Why_Is_Art,_Art__Who_Decides

Cheri Alcaraz Professor Tafarella English 101 Why is Art, Art' Who Decides I was searching thru an Art book of mine looking for a piece of Art for this paper. A couple of days into searching I found a piece of artwork that perplexed me, it was all one color. The artist was Clifford Still and Colour Field Painting was the art movement. Colour Field Painting is a when single colour predominates the canvas and when slight colour changes are confined to the periphery. Variety of colour was achieved by rich texture and brushstrokes. The viewer was left to decide the statement the artist was trying to make. Why was this considered art' How did Colour Field Painting begin' It occurred to me that for each of these works of Art there is a movement. I wanted to know how these periods changed and how they were arrived at. Did someone control the decisions; was it the artists or something else' I did assume going into this paper that history did play a big part in changes in the artists styles and themes. I had taken an Art Appreciation class that opened my eyes in the way I view art and how it has changed throughout the years. My new view only touched on the surface of what would be a huge endeavor to find the truth. The political climate of an era had a great influence on artists’ works of art. Wars, free love, woman’s rights and the plight of the poor just to name a few have been seen in famous art work for thousands of years. Caravaggio, Millet and Picasso all had a powerful impact on arts historical movements. What I couldn’t figure out was who was in control of the decision to flow out of one movement to the next. I searched several internet sites and found the definition of artistic movements and a very, very long list of them. So many I hadn’t even heard of and some of them seemed silly or trivial. I continued searching in several art books and found to my surprise that as the movements flowed into the next they took a little of the last movement with them and some of the artists themselves had to do with the change of the movement, making it up if you will. My first discovery was why is art, art' I have always thought of art as beautiful things, drawings, sculptors, buildings. As I researched I found a new outlook on Art. It is not enough to know “Art”, we need to understand it. In order to do that you must know the artist, which takes me back to my first resource. The author, E.H. Gombrich states, “There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists.”(15) You cannot look anywhere today and not see a form of art or design, it is all around us. The homes we live in, the phones we carry, the clothes we wear. Mr. Gombrich states,” There is no harm in calling all these activities art as long as we keep in mind that such a word may mean very different things in different times and places, and as long as we realize that Art with a capital A has no existence. Art with a capital A has come to be something of a bogey and a fetish.”(15) He doesn’t believe there are any wrong reasons for liking a picture or statue, we all have our reasons. It is the prejudice’s that gives us wrong reasons for disliking a work of art. In the Modern art era, this was especially true. The artists would make strange statements that the viewer was left to interpret any way they liked. It may not even have been what the artist intended but it didn’t matter. Some of the art a viewer may not even think is done, which at times was also the intention of the artist. “An artist’s work is finished when they have reached their artistic aim”(*). Picasso quoted this and his words are so true, which brings me to my next discovery. What were they thinking' Picasso made many very insightful quotes, which they alone could open, one’s mind to what the artists were really thinking when they decided to paint, let’s say a solid colour on a canvas and label it with a date. Artists worried about getting it “right”, so much so, we have hundreds of Rembrandts’ sketches to prove this .Other artists left us remnants of their first thoughts and their many changes a lot of them written in journals. Thank goodness or we might not fully understand their madness to get it right. To achieve the right color, the correct harmony, it is what they saw at the time and they what us to appreciate it. We may not see what the artist was fussing over and we may think it extreme and tedious, but in the artists mind he/she knows what they want. They have hundreds of colors to balance till it is just “right”. We may never know how much they suffer to achieve it but I know and it is something no one looking at the art work can appreciate, it is hours of labor frustration to feel you have achieved what is in your minds’ eye, no one can fully appreciate but the artist. I have been drawing since I was very young and I can understand the frustration of not getting it just right, even if the person looking on thinks it is wonderful. It is a process and some of us are more particular than others, perfectionists if you will and that makes it worse. It is correct that the work is not done till we have met our aim. Thank goodness for the notes and sketches these masters left behind for us otherwise we would not have an inkling of what they were thinking, we would be guessing and so would the artists that followed. This leads me to another discovery, the artistic movements themselves. Artistic Movements in history, it helps us define the art, music and lifestyles of the centuries. History tells us that Art started with cave drawings 30,000 years ago in France. These are records of our ancestors, their lifestyles, what they saw. It is this record, of their lives that help scientists tell a complete story to go with the artifacts they find. It is very much the same with Art and these movements help tell a story. Could you imagine knowing about Rembrandt or Da Vinci without the sketches or marble statues, God forbid without the paintings of these Masters, it would leave a hole in our past and future. These pieces of art shaped the inventions to be made and discovered, and the artists that followed. Here is a definition of an Art Movement: An artistic style or tendency seen in the intentions or works of a number of artists, because there is a striking similarity among the techniques, philosophy or goals they have embraced or in the attitudes which they espouse in a( more or less) organized effort. These movements have each thrived for a limited time- measured in a few months, years or decades.