A True Expression

[masart]

I just finished deleting 14 spam postings to this forum. The statistics program indicates that there are over 11,500 registered users to this forum. I have no way of knowing who's a REAL user and who isn't though. This web site was created to share what I do with others and to stimulate, promote and support interests in art. My guess is that this forum is made up mostly of spammers (maybe 95%) trying to slip in a plug about some non art related item. I therefore apologize for the junk that keeps showing up here and hope the sincere users of this forum will not be too offended by what appears from time to time - we're working hard to keep it clear.

I think it's obvious to anyone who visits this site that I'm a realist painter. Even though I was educated in a modernist abstract culture, I eventually returned to what I enjoy and what I believe in - which is for the most part realism. I used "for the most part" in the previous sentence because I don't categorically reject abstraction. I think that art today (whether abstract or real) is rather shallow and void of power and meaning. Most of it appeals to the market it seeks to attract and becomes repetitive and superficial. That same issue can be seen in movies, music and books as well.

Last year I created a set of paintings for my church. In that instance I was motivated to explore abstract themes, primarily because the new building in which these paintings would reside was modern and abstract in its architecture. I was part of the building committee, and once the building project was nearing completion I was asked to consider creating art of the spaces. I think that most people will assume that since I'm a professing christian, that my work would always be "constrained" by realism. In this instance I was compelled to explore mostly abstract themes and I know that stunned some people. I think artists should paint (write or sing,etc.) what they know - for out of that knowledge, familiarity and experience will come an expression that's true - something that will communicate and hopefully edify. C.S. Lewis made an interesting statement which I think is true:

"Creation as applied to human authorship seems to me an entirely misleading term. We make, we re-arrange elements He has provided. There is not a vestige of real creativity in us. Try to imagine a new primary colour, a third sex, a fourth dimension, or even a monster which does not consist of bits of existing animals stuck together. Nothing happens. And that surely is why our works never mean to others quite what we intended: because we are re-combining elements made by Him and already containing His meanings. Because of those divine meanings in our materials it is impossible we should ever know the whole meaning of our own works, and the meaning we never intended may be the best and truest one."

For now I will leave you - the true registered users - with this image and that to think about.

[masart]

Well today about 50 more registered users joined this forum and if my previous suspicions are correct . . . maybe 2 or 3 are actual users - the rest are would-be spammers. In any regard, I feel compelled to continue with my theme, and maybe the new forum member from Belgium is a real person and will be able to read english.

In any realm of enterprise there are, and always will be assessments - some made by unqualified critics, and some by highly qualified critics. Like so many, I too make assessments filtering things through my grid of experience, knowledge and understanding - all of which seems to always be in a mild form of flux and tension.

In our "post modern" culture it seems that we have lost some bench marks of quality - everything is subjective and relative. Standards are reworked to esteem new expressions. Technology has sped things up so much that the market place shifts it's interest and values on the simple, always changing, popular opinion. Anyone doing business in today's market must be prepared to be passe tomorrow on the unpredictable shift of popular fashion - regardless of whether the work one is doing is a true expression, made with integrity and positively contributes and builds the culture we live in. In a recent Wall Street Journal article on architecture the author was dealing with the issue of buildings as icons. Until recently buildings gained such a status over time with some standards of proven performance both structurally and aesthetically. The author lamented that in today's environment spin doctors were declaring some unbuilt structures as the next building icons hoping that the pre-construction hype would propel the work into a venerable status in culture.

Regarding art Pablo Picasso said the following about himself, his work and the culture around him:

"In art the mass of the people no longer seek consolation and exaltation, but those who are refined, rich, unoccupied . . . seek what is new, strange, original, extravagant, scandalous.
I myself, since Cubism and before, have satisfied these masters and critics with all the changing oddities which have passed through my head, and the less they understood me, the more they admired me.
By amusing myself with all these games, with all these absurdities, puzzles, rebuses, arabesques, I became famous and that very quickly. And fame for a painter means sales, gains, fortunes, riches. And today, as you know, I am celebrated, I am rich. But when I am alone with myself, I have not the courage to think of myself as an artist in the great and ancient sense of the term. Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt were great painters. I am only a public entertainer who has understood his times and exploited them as best he could . . . .
Mine is a bitter confession, more painful than it may appear, but it has the merit of being sincere."

It's risky to remain true and will often take one into obscurity. Artists like Emily Dickenson and Vincent van Gogh lived in obscurity during their lifetimes all the while pursuing what they considered their true expression.

[masart]

I was leading a class last year and the subject of objective moral order came up. The idea is that there exists a set of detectable objective truths that apply to existence regardless of time or place. Some people will naturally say that these objective truths have been given to us in holy writings by a transcendent God. While I think that's accurate I also believe they are revealed in creation. I think many of those truths are expressed through beauty - maybe all of the essential ones are. Romans 1:20-21 talk of the truth about God being revealed in all of creation and that even men who are without written revelation have no excuse for rejecting God. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes that God made man to walk upright (having integrity, being noble, pursuing goodness) but man has come up with many devices (counterfeits that amuse and dull our awareness of real truth). Psalm 19:1-3 says:

The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of his hands.
Day to day pours fourth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard.
Their line has gone out through all the earth
And their utterances to the end of the earth.

In his book entitled "Truth Decay," Doug Grotice suggests that just as there is an objective moral order, there is an objective aesthetic order. If that's true, and I think it could be (Plato believed that truth is beauty, and beauty is truth) how do we discover this order and allow it to inform us?

The issue with this idea, whether it's accurate or not, is that it would mean . . . that the quality of art might be measured against an "objective standard." Judgment is a harsh concept in the art community today, so much so that it is almost non-existent even at some some of the highest levels. But I think the idea of an objective aesthetic order is worth considering since most of us do live with some variety of objective moral order. I think most of us believe, or want to believe that some objective standards do exist and standards whether subjective or objective help us conduct life.

[masart]

A little over a year ago I was channel surfing and came across Charlie Rose interviewing an artist named Brice Marden. Brice was at the "top of his game" as he was having two big museum shows - one in New York, which would later move to a museum in Europe. At one point late in the interview Charlie asked Brice what he wanted his art to do . . . and Brice thought for a minute before saying that he thought his art could heal disease.

We've been so long in the realm of reason, everything and every action must have purpose and meaning to justify its existence, so much so that I wonder why we make art . . . music . . . or write poetry or fiction. I've spent almost 40 years in the practice of architecture where most plans and details must serve a purpose. Design and aesthetics are often an after thought as opposed to being the driving purpose behind creation. It's true that there are efforts to keep form and function linked so that beauty makes purpose possible and purpose will have a unique inherent beauty, but as with architecture economy and time are factors that have entered into the process and I think it becomes difficult in today's age of reason to keep form from being squeezed out of the process as function, economy and time exert their influences on the creative process.

Does beauty need to be justified - can it ever be properly justified in an age of reason? We purchase various services, medical treatments, food, housing and education all of which serve a rational logical purpose in our lives. Will we ever see beauty just as important to our existence and well being as shelter, food or professional help? Is it because we can't quantify it, weigh it or measure it's effect that it has such little value? We can all appreciate it's effect and if Brice Marden's claim to heal disease should ever be proven true then I think beauty's status in our minds would change - it already has a high priority in creation - simply observe anything in nature.