The Art Class
The Failure of Picasso’s Guernica
It [Guernica] has been referred to as the most famous painting of the 20th century and the greatest of all political art. I would agree that the painting is, indeed, masterful. But as social commentary, the painting simply fails and it fails because it does not and cannot, as an assemblage of visual symbols,[i] pass on to us the important story – that we need to learn from especially as artists – of what happened in Guernica, the small northern village in Spain, or more generally what the Spanish Civil War was all about.
Don’t Plug It Up
The surface of one’s painting ought not be painted from top to bottom, side to side, with every inch of the canvas completely covered as though the surface paint were a wall-to-wall rug. Let it breathe, in other words.
Spirituality Engaged?
I cautioned against equating my sense of enchantment with the more available sense of enchantment, the la-di-da Ezio Pinza kind that one can access without effort…….The kind of enchantment that makes art both edgy and life-giving is the kind that rips us out of fru fru land and yet has us all a tremble as we watch two shadows come together. That kind of enchantment, following Jane Bennett, turns on a revitalization of wonder.
But Wait, There’s More!
For those of you who are still wringing your hands over the crazy outcome of the 2016 electoral contests, I thought I would select ten excellent candidates from the world of art that could finally set things straight. Below are the candidates with strength and weakness listed for you. Just be sure to squint, vote, and start over as often as you like.
If You Wish You Could Paint, You Can
Based upon everything that I was taught, and which I have learned on my own, points to a basic truth: to be human is to be able to create yourself and to be able to create yourself is to be able to create your life.
Short and Sweet or Long and Carried Away?
I guess the virtue of doing small paintings is that there are not the kind of weather problems that one confronts when painting large. Small paintings, to me, are sketches really. Fun to simplify. Spontaneity is key. Bing, bang, boom and you’re out of there. And that, for me, is the problem. I’m unable to get drawn in. There’s not that transfiguration that mysteriously takes place after hours of searching. Besides, I don’t like treadmill, knowing that every time I paint, a tidy, finished product will result. Sure, once in awhile, then it’s play. But regularly? No. Then I feel house trained…..Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy small studies too. But it is the difference between a single flower and an abundant garden overflowing.
This Is What I Teach In My Painting Workshops: Part 2
Each stage of the painting process is an opportunity to exit our ordinary realms of perception and functions as passage to that realm of enchantment where we feel larger and more alive – and yes, with any luck, possessed!
This Is What I Teach In My Painting Workshops: Part 1
There are 5 stages one moves through. The first, Composition (in charcoal) is wiped off when one is certain that one is on the right track, in terms of composition, and wishes to move on to oil…..The four remaining stages are an oscillation between line and color, in oil, where one moves from a very light study that emerges from the white canvas, to a darker interpretation of the subject. In this way, the painting, always complete, slowly unfolds and affords the painter a good deal of control over what she wishes to say.
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