Rome’s New UGLY John Paul II Statue

Johnpauliistatue

Catholic News Service is running a piece about the new statue unveiled in Rome to commemorate Bl. John Paul II (statue pictured).

Wow is it ugly.

And inappropriate.

Even L’Osservatore Romano—the Vatican’s newspaper—has commented on how lame it is. (I guess that’s one fortunate thing about LOR‘s turn toward less anodyne commentary; if we’ve got to deal with with their less-than-helpful commentary about the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and The Simpsons, at least they now have the freedom to say when a pope statue is ugly.)

According to CNS:

Sculptor Oliviero Rainaldi intended to show the late pope with his cape billowing in the wind, as a symbolic image of welcome. The 16-foot-tall bronze sculpture was placed outside Rome’s main train station, where tens of thousands of visitors arrive daily.

But when unveiled May 18, it looked more like an open tent, or a sentry-box, or a bell, commented L’Osservatore Romano. The papal cape looks like it was split open by a bomb. More importantly, the newspaper said, it’s unrecognizable as John Paul II — the head is “excessively spherical.”

The newspaper credited the sculptor with trying to move beyond classic papal iconography and attempt something new and different.

“But overall, the result does not seem to have matched the intention, and in fact there has already been criticism,” it said.

In Rome newspaper polls, public opinion is running 9-1 against the statue.

Ya think?

The placement of the statue outside Rome’s main train station—the Termini—is particularly unfortunate, because it ensures a large number of people will see the thing. The Termini is a very important travel hub in Rome for locals and pilgrims alike.

I have to say that this statue is even worse than the one inside the entrance of the Vatican museums. That statue, titled “Varcare la soglia” (Crossing the Threshold), is a slab of marble with a bas relief of John Paul II on each side, apparently shoving a goofy-looking, modern, cell-phone clutching man out of the block of marble.

I was stunned when I first saw it.

Take a look see for yourself. Here’s one side of it:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s the other:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Sorry; couldn’t find larger images. Trust me, it’s even more hideous when you see it up close and larger than life.)

MORE INFO HERE.

Some years ago, I visited a traveling exhibit of Vatican art treasures, with items spanning many centuries. I was struck by the quality of the older material and how the quality of the art suddenly fell off a cliff in the mid-20th century.

I can only imagine art historians in the year 2525 (if man is still alive; if woman can survive) looking back on this period and struggling to explain the sudden, appalling lack of taste and artistic sensibility.

Of course, neither the new JP2 statue or the “Crossing the Threshold” statue is the worst 20th century artistic atrocity passed off as something deeply spiritual, but I’ll tell you about that one another time.

In the meanwhile, what do you think the new statue of John Paul II looks like? A telephone booth? An agonizer booth? A bus stop?

What are your thoughts?

P.S. For extra points, how would you caption the photo of the new statue?

Tim Jones sez; Buy My Stuff!

MaryQueenOf Heaven2 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Hey, JA.O readers! Long time no blog! I've had my little hands full, but wanted to let you all know about a new outlet for my artwork, since I have had some queries from some of you about buying reproductions of my stuff.

Up to now, it has been a rather messy and complicated process, even with the advent of giclee printing (before that it was lithography, which was like, well… don't get me started!).

BUT… I have recently found a promising new source for reasonably priced reproductions through a site called Fine Art America, and this includes everything, framing, shipping, and all… as well as offering neat little items like notecards and stuff.

I've only been building a portfolio there for a few weeks, and have just recently added a couple of images of Mary that some of you may recognize.

Drop by my FAA page and leave a comment or two, so they will think I'm a big shot!

Many thanks!!

Ah!… I See My Bribe Paid Off

Tim Jones, here.

This is about a week late, but I wanted to let JA.O readers know that several pieces of my work are
inexplicably featured in the current edition of a well-respected online literary
journal, The Christendom Review.

This has been in the works for a while, and the actual date of publication sort of snuck up on me.

Many thanks to William Luse and to editor Richard Barnett for the
opportunity to be featured in this fine magazine. The Christendom Review also regularly showcases some
great poetry, essays, editorials, etc…

Don't worry, I didn't really bribe anybody. What I did do was send an e-mail saying, "This is a nice literary magazine you got going here… it'd be a shame if anything happened to it…"

Visit Tim Jones' Daily Painting Blog

… as well as his Daily Spouting-Off Blog Old World Swine.

