Recently, I make a trip to the Cleveland Museum of Art to seek inspiration and visit some “old friends”.  While I have reservations about museums being the best place to view artwork I do like how an artist can stand out in a mix.  John Sloan’s A Woman’s Work has always been one of those paintings for me.

What cannot be represented in a photograph is the presence a painting has in its environment.  Some paintings seem to reflect light, others suck it up or negate it entirely.  What makes this painting stand out is that it seems to glow and soften next to the other paintings within the same space.  It is like a repose in the corner that you find yourself slowly gravitating towards.  Willem De Kooning once said that he liked to create doors within his paintings.  A way in and a way out of the composition.  You could say that for me this particular Sloan painting was a door out of this gallery or space.  Museums are jammed with work that could drive you nuts were you to devote time to each piece.  The actual experience of viewing a piece factors in these kinds of ideas subconsciously.  Fatigue, boredom, levity or inspired mania can all direct the way the you respond to a painting.

It is a medium sized painting, possibly smaller next to some historical pieces or landscapes, so when it is placed at eye level you acknowledge the borders immediately and are able to view it as an image.  To clarify, some landscapes are just enormous and you can lose yourself in their space if you step in deep enough.  This painting immediately registers as a painting, that illusion of depth and space is second to design, paint and color.  As a result the construction of the various elements of its design are directed in order to present a scene that is organized, thoughtful and clear.  Sloan’s experience as an illustrator definitely speaks to his inclinations for presenting an image such as A Woman’s Work as a social narrative or snapshot.  He composed this painting of large vertical shapes and a palette of neutral colors where the highest contrast is the white clothing that the woman collects into her basket.  You are drawn into the subject of the painting and you can take time to let it sink in a bit due to the reduction of contrast on the fringes of the composition.  Devices like ladders and shadows draw you back to the focal point if you do make your way around the canvas.  A painting like this is deceptively simple, there is sophistication and directness in how the painting accomplishes it’s goal without beating you over the head to make it’s point.  Just like you can sit back and enjoy Billy Holiday sing Autumn in New York and pleasantly get lost in the melody and tone of her voice, that kind of simplicity and effortlessness has depth and emotion.  Paintings don’t always have to be dynamically provocative in order to raise some eyebrows.  This painting has that kind of quality to it, especially when it is right next to Bellow’s Stag at Sharkey’s.  On that particular evening at the Cleveland Museum, a little fatigued, John Sloan took me for a nice ride and I appreciated that.

Richard Diebenkorn painted this Cityscape in 1963 in oil on canvas at 60.25 x 50.5 inches.  Recently there was an ad in an art magazine about a new publication of the Ocean Park Series and while this particular painting is not of that series I felt compelled to write about it for a little bit.

Initially references to Edward Hopper are present in the painting by the strong commitment to natural light and local color.  You could say that Diebenkorn dispenses with some of the pleasantries of a Hopper by allowing paint to be paint.  While the painting works in terms of perspective, a relatively high horizon line within the composition makes the painting function on an abstract level.  Broken colors within the shadows functionally describe pregnant spaces while allowing the medium some expressive qualities.  Similarities with Fairfield Porter and De Kooning can be seen in this respect, a liberation from the arduous polish of traditional painting.  There is a wonderful neutrality in a painting like this between the influence of the “image” and the power of the “paint”.   This painting has always stood out as a middle ground between representation and abstraction where you can effectively read the process of it’s construction.  This of course becomes the artist manifest.

Paintings can be viewed in a variety of ways.  Someone may take from this picture a “Cityscape” that is a little abstract, but recognizable enough to warrant appreciation for things like light and perspective.  Another may see this as a field of study in terms of language and creative problem solving i.e. broken spots of color that communicate the dry grass fields without literally mixing down these transitions.  There is merit in both ways of looking at this work, and often both are equally considered.  It is always interesting though when painting becomes a game of chess.  The organization of pictorial elements and technical flourishes communicate that this is not simply a genre painter, but a conscious individual who has reached a point in their career that they can fall back on their painting foundation and assemble an image that is unique and personal while remaining formally challenging.  There is a trend in a lot of contemporary painting to essentially pick and choose technical devices used by another artist in order to create the allure of sophistication, like some sort of formula.  If you look hard enough you can see through these empty “ghost paintings” that merely imitate an effect rather than take the time to explore the language of painting genuinely.  At the risk of sounding like an elitist, spend time and understand what was going on in the world of painting during the beginning and middle of the last century and use that knowledge to look critically at the art of today.  Diebenkorn is someone worth looking at and he could be a gateway into more abstract works if that is something not all that interesting to the viewer.

