Thoughts on painting III

I made an comment in my previous post suggesting that an aspect of the aesthetic experience might be genetic trait which might have passed down through the ages in a Darwinian fashion. Over the last few months I began reading in the fields of neurobiology and cognitive science to examine whether or not my observation might have some merit. At this point, I still don’t really know the answer but this BBC lecture by the neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran, makes some interesting observations which examine the neurological aspects of our aesthetic response.

At the end of the last century, both neuroscience and cognitive science made incredible, possibly revolutionary, advances into our understanding of the mind, of how the brain might work, of how we perceive, understand and interact with our environment. The human brain is the most complex biological object on this planet, and although current science has made discoveries on an order of magnitude greater than what was known in the past, it has just begun to scratch the surface of what may be, in the end, something that is not totally quantifiable. Never the less, what I have discovered so far is both exciting and revealing.

One of my reasons for reconsidering the aesthetic experience was that I believe that the relative deprecation of the visual in post-structuralist (postmodernist) critical theory was an unfortunate and incorrect decision.

Over the ensuing year I shall try to present an alternative course of critical thought. I shall primarily confine my discussions to painting, since I have been a painter for several years and over the course of my practice I have devoted a considerable amount of thought to what it is I do. In addition, I spent an eight year period at the turn of the century working for a digital imaging software company, there was a paucity of time to paint and no time at all to keep up with what was going on in the ‘art world’. I believe this cultural sabbatical allowed me time to meditate upon painting and what we call art without embedding myself in a pre-established critical viewpoint. At the end of this period, I felt it would be interesting to investigate the topic from a fresh point of view, one based upon my prior experience but also like one I might have naively assumed as a young artist.

The purpose of this commentary is to foster a different course of intellectual inquiry, one which is relatively general in its scope, one which is inclusive rather than exclusive. In some ways it is an exercise of thinking out loud with all its vulnerabilities. The reader should be forewarned that much of what I intend to say will be an intellectual speculation, prone to meandering, and subject to change as I continue my research.

Fra Angelico, 1440, "Saint Francis Receives the Stigmata"
Tempera on wood panel. 11 x 13 in., 27.5 x 33 cm. The Vatican Picture Gallery.

To begin, I want to briefly make some personal observations on what I consider are some of paintings attributes.

Painting is a way of visually presenting information as a form of communication. For the moment, I would like to counsel the reader to accept a broad definition for my use of the two words, ‘information’ and ‘communication’. As we progress, I will take the time to examine their meaning in more specific ways which I believe they pertain to painting.

Painting is about thinking.
Painting is about feeling.
Painting is about seeing.

Painting is dependant on the visual for its power of communication, this makes the visual component a primary point of interface. A painting which fails visually becomes problematic even though it may embody ‘interesting ideas’ or an attempt to ‘express emotions’. Never the less, the thinking and feeling aspects of a painting, when expressed successfully visually, can create a richer and more complex and empathetic experience for the viewer.

Painting makes things stand still. We live in a cultural environment overflowing with images, moving images, and images seen as we are moving. Painting stops the movement to afford the observer a moment for contemplation or meditation. This may seem obvious, but in a visually hyperactive world, paintings long unbroken history affords it a special place among the symbolic objects of our culture.

A painting is just a painting.

Thoughts on painting II

The Aesthetic Experience

Painting is a visual art, it communicates through sight. Although it may use symbolic elements (images, or other symbolic tokens) as part of its construct, paintings communicative power occurs when it evokes an ‘aesthetic experience’ as a result of the sum total of these constructs in both their visual and conceptual (symbolic) forms. Some will argue that the visual is primary, that form and content are coincident, but in thinking about the aesthetic experience I disagree. I believe that the ‘retinal’ and the ‘conceptual’ coexist in a fashion similar to a quantum state, where both exist simultaneously and it makes little sense to elevate one over the other.

In thinking about how one experiences a painting, I began by analyzing what actually happens as a sequence of events over time. I wanted to make a subtle distinction between what I will describe as the ‘subconscious’ or primordial event and the intuitive event. Some may want to think that this distinction is either not there or unnecessary, I don’t. The process in the order I think it occurs.