Will Paint for Food (or possibly beer)

(from my blog Old World Swine)

Coaster
 

Well,
life is full of surprises, ain't it? Remember a while ago, when I was
asking readers to send in their impressions of the local and personal
effects of the recession and the stock market crash? I made my own
observation at the time that I was seeing very little evidence of it,
as yet, aside from lower gas prices. Then I did make note that some
local stores would be closing (a Starbucks, Circuit City, Linens &
Things).

Now the evidence I asked about has come up and kicked me in the aft end… as of Friday I was given the official two week notice that my job is being cut. My last check will arrive in a month.

It
was a surprise, but not a deep shock. I had been aware for some time
that the amount of work they had for me to do was steadily declining.
When I started in my position, I was kept busier than a grasshopper
kicking the seeds out of a watermelon, but in recent months I had not
only begun to somewhat, shall we say, stretch the projects I
had, but had actually started to create my own projects (which has
never been in my job description). I began to create a library of stock
illustrations that (based on my experience) I thought might be useful
in the future. As this library expanded and went largely unused,
though, it began to feel very futile. I was sitting at my desk, drawing
a check and drawing (literally) whatever I thought made sense… food,
mostly. Our company had used a lot of food art in their packaging.

I had the odd hot-potato-we-must-have-this-by-Tuesday
job to break the monotony, but it began to feel like my own company was
sort of holding me on a retainer for those increasingly rare instances
when I was actually needed. I began to get frustrated and a bit
depressed, which is a horrible position for a Christian.

The
Christian should always be eager to go wherever God leads and do
whatever is needed without complaint and with sincere gratitude.
Constant thankfulness should be the default position for any
follower of Jesus. Life is just too variously and mind-bogglingly
wonderful – too "lopsidedly benevolent", as I have put it before – to
allow oneself to mope because this or that aspect of it isn't meeting
one's expectations.

So, when I began to get frustrated and
depressed at my job, I knew something was deeply wrong. I was also
feeling a more insistent desire to move ahead with my fine art, and the
day job (with its two-hour daily commute) seemed to suck the life and
energy (and creativity) out of me. But I have a family to support, and
as long as I could keep the job, I figured that was where God wanted me
to be.

So, it looks like I'll have a lot more time to devote to
the fine art and to Catholic (and other) illustration. I'll be putting
up some illustration and cartoons from time to time, as well as my
painting. There are new avenues open to me, now, in terms of getting my
art out there in front of people. As it turns out, instead of painting
this past weekend, I spent the time getting my Etsy store up and
running. Etsy is a cool, fairly new outlet for handmade goods and art,
and I've been meaning to get my online store – er, gallery – started for some time. I may even have time to begin that series of the Mysteries of the Rosary I have been wanting to do.

So, check it out. Tell your friends!
(Thats www.oldworldswine.etsy.com)

The Esty site will most likely be where I direct people from my Daily Painting blog
from now on, though I have had some early success with E-bay and may
continue to use it. I don't know. You would think I might have more
time to blog here at OWS, now, but that's not likely. I'm going to have
to hit the ground running if I want to maintain any kind of steady
income in all this, and so I'll be treating the fine art as a full-time
job (and possibly more). I'm grateful, though, that I'll be able to
make it to daily Mass.

Your prayers would be most
appreciated. At the moment I'm kind of excited at the possibilities,
and am looking at it as an adventure… Wheee! another big dip on the
roller coaster of life… but it is easy to talk that way when the
checks are still coming. We have been through some lean times before,
and the romance of such a position fades quickly. The sense of
adventure turns into a rather permanent knot in the stomach.

As Chesterton has said (and I have often quoted before);

Our society is so abnormal that the normal man never dreams of
having the normal occupation of looking after his own property. When he
chooses a trade, he chooses one of the ten thousand trades that involve
looking after other people's property.

I have to say that, as a Distributist, I do look forward to looking after my own property.

Check Out Tim Jones’ New Daily Painting Blog!

Hey, Tim Jones, here.


