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No Name For Art Carnival #3

Art and Form

Oh, it is not always easy to decide what is art, why art is art, and how art comes about being art.
This article discusses the relationship between art and form.

Defining Art from Form
“Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.” – Joseph Conrad

When you finally decide on a course of action, all the usual psychological blocks are bound to occur. Where shall I begin? Have I a right to make a choice, based on any sensible guides? Is a piece of ceramics a work of art? Is a piece of Tiffany glass? Is a rug designed by Matisse? Should I buy a painting… a print… a drawing?

There is no crystal-clear answer. As I have tried to indicate in foregoing chapters, you are dealing with your own personal reactions, as well as with certain rules and laws which are vague, at best.

One of the first muddles that need clarifying is the sharp line often drawn to set off arts from crafts. I cannot see why these two should be so summarily opposed to each other. How can anybody decide at first blush that a man who has a sense of form, an eye for color, and a definite quest for the beautiful is producing only a vessel – if he spins a lovely pot on his wheel, applies glowing glazes, and fires his work to produce a handsome jar glowing with a jewel-like finish? Yet there are critics and collectors who would dismiss the man’s work with a snobbish shrug that it is a fine example of the potter’s craft… but as a work of art there is no room for it.

Why, I ask, this strange, if fine, distinction? Is it because the jar is intended for functional use and the higherbrows believe such a pragmatic approach precludes it from joining the upper world of “fine arts”?

Let us go back almost 3,000 years to a Greek potter in his workshop as he formed a vessel for oil or wine. The term “vase” is now applied to most of the early Greek ceramic pieces; but their original purpose was functional… for everyday use. On such vases we see indications of an entirely new way of looking at things by the artist. He was no longer hidebound by the old style he had inherited from earlier Egyptian forms. Yet there was still the same regard for a sharp outline and exact symmetry. So vases from this period are not only valuable for their beauty of color, dimension, and proportion; they are esteemed for their obvious role in shaping a new course for the artist to follow as he broke the shackles of a hardened past. Yet it is clear that the objects as originally created had a humble purpose indeed. Such intent has not lessened their artistic validity or value.

Let us go even farther back into history. Museums which own objects from the Sumerian period display them proudly. In the University of Pennsylvania Museum there is a gold cup used by Queen Shu-Bad of Mesopotamia. It has a graceful form, a delicate gold color, and intricate decorative fluting. Obviously it was designed to provide the queen with a drinking vessel. Is it therefore less beautiful than it would have been had it lacked practical purpose?

The same will naturally apply to the pottery tomb figures of the Ming dynasty in China… to T’ang glazed pottery… to the heroic bronze cats and baboons of the Egyptians. Recently I saw a cover design for the bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, showing a drawing of an Incan Empire Poncho, made about 1500. It was an almost pure design… with cubes of black and white. At the top was a reverse triangle of deep brown. I have seen many paintings of the abstract school which could have hung side by side with this poncho reproduction.

So I say: judge by the results and forget the notion that one can always erect a false fence to separate the beautiful from the functional. If the object is beautiful to you, then it is worthy of your collector’s eye and instincts. This attitude can open up many new fields to you – for example, the folk arts.

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Abstract Painting – Art Without Meaning ?

This article might be a tat controversial. Perhaps that’s why I include it: to offer you a wide range of perspective on abstract art.

“Can art be of importance without meaning? Must “good” art convey the zeitgeist of the times in which it was created? Does “depth of meaning” correlate directly to “goodness” of art?

A definition of terms here would be of value but the terms in question are so based on individual and subjective opinion that the defintions would be questioned.

Abstract painting, particulary the nonobjective painting of many artists since the 1940s is arguably devoid of meaning. In fact many artists want it that way. They prefer to see purely compositional factors, the tenets of design as the measure of their works. Does this relegate them to the level of design, not truly “high art.”

Abstract paintings can do two things. 1) They can ascend to the highest level of design, and 2) they may transcend it to “high art.” Just as Kurt Schwitters paper snips transcend the craft of hobbyists cutting paper, and Joseph Cornell’s boxes transcend the craft of cabinet makers or box designers – so can an abstract paintings transcend design.

