webthing well, all i'm trying to argue is that renaissance italy didn't only produce a "few remarkable men." They consistently produced mind-bogglingly great artists. I'm interested in how that happened and if we can achieve that today.
I think it's useless discussing this with you because you obviously have preconceived ideas that I feel are clouding the way you view art from this period.
you said: "do you really think titians paintings are that great? though emotionally powerful they are imprisoned, as is almost everything from that period, in religious indoctrination and theatrical/mythical grandiosity"
You sound like you view this art as some kind of propaganda for Catholicism and, therefore, will not even give it a chance.
But at the same time, maybe I am viewing contemporary art the way I think that you view Renaissance art. I admit, I really don't give it a chance unless it's Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Maybe we can learn from each other.
Just to keep us awake can i blow my own horn antithesis? I'll do!
If Titian was alive today his brain would probably be wired like this, and would live in Brooklyn and would paint like this. That's what a couple of hundred years plus does to you. Picasso and his buddy Braque became bored with painting rooms with three dimensional things on a two-dimensional surface. Du-champ gave a clue with the chocolate wheel, descending, but decided he wasn't going to be the one that would carry the lame surreal. Mondrian came up with a clue to view the higher diner things going on in space decreeing visually, 'keep the shit on the surface, zap the brain', reintegrating, always on the move. The emotion is rest. We can go on and on through the 20 days and 14 nights. it must have been a charge. Surrealism was this reaction against all the unrecognizable stuff that was going on, d-champ still kind of kept a leg in, through and through. Well, the basic premise was begin R then fuck with it. Dali did paint a christ figure on a tesseract, but I mean, wrong dude... the moment was typified by blending, endless blending, morphing the old idea into an impossible new. Americans got wind fascinated with ritual mixed the local hiro rejecting the European mo --that's when paint began to look something different facing a new --interpretations hullabaloo. Stella said he didn't want to fuck with the brush with a draw, but then went back and drew. There was the gaze with the Newman, and the shoot with the hip crew. However the closer the Americans came to their idea the closer it came back to making sense in terms of the original Europeans joo[t]. This would not do! It was a journey, all men, and amen. And that blew. The beer was said to be good, if you knew. Vinc was a guy too, and painted like this.
apelles, point taken. though i certainly do not view renaissance art as propaganda. i am only wary of the use of religion and mythology as a vehicle, be it for subversive commentary, adulation or otherwise, solely for the fact that it is an art unto itself, one that does not seek to encompass what art has done since, for better or worse (but surely for the fact that it must) twisting and turning toward but mostly away from such sweeping and resplendent allusions and dire phrases, at least thematically. and yet i confess, it is something to be revisited occasionally if only to gauge an ongoing trajectory. though should not be pursued exclusively! the technical brilliance in color modulation and paint handling etc of renaissance work is to be eternally respected, though can we now find that somewhere else? i don't always believe art always has to be about greatness, suffering, masterpieces, and all that pillar column oak solid stuff. a mind spew of a rant this most certainly is, though not unfinished, for dare i remind myself that artistic inclination was written in the human psyche a long long time before the renaissance and continues to manifest in different cultures subject to the condition of life at that time (its tools and knowledge), which is always in flux, therefore continually evading effective comparison between the ages. i understand your wish to see an improvement to the state of current art production, though the how of it can only be negotiated on canvas and not in print, and in lieu of the old is good, new is bad operative, which is very fashionable, i seek to resist the cynicism that either painting is (again) facing death, or that it is to (again) be charles'd, i mean triumphed... because what artists are really doing is getting 20 stretches ready... ignoring the marketable historic of super-glue fixed styles and seeing how malleable artistic identity can be, so i guess we may almost agree if only in looking forward. i must however admonish the importance of finding some thread or current inspiration from recent work in the generation of new work. perhaps the mystical element the old masters had was time, as life sure has accelerated since. i did enjoy seeing what titian would be doing if he were here among the nu-milleniumers. what a sordid dose of braingoo, i quit!
In defense of religion in art: many great painters have been tremendously inspired by their faith and devotion. Painting images depicting moments from the life of Christ was not a chore for them, not a necessary sort of "fine" they had to pay in order to get any work, not a mercenary bit of propoganda -- but rather an extension of a life of faith and their love of God. For the artists for whom this was the case, it drips from their paintings; I don't think that kind of total involvement with their subject matter can be faked. Truly devotional painting painted by some of the greatest painters ever have a kind of power that is rarely paralleled.
