Art Appreciation/Education "class" #8: Pollock and Abstract Expressionism.

8/22/05 | republicanprofessor

[Republicanprofessor]

Okay, I'm back from my (awesome) trip across the country and want to finish this series of "Art Appreciation/Education" lectures before the school year begins.

Now, keep your minds open as you read this. I know that most of you will not appreciate this work, nor agree with my ideas, on the first run-through. Keep your eyes open, your mind open, and then let me know your thoughts. Try to be specific about why these works do or do not work for you. And let me know what other works you do like from this time.

[Republicanprofessor]

Art Appreciation/Education ping.

Let me know if you want on or off this list.

I plan one more "lecture" on Pop and Minimal art, and how they reacted to the deeper content of Abstract Expressionism, as well as one on postmodernism. Then I may take your requests on other topics.

[Republicanprofessor]

Hello you two.

I know that you wanted to be added to the regular art ping list, but I thought I'd ping you here too in case you wanted to be added to this list as well.

And just in case anyone is just catching this series for the first time, the previous posts are:

class 7: American Modernism: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1440373/posts

class 6: Surrealism: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1427099/posts

class 5: Cubism: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1427099/posts

class 4: Expressionism: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1424087/posts

class 3: Cezanne and van Gogh; http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1419876/posts

class 2: Impressionism and Post-Impressionism; http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1414727/posts

class 1: Realism: Manet and Homer; http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1410117/posts

[AnAmericanMother]

OK! I'll put my two cents in. I could just blow this off as meaningless splatters of paint or the use of imperfectly applied masking tape . . . but you are taking it seriously, so I will try to also.

You have approached this from something of a historical perspective, citing Jung and other explorers of the "collective unconscious." To that extent, I AGREE with you -- but with a twist.

Most of these works are examples of the collective unconscious . . . but it's yours (and mine), not theirs. Human beings desperately want order, and reason, and explanation, and pattern. Otherwise we despair.

We see the random patterns or the minimal lines and we wish to impose order and explanation on them. Those who are in the field, so to speak, develop elaborate explanations to bring order out of chaos and meaning out of meaninglessness. But the artist is not creating the order or the explanation -- the viewer is. So if there's an artist here, it's the viewer or the professor, not the person who put the paint on the canvas. The closest analogy is perhaps Dr. Rorschach's ink blots -- where the blot is just a blot and the interpretation placed on it by the patient is indicative of his state of mind, not the state of mind of Dr. Rorschach . . .

I have heard art critics explain that this IS art . . . that the artist is providing a valuable service in giving the viewer something to exercise HIS interpretive talents on. But of course what that means in the final analysis is that the artist is NOT interpreting, explaining, or really creating art in any traditional sense. Therefore he is not doing his job.

I wonder if the high rate of tragic deaths and suicides among these painters had anything to do with the realization that their efforts were only a half a creature, so to speak?

[Sloth]

We see the random patterns or the minimal lines and we wish to impose order and explanation on them. Those who are in the field, so to speak, develop elaborate explanations to bring order out of chaos and meaning out of meaninglessness. But the artist is not creating the order or the explanation -- the viewer is. So if there's an artist here, it's the viewer or the professor, not the person who put the paint on the canvas. The closest analogy is perhaps Dr. Rorschach's ink blots -- where the blot is just a blot and the interpretation placed on it by the patient is indicative of his state of mind, not the state of mind of Dr. Rorschach . . .

Well said.

[John O]

My father, who loved New England landscapes with white houses, red barns and mountains, would never have understood a Pollock, no matter how hard I tried.

Something tells me that your father and I share similar tastes in art.

Pollock's works all look like ugly wallpaper. Most of the color block type painters work looks like bad clothing design. None of this would pass the sofa test.

This is the sort of work that gets the national endowment for the arts into the trouble it always is in. (Beside the fact that it is an unconstitutional expenditure of public funds in the first place) This is all trash. Looks like trash and will always be trash. I'm amazed that some people were actually hoodwinked into paying for this stuff. But then again a sucker is born every minute.

[John O]

I wonder if the high rate of tragic deaths and suicides among these painters had anything to do with the realization that their efforts were only a half a creature, so to speak?

