a multi-disciplinary dialog
Richard reminded us recently about the painter Clyfford Still, and it seems I’m still under the influence. Not of Still, but of whatever it is that makes me make pictures that look like Stills. Last Saturday in Yellowstone we hiked in to Tower Falls and I made the photograph that heads this post. I did not have Clyff in mind while on location, but I find the result strikingly similar to these:
Evening by June Underwood
We can banter about crows all we like, but if a subject has weight for us, then likely it has been touched on in our art. What have we said in that way? I decided to have a look at A&P contributor web sites, broadening the subject a bit from just crows to birds. I present to you the interesting variety I found. What do these works have to say to each other?
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I’m still reading Pessoa, especially his Alberto Caeiro persona, my favorite, who has a seemingly clear and simple view of the world and our experience of it. According to Wikipedia: “Central to his world-view is the idea that in the world around us, all is surface: things are precisely what they seem, there is no hidden meaning anywhere.” Suppose we accept this for encounters with the natural world; how can or should we apply it to looking at art? Can a river, a tree, a rock in an artwork be as innocent of meaning as in nature?
In the spirit of June Underwood’s idea of gathering of A&P contributor artworks to let them “chat” with each other, I’ve gathered a few here to let them also converse with Caeiro/Pessoa. I’ll start with poem 39 from “The Keeper of Sheep,” translated this time by Peter Rickard (original on this page).
Yellow Tulip by Bob Martin
three pears by Hanneke van Oosterhout
I’ve been reading Fernando Pessoa, the quite unusual Portuguese poet. I really like the following poem from “The Keeper of Sheep,” translated by Richard Zenith.
Sometimes, on days of perfect and exact light,
When things are as real as they can possibly be,
I slowly ask myself
Why I even bother to attribute
Beauty to things.Does a flower really have beauty?
Does a fruit really have beauty?
No: they have only color and form
And existence.
Beauty is the name of something that doesn’t exist
But that I give to things in exchange for the pleasure they give me.
It means nothing.
So why do I say about things: they’re beautiful?
…
How hard to be just what we are and see nothing but the visible!
Are the two works above about just the visible, or more than the visible?
For me, Art competes with Life.
Just a few minutes ago, while sitting here, thinking, I overheard my son tell my wife how his friend B.’s sister, C., was trying to starve her turtle because she wanted to get a new pet. On the sly, B. was feeding the turtle. B. admitted that he too wanted a new pet and had decided to stop feeding his fish. They were still alive, though, and he wondered if C. was feeding them. He was pretty sure that she was.
I suppose this is why my expectations for the art experience are pretty high. I look at a lot of work and it is always curious to me when and why a work thrills me and how some continue to do so?
I saw these photographs by Larry Sultan in San Francisco over fifteen years ago. I think about them often.
It is said you can never step into the same river twice. The river flows on, the world changes. But I have a chance next month to return to Anasazi country where I photographed a year ago, and water seldom flows there at all. Conditions will probably be much the same, unless there’s a break from the hot, clear weather of last time. I will probably see some of the same ruins I photographed before, but I’m sure to see others as well. I am very interested to see what will come out of a return visit.
Trikaya
Last time I wrote a guest post here, it was very useful to receive everyone’s feedback and discussion. So firstly a big THANK YOU.
This time I’d like to dig a bit deeper, after all this is “Art & Perception”. So with that in mind, there are three paintings contained within this post; Above the Enchantment, Trikaya and Gaze of Hope, each of which will appear in an exhibition in April (all are 81cm x 102cm). The exhibition, titled “Insight”, is to encourage the viewer to look more deeply at what is seen and to contemplate, beyond taking things at face value. I’m therefore interested to understand what everyone perceives in these 3 paintings – you may recall that I use music during the painting process.
