require one or multiple point perspective in order to situate figures in believable space. Most importantly, to effectively depict the interactions between the figures by gesture and expression, a cohesive narrative must be present. All of this takes time, and a good deal of training and education.

 History painting faces another major obstacle: the present state of art education in the United States. Where can a young artist learn the skills necessary to undertake such a herculean task? To convey a narrative properly, especially on the level of something as sophisticated as history painting, an artist must have something to say and must have at least basic skills in painting and drawing to make the statement coherent.

 History painting demands the ability to engage in critical thinking. The American university system encourages an astonishing level of conformity in regards to the major political and social narratives of our society. Although this is never stated outright (as it would be bad for business), university students are issued narratives to mull over, internalize. Rarely do we see young artists encouraged to study philosophy or anything resembling a serious study of objective critical thinking within a fine arts curriculum. Instead, university programs encourage art students to indulge and lazily accept various boilerplate and subjective causes du jour in place of their own narratives: gender or feminist studies, environmental and ecological issues, or the biggest cash crop of all approved politicized discourse, racism. I’m not saying that these pre-packaged narratives cannot be authentically owned by a given art student. I am saying that without the ability to engage in critical thinking, how would one know? Most telling of all is that art students are never encouraged to think about economics. Which is interesting considering that for the vast majority of art students, there is absolutely no market for their work, no real ability to make a living when they graduate. But I’ll get to more on that topic later in my essay.

Another possible option for a young artist wishing to learn the art of history painting is to throw in with the atelier system, an important arts educational movement that has thrived outside of the university establishments using the French atelier system as a model. Their main advantage is that they actually teach skills that are useful in terms of realism. Dubbed the Classical Realists by the artist Richard Lack, this movement was headed by Lack and his teacher Ives Gammell, and later by the likes of Daniel Graves, Charles Cecil, and Jacob Collins. They have focused primarily on training artist in traditional academic subjects: portraits, still life, landscapes, and simple nude figures. This “repairing of the ruins” was an incredibly important task, considering the de-skilling that took place in American universities after the triumph of Modernism, and which still continues unabated in many quarters.

I make the argument in my book that the Classical Realists are in dire need of a new name and a new focus. The phrase Classical Realism itself is oxymoronic. The Greek Classical has absolutely nothing in common with true French Realism. I think the term should be abandoned and replaced with the following, more accurate descriptors: figurative art and Figurative Realism. But whatever the movement is called, if they are to be of greater relevance in creating a revival of history painting, they will have to teach compositional narrative as an art form. I believe the solution sits directly under everyone’s nose, with compositional techniques of the great illustrators and graphic novelists. In his book, Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth (1943), the illustrator and art instructional writer Andrew Loomis introduced the basics of putting figures in perspective into a conceptual landscape or interior. To give credit where it is due, it should be noted that while the atelier movement focused more on surface form and observational painting and drawing techniques, it was actually the 20th-century illustration market in the United States that kept the compositional techniques of the French Academy alive. Artists like Maxfield Parrish, J. C. Leyendecker, and Norman Rockwell kept compositional narrative painting alive as an American art form. Admittedly, their narratives were dictated by Madison Avenue ad men. But they were at least present, effective and relevant to modern society in a ways that cannot be said of either the university system or the atelier movement. In terms of training young artists to craft something on the scale of history painting, the compositions of contemporary graphic novels by Frank Miller, Alex Ross, Jamie-Hewlett, and many others are the true heirs to Renaissance compositional devices, and should be taken seriously as such, in my opinion. The paintings of Adam Miller are as indebted to comic book artists as they are to Tiepolo, and that seems fitting in this context.

Finally, there is the pressing problem of newly minted artists, churned out by ateliers and universities alike, and flung into an art market too small or volatile to support all of them. And what of those chosen few who struggle on enough to acquire the skills necessary to find their unique voice and undertake large scale history paintings? Where are the patrons or the market for such paintings? In previous centuries, history painting was largely financed by the uniquely incestuous European marriage of Church and State. After all, these large-scale works were hardly the stuff to sit in some wealthy merchant’s parlor, but rather belonged on palace walls and in grand institutions like the Louvre.

