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RESPONSES TO THE INTRODUCTION through CHAPTER 3:Katy Cowley - 1.11.2009
INTRODUCTION
SUMMARY - Theodore F. Wolff wrote a series of essays on art. His essay crusade had beginnings in the 1950s. Initially Wolff was reacting against a Partisan movement in the art community that proclaimed Abstract Expressionism to be the superior contemporary art form. Over time different partisan movements surfaced. Wolff disagreed with influential art professionals who reviewed art with "surprisingly innocent or prejudiced eyes."
In 1980, Wolff's collection of essays was published in a long-running series in The Christian Science Monitor. The goal was "critical objectivity." These essays helped influence the more tolerant environment where artistic expression could flourish.
REACTION - In the early 1990s my watercolor teacher had something on her mind. "Katy" she said. "You know I love your work, but…" It was the word "but" that seemed to hover overhead. I wondered what criticism would follow. "But," she said with thinly veiled disgust, "it's just so feminine."
I grew up in the 1970s amid the women's movement for equal rights. I recall my parents dressing us up for Church in suit-dresses, my hair very short in a boyish cut. The boys in our home were taught domestic skills that had traditionally been thought of as female. As a result, by the time I reached college in the late 80s, I really didn't know how to care for myself. With my life background, I understood where my professor was coming from. She was on one end of the pendulum swing of feminist rights, and I was on the other. I found my feminine work to be an empowering form of feminism, and she found it to be taking a step backward in time.
I believe that many artists have experienced what Wolff describes as Partisan art criticism. Our work may not always be what is in vogue; and as such, may not be respected within the community. For this reason, Wolff's crusade is exciting. It allows artists to find a place for their personal artistic expression. I have permission to experiment and change over time.
I look forward to learning from these essays. I hope it will help me see art through objective principals that I can apply to my work.
CHAPTER 1
It is time we gave legitimacy to the term "20th century art" by expanding it to include the full range of art produced in our century - barring only such works designed specifically to flatter us or to mean our sensibilities. Or are we so fearful of contamination from art not acceptable to our peers that we prefer blinders to the pleasures and insights such art might give us? -- Wolff REACTION - Wolff's agenda is set forth in this chapter: accept the full range of art as legitimate or live wearing blinders.
I remember attending my first art installation exhibit. I could not compare the work to a "traditional" oil painting. However, it had its own merit. I am certain there are some who would choose to either agree wholeheartedly in the merits of this contemporary form - or who are appalled by its inclusion under the title of "art."
I wonder if Wolff's fight will produce results. Even "acceptable" forms of art today (such as French impressionism) were initially ridiculed by those in the art community. As an artist - I create art not because it finds a home in the art world, but because it finds a place within me. Maybe I can say that because I have not opened my work to public view. However, I tend to surround myself with supportive people who are my community - who support me whether or not they understand or accept my art. I need to create art, regardless of whether the public accepts it.
CHAPTER 2
REACTION - Abstract or not abstract. What is my preference as an artist - as a viewer? Do I wear blinders because of my bias?
My art training has been in realism. Learn to construct before you deconstruct seems to be the mantra. I recall seeing an exhibit in the early 1990s at BYU's Museum of Art from professor Alex Darais. In the center of the room of his abstracted works he displayed the classical realism he was able to accomplish. It was as if he had to prove to the art-seeing public that he could paint realistically, he just chose not to.
I believe this initial training in realism is why my work is so representational. I haven't felt as though I have mastered realism enough to explore other styles. I am planning on exploring more this time around. I like how our curriculum is set up. We have different areas to learn - including classical training - but we are given the freedom to explore our own individual direction.
As a viewer of art, I am drawn to the abstract. I like simplified shape, the play of light and shadow. I am contemplating an abstract, monochromatic self portrait as one of my individual expression pieces -- a self-portrait so as to not offend someone with its lack of representation. Perhaps I am more affected by public opinion than I previously admitted.