I realize, that for most people the above is accepted as common knowledge. I just wanted to say it here because it seems to be getting lost in the shuffle.
blackcatbone.blogspot.com-re 'the golden couple"get real ,here.Not to say I haven't been following this story,but,for gods sake,they were cute,and mildly successful,and elitist-
Nomi – Titian’s ‘faith’ according to the experts, is by no means manifest. See Gaudioso et al Titian: Prince of Painters 1990 Prestel – especially the super dud The Pentacost (p280) - with all those silly little flames leaping out the top of everyone’s heads. Seems it didn’t wash theologically or pictorially.
Faith, then as now is highly controversial: one church’s piety another’s heresy.
But Titiano’s faith it seems didn’t always stay even with his craft. And this work for the Church of San Spirito in Isola – began to rot and mould so fast the administering monastery withheld payment. The master’s fast and loose approach to oil painting had its limits. There was a four year legal fight – Titsi using his Farnese contacts, cardinal and papal muscle to try and bluster out of it – but eventually it looks like he or his studio replaced it.
‘Faith’ when you’re dealing with a church or client turns out to be a pretty elastic or cynical thing, when you look more closely.
Hey Ryan, you are puffing up there, guy! There is time and space between all these comments, things blend. It's not court.
anyway... while you're on the old stuff...
"Democritus explained senses along these lines, as well. He hypothesized that different tastes were a result of differently shaped atoms in contact with the tongue. Smells and sounds could be explained similarly. Vision works by the eye receiving "images" or "effluences" of bodies that are emanated. He stated that, "Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, color by convention; but in reality atoms and the void alone exist." This means that senses could not provide a direct or certain knowledge of the world. In his words, "It is necessary to realize that by this principle man is cut off from the real." Later philosophers use this to assert that any reliable knowledge can be obtained, but Democritus felt differently: There are two forms of knowledge: one legitimate, one bastard. To the sort belong all the following: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. The legitimate is quite distinct from this. When the bastard form cannot see more minutely, nor hear nor smell nor taste nor perceive through the touch, then another finer form must be employed. - Democritus, Fragment 11, The Symmetry of Life"
Heraclitus, another old-timer, thought all things [are] whole and used the word logos, which translates to word [st.james], but is not. Translators are good with words and building convention... anyway...
He claims to announce an everlasting Word (Logos) according to which all things are one, in some sense. Opposites are necessary for life, but they are unified in a system of balanced exchanges. The world itself consists of a law-like interchange of elements, symbolized by fire. Thus the world is not to be identified with any particular substance, but rather with an ongoing process governed by a law of change. The underlying law of nature also manifests itself as a moral law for human beings. Heraclitus is the first Western philosopher to go beyond physical theory in search of metaphysical foundations and moral applications.
Puffing? I thought I was being brazenly tangential. Oh well.
I can't remember the poet, or poem, but "I want to say, Heraclitus, I've stepped in the same stream twice, and it wasn't the same, but it felt the same, and feeling has a truth of it's own."
1) Titian didn’t always paint in ‘good faith’ as far as the church’s beliefs went (the depiction of God as human candles). The results are not faithful to depiction (look dud). 2) Titian didn’t keep faith with the basics of oil painting (a stable surface and pigment mixtures) and for a work commissioned in the days when contracts for this were pretty strict, his failure to meet standard terms of workmanship is bad faith for the artist or businessman. (the work’s depicted ‘bad faith’ turns out to have an unfortunate extension) 3) To pick and choose how and where you display faith is to take a pretty elastic view of Faith. What exactly does he keep faith in? His bank balance? His skill in depiction? His guild principles? His assistants? His church? Titsi might have had faith in the Farnese but that’s not faith enough to get paid for, and the pay is never fair for that much faith. 4) Titian is not Nomi’s only example, but I think is included in her general remarks on traditional painting and religion. It’s perfectly valid to read my reply as particular example to general principle. 5) Nothing is lost in taking my reply as general principle in itself, in reply to Nomi’s view.
I got the idea that faith in general includes faith in particulars - that religious faith in fact demands honesty and 'good faith' in things like contracts, in particular to one's own church, to an accepted iconography, and studio practices.
I do not say these things preclude faith - they are surely opportunities to demonstrate it! - but if we're talking about religous faith in general - then this is a pretty good example that supposed religious faith in painting was not necessarily obvious or earnest.
Reality being a kind of convention (the ideas that are held to be true - the part of science that is taken on faith by those who do not question)
Unscientists of brutish mysticism! How much longer must we be ensnaired by the enchanting art of Richard Serra? WHen will we be free of the cruhing weight of Julian Schnabel? Canonical men of iron, spewing cannonballs of liquid mercury at walls of glass! Who are the new x men? WHat mutant permutations will the cascade ignite?