The criteria of meaning needs some discussion in my opinion. The “meanings” that some narrow-sighted critics refer to as being the paramount criterion of “high art” revolve around historic, philosophic, and religious dimensions. These meanings purportedly reflect the highest ideals and aspirations of man and god(God?).

I appreciate meanings as much as the next person. I like the classical, epic struggles of mythology, the ancient renditions of the history of the world, the religious icons of every century, the struggles of mankind and every individual in mankind. These are wonderful meanings and certainly worthy of artistic depiction.

Now consider the meaning of a man/woman who struggles to create pure beauty. The artist. The artist who wants to create not only “high art” but does so without the tools of religious thought, without the maps of cultural revolutions, without the applause of an informed and socially motivated political movement, without the traditions of a craftsmens guild. Consider this courageous individual.

These individuals not only attempt real, although only mortal, creation at its highest level – they do so in a unique and hardwon individual style. In addition, their work is meant to free, enhance and amplify your perception of art and beauty in all of its mysterious manifestations.

That “is” meaning. You can witness this meaning in its visual record of each abstract painting. No, not every painting is a masterpiece – and it can’t fall back on cliche’ or a social nomenclature. It stands as a testament to a real struggle to push something to the highest level of art with no help from all the other “manifold meaning packages” that were the reason for art in previous centuries.

By Tia Marks.
Contemporary Art Gallery

Tia Marks is the Executive-Editor of Contemporary Art Gallery – The Online magazine for Trends in the Visual Arts. CAG specializes in abstract painting, artist interviews, exhibitions, sculpture, collage, ceramics, prints, jewelry, essays, and art world announcments.

The Life of Joan Miro

By Mike McDougall

Joan Miró, the legendary Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramist, was born in Barcelona in 1893. Miró’s early life was nothing out of the ordinary, at age 14 he enrolled in the “Escuela Superior de Artes Industriales y Bellas Artes” where he studied for three years. After this he took on a job as a clerk In Barcelona but after suffering a nervous breakdown Miró decided that this wasn’t the career for him so he returned to his studies, this time at Francesc Gali’s “Escuela d’Art” where he studied for a further 3 years up until 1915. Miró’s first real breakthrough came when he had an opportunity to display his art in 1917. Local art dealer José Dalman had shown an interest in the young artist’s early work and used his studio for the exhibition.

From this point on Miró’s career as an artist really took off. He made his first visit to Paris in 1919 and moved there a year later to be part of the artistic community in Montparnasse. It was here as well that he met his fellow countryman Pablo Picasso, for the first time. After this Miró would spend the rest of his life dividing his time between Paris and Montroig back in his native Spain. His first solo show in Paris followed quickly in 1921. Paris was the place to be for a young artist at this time, it allowed Miró to meet many other great artists and in 1924 Miró joined Andre Breton’s Surrealist movement. This gave Miró the opportunity to work with fellow surreal artists Andre Masson and Max Ernst and in 1926 he helped Ernst to pioneer his “grattage” technique. Despite his ties with the movement, it has been said that he was always something of an outsider; indeed Breton later went on to say of Miró that he was “the most surrealist of us all”. As Miró developed his new style he claimed that he wanted to “assassinate” and “murder” traditional painting techniques.

By the early 1930’s Miró’s own style was developing and he was starting to get recognised as one of the leading artists of his time. His vibrant colours and almost amoebic shapes are reminiscent of a child’s drawings. On the home front, Miró had also been married to Pilar Juncosa in 1929 and this period also saw the arrival of their first daughter in 1931.

Miró was an artist revered for his adaptability and his use of different media. In 1929 he started his first experiments with lithography and his first etchings and sculptures also date from around this period. These different forms of artistic expression would go on to form a huge part of his work and, like his peer Picasso; it would ultimately make him more accessible as an artist.

The 1936, due to the outbreak of the civil war, Miró decided not the return to Spain; he moved his wife and daughter out to join him in Paris. He would not return to his homeland for nearly five years. Miró continued to experiment with new mediums and in 1944 he produced his first ceramics piece. By now his renown was worldwide and he made his first trip to America in 1947. He returned again frequently and had successful one-man shows at the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York in 1951 and 1959.