The primordial event.
I’m suggesting this is a near instantaneous subconscious form of perception which may be in part genetic, as a form of ‘filtering’ in the brain. There is considerable evidence that visual perception is the result of a processing activity which occurs within the brain. The information, as signals from the retina, is processed into an ‘image’ by the brain. However this happens, the brain does perform certain filtering processes, some of which must have had survival benefits for the species in the past. Some of the filtering operations are designed to enhance our awareness of the environment and some seem to exist to trigger other psychological responses which have had a survival benefit. These processing events are not limited to the human species.

The intuitive event.
If you so desire you can say, my primordial event is something that is ‘intuitive’ It really doesn’t matter because, regardless if you make the distinction or not, what I described as the primordial event happens first. It is the minimum basis for intuition.

‘Intuition’ must occur in the brain. Intuition is described as ‘direct knowledge’ which occurs without ‘conceptualizing’ (the cognitive). An event which occurs ‘without conceptualizing’, that is, without active cognitive thought, must use whatever information is already present in the brain. Since there is no way to get information into the brain other than experience, this would have to include both the primordial and memory directly acquired through ones life experience.

The cognitive event.
This is the active process of thinking, reasoning, remembering, imagining, or learning about what we are seeing. It’s the stuff we talk and think about.

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Since intuition has no way of occurring without some form of previously acquired knowledge (awareness) in the brain it must be evoked based upon the (prior) knowledge of the viewer. There is no reason why ‘intuition’ need be rational, in fact with little prior experience or because of psychological or neural disorders, it may well not be.

If ones ‘intuition’ can be improved over time, for example by looking at a lot of excellent paintings, then this suggests that the ‘intuitive response’ is indirectly affected by prior memories which were in part the result of cognitive thought and reasoning. If not, then it can only be a result of the primordial response, which I do not think is the case.

While intuition may be ‘the direct knowing’ of something, this does not in fact suggest what one intuits is correct. People have the wrong intuition about things all the time. Again, this would suggest that ‘good intuition’ is partly a result of good training or conditioning of the mind. The longer we work with something, the more intuitive it may become.

In the cognitive process, one may subject a painting to rational (or irrational for that matter) analysis and try to understand ‘why one had such a strong intuitive response’ I would suggest that these cognitive activities add up as (abstracted) memories which provide part of the basis for later ‘intuitive responses’ by reinforcing particular aspects of ones visual responses by repetitive focus.

If my assumptions are correct we can conclude that the ‘intuitive’ experience will be affected by the knowledge of the viewer, what we might call their ‘taste.’ This will have a direct affect on the ‘aesthetic experience,’ their emotional or gut response to a painting. As a result both the visual and cognitive components of a painting combine to produce the aesthetic response. Beauty is more than skin deep.

Thoughts on painting - I

All assumptions about the stylistic evolution in painting for the last 100 years are suspect. The idea that there is somehow "progress" in stylistic evolution is false. What one might see as the evolution of painting in the twentieth century, the popular path, Picasso to Pop, is only part of the story. It was built on the idea of the "modern", the constant roiling change of styles leading into the future. It was about the radical social changes brought forth by the industrial revolution. (From my remark in the comments section of the previous post.)

Painting and the Industrial Revolution: "The effects [of the industrial revolution] spread throughout Western Europe and North America during the 19th century, eventually affecting most of the world. The impact of this change on society was enormous and is often compared to the Neolithic revolution, when mankind developed agriculture and gave up its nomadic lifestyle." [Wiki] The Industrial Revolution ushered in the modern age and the shift away from an agricultural to an urban lifestyle. Coincident with this radical social change was the invention of photography which provided an alternative to painting for documentary representation.

No longer confined to strict representation, painting in the Modern era (roughly 1840 on) began to explore other modes of expression, which for lack of a better word I am referring to as "styles". I cannot think of another period in the past where there has been such a rapid and radical evolution of pictorial styles. The modern quest for the "new" resulted in the proliferation and rapid turnover in pictorial styles.