Today marks the *official* launch of my long anticipated (by me, anyway… I always was a procrastinator) Daily Painting blog.

Now, "daily painting" doesn't mean necessarily a painting a day
it just means I plan to paint daily, and I'll offer that work on
the new blog (via e-bay). In practice I look for this to shake out at about
3 paintings a week, though that may increase as things progress.

These are mainly small – even miniature – pieces, but made with all the care I would give to any of my larger artworks.

I will also soon be offering some very special pricing on some of the art from my old fine art website, as I move into this new strategy.

Up
until very recently, making a living in original fine art was mainly a matter
of finding gallery representation (in viable commercial galleries) and
building a reputation (and generating income) that way. Finding
publicity through art competitions and art publications could help to
make you more attractive to these galleries. But the whole process of
vetting and courting galleries – in addition to actually trying to get
any work done (on top of having, like, a day job) – has been like hiking through molasses. One needs almost
to work full time just on marketing, scheduling competitions,
hob-nobbing and the like. It doesn't help that I'm such an intense
introvert.

With the advent of the internet, though, there are now
more and more artists taking their work directly to the public. It's a
transition I've been turning over in my mind for some time, but
hesitated to jump into.

I have now made the jump. That means that
the prices I had on a lot of my artwork will be reduced because I no
longer need to consider the requirements of a third party (the
galleries) or worry so much about impressing collectors that might drop
by. So, in addition to the small daily painting pieces, watch for some
larger work as well.

The long and short is that I would rather
paint – and make my living from painting – than not. If that means
pricing my work so that it will be more accessible to a wider audience,
then that is a change I am happy to make. It could even be seen as very
Chestertonian… a Distributist approach to fine art.

I'll be
offering occasional opinions and commentary on my work interspersed
with with the new paintings, but the next several posts at the new blog will just be
new paintings offered for your viewing pleasure, with a link to the
e-bay auction page for each piece.

Do check in often. I hope you like what you see.

Oh! Also please feel free to drop a line in the combox.

Visit Timothy Jones' Daily Painting Blog

Aesthetic Escalator

Hey, Tim Jones, here. The following is a post I just put up at my blog, but I thought Jimmy’s readers might find of interest;

St_joseph_rb_lg
I’m going to hurriedly try to respond to some recent art posts over at
The Aesthetic Elevator, even though I can’t give them the time and
thought they deserve, right now.

First, on the art of Guy Kemper
(pictured); Here’s the long and short, for me; this represents
precisely the problem with a lot of contemporary Catholic liturgical
art, and more broadly with non-representational art… the question is
this; where couldn’t this art function just as well as it does
here (the Catholic Memorial at Ground Zero)? It would be as much at
home in the entryway to a shopping mall, or a high school, or in one of
our new, featureless contemporary church buildings. It is art devoid of
communication. It’s called "Rise". It could be called anything.

It does do one thing admirably well; it breaks up the enervating
monotony of rectangles that make up the space. It beats looking out on
the parking lot. Let’s be honest, modern architecture doesn’t make use
of repeated rectangles because the rectangle is a shape the meaning of
which we just never get tired of exploring. Rectangles are cheap and
plentiful, and curves cost money. Look at the granite slab tub at the
left. A baptismal font, or a water feature with coi fish? Generic
acoustic ceiling tiles (how daring!) and floor tiles just like I have
in my bathroom. Look, I know the architect is dealing with a limited
budget, as well as building codes, so a lot of this is simply
fore-ordained and out of his/her control. Our culture just makes dull
buildings, that’s all. In this context, the artwork is a
welcome relief from the assembly-line blankness of the space. It is
aesthetically pleasing (competently composed and harmonious) and gives
the eye something to do for a few seconds. In that sense, it performs a
function. That’s setting the bar awfully low, but there you go. Kemper
doesn’t need me to like his art… he is successful and there are
plenty of people who love this sort of thing. It functions as a
placeholder for the idea of a piece of art, and it offends (could
offend) no one.

This is the kind of art that I hope the Vatican’s Council for
Catholic Culture studiously avoids in it’s search for new talent, which
TAE notes here.

