Also please check out my second blog, The Painting Archives to see older (pre-2004) paintings for sale.
Monday, April 07, 2008
connection
It's a recurring topic on this and other art blogs--influences and how to regard them--what in our work is truly our "own" and what do we absorb and remix from other sources? The following quote is from British writer Jeanette Winterson's book, Art Objects. After a perhaps overly cynical introduction to the topic, she goes on in the second paragraph to address it in what seems to me a fresh and supportive manner.
We are an odd people. We make it as difficult as possible for our artists to work honestly while they are alive; either we refuse them money or we ruin them with money; either we flatter them with unhelpful praise or wound them with unhelpful blame, and when they are too old, or too dead, or too beyond dispute to hinder any more, we canonize them, so that what was wild is tamed, what was objecting, becomes Authority. Canonizing pictures is one way of killing them. When the sense of familiarity becomes too great, history, popularity, association, all crowd in between the viewer and the picture and block it out. Not only pictures suffer like this, all the arts suffer like this.
That is one reason why the calling of the artist, in any medium, is to make it new. I do not mean that in new work the past is repudiated; quite the opposite, the past is reclaimed. It is not last to authority, it is not absorbed at a level of familiarity. It is re-stated and re-instated in its original vigour. Leonardo is present in Cezanne, Michelangelo flows through Picasso and on into Hockney. This is not ancestor worship, it is the lineage of art. It is not so much influence as connection.
I do not want to argue here about great artists. I want to concentrate on true artists, major or minor, who are connected to the past and who themselves make a connection to the future. The true artist is connected. The true artist studies the past, not as a copyist or pasticheur will study the past, those people are interested only in the final product, the art object, signed, sealed and delivered to a public drugged on reproduction. The true artist is interested in the art object as an art process, the thing in being, the being of the thing, the struggle, the excitement, the energy, that have found expression in a particular way. The true artist is after the problem. The false artist wants it solved (by somebody else.)
If the true artist is connected, then he or she has much to give us because it is connection that we seek. Connection to the past, to one another, to the physical world, still compelling, in spite of the ravages of technology...
I love her line about "It is not so much influence as connection." (!) ¶ 8:09 PM
We are an odd people. We make it as difficult as possible for our artists to work honestly while they are alive; either we refuse them money or we ruin them with money; either we flatter them with unhelpful praise or wound them with unhelpful blame, and when they are too old, or too dead, or too beyond dispute to hinder any more, we canonize them, so that what was wild is tamed, what was objecting, becomes Authority. Canonizing pictures is one way of killing them. When the sense of familiarity becomes too great, history, popularity, association, all crowd in between the viewer and the picture and block it out. Not only pictures suffer like this, all the arts suffer like this.
That is one reason why the calling of the artist, in any medium, is to make it new. I do not mean that in new work the past is repudiated; quite the opposite, the past is reclaimed. It is not last to authority, it is not absorbed at a level of familiarity. It is re-stated and re-instated in its original vigour. Leonardo is present in Cezanne, Michelangelo flows through Picasso and on into Hockney. This is not ancestor worship, it is the lineage of art. It is not so much influence as connection.
I do not want to argue here about great artists. I want to concentrate on true artists, major or minor, who are connected to the past and who themselves make a connection to the future. The true artist is connected. The true artist studies the past, not as a copyist or pasticheur will study the past, those people are interested only in the final product, the art object, signed, sealed and delivered to a public drugged on reproduction. The true artist is interested in the art object as an art process, the thing in being, the being of the thing, the struggle, the excitement, the energy, that have found expression in a particular way. The true artist is after the problem. The false artist wants it solved (by somebody else.)
If the true artist is connected, then he or she has much to give us because it is connection that we seek. Connection to the past, to one another, to the physical world, still compelling, in spite of the ravages of technology...
I love her line about "It is not so much influence as connection." (!) ¶ 8:09 PM
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Thanks for that... and I agree with your post script. This is probably a never ending topic... and that's probably good.
Very good post, great food for thought. Just stumbled across your blog, and am absolutely blown away by your work. Beautiful.
Cheers,
Arco
Cheers,
Arco
Thanks to all for the comments and welcome, Arco (and special thanks for compliment on my work.) I found myself thinking about this "connections" idea a lot as I painted yesterday. It is one that opens doors in my thoughts rather than closes them. (I know that I tend to back away from something that I term an "influence" for fear of being derivative.)
Interesting that Connections is also the title that I chose for my self-published (www.blurb.com) catalog soon to be printed.
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Interesting that Connections is also the title that I chose for my self-published (www.blurb.com) catalog soon to be printed.
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