If I can digress for a moment here, I concede that "personal style", the way a painter makes a painting, the trace of the hand, can be unique within certain categorical parameters. This is an important aspect of the work which conveys personal identity. It is not what I am referring to as "style" for this discussion. When I say "style" I mean "cubism" and the like.

Painters who desired to make "advanced work" saw the quest for the "new", the invention of a "different" pictorial style, as the path to follow. So here we are, 160 or so years later and I want to suggest that this course of inquiry cannot logically continue. Because the course of this inquiry is closed, it is a loop. Once someone makes a "stripe painting" it becomes a definition and the stripe paintings which follow are variants and therefore technically not "new".

While I have no doubts that there will continue to be "new styles" I am questioning whether this can continue to occur at the same pace as we proceed further into the new century. Is this quest for "newness", nothing more than just playing "dress up" with painting, reducing it to nothing more than an ever-changing decorative fashion?

Is to be the course for painting for the next 100 years? I don't think so.

A Call to Arms.

This commentary started off as an answer to a question Ed Winkleman asked in The Lost Lifestyle "What I'm most interested in here is whether a lifestyle has been lost and if so does that matter and if so why?"

I got to thinking about the implications of what he was referring to, in essence the hypothetical loss of the "café society" and what that might mean. If we were sitting at the French Bistro across the street, given a couple of bottles of Bordeaux this is what might have ensued .

The speed of modern life, or maybe it's just the pressure, puts a crimp into the old café-bar society intellectual discussion. The French are very good at this, they will argue a philosophical point just to argue, Americans are more practical, show me the beef, buy or sell, what's the diff? In any case, it is not something which is currently commonplace but that does not mean it cannot exist.

In thinking about it, I believe that what's needed by the culture, is manufactured by the culture to fulfill the need.

Right now, the artworld is obsessed with money and glamour, it want's to be Alleywood, with a small glam audience that fits neatly on the pages of Artforum's blog and the NYC social diary. So, if this is what interests you, you're set, you get what you want.

On the other hand, I have the faint suspicion that something deeper lurks in the dark shadows, or maybe it's something darker lurking in the deep shadows, of this culture.

Why is anyone even reading this? Is there a terrible disconnect between what we believe, what we want for our lives, and the world as we know it? "They" want us to think about the money, about petty desires, maybe we won't notice what is happening.

I am not talking about political action, I could be but I'm not, I'm just thinking that society needs the artist to think a bit more about life and a bit less about success or money.

To realize that this society is sick, it argues it's course with a soundbite.

It argues it's course with a soundbite, and this glib course affects the life or death of someone you do not know. Should that matter?

Does it matter at all what discourse is put forth by the intellectual communities of society, including the artists? What if I suggested that the logical conclusion of postmodern philosophy is George Bush? Oh my God, how can I say that? Easy, just keep bending the truth, reinterpreting the facts as one sees fit, until everyone gives in, which is what has happened.

Where in society must resistance to this madness start? Why among the intellectuals, including the artists, of course.

It is not necessary to arrive at a solution, nor even assert a political action. The problem is apathy, the acceptance of something which you know is wrong in spite of yourself. It is not the responsibility of the artist to change society, in truth this is a course for the politicians.

It is the responsibility of the artists to reveal society as it is, or is not, to speak the unsaid, to think the unthinkable, to reassert the common dialog so that society can steer its own course. If the artist is obsessed with fame and fortune, society will be obsessed with fame and fortune. Gee maybe we are self corrupting, sounds pornographic, shouldn't it be fun?

Life is not simple, societies problems will not succumb to simple solutions, and just because you think something is right does not mean it is. Western free societies, the gift of the Greeks perchance, are based upon debate and consensus.

If society reduces debate to a soundbite we might as well eliminate the body politic and just flip a coin. Debate requires awareness, and awareness requires information, thought and action. How the artist fits into this puzzle is interesting, the artists is not a politician, it is not his or her responsibility to fill the queue with the body politic. It is the artists responsibility to illuminate the nature of debate itself, to affect by action, the process of debate not necessarily its outcome.

