Here in Los Angeles we have large landscapes by Constable and Hockney in two separate venues. It invites comparison:
and I pose this as a question.
The photograph has replaced and diminished that part of painting which craves verisimilitude, and left only the role of verisimilitude of feeling. (Constable, painting before the widespread effects of photography, had both parts).
Consequently painting, today, seems less true if it is 'photographic', because artists copy photos and the criteria of a contemporary work has become more restricted, limiting it to the verisimilitude of feeling.
Constable, however, was also beyond photographic in the sense of the eye as a camera of imagination. Hence, the magic of his representation, is, in a sense, a bonus. And contemporaries may have lost something in all this, namely, they are restricted* to abstracted inventions of feeling, whereas Constable had an inseparable amalgam of representation and feeling.
Anything wrong in all this?
*Some say this is not a restriction
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The great painting may be about something in decline, but may not be itself a thing in decline. For instance, it may be about pornography, but not be only pornograhpy. If it is percieved as decadent, it will not be held to be great, except by the prurient interests of the decadent.
" Does this really ring true for me? "
Besides clarity, let's examine broadness.
I rarely think, "This looks interesting, perhaps I should initiate myself to what is is about". If I do, I know I am looking at a work that will require some education to appreciate, some erudition.
The self-evident work, on the other hand, rings true without erudition. It has 'universality', has something readily apparent to anyone. Where as the erudite work has appeal to the initiated, is great only to the initiated, which, by that token, is an elite.
Elitism has no place for me in art. It makes art "regional", in a sphere with only those initiated. I am inclined to include universality as an element of the definition of the great painting, because it contains more.
Therefore, another key in the definition of the great painting is that it imparts, in it's potential interpretations, easily understandable and universal clarities.
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The great painting must be more than ambiguous, it must readily allow interpretations which ring true and have clarity.
Somewhere along the line of art history, artists split into two groups: those who use art to contemplate and explain existence and those who use art to play games. This probably happened about the time of decorative and theatrical scene painting, when trompe l'oeil painting was invented, since most painting before this referred to existence and non-existence. Berries on vines were painted on the proscenium that were so real, birds would come down to peck at them. Or so the legend goes.
I always ask myself when reacting to art, " Does this really ring true for me, or is the artist just giving me berries to see if I will peck at them? "
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Making art things matter, whether staid or flip, takes a certain seriousness, a need for truth, seeing the beauty in things most important, as opposed to inventing beauty from something previous, or from something decadent, or from something irrelevant.
A friend warned me about moral truths a few days ago, what one believes as opposed to what is. But just because our belief systems aren't doing the job, doesn't mean there is nothing which could. Simply and humbly, I propose that what is primordial to man, what he was before concocting his various beliefs, is so basic to him that it's true, and therefore would serve him best, if he re-applied it as an advanced approach.
I like an approach to life that says "just be in accordance with what you are". No religion can supplant that. And what each man is, is in accordance with all other men. Man is because he is, not because he thinks. Consciousness is not thinking up stuff. That's erudition. Consciousness is accepting what you are..at the core, a natural being in a whirl of other nature. (One thinks of Constable's concept of nature as an organic, interrelated, changing thing).
This whole thing coming about conserving the planet is a manifestation of where we're to go. Man doesn't want to conserve, but the underlying principles force him to. It means facing up to a reality that just is, not some concoction of our imaginations. It means furthering the work of nature rather than ignoring it or seeing nature as cruel and against us. That's what most people think. So they invest in an illusion, a saviour, nirvana, money, a lifestyle, or the biggest illusion of all, transcendental freedom. Man's not suited to lots of freedom. He conforms readily while believing the illusion of freedom. He prizes "freedom" so he can get away with shit. He lets the sound of his own wheels drive him crazy. in the end, he's part of something bigger than he wants to admit.
But this, my idea is not an illusion. It's right in front of us whenever we're not encased in our man-made bubbles, trapped in tumbling skyscrapers. It's in the face of my dog. The wind in the trees. The moon crossing the sky. It's wherever there is a natural element. It's Eastern in origin. Frank Lloyd Wright tapped it. Bucky Fuller applied it. It's a primordial consciousness in connection to nature. By nature I mean.... how all things work, the oldest of all ideas and still the best. But man, in his designing ways, thinks up too much other stuff (for various and sundry reasons). Now he's totally out of whack. Nearly all his ideas and systems have crashed in mere centuries. All except what he was thousands of years before known history. That continues.
Early man knew nothing of the down-side of agribusiness, manufacturing pollution, etc. For him, nature was alive. And when at his best, he existed with nature better, in the ways that concern us, than any system we have since dreamed up.
I'm not looking into any mysteries. There's nothing mysterious about it. It's a set of cues, not clues.