But the modern American version of that incestuous blend (with multi national corporations replacing the Catholic Church as the bedfellow of government) are hardly interested in the arts at all, much less commissioning epic public works such as history painting.

So, who will pay for these works? The two commissions I mention in this essay were privately funded, if that is any indication of future outcomes. While the financials are not yet certain, it’s undeniable that the tide is indeed starting to turn, and across genres at that. Narrative painting requires the ability to tell a story, but history painting requires the ability to tell the big story, or rather, the archetypal story. There are a few artists who seem to be up to the task, and perhaps more are on the way. A new day is upon us in terms of figurative art, most certainly.

Resource : http://brooklynrail.org/2017/06/criticspage/History-Painting-and-The-Problem-with-Art-Education

Art in a tea cup

Artist Dhanaraj Keezhara’s solo show will have you sniffing for tea on canvas

When the morning drink becomes the medium for painting, you know that the artist has been thinking about art every waking moment. City-based artist Dhanaraj Keezhara took 10 years to perfect the art of painting with tea decoction, a complex alchemical process perfected through trial and error. His solo show Chiaroscuro showcases about forty paintings which are testimony to his research on tea painting and his work as HOD of art and visual media at Christel House India. For more than sixteen years he has been interacting with underprivileged children, watched them enter kindergarten and later complete their education successfully. These interactions have created some strong protagonists as subjects for his paintings.

But first, more about the medium. Keezhara (he communicates through his wife who is fluent in English) explains that using tea decoction for painting isn’t as simple as it sounds. One has to get the decoction to behave like paint. Then it has to withstand the damages inflicted on it by sunlight and exposure to air (oxygen) without fading.

World over, artists who use tea decoctions for paintings, have relied on UV stablilisers and polyacrylic to deal with these issues.

Keezhara, who fell in love with the earthy shades of tea decoction, decided to do it differently. Ten years ago, when he decided to give tea a shot, he started to experiment by boiling the tea leaves. Thicker decoctions give darker shades, so he kept a record of the time a particular decoction was boiled. Often the decoction was boiled for days. To give the decoction more ‘body’ the amount of tea leaves used was carefully weighed. For a particular dark shade, he has even used two kilos of tea leaves to get just one glass of decoction. In the midst of experimentation, Keezhara realised that the tea leaves made a tremendous difference. The tea leaves from a packaged box undergo a chemical process after drying. The decoction made from this tended to fade over time. So, he decided to source the leaves from tea estates before they undergo the chemical processing. As he remarks, his friends who work in estates in Assam and Coorg bring him the organic tea leaves whenever he needs. Keezhara has kept all his old works just so that he can watch whether the tea stains would fade or remain intact. Only when he was satisfied by the tenacity of the colour, Keezhara has worked on creating series.

Chiaroscuro has about forty paintings done on handmade papers. It took him six years to compile the works. “Making the tea decoctions is not easy,” says his wife who has helped him with it. Keezhara begins by painting layers of decoction on paper, sometimes applying seven layers at a time. Once he finishes with the tea decoction, he accentuates the forms with charcoal. Art critic P Sudhakaran writes effusively of his reactions when he first saw the works. He remarks how a boy in one of the paintings brought back the memory of “the boy in Mira Nair’s Oscar nominated film Salaam Bombay who is the face of Indian slum life in all its hues of darkness.” As he writes: “These charcoal drawings, with dark background in varied shades made of tea stain, have the beauty of live sketches which you cannot recreate from your memory.”

Keezhara, who is equally comfortable in acrylic, oils and water colours, says that he has always found inspiration from his experience of working with indigenous communities including the tribal communities of Wayanad in Kerala, the Lambani community of Bidar as well as the Narmada valley community during the Narmada Bachao Andolan. This show is therefore, a culmination of human portrayals, tea washes, and charcoal sketches. It has an earthy appeal without peddling slum-porn.

Resource :http://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/entertainment/lounge/art-in-a-tea-cup/articleshow/58672536.cms

Painting Night at the Muse

If you’re a professional artist who has endured collegiate aesthetic schooling with its intense critiques about work and you’ve finally finished by pulling an all-nighter while worrying about line, color, portions etc. — suspend all that as you partake in Christina Wilson’s Painting Night at the Muse.  I admit my inner-self sounded a bit condescending as I wandered through a group of people who were drinking wine, eating sliders and splashing black and white paint onto birch plywood. After years of being a seasoned painter, I was encouraged to see what the medium can do differently once again; I gained a new perspective and appreciation.

