Art about art

I commented at the end of the last clickback. Now I’ll start the ball rolling here by appealing to the sensibilities of the less successful art makers. There seem to be two distinct camps here: a) those who admire the painter’s skill and audacity (including me) and b) those who don’t. But Santos’ work is fortunately not dependent on either. He is doing his thing. He feels bound to have a go at some of the so-called “sacred” ( i.e. literally priceless?) artworks. And why not? Are they really above critique? Do they really need a host of Don Quichottes defending them to the death? There’s room for everyone, and in particular individualists. Sour grapes never got anyone anywhere. Innovation did and does. Any more clichés, anyone? Is your work free of them? Mine isn’t.

I disagree that Santos’ work is “having a go” at other artists. The message I seem to get from his work is that he can’t let go of the realism to get into abstractions. His grasp of the human form is pretty clearly good, and his ability to mimic other art is also clear but there’s no real connection there. And the figures in his work just look like studio models to me. I like Three Graces and consider it very talented and a good way to define HIS 3 Graces by using Gauguin’s Graces. Sorta saying “chicks is chicks”. I’m no fan of Gauguin. It strikes me that, to borrow from your last article, Robert, artists who are very excellent draftsmen need to tone down their realism when they want to create something intangible. In other words, Santos’ people are too real. My imagination has little to work with when I view his work. He tells me too much. “Apparition” does not look apparition-like. It looks like a woman about to fall onto that guy. Maybe I’m missing something? But about the main thought of your thesis, why not use other art as a subject of art? If you look around these days, it’s really kinda hard to NOT include other art into your own when you’re painting real things. Everything has art on it now, from bedsheets to bumpers, from t-shirts to tomato sauce. I really like Santos’ painting of the woman painting plein air. It might be an inspiration for a piece I’m working on. Perhaps I’ll do a painting of a painter who is Santos painting Gauguin.

having thought a lot about ‘what is art’ I have come to the conclusion that art is in fact a process in which human creativity combines with physical effort to produce a ‘work of art’. Thus there are many kinds of works of art ranging from a mathematical equation to skyscraper to unmade bed – in fact all human endeavour is art & the results of all human endeavour is a work of art. What has happened is that the term ‘art’ has become encrusted with layers of snobbery & cultural exclusiveness in which only the self defined cognescenti have the right to proclaim that this is art & that is not. There are merely different kinds of art which are valued differently by different people. Even this message is a work of art which may not be recognised as such by the artistically minded but it is just so.

This is in response to Gail. If I have not gotten it wrong, you are saying that realism should inevitably evolve into abstraction in order to convey more intangible concepts. I understand, but think that abstraction is only one of many tools to convey meaning, as funny as that sounds. Look at Dali — his technique is quite realistic, but the way the realistic elements morph into each other and are placed change the meaning into something else altogether. I agree that art is fair game for art — everything is fair game for art.

“Art about Art”: interesting food for thought. My first reaction is that one of the purposes that art serves, is to comment on life, on the human condition, in order to provide some insight for the artist and the viewer. Art that riffs on other art seems less willing to explore our world and our place in it than to comment on the exploration – and achievement – that other artists have undertaken. However, I see Santos’ use of historical paintings in a different way. Using historical paintings as a jumping off point, and populating his canvases with eerily contemporary references, may be a way of putting things in context: the more things change, the more they remain the same. “Art Star” John Currin seems to have a similar take on things, in a slightly different way. That said, I’d be interested in seeing Santos use his considerable skill and combine it with intellectual and emotional curiosity to invoke, not only historical western masterpieces, but the world in which we live, and the situation in which we find ourselves. There is still room to say something new.

To Darla–if I’ve got her right, I believe Gail isn’t advocating that realism ought to end up as abstractionism, but that a painting too finished, too real, too complete is a shut out and leaves little for the viewer to add of her own imagination, experience, or feeling, except for the wows of the artist’s technical prowess. Wow…it looks just like a photograph!! Better to leave something open-ended, mysterious, interpretable, unfinished, or “abstracted” for the 2nd and 200th viewing.

Santos work is too perfect, the women are too beautiful, the men too good-looking. Of course this is the way people look in Hollywood, on TV network news, or the streets of NYC. Of course, in New York you would not expect to see us common folks. Santos should go to Walmart to get his models. But then the resulting artwork would be too shocking and might not sell in his life time. Just ask Van Gogh.

One of my favorite artists is Connie Townsend who’s paintings always make me smile until my face hurts. Her expressive animals pared with some great old cars is priceless. Yes, I’d rather be happy than so boringly serious.

I like these paintings…the more things change, they don’t actually remain the same. Isn’t it like doing Shakespearean plays in modern dress?

In Gericault’s painting the arrival meant rescue, but a rescue, by contrast, from much different circumstances…modern life, boredom, the undramatic. The title, “After the Arrival”…does it not raise questions? Arrival where? Arrival of what? Or of Whom? In Gericault’s “Raft…” it was the life-saving arrival of the rescue ship on the horizon. Perhaps, among other things, Santos is saying his rafters are seriously adrift in a senseless stupor, unaware, even, that they need rescuing.

I think Santos is a very fine painter and is up to speed with the modern? culture. I think it is all about “Now”. I think I like it.

