"That flattened space of Gauguin, the flat space that also hints at a deeper space, is an essential theme of modern art. Renaissance perspective is old-fashioned, and after the invention of the camera, artists are trying to explore different kinds of space. Now, if you can see a movement back and forth between two and three dimensions, that creates a new kind of energy in painting. And, to me, this is a spiritual energy that affects my eyes, my body and my soul. Modern art can be seen as very spiritual, for it does affect the spirit and soul in a new way. This is not the traditional kind of Christian images seen in the past. Interesting that the Impressionists purposely went for flatness. I have thought they did that because they were interested in portraying light for its own sake, without relying on devices such as chiarascuro or the artificially dark backgrounds that the academics, and even Sargent, used so effectively in portraits to make the sitter come forward. But I know also that they were influenced by Japanese art, which was flat by tradition. But I imagine that the new invention of the time, the camera, also notorious for making flat images may have been an influence.
Yeah, I agree with your provocative comment about the spirituality of modern art, though I'm pretty sure I'd like to exclude plenty of it from that characterization. Maybe most of it.
Meanwhile, I have been looking at an old photograph of that era, of bank robber and model citizen Frank James, which clearly imitates the 19th century academic tradition of painting!
Interesting that the Impressionists purposely went for flatness. Robert Hughes, Time magazine's art critic and author of many books of his own including Shock of the New and American Visions, both of which I HIGHLY recommend for art, had an interesting idea about flatness. He noted the influence of the Eiffel Tower, built 1889. The view from the top of the Eiffel Tower was revolutionary and showed a very flattened world, one with a view completely different from traditional Renaissance perspective.
Yeah, I agree with your provocative comment about the spirituality of modern art, though I'm pretty sure I'd like to exclude plenty of it from that characterization.
I, too, would drop many modern artists from my spiritual characterization, but the good ones are spiritual. Actually, I think many "modern" artists (from, say, 1900-1960) were often spiritual. It's the postmodern and "contemporary" artists after 1960 who are purposely not spiritual, and often, I think, their work is empty and souless. I'll have more to say about these guys later on.