There's an excellent example of what man should do on the Nature Channel. It's a documentary about the thousands of kinds of fig trees in Africa.. and a wasp. The fig and the wasp further each other involving many other living and non-living things, and have been codependent for millions of years. Millions. It's the perfect lesson for man.
At this point, partially-civilized man needs some more failure before he decides to go with it as an advanced, more beautiful, sublime idea. We need to do more than just look at nature or photograph it. To make art matter, we need to apply the way it works to our lives, regain our relationship with it, use our art to teach ourselves how to live better in the light of everything around us and beyond. Just as Rubens painted his deepest Catholic myths, I think these things are what our art should should be doing right now. And that art could help us come to new life.
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These conditions have changed my view of spirituality:
The rules of man's evolution have changed, in that man, himself, now has responsibility for its positive continuance.
The difference between now and then is that now we have enough science to provide for every human being to the extent that paradise could now be on Earth.
The challenge for business and enterprise is to shift from competition for dominance to competition to provide.
From here forward, "survival of the fittest" is an anachronism, incongruous in the present.
For millennium it was survival of the fittest. Now it is survival of the strongest. And the weak do whatever they can. Next, it should be survival of the just, or at least something better than strongest.
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The great painting must throw open windows of the mind.
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Man is a game-playing animal and art is another opportunity to play games.
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"Tranquil beauty is clarity within, quiet without. This is the tranquillity of pure contemplation. When desire is silenced and the will comes to rest, the world-as-idea becomes manifest. This is the world of art, when, in this aspect, the idea is removed from the struggle for existence.
Contemplation of the forms in existence makes it possible to shape the world. However, contemplation alone will not put the world to rest absolutely. It will awaken again, and then all the beauty of form will appear to have been only a brief moment of exaltation".
Book of Changes
Of the great painting it could be asked, can this moment of exaltation be brought back, experienced again in the manifestion of form?.
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Lao Tzu (Laozi) lived hundreds of years before Christ, in the period of Hundred Schools of Thought and Warring States Period . He is credited with writing the seminal Taoist work, the Tao Te Ching.
Laozi became an important cultural hero to subsequent generations of Chinese people. Ostensibly, Lao Tzu's wise counsel attracted followers, but he refused to set his ideas down in writing, worrying that written words might solidify into formal dogma. Lao Tzu laid down no rigid code of behavior. He believed a person's conduct should be governed by instinct and conscience. He believed "simplicity" to be the key to truth and freedom. Lao Tzu encouraged his followers to observe, and seek to understand the laws of nature; to develop intuition and build up personal power; and to wield power with love, not force.
Laozi worked as an archivist in the Imperial Library of the Zhou Dynasty. Hearing of Lao Tzu's wisdom, Confucius travelled to meet him and browse the library scrolls. According to this story, Confucius and Laozi discussed ritual and propriety (cornerstones of Confucianism ) over the following months. Laozi strongly opposed what he felt to be hollow practices. Taoist legend claims that these discussions proved more educational for Confucius than did the contents of the libraries. Lao Tzu perceived that the kingdom's affairs were disintegrating, so it was time to leave. He was travelling West on a buffalo when he came to the Han Gu Pass, which was guarded. The keeper of the pass realized Lao Tzu was leaving permanently, so he requested that Lao Tzu write out some of his wisdom so that it could be preserved once he was gone, Lao Tzu climbed down from his buffalo and immediately wrote the Tao Te Ching . He then left and was never heard of again.
The great man continues the work
of nature in the human world.
Book of Changes
People dwell in being to seek its boundaries.
People dwell in non-being to seek its mysteries.
Being and non-being give birth to each other.
Text, Notes, Comments
That which is full is made empty.
That which is empty is made full.
Book of Changes
Every ending is a new beginning.
If one wishes to create a new beginning,
he must take hold energetically.
Book of Changes
True greatness depends on
being in harmony
with what is right.
The superior man is careful
in the differentiation of things,
so that each finds its place.
The great man sets
incomparable standards
for the future.
No material is unproductive
in the hands of a master.
Adversity is useful
for self development.
If we wish to know what anyone is like
we have only to observe on whom
he bestows his care and what sides
of his own nature he cultivates
and nourishes.
Pay heed to the providing of nourishment
and to what a man seeks
to fill his own mouth with.
Attraction is the essential principle
of relatedness.
Pleasure shared is pleasure doubled.
If a man busies himself with inferior things
he draws down misfortune upon himself.
If he meddles in affairs and controversies
that do not concern him, he loses his resting place.
The superior man stirs up the people
in order to strengthen their spirit.
Those who exalt the mouth, are finished.
Text, Notes, Comments
Opening the apertures, the mouth, leads to erudition,
laws, decrees, and chaos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao_Tz
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