The current American problem is that we are told to be afraid of debate, we are afraid of the truth, whatever it might be, we reduce it to a binary option, a soundbite of thought, yay or nay by whatever means necessary. It is the responsibility of the artist to resurrect the debate, to ask the question, take a position, be political, intellectual, hedonistic, shit just be real, we need the truth.

To seek the truth, any truth, is better than repeating a lie.

What I am suggesting here is that the artist functions in society in a way which is psychic and subtle. In a way, the artist gives license to the culture, if we poke ironic fun at societal issues, a wink, wink, nod, nod, masturbation of acceptance, we in essence, deprecate their importance by avoidance.

If art has any meaning at all, any societal function, it is this, art is capable of seeding thought, refocusing perception, changing attitudes, in essence art can provide a subtle model for perceptual change as evidence that such perceptual change is possible. As evidence that such perceptual change is possible, not some political ideology or some philosophical theory, these come and go with the wind, but the idea that humankind must be adaptive in its thought process is a necessarily evolutionary concept which is at the core of the art making process.

It is 2006, six years into the new century, six years into the new millennium and we are debating evolution and the morality of stem cell research. What is wrong with this fucking picture? Oh yea, the body politic is dead against attempts by Islamic conservatives seeking a return to philosophy from middle ages. Oh god, Salem witch hunts would make a great reality TV show, sex, sin and torture for morality. Let's hear it for morality, my morality, my voting morality, my vote, my my. Oh, you say, fuck morality. I say what is the difference? Life is not black and white, as they say "it's in living color", the question is up for debate.

It is 2006, six years into the new century, six years into the new millennium and I think artists have wimped out, "Show me the check, I want mine while the getting is good, I'll be your whore, will you be my pimp?"

It is 2006, six years into the new century, six years into the new millennium and the world is on the verge of blowing itself up. As artists what can we do to affect a psychic change into societies perception of the future?

If you do not have an opinion about this, then you are part of the problem.

Reminiscing over the "good old day's."

The art market's preference for young artists has been a recent topic on a couple of other art blogs. Edward Winkleman has an open thread, Hatin' how they love them Youngins and Lisa Hunter has picked the theme up on The Intrepid Art Collector blog with Deja vu all over again.

I started to respond to Lisa's remark "... doesn't anyone besides me remember the 80s? It was the same when we were 20. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Jeff Koons -- they were all in their 20s when they got famous…" but my thoughts rambled on to long for a comment.

(Lisa) You're right with the personalities, this was true also in the 60's Johns, Rauschenberg, Stella, Poons were all young as well. It might be generational. Typically artists near the age of 30 are the ones making the waves, setting the new stylistic trends. There are some big differences in how the art educational system and the business of art itself has changed over the last 40 years.

In the 1960's, the idea of being an artist as a "career" didn't really exist. By "career" I mean something akin to being a engineer at IBM, or an accountant, where if you got a college degree, you would get a job and a rung somewhere on the corporate ladder. By contrast, art schools, including the few universities which even had an MFA program, primarily taught art fundamentals and art history, the techniques of the trade, any mention of survival after graduation was anecdotal.

In the 1980's, partly as a result of the success of Minimalism, POP Art and Conceptual art, along with the appearance of new magazines like ArtForum, young artists came out of art schools with some idea that being an artist was a career. I think that in the mid 70's some of the art schools at least made an informal attempt to educate their students on what they should do to enter the system. That if you did the "right things" and made decent work, you could get a job (gallery) or even dream of being on the cover of ArtForum.

Fast forward, at the present, in addition to art fundamentals, the art schools also cover, either directly or indirectly, topics more directly related to establishing an art career including "art theory". The MFA has become a variant of the MBA and the "best students" from the "best schools" will get the "best jobs" This appears to be currently true.

The second major difference concerns the art business itself.