Some of the highlights in Miró’s glittering career include receiving the 1954 Venice Biennial printmaking prize, in 1958 he was commissioned to do two murals for the UNESCO building in Paris which won the Guggenheim International Award for and in 1980 he received the Gold Medal of Fine Arts from his sovereign, King Juan-Carlos.

Undoubtedly Miró was one of the 20th century’s finest artists – his legacy lives on today and a huge volume of his work can be seen at the Fundacio Joan Miró in Barcelona, a superb museum that is a fine showcase to this extremely talented man.

Miro Books

Article by Mike McDougall. Mike McDougall has five years experience working as a travel writer and marketeer. He is currently working to provide additional content for Babylon-idiomas, a Spanish language school with an excellent presence in Spain and Latin America. This work is covered by a creative commons licence

Cutting-Edge Art — On Glass Art & Dale Chihuly

By Bronwen Roberts

Art glass usually refers to the modern art glass movement in which individual artists work alone or with colleagues, creating works from molten glass in relatively small furnaces of a few hundred pounds of glass.

Dale Chihuly

It began in the early 1960s and showed an incremental growth through the end of the century. The glass objects created are not primarily utilitarian. From a creative perspective, they have to make an artistic statement. Their market value depends on the work and the artist involved, and prices range from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars. The best known of the modern glass artists is Dale Chihuly. In 1971, he began the Pilchuck School of Glass near Stanwood, Washington, which is a source of a great deal of the current American Studio Glass movement.

In an art glass studio, “production work” (goblets, vases, pitchers, art marbles etc.) show more hand worked variation than was allowed in a pure factory work environment, and each piece shows some of the lead glass worker’s creativity. In addition to smaller production pieces, the studio glass workers also try to turn out larger individual pieces, which might be the equivalent of a work of genius in the journeyman system of guild and factory work.

Glass Blowing might be an ancient art but there has been a resurgence in the relatively recent “studio glass movement” which began in 1962. Harvey Littleton, a ceramics professor, and Dominick Labino, a chemist and engineer, held two workshops at the Toledo Museum of Art, during which they began experimenting with melting glass in a small furnace and creating blown glass art. Littleton and Labino were the first to make molten glass available to artists working in private studios. This approach to glass blowing blossomed into a worldwide movement, producing such flamboyant and prolific artists as Dale Chihuly and Dante Marioni. Lino Tagliapietraa was the first Murano-trained artist to leave and spread his knowledge in the United States.

Philip Johnson’s Glass House may be one of the least functional homes on the planet but on an architectural scale, it is one of the most beautiful. All the exterior walls are glass, with the surrounding vegetation as audience. Johnson did not see the house so much as a stage… but as a statement. The inspiration and basic concept for Johnson’s glass house came from Mies van der Rohe, who was designing the glass-and-steel Farnsworth House during this period. Also surrounded by a green landscape, the house stands utterly transparent with its glass-enclosed living space and porch. On a conceptual level, the house is the perfect expression of International Style. Both houses are simple in structure but it is the use of glass as the main material, which makes these houses highly significant in the world of architecture.

Fritography is the art of using crushed glass pieces (“frits”) and coloured glass powders to create fused glass artwork. Artists assemble the frits into patterns that can be highly detailed, and even photo-realistic, and then fuse the works in a kiln. Seattle artist, Michael Dupille, pioneered the process. This glass artist works in Seattle, Washington. While he has worked in numerous media, he is widely regarded as a pioneer in the technique of fritography, or kiln-fused glasswork. His public work is on display throughout the United States, including a major installation in New York City’s Wall Street Park.

Through the centuries, glass has changed its function and form. A company that has consistently stayed on the cutting edge of glassmaking is Pilkington glass. Their pioneer product, Pilkington Activ™ is the world’s first self-cleaning glass. This is a dream come true; no more long hours spent cleaning windows – natural light and rainwater keep windows clearer and squeaky-clean.

Art Patron William Bowmore, who gifted $17+ million to museums, died.

William Bowmore was a life-long art patron and one of Australia’s most generous philanthropists. He died at age 98 on January 9. Bowmore’s fine art gifts to the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) and other Australian museums such as the Newcastle Region Art Gallery have been valued to be in excess of $17 million.