(artlex.com) Ben Shahn (1898-1969) an American Realist Painter quotes, “I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none”. Why would they have to, art is about free expression and even when the artwork is commissioned it is the expression of the artist we see in the end result it is thru their eyes we see. Our most precious art, hanging in museums they are our legacies. They show our humanity, our destruction, our passions thru the eyes of these men and women, these artists. These people tell our stories make them come alive on a canvas and also recording it for history. The Monarchs used artists to record their families and to peek into a bit of their lives. The church used them to tell stories of God and his mercy and the angels above. These same artists used it to record the atrocities, cruelties and failings this alone could be another paper all together. I tried for days to reach a real person to interview and had no luck. I tried to connect with two of our extremely nice museums The Getty and The Norton Simon. The Norton Simon said that their Curator’s didn’t deal with the general public and so they couldn’t help me. Since they are in fact in the business of educating people about art, I was a bit shocked that they weren’t willing to help me. The Getty left me with an e-mail address and I haven’t heard from them yet, at least they were more helpful, after all I did call on a weekend. I then decided to call a past teacher of mine Professor Rich Sims. He returned my call right away and was very happy to share his extensive knowledge with me. I explained how I was curious how a painting with just one color could be labeled art or for that matter be part of a whole movement. He proceeded to explain to me how Colour Field Painting was also known as Hard Edge Painting and its beginnings could be traced all the way back to Paul Gauguin thru Andy Warhol. Gauguin experimented with flat panels of bright colors as did Warhol in his pictures of Marilyn Monroe or his Campbell soup cans. Artists admire other artists work and use their own sense of style or expression, these artists formed their own group and a new era of art was born. Now this is not all that propelled a new era or movement but the critics had a lot to do with it. Professor Sim explained that artistic movements developed and changed constantly, they are and forever will be fluid. This gave critics and patrions a lot to write and talk about, they would give thumbs up or thumbs down and this would propel the media or start a new fashion in art. Even some artists would protest at being shunned and this would give them even more exposure. This was particularly true during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s in France. This was the hub of culture and especially true for the art world. Artists, poets and writers gathered there and made history. This is actually my favorite period in history. Impressionism and post Impressionism. The artist from this period paved the way for the most expressive and controversial period in history, Modern Art, the Symbolists and Expressionists along with Fauves and Dada Art were to be a new voice not just a record of history. This would be one that many would not understand one movement that would peak my interest and start this paper. Why did these modern artists have such an impact on History' I believe these modern artists were much more out spoken and I would find that it was this voice that would also have an impact on the art world. This verbal expression and explanation of movements has come from the artists themselves in the form of an Art Manifesto. It could be an Italian writer Filippo Marinett that would start this form of Rhetoric and was intended to shock and achieve a revolutionary effect. It gave a voice to artists, poets and performance artists and started the Dadaists, Futurism and Surrealists. I would later uncover how these movements would pave the way for punk rock and punk art. I refer to Picasso again and one of his many insightful quotes. “The academic teaching of beauty is false. We have been misled, but so completely misled that we no longer find so much as a shadow of a truth again. The beauties of the Parthenon the Venuses, The Nymphs, the Narcissuses, are so many lies; Art is not the application of a canon of beauty, but what the instinct and the brain can conceive independently of that canon… To tell the truth the Parthenon is only a truss on which a roof has been placed”(*). This is a man who is considered the greatest Artist of the 20th Century. I have looked thru several art books with a new eye in regards to Picasso’s work. He had been on both sides of art, the classic style and this spanned to Cubism and surrealism. These artists had a story to tell about subjects that people did not want to see or they just wanted to ignore. These artists told these stories in bold and in some cases not easy to understand ways. That could take us back to knowing the artist, what they are about, what era they lived in this could tell you a lot about their work. Picasso explains, “When we did cubist painting, our intention was not to produce Cubist paintings but to express what was within us. No one laid down a course of action for us, and our friends the poets allowed our endeavor attentively but they never dictated to us”(*). Picasso’s work was inspired by Cézannes work one of the post-impressionists, as I took a second look I could see the geometric shapes of his paintings and could see how Picasso initiated Cubism. If we need to know the artist or time period to know the art then how can the average person enjoy and appreciate the art of an Abstract artist or a Colour Field Painter' I believe we need to step outside the box, open our minds and when we look at a painting or sculptor we need to think of the beauty of the form of the piece just being there. Perhaps think of the time period, is the artist trying to say something or is it a reflection of the artist’s ideas about nature, war or love. Perhaps it could be as simple as appreciating the effort the artist had to create such a work of art. Symbolism was a good movement in art to prove this point. It did not fit our ideas of what the form or what was around it should look like but it was an expression all the same and that is worth appreciating. My point of view has greatly changed as far as understanding art. I would have to say for someone to fully appreciate art they must read on the artists and artwork they are about to experience to expand their horizons. That being said, not all people will be willing to do this but I still think it is possible to understand and admire what is before us, even if it is incorrect. My final thoughts are this; Art is a very broad subject open to interpretation. Because of this it is very hard to say who is right or wrong. I would want to know if it would be possible to leave more information for those who are new to art and museums or make people more accessible. I would want to know, how are the values of art assessed or is it just how much someone is willing to pay' A painting of Picasso’s sold in 1950 for 30,000 dollars and just recently the same painting sold again for 104,108,000 dollars. Is it for the appreciation of art or is it, I just got to have one attitude' I would also want to delve more into the movements and learn about the transitions of the movements to acquire new perspectives and appreciate the artists and their endeavors even more. Works Cited Page 1. Gombrich, E.H. The Story of Art. New York, NY: Phaidon Press Inc, 2006. 2. Kliener, Fred S. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages : Western Perspective Thirteenth Edition. Boston Ma: Wadsworth, 2006. 3. O’Mahony Mike World Art: The Essential Illustrated History. London: Star Fire Publishing, 2006. 4. Interview- Self Conducted. Sims, Rich. Telephone Interview. 1 May, 2010 5. Delahunt, Michael. Home page. Http://www.artlex.com 6. Moffet, Charles. www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/cubism/pablopicasso.html 7. Http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/pablo_picasso 24 March,2010 Boisgeloup, 1934- letters of Great Artists – From Blake to Pollock (*)