Faith, the unweildy vorpal sword of unreason in the face of the momrathic foment!
Faith, arbiter of the verifiable logos from the infinite hot regression to inevitable and cold despair.
But what faith? What religion? WHo's god? How many? How much?
And the last, the empty caress of a paid prostitute.
I propose that people are complex and live complex lives. I don't think having broken a contract demonstrates a lack of faith. If leading entirely exemplary lives is the criteria for people having had faith, I suspect no one had faith.
Can you still buy your way into heaven? those were the days!!!
lthough I feel bad for Lisa McPherson and her surviving kin, there is something that my mother and I are not able to understand about this death.
L. Ron Hubbard states that a "Clear" {which Lisa McPherson attested to being} is a "Well and happy high I.Q. human being who no longer has their own reactive mind".
If Lisa was Clear then why did she go crazy like that so as to fall into the hands of Scientologist's that killed her? Is it because she said she was Clear when she was not? Is it because she said she was not Clear when she was?
Less questions and more answers works best, but most people claim Scientology killed her. That I don't believe. I believe both Lisa McPherson AND Scientology killed Lisa McPherson.
Larry
I'm saving my money, and buying my way into Heaven My T.V. Evangalist showed me the way into Heaven Now make no mistake, and I won't be forsaken (in Heaven) Save all of my pay, at the end of a day to (Heaven) Pack all my belongs, and send them away (Heaven) Yes, I'll do without, so my lord can be richer (Heaven) I'll be laughin', and jokin', and drinkin', and toastin' him (grunt) (Heaven) Buying my way into Buying my way into Buying my way into Heaven
OK – let’s bear in mind the kind of compelling faith Nomi feels is often demonstrated in traditional religious painting. We’re not just talking about ‘correct’ iconography, but something much deeper.
Now say you were a painter supposedly with this feeling and you painted a scene from the bible in a way you felt really expressed an acute devotion, even though it was a bit out there for iconography, but you didn’t care too much about some of the details, or how the assistants prepared the paints or canvas, because your faith, or perhaps just your reputation was so strong.
You don’t think this would undermine (literally!) the painting? You don’t think it points to a lack of consistency in your faith, and the painting? After all this blog often talks about how the materials of a painting influence the meaning of the picture – you don’t think sloppy craftsmanship MUST affect the faith depicted?
And now say this isn’t just a painting for yourself, but is in fact commissioned by the same church you share your faith with, so that this inconsistency is not just a private thing, but actually carries your attitude toward the church to some degree. You don’t think the faith is looking a little superficial? A little selective?
And then say these shortcomings are pointed out to you, perhaps as accidents, but you refuse to fix them, not because you can’t, but because of sheer arrogance, that your fine reputation could ever be associated with such carelessness. And so rather than discreetly repair or replace the thing as a favor to your church (after all) you take the whole thing to court and it drags on and on, and word gets around and in the end you still have to make amends in order to get paid (and then not enough for doing the thing twice anyway). So this time the replacement has perfect materials and execution – EXCEPT – on that one sticking detail that has been there from the start, that question of faith in iconography for the divine, and on this point you deliberately let the youngest apprentice ‘practise’ flickering flames.
It looks crummy and now it’s meant to. In fact it looks like a loss of faith.
Thats a nice story old guy. Who sued who? Or are you talking arbitration? Isn't it considered bad form to sue the church you belong to? keep a lid on it! Hence the passive agressive move to "sabotage" the work with a "conceptual" statement. Block absolute transcendence (idol worship) with a niggling flaw - a McGuffin, an objet petit a, a Navajo rug of perfection broken only by the single thread of deceit. A sand painting to be blown away by the winds of perception. A bottled process fermenting in the minds eye. A second third and fourth strike of the plate of thought, on newsprint or on skin, degrading infinitesimally until the photocopied transmission fades to black.
I heard lawsuits are all the rage though - starting with but not ending in the campaign to take down the warhol authentication board (which is itself an ironic joke!) - I swear if the NYPost is in on it, the conspiracy must go as deep as Charlie Finch, a yardstick which is sort of lateral to the shallow end - maybe as far as the pet jacuzzi.
Here in the kiddie pool, indulgences are around a dollar a bottle and god is an interesting but unverifiable concept.
The church used art to demonstrate its power and spread influence. The faith of the painter comissioned to do the work wasn't the most important aspect and was the least visible.