Now that is a great point. Perhaps they aspired to be great artists and saw that they (as evidenced by their works) fell woefully short and couldn't handle their failure.

[Lady Jag]

Thank you!!!

I have only briefly checked one of your links, but it's enough to know your post is wonderful and is going absorb a lot of my reading today.

Thank you for thinking of us and keep me on that list of yours!

[retrokitten]

Thanks for these threads. I don't post much, if at all, to them, but I read them all and have learned much.

[AnAmericanMother]

A thought just occurred to me . . .

I don't know if you've ever read neurologist Oliver Sacks's book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, but the title story seems applicable here.

Sacks was called in to consult on a very learned professor of music whose wife was concerned about his having developed somewhat bizarre quirks. In conversing with the professor's wife, he commented on the professor's paintings which were displayed on the walls. The earlier paintings were representational, but became progressively more and more abstract, until finally the last ones were mere blobs and splashes of paint. The professor's wife responded to Sacks's guarded criticism of the later paintings with the same defense that is given of Pollock et al. . . . "Oh, you don't understand! He has freed himself from the trammels of representationalism and is expressing pure art!"

Unfortunately, the poor man was suffering from a tumor or degenerative process of the visual centers of his brain . . . he could no longer comprehend what he saw, even common household objects like a glove (or his wife's head). Fortunately, he was still a brilliant musician and music "integrated" his deficiencies and enabled him to function. Sacks had the wit to realize this and recommended that the professor live entirely for his music . . . which he did until he died.

[Sam Cree]

Thank you for posting links to your previous classes. I've got them bookmarked now. I regard them as valuable reference summaries.

Haven't had a chance to read the post yet, but will comment when I do.

I think that everyone is very pleased at your sudden reappearance!

[Republicanprofessor]

Reply to your post #4. I do believe that it is often the critics and professors who come up with the content that I discussed above. But Pollock did do some works with mythic titles, as in the Male and Female seen below, so I don't think the Jungian interpretation is far off the mark as far as he is concerned.

And I also agree that sometimes too much is written to give credence to what is ultimately empty work (and this is definitely true of much minimalism and postmodernism). But the content of Abstract Expressionism still rings true to me, and I believe all that I wrote (although, as I said, it took me some years to see things that way). Just because Pollock did not write about the use of line, planes, etc. doesn't mean that those ideas weren't important in his work. He was notoriously non-verbal.

As for elaborate interpretations of art, check out all the volumes that have been written about Michelangelo and Botticelli involving various levels of theory about their work, including neoplatonic interpretations of the Medici Chapel and Primavera. Many times the artists may not write (or even discuss) these ideas, but others see them, and I think that if artworks can be read on several levels, so much the better.

Have you seen any Pollocks in person? The larger ones are quite energizing, and that's the only way to really see them. I don't think all his works are great, but One and the others of that ilk are awesome.

I knew I would get some disagreement from you. We can always continue this debate....ad infinitum. That's what makes FR such a fun place.

[Rembrandt_fan]

By all means ping me. And thanks.

[Rembrandt_fan]

A thoughtful post, but I'm a little unclear on what you're trying to say. Are you saying that because Pollack, Rothko, et al produced works which sometimes defy a single interpretation, that they are failing to perform one of the single-most important goals of the artist, that is, to offer meaning/order to chaos, thus their art is incomplete?

Perhaps that is true of some of their works some of the time, but I think it telling that Pollack, for example, was very specific on what portions of his paintings were 'up' and 'down' when he dealt with museums and private buyers, which wouldn't be true, I don't think, if he thought of his works as a kind of Rorschach test of the collective unconscious, where any interpretation is as valid as the next. Or Rothko. I've seen several Rothko paintings in person; the plate reproductions in books simply don't do justice to the man's mastery of color. I was awash in gold and yellow and red and orange, viewing the one I saw in Chicago many years ago. It was warm and invigorating and powerful and, well, big. One doesn't look at a painting like that; one experiences it.

I don't think they created meaningless swaths and blotches. What they did mattered, at least to me. As an artist, if I wanted to faithfully depict the real world, I'd buy a camera. Otherwise, I just keep doing what I'm doing. To each his own, I suppose.

