I have returned from a week long excursion into the deep and dark that is Londinium. I won't blather on for too long about it as no writings or photographs can come close to the actual things. I dare say, however, that the Kiefer exhibition ranks among some of the best sights I've ever witnessed. Absolutely breathtaking work. I've been contemplating leaving college and either going to live next to his land in a cabin, my deckchair on the roof and binoculars ever at the ready so I can catch a glimpse of the magician working, or going and begging for a job as a technician. My skills in operating cranes, building pavilions and manipulating lead with acid are, sadly, lacking however so for now I'll settle for seeing his exhibitions. I would scan from the book I bought but my scanner isn't big enough.
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The next single thing that stood out enough to be worth mentioning was the show at the Tate Modern. Not for me the Gilbert and George floor (seen one, seen them all springs to mind, but I haven't given it the fairest of chances) but Monet's “Water Lilies” further skyward. Odd that a painting as loose and untameable as the lilies was hung directly across from Summertime: Number 9A by Pollock. I have to admit that the Monet captivated me far more and was far less pictorial, which surprised me greatly. A friend with me in the gallery mentioned that if Monet had lived thirty years more he would have been 'doing Pollock with bells on' and I can't come back at him with an argument having seen the lilies face to face.
Another few bite the dust
A few more drawings here, dear god have they taken a long time. Its great! I've been dismissing out of hand all the concerns that painters labour themselves with (composition, colour etc) as though they weren't part of my agenda before I started doing these drawings and I can't do anything other than admit that, in certain respects, I was completely wrong. To believe that any rectangular, worked surface mounted and put on a wall wouldn't bring forward concerns and questions with regards to the painter's issues was extremely naïve. The 'paintings' I started this blog showing you were far from paintings in this regard (bad paintings maybe). Colours were chosen almost arbitrarily from what I had scrounged and there was very little brush-work or indeed much of anything involving a craft or trade skill. Whilst I think that the notion behind the inquiry is sound, I freely admit that I'm simply not equipped to tackle it yet. The skills of colour mixing, drawing, painting and observation aren't developed enough nor is my experience of my subject. To remedy this I think I will finish out the remainder of my first year at college drawing and nothing but. Maintaining a rigorous work ethic and developing my hand and eye will benefit me no end. Outside of studio time at home I will return to very straightforward landscape painting.
Time for a bit of reading
In other news – I've finally got the chance to start reading The Story of Art by Gombrich. I decided that (with my driving test looming ever closer and my bus-reading time diminishing as a result) the books weren't going to read themselves and that there's no better time than now. Gombrich is an amazing writer judging from the little I've read and from his other book: “Art and Illusion”, HIGHLY recommended. He writes about ancient Chinese landscape painters:
“[Paintings were] ... less for the teaching of a particular doctrine – as Christian art was to be employed in the middle ages – than as an aid to the practise of meditation. Devout artists began to paint water and mountains in a spirit of reverence, not in order to teach any particular lessons, nor merely as decorations, but to provide material for deep thought.”
Since leaving sixth form and going onto foundation I've had a problem with things that are purely decorative that pretend to be other than. I am pleased to have had it explained to me (whether correctly or not) that we are to be about far more than artifice and that we are not at art-school to learn hobby crafts. What I am about to type is almost word for word the things I've had said to me in a discussion about this months and months ago that has only just made complete sense.
The above definition of the purpose of art and painting particularly is pleasing for me to read as, at least for Buddhist artists circa the thirteenth century, painting served as far more than either of the two most common 'purposes' of art. I am not, not have I ever been, religious. I dare say though that from reading more and more landscape artist's writings and seeing more and more of their work that we seem to be using it to fill our spiritual quota. I think that, despite scientist's claims of it being otherwise, people are forever going to be enchanted and intrigued by the world and that some of us vent it in an almost shamanistic ritual. This may be evolutionary hang-over from when art was considered magic. From when (again, citing Story of art) Norse longship captains were asked to remove their terrible dragon carvings from the front of their prows lest they scare the local spirits away. But I honestly think that it goes a little deeper. I believe that despite people not wanting to believe it, you can approach the world (and life perhaps) in a very spiritual (maybe just romantic?) way without needing to hide behind god or science as an explanation. I am happy to admit that I don't believe I will ever find an explanation for the feeling that I get when stood out on a hillside, wind whipping my face and my feet squidging gradually deeper into mud. I think scientists could say “you get this feeling because of such and such a hormone being released from X and Y parts of the brain” but really they're only analysing the results of this unobtainable thing that prompted the reactions.
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