CHAPTER 3
Art, because of its intuitive and prescient nature, and because it is now free to probe into the deepest recesses of human consciousness, is ideally suited for this process of self recognition and reaffirmation. -- Wolff REACTION - In my profession work with child abuse cases, I see a terrible reality all around me. I unravel these narratives of abuse and see the deception, the objectifying of human spirits, the ego that overrides the value of each life, the distortion of right and wrong. I work to be an agent of good - but sometimes I believe I lose myself in this struggle. For those in my field of work it is common to burnout - or more technically - to struggle with "Compassion Fatigue" or "Secondary Post-Traumatic Stress." I call it walking around with the blinders off. When I am in this state, I feel raw from emotional overload: one case too many of suffering; one child whose details match that of my child; one more interaction with a "good guy" behaving badly.
Perhaps you would think that after seeing thousands of these cases, I would want to express my humanity through art. Maybe I would want to show the suffering to the viewer, so they may experience compassion. However, my art has no great meaning. Instead, it slows me down to focus on a different moment in time. I watch in wonder as the brush is on canvas. I get excited over finding just the right color. It serves more than a diversion of the harsh outside reality - it expresses an internal reality. Hope does exist.
I like the idea expressed by Wolff that the process of creating art can lead to self-recognition and reaffirmation. Through creating art, I begin to recognize traits within myself of childlike wonder and awe. Creating art helps build a bridge through these two sides of myself: the innocent and the hardened. I would like to reaffirm a whole self.
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RESPONSES TO THE INTRODUCTION through CHAPTER 3:Jennifer Prince - 12.9.08 INTRODUCTION - It's nice to have someone write about the "common denominators" of traditional and modern art. Modern art really has opened doors to the artistic world -- Like adding a new handful of words to our language for better understanding.
CHAPTER 1 - Sometimes to see truth we have to look at what the opposite would say.
Sometimes we must bypass the "natural look" to understand truth, and to make it seem clearer.
CHAPTER 2 - People will only see what they want to see, if it applies to their mindset and way of thinking. You can't satisfy every one.
CHAPTER 3 - Someone once told me that "The Cry" was indeed a true piece of art because it shows us what life is like without Christ, without order, without natural laws.
It's real art to show a true moral principle, and even the opposite of it; it takes us into the mind of men, and into Human nature.
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RESPONSES TO THE INTRODUCTION through CHAPTER 3:Belinda Bringhurst - 11.19.08 (Belinda has responded here to the introduction and first three chapters.) INTRODUCTION - I have never really liked Abstract Expressionism. And I think I have been suspicious of the talent behind the work because it has seemed that a third grader could paint like that. In reading this introduction I was surprised to hear of how there was a time (and not far distant) when the art world felt this type of art was superior to the world that it had evolved from. Perhaps that was because this had never been done before. I had heard comments here and there which hinted that of course the artist could draw the item just like it was and that it took a truly great artist to move beyond the obvious to produce such a masterpiece of abstract grace. Yet I was still unconvinced. Perhaps I am in the traditionalist camp.
It is interesting that we have been going through a time in history where there seems to be a great division of ideas; Gay marriage, political parties, opinions on war, abortion, etc. I have never felt the country so passionately divisive. Could I be more aware just because I’m older? I don’t think so. The differences have been so stark that it has forced me into participating where before I would have been more ambivalent.
In this introduction Mr. Wolff expresses his desire to find “common denominators” between the two camps of modernists and traditionalists. Beginning in 1980 and ending in 1987 he was able to satisfy a longing for “a subject so far removed from daily news.” Doesn’t that sound familiar? I find it interesting how art follows the mores of society. People were taught through socially accepted institutions what “real” art was even if this went against their better judgment. Unfortunately a few with power decided for the majority what should be acceptable. This made it difficult for a new artist with a variance of opinion to succeed (reminds me of Joseph Smith).
The result of these essays seems to have been more tolerance. That seems to be a word I have heard recently too. So I am interested to see how he found common ground and bought peace to the art world of the 80’s. Didn’t they have an economic slump then too? Perhaps he should have run for president…
CHAPTER 1 - “Nothing is ever created which is not instantly in dynamic dialogue with everything else.” Wolff offers, are we to remain “prisoners of prejudice” and miss how interconnected the art world is? He was disturbed that the dividing line existed not to divide crappy from quality but between art’s stylistic affiliations. My response to this is that it was refreshing to see him validate both camps as valuable even necessary to the whole while at the same time redrawing the line this time between artists that violate common sense rules and true artists. I am glad he saw value in seeking to understand both points of view. I am also relieved that there still is a line of distinction with which to qualify good art. I am looking forward to understanding this better (especially with the abstract art that I don’t “get”).
