[Republicanprofessor]

Sam, I want to push you to post some Matisse images that you like and those you don't and tell me why you feel this way. Sometimes he has messy sections in his paintings that I would have smoothed out, and yet I think those very sections give his paintings that modern sense of a work in progress. (Also evident in works from van Gogh to Henry Moore's sculpture to Pollock, but we've already been to Pollock's work in earlier posts.)

I'll go first with ones I think are strong and not as strong.

This Harmony in Red from about 1911 shows the quintessential reduction of line and color to emphasize the quiet, daily pleasures and rhythms of life. Would that I had more time to arrange fresh flowers and fruit on my tables!

These are only two examples of works that Matisse reworked until the forms, colors and rhythms were right. I do think the figures are a bit awkward in the left one (but isn't our life filled with awkward moments and poses?). I saw that left one at the recent MOMA Picasso/Matisse show (in the Brooklyn temporary warehouse museum) and the blue-green color in the lower body blew me away. One gains so much by seeing the works in person with the real size, color and impact the artist intended.

Of course, when you work in the studio every day, some works are bound to be less good than others. Picasso sure had a great deal of less attractive works, such as Weeping Woman below.

I think Picasso here is relying on his skill and style in a more superficial level. He is just whipping out works that will sell, the same way that some realists repeat their successful styles again and again for easy sales. In both cases, they don't go below the surface for a deeper truth.

I agree that both abstraction and realism, and all kinds of works in between, liven the art world today. But the best artists dive deeper to really explore new forms and content and are not satisfied with what has gone before. It is often harder to understand these works, so they are not readily accepted.

[Sam Cree]

I like the above as well as any Matisse paintings. The colors actually work well, and the dancers seem both primitive and happy, the nudity is a pleasant aspect as well in this case. Anyhow, the figures are wonderfully alive and in motion. Plus, it's very decorative, looked good on a shopping bag I once saw. Otherwise I have seen a couple female faces from Matisse that I found attractive, they managed to catch something of the ever fascinating female expression. They caught a little bit of truth, in other words.

But I think maybe the important aspect of what we are discussing here is the self expression in art. IMO, all great artists have gone for that, whether their work was representational or purely abstract. Even in realism, it's not the accuracy of representation that carries the day, but the truth captured by the artist, and what he gives of himself to the work. So I think great (fine) art must both capture a truth of one kind or another and must show us a little bit of the soul of the artist.

Great commercial art, or illustration art, does the same thing, plus serves the purpose to which it is assigned. I haven't looked in "Communication Arts" magazine in quite a while, but there is usually some really eye opening stuff in that publication.

"But the best artists dive deeper to really explore new forms and content and are not satisfied with what has gone before. It is often harder to understand these works, so they are not readily accepted."

RP, I don't really think any of the great representational artists have ever thought they were not treading new ground. I don't think one must do abstract to blaze a new trail. Of course not everyone is really interested in blazing new trails, whether they be abstract or realists. One thing about new trails, they are kind of like finding new fishing holes, not easy to do. But playing someone else's game rarely works well either, an imitation is always just that. Master what skills may be appropriate, but it's best to be oneself.

These kinds of discussion always bring to my mind the question posed by Jacques Barzun (I have his book by my bed, it keeps putting me to sleep, though), if the art of the old masters was realism, how come it all looks so different? I think one of the ironies of "realism" is that the more abstract you can make it, the more "realistic" it gets.

Apologies if all this seems obvious and shallow. I'm having fun figuring it out, though.