Instructor Christina Wilson stood in front of about 20 students at the Anchorage Museum’s Muse Café dressed in a black/white blouse, the colors of the paint she was about to hand out to would-be students who were tired from a long work day.  Meanwhile the staff at the Muse was busily weaving through, taking orders of wine and hearty appetizers.  Black Bean Sliders: a toasted cumin black bean patty, cheddar cheese, avocado, arugula, sliced tomatoes, crispy onions with chipotle mayo, were popular as were Yam Wedges; fried yams with a dipping sauce of basil aioli and chives.

Wilson combines her University of Minnesota art history degree, which included studio classes, with a master’s degree in counselling from APU, along with her calming approach to teaching. Several years with the Peace Corps in West Africa has given her a broad perspective, useful when conducting UAA groups on how to feel empowered by painting, often in darkness with just string and marbles as implements. Surrounded by birch trees in her yard, she acquired a love for painting them and has developed a way to teach people who are afraid to paint or are just plain fearful.

Wilson began by pointing to a finished piece, the example of what students would be constructing. It was about three birch trees, several ravens and a pine tree — a simple composition. After handing out materials: black and white acrylic paint, flat, round and sponge brushes, she held up a raw piece of ¼ inch birch plywood (12” by 24”) and began to paint by laying-in three vertical white lines--students were mesmerized.  This way of instructing is unusual as many teachers don’t paint art demos. More commonly art-speak, which confuses students who get more intimidated when observing a teacher’s portfolio, is the norm. Wilson’s method is akin to watching someone demonstrate how-to-cook, step by step and she knows just how much to expect from a novice.

Walking around the room with her infectious smile, Wilson encouraged students to lay down lines of white paint. Some said they had never painted or had been discouraged in the past by being told they had no talent. With two white lines on one side and one on the other, students now had a composition.  I believe it was Matisse who said a composition begins with two dots placed in opposition. In the middle of the paneling she instructed students to put in several ravens in flight, which could be rendered free-hand or traced with a Wilson-template. Some Googled ravens on their smartphones.

Ravens were being filled in, wine was being sipped and salads noshed as Wilson moved around the floor exuding encouragement. Returning to her art-cart that was brimming with paint tubes, paper supplies, brushes, she instructed the group to load their round brushes with black pigment and outline the three white lines, aka birch trees. With black outlines in place, the trees stood out from the plywood and began to pull as a unit towards the ravens. The next step was giving birch trees definition, which allowed students personal creativity as they dabbed white areas with black marks, defining the birch bark. Fun escalated when Wilson showed students how to use sponge brushes, thus feathering sides of the trees using a quick dry-brush stroke and minimal black paint.

The last element of the composition was placement of a small pine tree, mid-center. Wilson returned to her art-cart and instructed students to paint a vertical black line for the tree and make x-shaped branches in a triangular pattern for limbs. More creativity bubbled as students dabbed the x shapes with texture for the pine needles.

The group beamed as their compositions took shape. One woman said she had come for the evening because of recent health issues and had found peace. Wilson’s classes are about using paint for self-expression and not necessarily to become an advanced painter. However, one student who came to her class has gone on to create more birch paintings, culminating in a show.

The Anchorage Museum holds monthly painting nights and often students bring a friend. Information is available online and buying a museum membership provides up-to-date information via email. Painting is very sensual and is zero calories, too. Famous people in history have used painting to unpack themselves: Churchill, Sinatra, Joan Rivers (who painted in her bathroom), and now George W. Bush. Art, seen as a mere frivolity, is the first thing to be cut from municipal budgets.  Many children are forced to give up art for disciplines that will reap greater remuneration. Stroll down halls of any art school and you’ll find baby-boomers searching for spirituality.  When I was in art school, I met an executive who loved buying multiple tubes of colored oils which he kept in stackable plastic boxes; he hardly painted. Keep on sleuthing for art.
Jean Bundy is a writer/painter living in Anchorage

Resource :   http://www.anchoragepress.com/arts_and_entertainment/painting-night-at-the-muse/article_dee1c9b0-3682-11e7-bebb-bfdc7b486ab2.html

Dear Pemilik Akun Gosip, Dengarkan Ini Pesan Adzana untuk Kalian

Jakarta - Selain mengunggah aib para artis, beberapa akun gosip juga mengunggah orang-orang yang sedang membutuhkan bantuan. Hanya itu yang menjadi nilai positif dari akun gosip menurut Adzana Bing Slamet.