Back in March 9th – May 22nd of 2006 there was a show at Neue Galerie of Paul Klee’s work.  The show was called Klee and America.  It has been some time since I attended this show, so I can not necessarily speak too much about the concept of the show. The title itself leads towards a general relationship to primitive American art and Paul Klee’s work.  What I remember distinctly is the scale of the work as small and ambitious in terms of color and design.

What makes Paul Klee interesting is the personalization of his art.  Often there are two directions one can go when trying to make something “new”, one being philosophical the other experience based.  Both have merits, yet often work of a philosophical nature tends to create concepts of a broader nature while experience based ideas are often more eclectic and personal.

This particular piece illustrates Klee’s use of angular shape, surface and color to create a specific mood.  Titled “The Destroyed Place”, appropriate technique is used to physically represent a lack luster scene of tilting houses. An analogous palate of cooler necrotic blues and purples creates a feel of death as well as scratches on the surface drift across the picture plane like thin gusts of wind.  Klee furthers this by placing crosses in varying places in the composition to add symbolic representations of depravity.  It is also interesting note the use of white in contrast to its common use as a highlight, leaning more towards a ghast luminosity that feels negative relative to its value.  Using white for its cooler properties against colors that are washy, scraped and inherently cool is a testament to color theory.  Klee developed this process through experimentation with the properties of color and the physical capabilities of his medium.  As a double edged sword however, the eclectic nature of his work creates a rift between the viewer and the painting.  On one side his work is a celebration with humor and verve, on the other the work is less accessible for all of these merits.  Art is a challenge, and those looking to drive deep into the consciousness of that entity have to sacrifice a part of themselves to see anything of value.

When the name Max Beckman is spoken aloud some label such as expressionism, verism, or new objectivity usually follows. There is a questionable desire to classify Beckman’s work in a way that alludes to that particular speaker’s “creative” interpretations.  This is deplorable, Beckman himself would agree, his art is at the service of “self” and as such it is less appropriate for a simple categorization.

This particular work Night was created in 1922, the medium I am not certain.  When considered as a drawing there are several interesting things going on which can shed light on Beckman’s interests.   Allusions to structure define this household’s psychology in an interesting way. Having the left and bottom figures break the picture plane, framing the image more dynamically than the actual wooden structure of their environment creates drama and content.  This gives a certain presence to the figures as larger than life. Their scale when juxtaposed against the crouched figure in the background who is much smaller also contributes to their importance.  This is a beautiful example of compositional experimentation and how it can be used to create dynamic and engaging narratives.  Within the composition form is modeled in a very specific way adding an interesting tone which seems appropriate to what is literally depicted.  It is a heavy handed, directly applied network of line that communicates superficially the relative textures and figuration while at the same time, depth of emotional disposition.  This is no easy task.  After managing this, Beckman creates several symbols within the picture that add specificity to the psychological effects of the formal decisions.  A solitary lamp or a skewed window with a view not of distance and nature, but clutter and confinement creates the imposing dread of potentially six similar situations to the one present. This really starts to describe these characters and their lives.  The girl in the foreground is bending her arm backwards just to fit in the space provided her, this can be read into for content or taken as relative to her living conditions.  Actually, you can begin to identify Beckman as the figure in the background who is being imposed upon by everything which has reduced him in scale and posture.

Work like this is complicated.  Beckman is not an artist that is generally accesible to people.  He portrays the ugliness of life, the pychological reality of it.  It is thick stuff to sort through and this is only one aspect of a much broader body of work.  For all of Beckman’s expressive capabilities you can see why people want to place him in certain movements.  This however, only cheapens the experience.  Look at Beckman’s work for the man, and as a concerned artist of the early 20th century look at him for a reflection of the times.

What separates art from experience?  It seems like a simple question, however there are resulting complications.  It is a question that is too broad for a simple investigation.  If experience is fundamental to perceiving reality, then art is a form of perceiving that experience.  Basically, the more complicated it gets as you conceptualize art you begin to realize that the most essential parts are missing.  There is an emptiness that results from such inquiry.  You lose the innocence of that experience to words or other indirect forms of communication, unconsciously creating a model from a conceptual analysis by which judgments on art and experience in general are made.  I will stop here before I lose sight of the point.