Slop probably translated more as failure to carry off a certain technique than a spiritual lack, but I could be wrong.
Old Guy- I’ve seen somewhere around 50 Titians over the years that are still in pretty good shape. Some mythological and some religious subjects. Most of them, if not all of them were commissioned. By your logic they are evidence of his faith.
It seems like a pretty big leap to assume that a painting with technical failing (and the refusal to fix it) is evidence of a lack of faith. Was DaVinci also faithless? I think you are projecting a contemporary skeptical attitude (that I suspect we share) backwards, and that it is probably anachronistic. I think in catholic Europe, Catholics received the world through Catholicism.
If you want a winnabego, tell god what color you want.
Prosperity theology or Prosperity doctrine is the doctrine that prosperity and success in business is external evidence of God's favor. This favor may be preordained, or granted in return for prayer or merit-making.
Prosperity theology is commonly a part of televangelist and pentecostal churches which claims God wants Christians to be successful in every way, including financially. Proponents claim that its purpose is funding of preaching throughout the World, and is based largely on a Bible verse (Deuteronomy 8:18) which says, "God gives you the power to get wealth to establish his covenant."
O.G. I was with you earlier, but now I have to disagree. You can't use one example, no matter how well documented and historically accurate it may or may not be, to demonstrate someone's faith or lack of faith. I understand what you are saying about faith translating to honest action, even in small matters.. in fact most importantly in small matters, and the many meanings of fidelity. So yes, Titian, one painter of religious imagery, could have had a faith that came and went. Probably he was like most Catholics (myself included) who can hardly make it home from confession without committing three or four mortal sins. However, people, especially religious people, are so prone to contradictory behaviour that it is practically a synonym for being human. After all, it was St. Paul who described himself as(paraphrased) "not doing that good he would do, and doing that evil he would not".. not to mention denying Christ three times at the most important moment in his life. And it was on him that the church was founded! Faulkner describes it best though in Requiem For A Nun, when he characterizes men as "gentle" but of the sort would stop in the middle of a lynching party to let a family of lizards escape from a log before he throws it on the pyre.
Titian sued the monastery for withholding payment. The monastery withheld payment because of the state of the painting.
This is not an issue of paintings just deteriorating ‘over time’. I am not aware of a lawsuit over Da Vinci’s Last Supper. The present version of The Pentecostal is in excellent ‘condition’.
If human failing is so common, why bother having laws? Faith is often broken obviously – but if a painting is meant to demonstrate holding a faith (in Nomi’s sense) in this instance it does not (even though Titian is a ‘great’ painter, even though the subject is religious). Arguing that losing faith is part of faith is a contradiction (from which anything follows).
Waste - You want to get paid, you've got to do the job.
I definitely suspect that the version of The Pentacost we have, is intentionally shoddy - with those flames. I can't believe Titian couldn't do better flames than that, if he really wanted, I can see why (with a bit of research) he might want to leave it like that.
early 20th century "owns" the word "modern". which is at once imperative for discussion and yet sadly, completely absurd, an oxymoron, as "modern" now carries in it to mean something "obsolete". the word modern has pretty much been retired, at least in artland. will "contemporary" one day be hung next to it? a rather silly pattern is emerging. maybe once "contemporary" passes on, "emerging" will step up louder than presently. the game gets trickier, perhaps harder.
in this manner, catholics own the word "faith"? i don't know about that. some of the greatest landscape painters had faith in exactly that, lest we forget. displaying your "faith" does not mean depicting catholicism and it never will. displaying your "catholicism" in a work on the other hand, is fine. "faith" as i know it, is in artwork today (and not in the historical sense being discussed). It is more personal, and difficult to decipher, even to detect. But it is there! O.G, thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Pentecost flames are just painted in a different style (of icon painting?) - I don't think thats a sign of bad quality. You don't like it, fine. But I'm sure the monks were into the enlightenment version of onward and upward. Little did they know things just wind down into entropic chaos.
I jsut read El Greco worked in Titian's studio. Thats something - maybe they made a bet and decided to see what would happen That would be a great story. Two painters trying out their bag of tricks - Greco was considered an inferior painter thought right?
I enjoyed the Greco show at the met - prob more than any titians I've seen - maybe cuz I love cloisone almost as much as beer, adn I love beer more than anything.
I don't say Roman Catholicism owns faith, certainly. But in the case I cite, it happens to be the church. And yeah, there are others faiths, many with churches.