"Aku lebih suka akun kayak gitu, mungkin kayak upload misalnya ada kan di explore aku buka kayak kakek tua butuh dana jualan gini, aku buka gambarnya tahunya akun gosip itu kan. Mending dibuat seperti itu, jadi lebih guna juga itu kakek-kakek jadi banyak yang nolong itu lebih guna," kata Adzana Bing Slamet kepada detikHOT, Senin (8/5/2017).

Ketimbang harus mengunggah aib artis, menurut putri aktor senior Adi Bing Slamet itu sama sekali tidak ada gunanya. Oleh sebab itu, Adzana juga tidak mem-follow satupun akun gosip tersebut.

"Nggak, aku nggak pernah. Aku follow yang benar-benar menurut aku buat guna buat aku aja kalau nggak penting nggak bakal aku follow," tegasnya.

Adzana pun memberikan pesan untuk admin akun-akun gosip, untuk lebih bijaksana lagi menggunakan media sosial. Membantu orang yang sedang membutuhkan jauh lebih bermanfaat.

"Yang ada di balik akun itu tolong, jadi orang yang lebih berguna aja jangan jadi malah kayak jadinya kotor banget nih orang kayak sampah buka aib orang kasihan juga. Mending kayak gitu tuh, kayak ada siapa yang lagi kesusahan butuh dana banyak-banyakin. Kurang-kurangin buka aib orang. Kasihan juga nggak tahu juga yang punya akun nanti pasti dapat karmanya," kata Adzana sambil tertawa.
(pus/wes)

Resource : https://hot.detik.com/celeb/d-3495155/dear-pemilik-akun-gosip-dengarkan-ini-pesan-adzana-untuk-kalian

Veteran artist has a brush with dejection

My ‘soul’ painted it, says creator of Basavanna’s portrait, asking for credit

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s decision to install 12th century social reformer Basavanna’s portrait in all government schools and offices was hailed by everyone; even his staunch opponents cheered him on. But one man is quite upset – the artist whose creation was chosen to adorn the walls of offices and schools. His grouse: no credit has been given to him.

“I painted Basavanna’s portrait and it was inaugurated in 2005 in Delhi. It wasn’t just my skills; it was also my soul which painted this portrait. My painting was in Muruga Mutt of Chitradurga and the government selected it. But when I looked at it, there was no credit given to the artist. This is indeed a great disgrace and discredit for any artist. Beyond this, it also does disservice to the soul that created this piece,” said VT Kale, an 83-year-old art veteran, from his home in Sandur, Ballari.

Kale started painting around 60 years ago after graduating from the prestigious Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai in 1953. He served in Gadag for 12 years as an artist and later joined the residential school of MY Golpade in Sandur as an art teacher. His work, in the form of caricatures, can be seen in several government text books.

“This incident has reminded me once again that there is no value for the works of artists in our country. Lenardo Da Vinci, Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt are remembered as great artists even after 400 years because of their work and also because they got due credit for it. But in our country, people only know the kings who built Taj Mahal, Gol Gumbaz and Ajantha sculptures; nobody recognizes the soul of those artists who made these wonders a reality. It is understood that art is never the recognition of a man in this country. They could have at least informed me that they are taking my work,” he said, with an overbearing tone of disappointment in his voice.

Kale, who is a recipient of the Nadoja award and has an honorary doctorate, served as the Chairman of Karnataka Fine arts for two terms. “I do not demand money nor do I expect any royalty from the government for my work. The least that I expect is the due credit for my work. Not because I seek fame at the age of 83, but for the soul that created this painting. If they are humble enough to give me credit, then the art will definitely have its renaissance in our country. This will inspire many youngsters and artists to create the finest portraits. That is only my wish,” he said.
Resource : http://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/news/state/veteran-artist-has-a-brush-with-dejection/articleshow/58465377.cms