Following his heart and lifelong passion for art, Bowman started collecting Australian art. In the late ’60s, he began traveling to London. There he made the connections at auction houses and beyond enabling him to purchase international paintings from old masters, and other such works.

After almost half a century of collecting, Bowmore began donating works of art in 1990. Among his most noted contributions to the AGSA are sculptures by Rodin, Roman antiquities and Islamic arts. In 1995 Bowmore facilitated its acquisition of his renowned Rodin sculpture collection.

In 2004 his donation of 45 rare early Middle-Eastern ceramics was key in establishing the first and still only dedicated Islamic gallery in an Australian art museum. Among his other gifts are important works in the British, French, Italian and Dutch collections, two fine Roman sculptures dating from the first and second centuries AD, and the rare seventeenth century Yakob ‘Polonaise’ Islamic carpet.

Mr Bowmore’s gifts to the Newcastle Region Art Gallery included works by Australian artists Sidney Nolan (famed for his Ned Kelly art ~ see illustration), William Dobell, Conrad Martens.

It also included international artists Auguste Rodin, Max Ernst and Jacob Epstein as well as ceramics by Japan’s major artists including Shoji Hamada.

Bowmore has received many awards and honors. The AGSA named the William Bowmore Gallery in his honor in 1997 and has presented three exhibitions of his collections. Born in Dalby, Queensland in 1909, Bowmore taught cello at the Newcastle Conservatorium. He was also a businessman who operated hospitals and hotels.

Mr Bowmore was well respected throughout Australia for his generosity and relentless energy and love for the arts.

Quality Art Materials Benefits Art Professionals

By Astrid Lee

As an artist myself, I have found that whenever I choose quality artwork, somehow the artwork gains a new dimension of worth. I find that I am mentioning little quality factors to buying candidates that just help things along.

Of course, potential buyers have to first find the work and love it. Then, they need to be coached to actually purchase it. It can be scare decision for some buyers, as there is sometimes not much to go by other than their own personal taste. Their taste is of course of overriding importance, but they are not always sure of that.

So, when I can bring in ‘quality’ features about and around the art, it helps clients feel comfortable that the art will last, and that they are making the right purchasing decision. Professionalism simply triggers trust, which is a prerequisite for sales.

While I still shop at my local art supplier, I have to say that I’m finding Blick Art Materials , an online merchant, of greater and greater value. Their range of products embraces quality artist supplies. Artists may know Dick Blick Art Materials to have a complete inventory of brushes, canvases, books, ceramics, scrapbooks, educational materials, printmaking, painting, display boards, crafts and audiovisual equipment.

However, they also have a wide range of products that suit art galleries and the self-displaying artist at fairs. Here are some favorites at Dick Blick:

Storage

Archival Storage Cases These practical storage cases provide superior protection and easy access to artwork, prints, photographs, slides, and other valued pieces. Acid-free linings and acid-free glues are used in the construction of this case. It has metal latches, corner protectors, and a plastic carrying handle. The bottom of the case has rubber, non-skid feet.

Display Books

Prat Laser Refillable Spiral-Book Protect and display your documents in style. A black, semi-rigid leather cover opens to reveal an innovative spiral binding system that allows for easy opening and page turning. It has a 20-page capacity. Included are 12 top-opening, archival, acid-free polypropylene Cristal laser sheet protectors, adaptable to current technologies, such as digital imaging, color photocopies, and laser copies. Deluxe black paper inserts are also included. Additional page refills are available in packages of 10.

Print Rack

Academy Ambrosia Print Rack An attractive, hardwood showcase for studio, gallery, art fair — or take it anywhere. Durable and sturdy, the Richeson Academy Rack opens to hold numerous pieces of all sizes. Assembly required.

Browse Blick Art Materials deals on the site. They often have specials. Well worth a visit! FREE SHIPPING on orders totaling $200 or more

Dick Blick is one of the primary suppliers of mail order art supplies in the United States, and in addition, has over 30 stores throughout the country.

Recommended Buy a Combo and Save Money! ARTnews + Art in America: only $69.90 (Save $66.10). These magazines really appreciate art.

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