Moving on…

TAE has some thoughts
on the Catholic League’s Bill Donahue having some thoughts about the
art of some college student, who further has some novel thoughts
regarding the proper use of rosaries and other devotional items…

"Whoa, lad! That crucifix doesn’t go there!" (think Robert Mapplethorpe).

TAE makes one good point; nine times out of ten, pounding the table
about stuff like this only draws attention to it. In that sense, I
would rather that "Shoutin’ Bill" would just let things be. His heart
is in the right place, but I look forward to seeing him on the news
probably about as much as thoughtful evangelicals look forward to
seeing Jerry Falwell.

That said, how anyone could mistake the art for anything but plain,
bigoted hate speech is beyond me. The paintings are calculated to
disgust and offend, and yet TAE manages only;

"I can’t help but think he could have approached his canvases in a more deft manner."

Deft manner? Does anyone really hold out the possibility that the
artist has some genuine, thoughtful critique of the Catholic Church,
but (poor boy) chose an unfortunate way to express it? Is anyone naive
enough to suppose that the artist seethes with loathing for Catholics,
but generally thinks highly of other Christians? Do you figure that he
quite approves of Pentecostals, for instance? Yeah, and rosaries might
fly out my butt.

Let’s imagine a college art exhibit critical of gay marriage that
made it’s point by pornographically lampooning Matthew Shepard and
Harvey Milk. How many hours would it be be open before someone was
fired? Yet, this art is no different. Some adolescent wanted attention,
and his fawning professors (with the help of the Catholic League) have
obliged.

Finally, in his post on Donahue, TAE says;

Referring back to Donahue’s criticisms, perhaps he believes his own
denomination to be Divine and infallible as an institution. I’ve known
of Catholics with this attitude, although I don’t sense it’s a
prevailing conviction. If I may be so bold, this would in fact be a
naive belief, and I don’t understand how anyone could presently think
so highly of the Catholic Church in light of the recent scandals that —
unfortunately — plagued this enduring institution. No part of the Body
of Christ can say with a straight face that they or their particular
congregation has not made certain gross missteps along the way…"

This
will require another post to address, but in brief, it (unsurprisingly)
reflects what seems to be an incomplete and overly simplistic view of
what the Catholic Church believes on the subject(s)…  very similar to
what I thought Catholics believed… before I became one!

Why Is Christian Art So Lame These Days?

That’s a question that’s worth asking.

I mean, it isn’t as if Christian art has always been lame. A visit to the Sistine Chapel or a read through Dante or a listen to Mozart will tell you that.

But for some reason, right in the here and now, an enormous amount of Christian art–whether visual, literary, or musical–is just really, really lame.

And it’s not driving the culture the way it used to.

Instead, it feels like a shallow copy of secular culture.

That’s something explored in a recent article at Salon.Com. Here’s the money quote:

For faith, the results can be dangerous. A young Christian can get the idea that her religion is a tinny, desperate thing that can’t compete with the secular culture. A Christian friend who’d grown up totally sheltered once wrote to me that the first time he heard a Top 40 station he was horrified, and not because of the racy lyrics: "Suddenly, my lifelong suspicions became crystal clear," he wrote. "Christian subculture was nothing but a commercialized rip-off of the mainstream, done with wretched quality and an apocryphal [sic] insistence on the sanitization of reality."

SOURCE [WARNING: There are a few just plain gross references in the article.]

The article largely focuses on culture schlock in Evangelical circles, but we all know the same thing is true in Catholic circles, as the insipid folk-esque musical spoutings of Oregon Catholic Press or the chunky abstract patterns that pass for stained glass windows in many parishes reveal. Those are just cheesy ripoffs of secular music and secular art (and dated ripoffs at that.)

So why isn’t contemporary Christian art better than it is?

But, Is It Art? – Abstraction Pt. 1

Elegytothespanishrepublic_3From Old World Swine, the long-ago promised
conclusion to my "But Is It Art?" series, Part One;

I titled this series "But, Is It Art?" because that was the question I
sought to answer regarding non-representational (purely abstract) art,
like the Robert Motherwell piece at left. My first instinct – my bias
early on – was to say that, no, it wasn’t really art. As I have
explained earlier, I have come to modify that position, and in the
process have come to a new appreciation of abstract art in its proper place.