CHAPTER 2 - How interesting to read this and see such a division of opinion about what was valid and acceptable! It seems the human mind is easily diverted into thinking no other way exists but the one I’m on. Why is that? I can only relate this to the repentance process and my unwillingness to change. Perhaps it is because I get comfortable, things are familiar, it is easy or accepted by society (so it must be right), etc. Wolff splits the reasons between “don’t care” and the group that won’t budge based on “built in philosophies” based on “narrow specifications”. He seems to fear the latter because it is exclusionary in nature. I can hear in his tone the yearning for an update, a “paradigm shift” as Steven Covey would say. He wants the art world to catch up to the newly started civil rights movement of the day where everyone has a part to play and contribute and where leaving one out hurts the whole.
My response to that is I realize that here is another aspect of my current world that I have taken for granted. When I walk into a gallery and see the diversity of styles I can now say this used to not be the norm. Again I am surprised at how close in history this is to me.
CHAPTER 3 - What?! There’s more than creating art for “diversion, entertainment, and decoration”????? Wow, what a very insightful article. Forgive me but I cannot help but draw some parallels between this awakened sense of societies “snug little boat of perpetual progress” being adrift and the light of the Restoration which now flooded the earth disclosing what had been hidden. Wolff suggests that he sensed an “erosion of identity” which left one restless. He called it a “void in society” that we miss seeing in our daily cares of the world yet it still nags at the soul. When he first saw Munch’s “The Cry” his feeling was one of recognition. This was the image of what he sensed 20th century society was feeling. A feeling of awakening to an awful truth: that maybe something was amiss. Apparently others had felt it too because never had there been such “extraordinary art...In sheer complexity, innovation, and profusion, no previous age” matched it. “And yet there is something odd and unsettling about it. It is restless and self-absorbed.” like “the rawest of demands had been touched; that man was once again in desperate need to know who he was and where he was going.” He suggests that art will have no part of denial and it puts a voice to this “void”. Munch’s cry “gave voice to the amazement that followed that awakening.”
Wolff suggests that because art is a language the first thing to look for is the quality of idea and how it is articulated. He said he would rather see a clumsily done well articulated piece rather than one skillfully done which had nothing to say. “Of what good…is art if it does not grasp the nature of our age? If it doesn’t attend to the dilemmas that threaten to tear us apart? Or try at least symbolically to resolve our yearnings and feelings of impermanence?” I guess the parallel would be young Joseph who was simple yet definitely had something to say.
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RESPONSES TO THE INTRODUCTION through CHAPTER 3:Amy Tolk Richards - 10.7.08 (Amy has responded here to the introduction and first three chapters.) I am really enjoying these essays so far. They are short (as is my attention span) and keep my interest. I am not well educated in art history and am excited to become better informed through Wolff's references to it, interspersed with his philosophies. I admire the author in his efforts and success with liberating art from 20th Century prejudices, and in giving validity to all sincerely-made art, not just what the "experts" branded as valid. Readers responded well to these 300-ish essays that he wrote, admiring his courage to speak out against "mainstream" galleries and art critics. My only real experience with art criticism has been had vicariously through hearing my husband's experiences. At Brigham Young University, he was frustrated by art professors telling him that what he wanted to express through his art, religious themes, was not valid. If an "expert" had told me that, I would have probably wimped away immediately from religious themes. Instead, he stuck with his passion and has touched the lives of many in so doing. Wolff mentioned that we shouldn't judge art by one standard, and that art follows its own laws. "Art is as diverse as the plant and animal kingdoms" (page 4). This makes me wonder why, in an art class at BYU, I received a B and other students received an A. How can a professor judge and grade us? Each art project was unique, and we probably worked comparably hard to achieve each individual result. Anyway, I feel better about myself reading Wolff and more confident in taking a risk in hopefully many future art projects that will express something I feel passionate about. Wolff mentions Edvard Munch's "The Cry" as a symbolic crying out of mankind's soul for identity with the approach of the 20th Century. I think we can all relate to the anxiety of worrying about how the world perceives us and how we fit into that world. I believe that art is a divine medium of expression in helping us to approach and cope with sometimes unanswerable questions. And no one has the right to judge us in our honest search for meaning. |
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