So, the painting.  A wave is essentially the superficial structure of a bigger more complicated series of events.  I do not know the science behind any of this, but more simply, a wave is what we see or directly experience.  So, on the surface these paintings seem to be pretty straight forward.  Kanevsky tends to work with washes and layers that evolve into a subject over repeated sessions.  By painting waves he finds a parallel between the process he uses and the subject.  The waves are everchanging, but they are always waves, repeating simliar characteristics that represent and reaffirm its existence.  When Kanevsky paints a series of waves throughout a number of sessions, he is painting the experience of waves and the general concept of such a thing from the variety of his observations.  It is a compelling notion, that a wave cannot be objectified into static singular entity because the wave itself is a superficial part of a larger concept.  By doing this type of painting he is highlighting the transcendent aspects of nature.  When this is realized it is easy to see that the waves can metaphorically represent any subject, or that this is just a painting of water crashing down towards a nondescript shore line.

In the vein of Willem De Kooning, Cecily Brown’s paintings spurt forth with liquid like surfaces of copulating figures hidden behind the turbulent orgasmic finale.  There seems to be a time line in each painting which is decipherable based on the relative coherence of the underlying subject.  We can perceive many of Brown’s paintings as a final act immortalized.

De Kooning’s “Excavation” or “Clam Diggers” seems to indeed be the catalyst for Brown’s foundational structure.  It deals with the immediate relationship with the viewer and the artwork.  Instead of thinking in terms of pictorial navigation within the confines of the picture plane, both artists consider the actual physical space surrounding the work of art.  It is a variation on the existential painting question, “what is painting?”.  Brown chooses to align herself with concrete concepts of painting, the basic human responsiveness to an artwork.  De Kooning equated it to the equivalence of being flashed by a girl in a coat.  If we are to look at a painting shouldn’t it demand our attention, pique our curiosities?  Paintings are unable to exist independent of a viewer, so if they fail to attract one then they are a failure in their root purpose.  It is under these principles that Brown creates images of such an alluring nature that plays on the human aspect.

If you consider the paintings in terms of the aforementioned criteria some of the taboo aspects seem to dissolve.  The graphic nature is not without purpose, and is indeed descriptive of the “viewer” by the variability of the individual interpretations of the paintings.  Even on a societal level, Brown’s paintings are considered fashionable which can be considered a reflection on the times in which her work is being produced.  She seems to understand that the ellusive subject in painting is self endulgent in and of itself, so Brown takes her work directly to the foundation.  The resultant work is very human despite literally having human subjects, it is possibly in spite of this that the work becomes broad and encompasses the actual audience.

In Philip Pearlstein’s paintings, the figurative aspects are closely tied with the abstract qualities of the composition.  A figure may carry a detached facial expression, yet the orientation of limbs and muscles tend to betray this obvious depiction in exchange for a series of complex relationships.  Pearlstein chooses to approach painting with a modern or abstract point of view, he sees the subject and its environment as being relative to one another.  To simplify, figure and ground are not considered independent of one another but as interesting in their comparative associations.  An example would be the relationship of the female’s muscles to the rug beneath her as opposed to the reflection in which she has a much different relationship with her environment.  You could even say that Pearlstein has related the frontal aspects of the figure to the back by having a mirror in the composition.  He also juxtaposes the shallow spacious corner of a room to the reflection of the extended yet cluttered background.  It is a highly formal investigative process.

Painting seems to carry several connotations with it, one being the conceptual depth or expression pertaining to the subject.  Pearlstein instead sees the figures themselves as subjects independent of identity and chooses to make the actual human physical characteristics the subject.  It is a very objective approach to painting, an almost counter intuitive one.  It in effect contributes to some of the staged qualities the paintings have and the artificial cold spaces.  Instead of a depth of expression Pearlstein explores a cerebral depth in composition and interrelationships.  It could be debatable the amount of restraint necessary for Pearlstein to make a painting like this which is driven more by abstraction than a lot abstract paintings.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a member of the group Die Brücke, a precursor leading to the establishment of Expressionism as an artistic movement. This particular painting is a group portrait consisting of founding members Otto Mueller, Kirchner, Heckel, and Schmidt.

Fundamentally, we have a painting that is communicating its subject through figures and their interactions.  Throw out all of the context and look at what is there.  The variety in the orientation of the figures, their relative awkwardness and confidence tells a good amount about their sensibilities or personalities.  Being a rather expressive painting the figures are also possibly indicative of an artistic sensibility they possess in their own work.  It is easy to read into the group dynamics in a painting like this, especially when they are crammed into a constricting space.  The ideology of the group must have had a profound impact on Kirchner in order for him to paint them all as a subject.  It reminds me of Liang Kai in that Kirchner paints his group in the style which the group championed, as Kai did with Zen painting and the sixth patriarch.