I’m sure that in part my reaction against abstract art was due to
the particular kind of art education I slogged through as a young man.
The new broom of modernism had swept the academy clean, and it was made
plain again and again that only the dullest sort of hack artist would
bother to paint a straight, traditional portrait, still life or
landscape. The concept of seeking Beauty was actually derided, and one
poor grad student who let the term slip out during a critique was met
with snickers and the shaking of heads. She was done for.

In regard to non-representational art, we were trained not only to
see things that were not there, but to write papers about it… with
footnotes. We were all expected to take seriously the idea that a
canvas with a few lines and blobs of paint on it was as significant and
praiseworthy as Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of St. Peter. Not surprisingly, I don’t recall any student in the MFA program I went through who wasn’t simply adrift
as an artist. There was no sense of connection with history or
tradition beyond the last 100 years, or so, and indeed little sense of
connection even with one another. There was very little in the way of
technical help or instruction, and even less in terms of personal
artistic development, no cohesive approach or philosophy – no rules,
except "There are no rules". We were all making it up as we went along,
with more or less success.

It took quite a while for me to begin to see past this, to gain some
perspective. When I at last reached a point where I decided it was just
a matter of plain sanity to prefer beauty to ugliness or meaning to
emptiness, I was no longer painting at all, but was doing design and
illustration. It was no doubt due to my embrace of historical, orthodox
Christianity and the influence of writers like Tolkien, Chesterton and
C.S. Lewis that I came to think about the mystery of beauty at all. In
my new enthusiasm for tradition, meaning and beauty, I turned smartly
on my heels and completely dismissed non-objective art as a fraud and
the last refuge of talentless duffers.

But I digress.

In my next post I will give what I consider to be the strengths of
modern abstraction and talk about in what contexts and in what ways I
believe it does function well. In this post, though, I will
focus on why I believe non-objective art can not be placed in the same
category as the truly great works of art history.

Art is one of those magical, mysterious things – like writing and
music – that only humans do. It sets us apart from the animal world by
a gulf that is incomprehensibly wide.

There are two things – two fundamentally mysterious and magical
things – that traditional representational art does that
non-representational art does not do. The first is the most obvious;
representational art, well, represents something. It calls to
mind something that is not there, or that never existed except in the
imagination of the artist. It communicates symbolically in a way
analogous to writing. Writing is just ink on a page, figures of varied
kinds that we string together to make words, and then sentences and
presently we are drawn into a world, with its own people and events…
we are with Frodo and Sam on the slopes of Mount Doom, or tied to the
mast with Odysseus.  One undeniable mystery of visual art is this power
to symbolically represent things that are not really there. It’s
something we may not often think about (because we are too busy doing
it), but the fact that I can draw a few lines and make you think of a
goat or a sailing ship is just indescribably awesome. It’s something
only we humans do… even cavemen knew that.

The second mysterious thing that traditional representational art often does can be related to the first, but they are not the
same; this is the breaking of the "picture plane", or the property of
taking the viewer past the surface of the painting and into an illusory
space. One can represent an object in a very flat and abstract way
(again, think of cave painting or modern road signs), but the ability
of the artist to create a believable space, with its own sense of
light, atmosphere and perspective adds a dimension to the experience
that is, again, powerful and mysterious. It gives the viewer the
sensation that they could reach past the frame and into the painting.
Most often they see past  the surface of the picture without thinking about it. That’s magic. Alice through the looking glass.

These two properties are so fundamental and potent that they could very nearly be the definition of what fine visual art really is.
Without them, what is left are the merely formal aspects of visual
art… composition, color harmony, texture, etc… all important
things, but by themselves inadequate to move the viewer in anything like the way representational art can.

Now, there is a line of thought that holds that symbolic
representation and the illusion of form and space are irrelevant to the
appreciation of visual art, or even that such things get in the way,
which to me is exactly like saying "That could have been a great novel,
if not for all those characters, locations and plot developments
getting in the way", as if the true essence of a novel were in formal
concepts like "paragraphs" or "grammar".