I’m not sure if my first comment went thru..but I like his art. Very current. Plein Air, I have seen somewhere, not his work, can anyone help with this?

I can’t take my eyes off the “Three Graces.” The three women are languid and handsome without being tarty. While one appears to have a small tattoo, another has glasses like a librarian. These are modern, confident young women who outshine Matisse’s stuffy attempt at graciousness.

This one is for Sarah, I LOVE the Premium Link page you created for me! You did a wonderful job. And I am so pleased you allowed the images to be larger, because I think people actually need to see the detail. (The devil really is in the details with me.) Only one extra thing, if you don’t mind. Could you please include the link to my blog page? I only just launched it. But it is huge fun, since, like Robert, I am a fairly compulsive and comfortable writer. And It’s all connected to both my art, and to my take on the world.

I agree that Santos’ work is technically amazing, and people seem to love this kind of realism. It was what the Salon painters were doing before they were unseated by the Impressionists. It doesn’t move me. The problem with art about art (and all art is, on some level, of course, about art) is that is can lose touch with real life and real experience. Technical perfection often misses out on emotional beauty.

I have an acquaintance who completed a large canvas of a pasture populated by a single horse — Picasso’s screaming equine from Guernica — toward which was walking a cowboy with a lariat, worthy of James Bama. I was at a local show where an artist showed medium sized color fields with slogans such as “you can take the artist out of the picture” and “yes is the new no” and “commit an act of erasure.” At that same show I overhead a local newspaper reviewer hold forth that Botera was “just more Rubens.” Last year there was an opening that included perhaps a dozen highly idealized, though not romanticized, nudes. In the brochure that artist said he was trying to “get past Lucien Freud.” At this point there is so much art around, it cannot help but be intra-referential.

There should be an new “school” of painting called This Is Art Too, Just Like The Other Stuff. It seems that anything and everything can be validated somehow.

It has been said to me; and I believe; there is nothing new in the world, just reinvention’s of old ideas. I’ve used themes from the masters many times. They were dealing in the discovery of their world and were in search of the secrets of their times as we are today. We are the same in trying to understand the world we live in. The emotional content of great works still moves us today. Why, because we connect on an emotional level. The themes of love, contact, emotion, strife, journey, discovery of self and our world are still themes we use today. The work I produce has these same themes but with a modern spin. My vision as I see it. Artists today are interpreting the world in the same way as in times past only with newer and better and perhaps difference materials. If a master concept worked then, it will work today only with a modern motif. We like to think we are different from our ancestors, but in the end we need to see we are all one and suffer the same conflicts and emotions as those who have come before and those yet to come.

I have noticed that in times of crisis the buying public appears to put their hard-earned dollars mainly into whimsical art works. The work still must be well-done but it also must bring a smile to their well-worn frown-lines. Does this perhaps explain the more recent successes in the art world that have more “serious” artists reeling?

I don’t have much to comment on George Condo’s art as I have my own ideas what constitutes “good” art. However, I do like whimsy as it is usually light and refreshing and have been known to use it myself. As for Krishnamurti’s quote; “Tradition becomes security. When the mind is secure, it is in decay” is very synonymous to “The only thing constant in life is change, and if you don’t adapt, you will disappear just like the dinosaurs did”.

Yours is a delightful commentary on Cesar’s work, one which will, no doubt, increase his recognition enormously. I was a classmate of Cesar’s at Angel Academy of Art, have purchased his work, and consider him to be an inspiration. By the way, he finished the four-year program in two years! He’s not only good, he’s fast — personable fellow with a marvelous sense of humor.

Thank you Robert for these essays, they are very good fodder for any creative person!

I absolutely love your sanity! No matter how late, when I see the Twice-Weekly Letter come in, I must read it because I know I will always feel better after doing so. LOVE your sensibility, Robert: you don’t take things too seriously and you love what you do. On top of being a wonderful artist, you are a wonderful writer.

I am always left with a sense of wonder and self questioning.

The artist has power. This power enables any artist to depict ‘any’ subject that motivates. ‘Any’ subject includes the works of others from ancient times to yesterday. Most still life depicts artifacts made by other artists and crafters, so why not paintings made by others. The conflict arises in that the viewers also have power. Their power enables them to say of paintings that depict paintings: “This is a copy, a forgery, an homage, a clever joke, a well executed parody, a modern view or a poorly executed theft of another’s work or theme. As always first quality work trumps most criticism and reduces may complaints to jealous nit picking. Poor work will be universally criticized or totally ignored.

To Linda Bray Thanks for sending along Connie Townsend’s web address. I had a good laugh this morning.

to begin with — bad art — it begs the question of human intelligence — quote!!!!!! I would put some of this in that context. — More like — kitsch — multicluturalisem — (which doesn’t work) — whimsical — why paint like that —  unless these people can’t do realism & usually get away with such!! Sublime gift — moral-intelectual — supreme — they are not!!!Art should be a mistique — so the viewer can decide — JOseph John — has no detail — can’t decide what it is!! Susan Hollan — what is it? What is meant by this — when mind is insecure it’s in decay? — I’d like an answer to that one!!! all in all — found most of this rehtoric confusing — not much substance anywhere. Thanks.