Holidaze

Most of us have some idea when it comes to appreciating a standard of living. We easily get use to the amenities that make life more bearable in a savage world where Mama Nature can be housebroken but never tamed.

When it comes to fine art, there is an implied understanding that it conforms to a standard, which is often debated, and hotly so.

The question for you the artist and you the art collector is this: Can you explain the standard of fine art and prove such a conclusion to your own satisfaction? If you can’t, then others will make this conclusion for you.

You are on sacred ground when you know where you stand.

Impasto Master (detail)

Post-Impressionist Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, was born this day in 1853.

From An Artist Empowered:

The Brothers van Gogh:

Theo van Gogh was certainly ambivalent of his older brother’s original talent. While providing a monthly allowance and art materials for Vincent, who routinely sent him paintings that would one day attain iconic status, he was also dismissive of his brother’s art.

An art dealer of some note, Theo promoted and encouraged Pissarro, Degas, Renoir, Gauguin, Sisley, Signac, Toulouse-Lautrec and Monet; but he refused to exhibit Vincent’s work on the pretext that they were not yet good enough.

In his assessment, Theo may even have been sincere, but that didn’t make him right.

Vincent, who knew all this, ultimately accepted his brother’s stipend for unfettered time to paint, but at a price: his work, especially during those last productive years, would end up collecting dust in a corner of Theo’s apartment in Paris.

© Arnold Newman

Hans Hofmann, (born March 21, 1880, Weissenberg, Ger.—died Feb. 17, 1966, New York, N.Y., U.S.), German painter who was one of the most influential art teachers of the 20th century. He pioneered the use of improvisatory techniques; his work opened the way for the first generation of post-World War II American painters to develop Abstract Expressionism.

Hofmann’s painting Spring (1940) was among the earliest works to employ the paint-dripping technique associated with the American painter Jackson Pollock.

In his book, Search for the Real, Hofmann writes:

“Art is magic. So say the surrealists. But how is it magic? In its metaphysical development? Or does some final transformation culminate in a magic reality? In truth, the latter is impossible without the former. If creation is not magic, the outcome cannot be magic. To worship the product and ignore its development leads to dilettantism and reaction. Art cannot result from sophisticated, frivolous, or superficial effects.”

Hofmann wrote it down, and now you know, too.

Gulag Dreams

Art for art’s sake should not be misunderstood.

It is first art for the artist’s sake to fulfill a dharma in transit; and then it is art on its own for the sole purpose of being.

To be without the trappings of scheming and questionable motive is freedom—for you, me, and the art yet to be born.

© Hans Namuth
Jackson Pollock,1950, Long Island, NY

Jackson Pollock was born today on January 28, 1912 in Cody, Wyoming.

Pollock was a great artist willing to take risks. Although he wasn’t the first to use action drip painting, it was his ‘drippings’ that caught on and catapulted him into fame, which, for Jackson, became as unendurable as being unknown. Despite recognition in his lifetime, his demons eventually won out.

From the chapter ‘Jackson, We Love You’ in my book, An Artist Empowered:

Jackson Pollock’s (1912-1956) rise to fame and subsequent self-destruction tells a story.

In the 1940’s, art collector and dealer, Peggy Guggenheim, arranged for Jackson Pollock’s first one-man show, which was a success; she also provided him with a monthly stipend of $150, and gave him a commission: a mural for the entryway of her New York apartment, a painting some called expensive wallpaper.

The American art critic Clement Greenberg, who saw truth in Pollock’s paintings, was one of the first to champion the artist’s work.

Despite being taken seriously by these and other makers and shakers in the art establishment, Pollock wasn’t an instant hit. He endured severe personal doubts and hard financial times for most of his life.

MORE...