The formal aspects of art are very significant, and can be
appreciated and admired for their own strengths, but there’s one
problem with that way of thinking; every great novel and every great
work of art possesses these formal strengths and uses them to great
effect anyway… and in addition also provides the kind
of narrative and symbolic communication that gives meaning to the
whole. In other words, with any great work of visual art, you get the
symbolic communication, the illusion and the brilliant use of the formal aspects (like composition, color, texture, etc…) thrown in, so the experience of traditional, representational art is much more comprehensive, making use of all the strengths of abstract art, but in service to the substantive mysteries of symbolism and illusion. The great thing about, say, a Sargent portrait is how a dash of paint
can function so completely, powerfully and simultaneously as both a vital and evocative bit of brushwork and
as a totally believable reflection on the bridge of a nose or the curve
of a shoulder. We see it as one, then the other, then both at once. The
passage resonates with the energy of this meaningful dichotomy.

The point being that if you’re going to toss out
representation and illusion to begin with, you had better have
something pretty damned powerful up your sleeve to give meaning to the
formal properties of the piece… that is if you’re after fine art.

There is another way of thinking that says that visual art shouldn’t
be compared to the concrete symbolism of writing, but rather to the
abstract patterns of music. Being wholly ignorant of the subject, I
will not even try to write in any meaningful way about how music works,
how it engages the emotions, but I will say that art, music, writing,
dance, etc… all enter the mind and move the human consciousness in
very different ways. Art is not meant to affect us just as music does,
or one of them would be redundant. In a similar way, it would be a
mistake to push the analogy of art to writing too far. Fine art can be a great deal more like visual poetry than straight visual story telling.
There certainly can be a very musical sense of rhythm, texture and mood
to a piece of visual art, but the mystery and power of visual fine art
flows from its own spring and can’t be understood simply and solely as
visual music.

There is a kind of art that functions something like visual music,
though… decorative art, which figures large in the next (and final)
post.

The Nekkid Truth

BotticellivenusAnother from Old World Swine;

I remember the first time I sat in a figure drawing class and worked
from a real, live, nekkid model. I was a little nervous before, as were
probably a lot of us wet-eared art undergrads. I don’t know how
everyone else responded when the young lady dropped her bathrobe, but I
expect their experience wasn’t too different from my own; there were a
few moments of awkward ogling, a few moments of stern and studied
pretense at ignoring the obvious, and then – something else. I began to
think about how I could wring a good drawing out of the pose. As I
started to draw, my brain began to break the model down into her
component elements… line and form, light and shadow, muscle and bone.
Within a minute, and for the remainder of the class, she registered no
more on my libido-meter than a clay pot or a fern. And I was not nearly
such a paragon of virtue and restraint as I am now.

Not everyone has had the benefit of such a class, of course, but it
did demonstrate to me in unmistakable terms the very real difference
between appreciating the beauty of the human form and what might be
called the Look of Lust. I had the great privilege of having my view of
the female form somewhat redeemed and baptized long before I knew
anything of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. In this work, he makes
brilliantly clear that the mere repression of lustful thoughts is not
enough, and may even be unhealthy in the long run. We must learn –
through the help of the Holy Spirit, the teaching of the Church, the
sacraments and prayer – to change the way we perceive the human body.
We must have our thoughts redeemed. We should work toward being able to
thank God for the breathtaking beauty of the human body, and through
giving thanks and praise to the Creator, disarm and disable Lust.

The idea is not to cage our lust, but to drag it out into the light where it can be transformed by the Holy Spirit.

Not that nudity is something to be treated lightly. We are fallen,
after all. There is nudity – even under the pretext of art – that is
wholly inappropriate. If it is intended to excite lust, or if it in
fact does so, then it is unhealthy.

How do we tell the difference? Obviously, this is a matter of
judgment. For one aware of his own weakness, one sincerely committed to
trying to please God in everything, one familiar with Original Sin, one
who has been trained to respect the dictates of conscience… a
certain  amount of confidence in personal judgment is possible, and can
be developed. In the words of St. Augustine, "Love God and do as you
please".

For one lacking these things, it may be impossible, though I believe
that even based only on natural law one can tell the difference between
a painting that is basically an act of praise and homage, and one in
which the body is displayed like a piece of meat in a butcher shop
window. In the first case, the viewer’s response is "Yes, that is
beautiful – God does great work". In the latter case, the viewer’s
response is "I want that".