The point Zip raises seems to fall in step with Nomi's intuition – essentially, that spiritual flames here are different from material ones - can't be realistic (by our standards) - only declare devotion. To which I say, even if a sort of flame, then needs more flammable attributes. Even as a metaphorical flame, needs to be literally more flame-like. On this I rest my faith in pictures, and to picture faith first requires a faith in pictures. So I reject the schematic sperm or flame where the rest of the work urges more literal properties. If I saw those flames in a William Blake painting, for example, I might go along with them.
If Titian deliberately left the flames hokey I suspect he knew the debate would then be theological, and at that time even between orders, there were rifts. It would not be as easy to reject his wild interpretation. So he could register a subtle disapproval of the monastery, if not other faith.
But say I’m wrong – and he didn’t get an apprentice to do them, but lavished all his care on them, and they were the best spiritual flames he could come up with. The argument still then goes to how familiar the iconography is (for the church) how recognizable they are (for a picture to me).
Then it’s just Titian the big shot wanting to have his way with both the church and pictures – as a measure of his faith in himself?
Interesting comparison - that titian. Its like classical composers stealing folk melodies (because they are good) and turning them into entertainments for the rich (who must be shielded from the common). This matches the pattern of colonization of the low to the present. That there still exists a dialectic between the classes attests tot he enduring power of class.
If the flames on the Titian are a deliberate "in the style of" then its a pastiche. If they are merely a rip off then its In this postmodern era that juxtaposition might be considered a cheap trick or a lazy rip off. But stuff gets recycled eternally, doesn't it?
Oh, my. I never intended to use Titian as an example of a painter of authentically devotional paintings. I don't know what his beliefs were. (Though, I don't think the "hokey flames incident" is indicative one way or the other.)
And I probably overstated things considering that we don't know a lot about the personal religious beliefs of many Renaissance painters. Additionally, I didn't mean to ignore the inherent difficulties and conflicts of doing commissioned work.
I suppose I just meant to say that it wasn't all a cynical game of make believe.
To me, Fra Angelico conveys a tenderness of devotion that is unparalleled. In his case we do know that his faith was authentic and profound. There are other painters whose work is similarly moving and whom I feel must have been working from the heart; but that is only a feeling.
Anyway, I do not agree that painters working before the modern era were all "imprisoned by religious indoctrination," as one poster put it. Not that there were not dissenters, non-believers and those with idiosyncratic views; of course there were. But there were also artists who were the opposite of imprisoned by Christian faith.
appelles, where did you go? opened up the renaissance can, and vanished. we can argue about the greatness of the past, but really, debate in the footnotes? valuable to the present, but certainly not more important, or superior.
are those shards of light beaming down between the eyes on MOCQUET?
webthing: "what artists are really doing is getting 20 stretches ready... ignoring the marketable historic of super-glue fixed styles and seeing how malleable artistic identity can be, so i guess we may almost agree if only in looking forward. i must however admonish the importance of finding some thread or current inspiration from recent work in the generation of new work."
Take a look at the paintings on this page. What do they all have in common? For me, it is that most of them are pervaded by Modernist ideas.
If you open up a book on modernism, you might find cliche terms such as "gesture" or "all-over." Most of the works I see look like they have been painted by someone who has read these words somewhere and then applied them in their own works, as if having these traits in their painting will make it as important as something by Mondrian, Rothko, or Pollock.
There are a limited number of moves to make in painting. You can make them slow or fast though. You can sigh, kibbitz or fidget, but that is considered bad form.
What is important is to make a statement, open a dialogue, make loud noise, or quiet noise, or loud quiet loud noise.
Some people prefer their statements as arguments, and call all statements arguments.
Some people claim the right of contingency and call all of their statements actions.
Is action an argument? Semanticly no, but functionally yes. Dance harder! Every move a question, every pause a fight! Coup d'etat by autonomic nervous function! Comatose but still gesturing!
It is a game because the detached say so. Life is a movie Life is a game! I am free of the wheel of karmic pain! I walk in the rain! Everything seem the reason!
appelles it's a fair point you make, and one that is not uncommon in contemporary discussion. in fact it seems everywhere to prevail. i do try to see what you mean by pervading modernist ideas, but i don't see that as a problem, and rather than begin comparative analysis, can i suggest that everything is essentially derivative of a previous form, such that unique form must always be borne of the parent, but let's not laud the parent too much, keeping in mind that it too was derived from a predecessor, and so on. we have been mixing pigments and creating images for a very long time and i find that as a digital reality looms further over our lives the more interesting it becomes that painting, something essentially ancient, still finds many ways to incite us to endless discussion. the structure for new visual approaches having been established prior does not mean that we cannot continue to speak, and hence evolve them, if indeed they can be applied to this life. though i have to ask, can you really see mondrian, rothko or pollock in mocquet, or the others on the page? i know what you mean in a way but to me it seems they display a different sensibility, something less serious and less likely to drive one to self destruction. you seem very enamored with all the great names, most of whom suffered the burden of these very discussions until their end. but on it goes, and i can't pretend i know why, but can discuss its progress, and i do believe it is progress. as much as art incites its own antecedent, i don't think the paintings on this page look like they came from any other time but now. nice poem zip.