[AnAmericanMother]

As an artist, if I wanted to faithfully depict the real world, I'd buy a camera.

That's a throwaway line that almost any photographer can tell you is NOT true. The camera does not faithfully depict the real world (although certainly when it first made its appearance artists thought it did and saw it either as a challenge or a threat.) It distorts, it flattens, it emphasizes . . . It can capture a lot of detail in the blink of an eye, but so did the pre-Raphaelites . . .

(I'm no painter, but I was a general factotum and tripod-carrier for a very good photographer in my misspent youth.)

[AnAmericanMother]

I understand what you are saying, and to a (very slight < g >) degree I am pulling your chain.

It's plain that Pollock invested a lot of time and thought and energy in what he was doing . . . and that must have some effect on the output. At least I HOPE so because the thought of all that devotion just going to waste is depressing.

[Rembrandt_fan]

You're right, the buy-a-camera line is a copout, but only because I didn't want to get into the abstract vs. realism argument. While not an educator, I think art students should be taught sound draftsmanship fundamentals; i.e., perspective, shading, basic anatomy, and so on, but for me, personally, artistically, I get no creative satisfaction from nor do I measure the completeness of a work by how well the piece looks like the real thing. As a matter of personal taste, I can't stand the work of Pre-Raphaelites. Holman Hunt, for example, makes me cringe. Again, we're talking personal tastes, here. Some people love Holman Hunt's work. (shudder)

[AnAmericanMother]

I like some of the pre-Raphaelites, but not because they are representational (quite the contrary - I suppose you could call it hyper-realism, but it isn't really. It's almost hallucinatory.)

The one I REALLY can't stand is Rosetti, because he can neither draw nor handle perspective. More or less a poseur.

But Holman Hunt has his moments.

[Republicanprofessor]

Do you have titles for the last four pieces? I know the Lady of Shallot as the third one down, and it is stunning in person (much lighter and full of detail). But the one at the top has me stumped.

I don't like the pre-Raphaelites very much; too much detail and distraction for me, I think. Also, I never got how they were like the "primitives" before Raphael. They always seem super-sophisticated to me. Some people swear by them, and there are some good pieces (like Rossetti's Annunciation below). I guess I just like simpler works.

[AnAmericanMother]

For some reason Rossetti got his act together for The Annunciation (even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then.)

I think the "Brotherhood" was pretty silly, more or less on the level of college secret societies, but maybe a little bit more sophisticated. I also never understood how they considered themselves "primitive" - the last word I would use to describe the lot of them (although Rossetti unfortunately is frequently primitive, especially in his preparatory sketches.) . . . but still, they turned out some good work.

The four pictures in order are "Found" by D.G. Rossetti, in the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington (nobody else wanted it); "May Morning, Magdalen Tower" by W.H. Hunt (showing the May sunrise choral service on top of the college tower at Magdalen (Oxford). What the Parsi is doing there is anybody's guess), Birmingham (ENG not AL) Art Museum; "The Lady of Shallott" also by Hunt, in the Manchester City Art Museum; and "A Street Scene in Cairo (the Lantern-Maker's Courtship)" also by Hunt, and also in Birmingham. The last was painted on his Middle Eastern tour -- he went to gather material for his Biblical paintings like "The Scapegoat" and "Christ Discovered in the Temple."

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room
She saw the water lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide,
The mirror cracked from side to side,
'The Curse is come upon me,' cried
The Lady of Shalott.

- Tennyson

Here's another darned odd painting by Hunt - "The Triumph of the Innocents".

On the flight into Egypt, the Holy Innocents slaughtered by Herod appear to the Holy Family, holding symbols of their martyrdom. The infant Jesus sees them and holds out to them the wheat in the ear (that will become the Bread of the Eucharist). The little globes of water rising from the stream contain images of salvation prophecy. The Virgin's face is painted in two different versions (one in Liverpool, one in the Tate) - in this version, she has the serene and somewhat mysterious look of a pagan goddess.

(kind of a heavy theological burden for one painting, though it's a large one!)