In the post WWII period, starting in the 1950's, with the shift in focus from Paris to the US (New York), the art business has grown substantially. Each of the three periods I outlined above, was marked by an increasing amount of capital purchasing "new art" As this trend developed, it became apparent that there could be a substantial return on investment if a collector purchased the early work of an artist who later became prominent. (hot)

This may seem like an obvious conclusion but it is not quite the case. In Los Angeles in the 1960's, the Irving Blum Gallery gave Andy Warhol his first exhibition of the Soup Cans. I think a few were slated to be sold (at around a $100 each but I could be wrong about that) when Mr. Blum decided that the set of 30 (??) paintings should be kept together and bought them himself. In essence he became a collector rather than a dealer. A collector, not a speculator, for he held the paintings for at least 30 years (I vaguely recall they may have finally been donated to a museum, I'm not sure)

The 1980's saw the birth of the art speculator, as a class of clientele, and the use of the "auction" as a method of establishing or raising prices. Prices of "emerging artists" were "augmented" through the auction market. Artworks were bought from an artist or dealer, sometimes by 2-3 people who each owned a "share", put up for auction and bought back by another collector who wanted the "unavailable" work, obviously pricing took a big jump and the "art speculator" was born.

A rising price has an interesting psychological affect, it creates demand. In the late 1970's, Phillip Guston's dealer could not sell his late new paintings (the ones people today love) at a price of $10,000. Even though they were great paintings, it seems that there was not much interest, collectors wanted paintings in his "established style". On day, his dealer told him over the phone, "Phillip, I've just doubled the value of your inventory" and doubled the asking (retail) prices, the rest is history.

At the present, none of the above observations have been lost on either side. Young artists are taught/encouraged to develop "a body of work" and the means of marketing it as a product. (there is a wide ranging definition for the word "product") As long as the art market stays firm, the speculators are prepared to take advantage of the situation by snapping up the work presumably with the intent of selling it later.

The fact that artists have become careerist, in the corporate sense, helps reduce the purchase risk. I suspect that, in a hot market for an artist, access to the work becomes somewhat constrained and is afforded to the "best clients". Again this is not unusual, with the exception that the speculators have a decided interest in seeing prices appreciate and may help things along where possible.

I suppose one should view this as a win-win situation for all concerned, the gallery, the collector, the speculator and of course the artist. On the consumer end, I believe this is true a good art market and appreciating prices is beneficial. For the artist, I suspect it may be a double edge sword. On the one hand, for artists with a degree of emotional maturity, the financial success may allow them more time to develop their artwork, more time to experiment and confidence, which should not to be underestimated as a developmental force. On the other hand, the pressures of financial success may weigh on the young artist by creating constraints, stylistic and otherwise, for which they are not prepared.

Whatever, it is what it is. As long as the art market stays firm, good or bad, I suspect the situation will continue. Further, an historical precedent has been set, and even if the art market crashed, the situation will be the same when it arises from the ashes again.

Today is some young persons "good old days"

More Gustav Klimt

After the making the previous post, I thought it might be interesting to take a further look at some of Klimt's work. The stylistic focus on line and patterning made me think of the Dubuffet paintings I saw recently at Pace Gallery. Also at the time these paintings were made, the Japanese print had become to the forefront. In my view, Klimt took something from this but made it more uniquely personal.

It also occurred to me that at the moment the zeitgeist favors paintings which are have complicated linear detail. While Klimt may be dismissed by some as "decorative" there seems to be something here worth investigating, I'll append more to this commentary after I think about it awhile.

Gustave Klimt, Austria. (1862-1918)
1913, The Maiden (Virgin)

Gustave Klimt, 1916,
Death and Life
In 1918 the "Spanish Flu" Influenza (1916-1918) becomes pandemic; over twenty-five million people die in the following six months (almost twice the number that died during World War I which was also raging at the time).

Gustave Klimt, 1916,
Portrait of Friedericke Maria Beer

Gustave Klimt, 1916,
Garden Path with Chickens

Gustav Klimt sets record

"A dazzling gold-flecked 1907 portrait by Gustav Klimt has been purchased for the Neue Galerie in Manhattan by the cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder for $135 million, the highest sum ever paid for a painting."
From the New York Times, Monday June 19, 2006)

Gustav Klimt, "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I" 1907,
Oil and gold on canvas 138 x 138 cm
Photo NY Times.

A different photograph of the same painting.
Photo art Archive.

Some historical background from the Los Angeles County Museum including pictures of the other four paintings mentioned in the NY Times article