no I do NOT see pollock, mondrian, rothko in the work of the painters on this page. But I DO see tactics like gesture, all-over painting, color field, pop irony being used without the artists really seeming like they understand WHY they are using the techniques they are using (except, maybe for Mocquet). as if they think that using these tactics will make their paintings great. or, at least, that it is only correct to paint this way using these tactics.
I think you could call most art derivative, but I think a better word is that some artists assimilate the works of other artists well, but some do not do it too well.
Which specific contemporary painters do you think are making the most progress?
Human first religion if you need it second. If you need a rock, there it is. Life is lucky like that.
We live in a world of collisions, though seldom do these worlds collide. In the artworld they do but in fact they don't in the smaller merticularities of everyday contact and duristriction. The worlds we live simultaneously are many. And there are many. It's said that the word tofu best registers the contemporary artist, though while not exactly forming echelon bands [v] and lines [v] . We seem to be divided by forces with their projectiles, governance, and caves.
Old school looks to be a very tight show, with contemporary weaknesses easy to spot, among some surprises.
Old School looks like tactic and show off. OK I guess--I like showoffs.
I like painting as an anachronistic pursuit. I do like having breakfast with the past. bacon and eggs with the future too. Reality is pretty much digital & image right now. "Progress" is not a concern. Resistance could be.
Back from my vacation CP. Big blue lake is still blue--for now. Trees are hurting. Rocks are still awesome.
More rich people than ever though--hummers and american flags all over. Bar B Que anyone?
No its MLM vitamin supplements for me - synergy. Im into he whole 1+1+1+1= 5 sort of thing. Get down to brass tacks, look at how the whole world is in his hands, and then ask yourself how you take a crap with your hands full.
OG- have you seen the Pentecost in the flesh? Those flames look as they do for iconographic reasons. They emanate from the light being passed down from the holy spirit.
Calling the rest of the painting depictive seriously oversimplifies it.
Doesn't sound much like 'a world' then. Sounds more like just a change in some circumstances.
Calling a bunch of people with 'flames' coming out the top of their heads, The Pentacost seriously oversimplifies The Bible too, but how is picturing (or depicting) a text ever going to 'equate' with it?
If you look closely at these 'flames' you will see they Do Not emanate from above, but that the Base of the flames lies with the heads (the thickest part of the flames). So one implication of this picture is that 'divine' spirit is actually fueled by collective action/faith. They power their God, rather than the more traditional view.
Little touches like this will not have escaped a commissioning monastery, the fact that the flames DO NOT belong to standard iconography (like say halos) means that they are subject to especial scrutiny both as a convincing depiction of fire, or as symbolic prayer.
The flames one, if you look close you can just make out a few shrimps there, I think? Hey rush, where I'm o from we call it the great outdoors, with outhouses, anyway can wegetta drink now?
[Old Guy & waste - I feel silly adding to this, but here's "what the Bible says" about Pentecost (King James Version - I can't vouch for what the monastery used):
Acts 2:3 "And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them."
"sat upon each!"]
Painter, I hope you're having fun wherever you are.
"U.S. Special Forces are to work with the Turkish army to suppress the Kurds' guerrilla campaign. The Bush administration is trying to prevent another front from opening in Iraq, which would have disastrous consequences. But this gamble risks major exposure and failure.
Tres conceptuelle, nest ce pas?
Ou est le premiere artiste? Monseur Bush? Passez moi le mutarde.
Halos and flames are metaphors. They represent ideas. Their meanings aren't fixed. I think religious (and most figurative) (and some abstract?) paintings work using metaphor.
Too bad Titian was done with that painting (the second time) before El Greco came along. Or, maybe El Greco saw those flimsy things, and spent the rest of his life showing Titian how to paint everything as if it were on fire.
Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth:
No, it was the usual old stuff. I could tell that even in the bookstore.
I also saw a huge stack of a book called (I think) The Cult of The Amateur by someone like Keene or Keane (a Silicon Valley insider!!!!)telling us how blogging and Wikipedia are degrading standards, etc etc, no respect for real 'experts' the end of The Western World and CULTURE!!!!