In short, if you are truly concerned about lust in regard to viewing
nude figures in art, then the battle is half won already. Trust your
judgment, and be watchful of your own thoughts. Where truly great,
classical, historically significant art is involved, I don’t think even
children need be  cocooned and shielded as much as one might think.
Most children likely have a much saner and simpler response to these
things than we give them credit for. If you have concerns for kids,
look things over for yourself first, but don’t get too wound up over
them seeing this or that body part, in the right context.

Winding Up to a Conclusion

Rockwell_connoisseur
(Note; I use the word "abstract" in this post as a synonym for
"non-representational" art, that is, art that doesn’t depict or
represent any object. In truth, all visual art involves abstraction,
but I use the word here as a less cumbersome way of saying
"non-representational" – T.J.)

The topic of this post (at my blog Old World Swine) brought me back to a series I authored
here at JA.O , on how I understand modern abstraction in
terms of where it fits in the broad movement of art history.

In retrospect, I see that project was too great a stretch for a
layman and average schlub like myself. I have absolutely zero credentials as either a philosopher or art
historian. I am a working artist (Masters Degree, thanks) not that widely read
or traveled. What I can do is talk very honestly about art from my own
non-expert perspective and hope that this becomes a useful bit of grist
for the mill. I’ll begin with a little background that might help explain
why it has taken me so long to finish this series of posts.

A commercial art client with whom I worked for years had a very large abstract painting hanging in his office. It was dreadful
– the kind of thing one would buy at a discount furniture store – a mass
produced vomitous mess of cream and "earth tones". It was bad in every
way that a painting can
be bad. The abstract equivalent of a black velvet Elvis.. I saw this
painting off and on for years, and one day the undeniable bad-ness of
it got me thinking; I
had seen a lot of other abstract paintings that were much better than
this one. If they really were better, I thought, what made
them better? If we can talk at all about "bad" and "good" abstract art,
that almost proves there must be something worthwhile in the good abstract art, doesn’t it?

Where I had been all set to consign abstract art to the dustbin, I
decided to hold off and rethink my position. I mulled things over for
quite a while, and ended up reaffirming my first intuitive response to
abstraction (that it is a subset of decorative art), while at the same
time developing a genuine appreciation of abstract art in its proper place.
I can now say that there
are a number of pieces of abstract art that I think are successful,
interesting, even engaging… just not what I consider to be great art,
for reasons I’ll get to in the next post. One of the things great art does is move
the viewer, and I have never once been moved by a piece of abstract art. I don’t see how that works.

There is, of course, the real possibility that I may just be missing
something, that I am a thick-skulled, irrecoverable rube – what C.S.
Lewis called a "trousered ape" – who simply lacks the imagination, the
emotional depth and psychological complexity to plumb the mysteries of
abstract art. That’s fine. I’ll admit the possibility… but it’s not
for lack of honest effort.

I have looked at and thought hard about abstract art for years. In
some circles – circles I occasionally run in – verbalizing a lack of
sufficient enthusiasm or appreciation for abstract art is a social
blunder on the level of making fun of the handicapped – much worse, in
fact (in the latter case, one could always pull a Mel Gibson and claim
it was the booze talking). This is just not something a sophisticated
and civilized person is ever supposed to sayparticularly an artist. It will
change what people think of you. It will cost you work and connections
and references. I once knew an art history professor who was denied
tenure partly because (he seemed certain) he had spoken well of Norman
Rockwell.

I’m convinced that many people, especially in the art world, never
say what they really think about abstract art because they are keenly
aware of the social stigma attached to such opinions. They are
frightened to death of being shut out and denied opportunities, of
being thought of as ignorant hicks. But it is only by moving beyond
this stigma and speaking plainly that we can begin to have a real
conversation and honestly evaluate the benefits and detriments of the
modernist movement in art, which began over one hundred years ago. We
are in a unique position in history (the information age) that allows
us to calmly and rationally toss out the bad and retain the good when
it comes to the visual arts. We need desperately to get about this
work.  We need especially to develop an aesthetic of beauty that
resonates with the modern world. That is our job as artists.

Next – my thoughts on the good and bad of modern abstract art.