Color in this painting is of a cool jazzy nature, possibly reflective of a night life.  It is a composition of cluster and containment, which serves to illustrate a pressure upon the group and the appearance of being pushed into the back corner of a gallery expressing some kind of esotericism amongst themselves.  The bottom of the picture plane is an interesting space as well, because it is radial except for the right figure breaking this compositional device by directing his foot outside the group.  This could also be symbolic of the group dynamic.

Kirchner is a painter of great interest.  It is unfortunate that due to war and the label of “degenerate” he eventually took his own life shortly after the Nazi’s confiscated 600 of his paintings.  He exemplifies the idea that painting should speak for themselves.  It is a common misconception that people need to know much about art to enjoy a painting.  All you have to do is look.

After writing about Robert Henri the founder of the Ashcan School, it seems appropriate to continue on with George Wesley Bellows his most acclaimed student.

Initially, Bellows was an illustrator and upon his coming to New York City he sought to make a go at painting in hopes of a career, which eventually he attained.  These paintings of Bellows are socially conscious in their depiction of the working class conditions as well as the dingy atmosphere of New York in the early part of the twentieth century.

There is something to be said of Bellows bravura approach to painting, directly going at the canvas so as to capture the energy of his subject in a responsive manner.  It is an approach which has spontaneity and lends itself to intuition.  There is also a resultant freshness that is stimulating for its boldness and fluidity.  When you look at a Bellows painting you can retrace the steps in the swoop of a leg or smudge of a face, there is no attempt to hide work.  When a painter like Bellows takes up direct painting it creates challenges that are intrinsic to an individual work.  A weak area in a painting for example, may call for bold line work or intense color and it takes a capable artist to respond accordingly with an appropriate solution.  This approach gets at the fundamentals of painting and forces the artist to learn a wide range of skills so as to develop that artistic intuition.

Street scenes, and boxing matches were of course not the norm in Bellows’s time, so they carry a historical significance that was relevant to the society he lived in.  Like Henri, it was as simple as painting what was true in everyday life.  It is hard to imagine a time when painting was actually the subject of controversy.  Now in a society where “anything goes”, painters tend to retreat to the recesses of their own imaginations and personal experiences rather than capitulate their times.  It is a time where painting has lost much of its social significance and artists have to look within to find their motivation.  Looking at a Bellows painting can be romantic because it is honest and simple.  Painting can easily become convoluted with ideas, it is refreshing to see paintings that show off the medium expressively while remaining accessible with their subjects.

Best remembered for his insightful teaching methods, Robert Henri was a beacon of light for anyone interested in painting.  Age, social position, or gender were never discriminated against in Henri’s classroom for he would open his studio even to the homeless to teach them a thing or two about painting.  As the founder of the Ashcan school Henri promoted painting life as it was experienced, individualistically.  His thoughts on art were far beyond his years, understanding art from a humanist stance. This was the result of an awareness of his own experiences with painting and a genuine passion for the furthering of art in general.

As a painter Henri viewed his medium by the abstract properties of construction.  He sought a consciousness in painting, where a line is descriptive of the essence of a subject by its whimsical jutting or bold directness.  Working general to specific Henri believed the foundations of a painting should be strong on an abstract compositional level before any formal rendering took place.  Intuition seems to govern much of the rest.  His paintings are thus records of experiences as he translates something visual or emotional with an equatable technique.

It is interesting to read the words of Henri himself in quotations, he understood the direction in which art was moving in his time.  He taught students to find their own personal joy in painting outside commercial successes.  Painting became about a personal exploration into character and society.  It is evident in some of the dingy cityscapes that there was a drive towards a consciousness of ones situation relative to the idyllic literary romanticism.  Social consciousness is an idea that at its core is timeless.  It is that abstract compositional frame work that is the foundation for the conceptual in painting.  Much like the construction of an individual painting Henri built his ideologies from the ground up always getting at the source of the issues.  He is not considered to be much of a painter, however this is due to a narrow minded approach to his work.  Sometimes it is not about the finished result, but the integrity of the approach.  This of course will be torn to shreads by many art enthusiasts, but it depends on your motivations when looking at a painting what is more important to you.  Much like Henri’s thoughts about painting, you have to find what is beautiful to you personally and take that to be true.

“The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready to appreciate good art. He needs no one to give him an ‘Art Education’; he is already qualified. He needs but to see pictures with his active mind, look into them for the things that belong to him, and he will find soon enough in himself an art connoisseur and an art lover of the first order.” Robert Henri