Why assume that because people want to write, they expect everyone to believe what they read?
Why assume blogging threatens any standards of objectivity or validation?
This strikes me as just panic from someone insecure about their own status.
Walker Percy had a lot to say about the effects of giving authority to specialists. Loss of the sign's ability to signify, related to inability to "see" without the thing seen being designated as worth seeing by an "expert". I think (hope) it's a very important shift that's happening. I don't think the experts have to worry about being short on dependants any time soon though.
high denotes authority, validation and expertise, which is exclusive. low denotes popular domain, lack of traditional academic enquiry, essentially hearsay. if the wiki is built by the nodes and not by the architect, we have what notable outfit once adequately termed The Low End Theory. Google earth 3d will be modelled by unpaid individuals out of their own ineterest, at least that's what google is hoping. Cultural production and encyclopedia's written by the readers? Would history have predicted that? By the way, fear of the loss of expertise by experts is not something we need to worry about. Heard of Neenstars? Miltos Manetas, unfortunately making recent links with the saatchmeister, but lets ignore that because i've been following him a while for painting progress, despite his otherwordly Hellenic philosophies. Look him up, links are everywhere, he might be the most prevalent interenet painter around, much more than Marcaccio was/is, though he too made some nice adddition to the lineage. manetas.com
it has become apparent that the global task is too big for a few experts to accomplish, is all i was trying to say. opensource is the only way to get it all developed to a point where the refresh rate of data and information in publishing is rarely out of sync with reality. however this raises questions of losing history, because everything is always updated and old sites, unlike old books, do not remain. (though there are some interent archival software out there). see manetas 07 exhibition internetpaintings.com, plus that other little graduate student who saatchi ate for dinner recently.
appelles, like i've been saying all along, history set out to establish rigid structures that would evade entropy, so rigid in fact that they stifle the present, however entropy still prevails, and now lucid application of malleable structures is the emergent reality, such that it's difficult to compare a stone to water. i think it's imperative not to try and phrase the present in previous terminology, a negotiation needs to be made and the method some employ to seek it is what i meant as 'progressive', but its a shit word i admit, lets go for super-cumulative, if that makes it any stranger.
I always hate it when artists start doing tech stuff. It always seems like they're so obsessed with it because they think it's so great and fascinating and magical.
Like the paintings of his with the cables and wires and plugs. I've seen tons of those. Is it supposed to mean something? It looks like it's trying hard to be meaningful.
Artists that think technology itself painted in oils is something meaningful, or artists that think that technology itself is intrinsically meaningful think that way because they probably have no familiarity with how it works.
Once you figure out how technology works, it loses a lot of the magic. That kind of poetic technological sublime aesthetic is becoming stale really fast.
manetas is redundant. The pollock painting widget (for example) he made is redundant on several levels - not the least of which is that it is a variation on a theme of a textbook example in the peachpit press flash book. Secondly being the idea of paint effects, implemented as "stamps" in Illustratore and painter, but also as "tubes" in Maya nd after effects. Not to mention that it is a digital version of an analog process (where have you seen that before?).
In the same way other artists get credit for implementations of ideas that are essentially parlour tricks, or stuff that they didn't (or can't) do themselves. Are we to give sole credit to the manegerial class? I dont think so.
Sure you can argue artists do or g "give permission" to do what others say is not allowed (too easy) but thats bullshit and you know it. Its a thin conceit - like giving the girlfriend of the drummer a cowbell and telling her shes a vital part of the sound.
look up "stroking the path" with a"brush" in illustrator - its endlessly fun, but not really art, is it? I mean you could say it allows you to "quote" a brushtroke just like the big boys (lichtenstein) but you are missing a key ingredient.
Or not. All I know is I can pump out a Mehretu style diagram in about an hour no sweat - no shit.
or a sol le wit wall diagram - make it an endless mesh. I can plug it into an "action" in photoshop or illustrator and I dont even need a human. And it will be done the same way every friggin time. And you can change the input . And its basicly a program.
webthing: "now lucid application of malleable structures is the emergent reality"
That sounds like a positive way of saying "anything goes."
Do you think this came about because society destroyed the "rigid structures"?
Or do you think this came about because of our global world and global communication.
