Painting From Life vs. From Photos
I always enjoy painting skies. Part of the reason, I think, is that I never know the result ahead of time. The process of painting the skies is not entirely random, of course, but within the system of constraints I use, there is a large element of chance as to how they will develop. A slight unevenness in the over-painting blue becomes the seed of a cloud. The negative space of one cloud becomes the seed of another cloud. And so forth . . .
There is a big difference from photography here in the unfolding interaction with chance. A lucky photograph is made in milliseconds. Perhaps the result will inspire more photographs to capture the moment; but each photograph achieves its essential identity with the press of a button. Painting the skies is something more like an ongoing improvisation, technical context providing a stable base rhythm. The effects of chance are something I can explore over hours and days in the context of a single image.
Sunil’s post about luck in photography got me thinking about the role of chance in art. I wonder, is there an element of art that does not develop from some chance event? I’m on the verge of saying, art is about the harnessing of chance — except that is an oversimplification, and also I remember hearing it somewhere else before.
And yet, what is the alternative to the random? Religion informs us of the notion of Free Will. Science reminds us that there is only the random and the deterministic. Which makes better art?
What is chance? In daily usage it most often seems to be simply stuff that happens that we don’t bother to analyze (and why should we?) or that seems to have a long, convoluted chain of causes and effects (but what doesn’t?). [Jay, there’s a chain concept for you…]
Scientifically, the notion of random is so deep my brain is hurting to even think about going there. But dipping in just long enough to contradict your penultimate sentence: chaos theory taught us that extremely simple deterministic systems can appear, to all intents and purposes, “chaotic” or “random.” Is appear different from are? Probably not for most artists, anyway.
Karl:
Here I was, checking on an internet citation to flesh out a response, when Boom. Steve.
Steve, you made some of my points for me. But why let that slow me down?
This issue is moot if we adopt the postulate that everything is based upon chance. This might lead to the question of relative chance or “randomness” (Steve).
Say one were to create a chance-o-meter to gauge artistic considerations, then what would the pegs look like? Would the safest thing be a rendition of a plaster cast in some “classical” style. Everything is a given, right? Maybe at the point where the pencil is lifted from the sheet – but Up to then the entire matrix of events leading to that moment is ruled by statistics. How about Agnes Martin and her grids, or Frank Stella, or Sol Lewitt. Statistics all the way down. But at least there is a kind of peggability there.
The other end? Hard to find an absolute there as well. Throw some mud on the wall to see what sticks? Splatter has its rules. Engrave a return address on a railroad tie and throw it in the ocean. Hopefully it returns covered in barnacles and draped with the skeleton of a castaway: all suited for exhibition. Some chance that is. One could guess the outcome. Almost anything one can conceive comes in a human-shaped package. Put on your beret and predict the moment when the guy on the park bench over there is going to sneeze and you might have something.
It is said that Leonardo used to take inspiration from cracks and splotches.
Steve – I’m thinking, I’m thinking.
Chance has limits. For instance, I can predict the results of any coin toss – it will always be heads or tails (unless of course the coin balances on its edge). If I throw mud on the wall I may not know what the shape will be, but I can be pretty sure it will be mud on a wall, and in a pre-determined palette (mud-color and wall-color).
One very interesting way to work with chance is to define the terms or system within which chance will operate (its limits), and then let it evolve on its own. Brian Eno has been doing this for years with his music, like Music For Airports, and it’s also how he was able to create 77 Million Paintings.
Karl, it seems to me that your sky paintings are less about chance than about improvisation. There’s a certain amount of chance involved, to be sure, but the final result has more to do with your deliberate responses to it.
I strongly believe that there are elements of chance and luck in the creation of any piece of art. The percentages may vary and could be debated at length but it is there – like it or not.. The range of meanings and explorative interpretations produced by ‘chancy’ strokes of the brush while painting is larger as the composition tends to greater levels of abstraction. Ripples of water, raindrops, tree leaves, clouds, hair and waves could either be enhanced or destroyed by the same brushstrokes and negative space that you speak about, Karl.
I’m out of my depth here, but to hazard a notion — is it possible that modern art has made chance a greater tool than it might have been earlier when technique and limitations were much more stringent and unified?
I’ve been trying to remember a book (The Language of Ornament by James Trilling?) that spoke of indeterminacy as seeming to become the most important mode of 21st century ornament; my memory says that this, applied to the Fine Arts of the 20th century, might be applicable.
As mechanical devices and replicability becomes ubiquitous, chance becomes one of the primary ways to break through the monotony of machine excellence.
As I said — out of my depth. And the clouds here in Portland today were stupendous. Normally we have low-hanging “dirty” clouds, but today they rivaled anything the Great Plains can produce (except for tornados, of course).
And I like thinking about the difference between chance and improvisation — thanks.
Karl asks what is the alternative to random? The question that then came to mind was – How does the concept of cause and effect fit or compare with chance? Is it possible for something to come into existence, or to be experienced with or without any earlier substantial causes? And therefore is our own makeup a depedent factor in the random things we experience? Can things really be random or is random a term we need to use to capture something so mindbendingly intangible.
I’m glad though that we get to see some great skies whatever the reason! cause! chance!
June,
You gave me something to think about when you say the following:
“As mechanical devices and replicability becomes ubiquitous, chance becomes one of the primary ways to break through the monotony of machine excellence.”
I always search for explanations and am not happy until I see something explained rationally yours is a very plausible train of thought seeks to understand the prevalence of randomness in today’s art…
Thank you.
Can things really be random or is random a term we need to use to capture something so mindbendingly intangible.
Mark, that’s an interesting question. I think that, in the way it applies to artistic practice, randomness could mean “things that we don’t control”. It’s not either/or, of course, but a continuum from randomness to control, with most things falling somewhere in between.
June, there’s another book you might be interested in on the subject of indeterminacy in the arts. It’s called Man’s Rage for Chaos: Biology, Behavior and the Arts, and it’s by Morse Peckham. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on my Amazon wish list (out of print, but available used). Eno mentioned it when I heard him speak here in L.A. a couple of years ago.
David, thank you. My continuum of expression begins with initial control, and then an apparent random behaviour on the canvas is invoked by music for me, and then mindfulness of knowing when to stop and the work is complete.
So on one level I understand and personally fit with the suggestion of “things that we don’t control” whilst painting. I also do agree with Sunil that there are aspects of the random in each piece of art – I feel it every time I paint. Some aspects of apparent random behaviour however, bring me back to Karl’s question “is there an element of art that does not develop from some chance event?”.
I think that some elements of an artist’s chance may not really be chance, although they appear to be on the surface (no pun intended). Instead these “chances” come about (directly or indirectly) from experiences that an artist has had at some earlier point in the past – i.e. the random aspects or brush strokes we make, have some connection to the established and developing subconscious behaviours that make-up each artist. This may offer a “Yes, in some instances” to Karl.
I remain very aware of those brush strokes that can enhance or destroy at any moment!
My own experience in front of The Constellations (77 million paintings) has without doubt, had a profound effect on my own make-up and no doubt contributes to my art of capturing the visual in music.