Also, how different is our society from modern society? Modernism was really not that "rigid" in terms of its production. Dada, performances, surrealism, abstraction, realism, conceptual art, etc all happened in the modern era. The aesthetic ideas of the major movements of modernism are what i feel drives almost everything being made today.
appelles, ok well manetas early work isn't so great, but the 07 stuff, overlayed screens, which is what i meant i found interesting, kind of, but it does seem emulative of, as zip mentions, things that can be done on computers, in this way it is much less engaging, on a human level, kind of souldead, jufashionable and illustrative. but it depends what we are looking for, and what we see painting as a document of. things that are accepted in their time usually have very little longevity. i like perjovschi's heart, as old guy mentions, and even ritchie's felt tip tumbleweeds, may have been known to enjoy the paintings of grotjahn if only for a few seconds, modernist as they may be, is it possible that modernism has not been fully explored? youth brings about a lot of discovery, age revisits and fathoms it, this may take a while. or that these EXTREMELY BROAD terms can be applied in some way or another to alomst everything right back to egypt or any period of rapid social change? I tend not to get bogged down in the greats or the isms, perhaps because my appreciation of art is not through the generalized lens of category. honestly, the lineage of master painting is not in paint anymore, it's probably now in film, and painting is not even about paint, as it is about physical questioning of the visual. has everything been done? no.
Art has no boundaries . See art as a representation of the human spirit or sub-conscious . Arrrgh yawn, I'm gonna get a cup of world bank coffee with privatised company water, in my made in china mug and get back to reality,not . My point- the details kill the enjoyment of art sometimes. Rationalizing the irrational looks to me like a dog chasing its tail . I guess its fun for the dog .
The critic often thinks the artist too close to his ‘tradition’ to properly assess his ‘contribution’ (exaggerates his ‘advance’). The artist as often thinks the critic not close enough (unfairly diminishes key differences the artist has made).
I suspect Apelles falls into the trap of looking at the present as if it were the past and wanting to see big sign posts announcing You Are Now Entering The Hyper-Sub-Post-Late-High-Modernism of the best place and culture. Artists should form orderly queues under Schools, Times and Regions and that way we will know where we all stand, which work is truly innovative and which is just gimmick.
But of course as Webthing notes, all that takes time and the more certain you want to be, the longer you will need. In the meantime we bumble and fumble along, arguing all the way – and not least with our versions of art history. If nothing else is clear to me it’s that there is no recognition of important novelty or invention without revision of some art history.
It cuts both ways – you ‘discover’ the ‘great’ stuff of the present by reconstruing the history leading up to it. You can’t expect the present to respectfully follow on the past and merit the name (of art or present). In that sense there is a fight with art history; (as Sharon complained) but it’s for a more inclusive version rather than a replacement or improvement. We don’t discard Titian once we have The Baroque or Modernism, but they certainly change the way we look at him, the need to look at him so much.
So my point here is that if not enough stuff from today measures up to ‘Modernism’ then clearly ‘Modernism’ has to go. If you want to break clear of art history and discover the present (that sounds embarrassing I know, but you know… it’s early) then you’re going to have to give up some of that art history (rewrite it!) – not all of it or even most of it obviously – because we only need to accommodate today – but this trade-off is what it takes to see things afresh – and as artists have always done.
321 comments:
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well, all i'm trying to argue is that renaissance italy didn't only produce a "few remarkable men." They consistently produced mind-bogglingly great artists. I'm interested in how that happened and if we can achieve that today.
I think it's useless discussing this with you because you obviously have preconceived ideas that I feel are clouding the way you view art from this period.
you said: "do you really think titians paintings are that great? though emotionally powerful they are imprisoned, as is almost everything from that period, in religious indoctrination and theatrical/mythical grandiosity"
You sound like you view this art as some kind of propaganda for Catholicism and, therefore, will not even give it a chance.
But at the same time, maybe I am viewing contemporary art the way I think that you view Renaissance art. I admit, I really don't give it a chance unless it's Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Maybe we can learn from each other.
Just to keep us awake can i blow my own horn antithesis? I'll do!
If Titian was alive today his brain would probably be wired like this, and would live in Brooklyn and would paint like this. That's what a couple of hundred years plus does to you.
Picasso and his buddy Braque became bored with painting rooms with three dimensional things on a two-dimensional surface. Du-champ gave a clue with the chocolate wheel, descending, but decided he wasn't going to be the one that would carry the lame surreal.
Mondrian came up with a clue to view the higher diner things going on in space decreeing visually, 'keep the shit on the surface, zap the brain', reintegrating, always on the move. The emotion is rest.
We can go on and on through the 20 days and 14 nights. it must have been a charge. Surrealism was this reaction against all the unrecognizable stuff that was going on, d-champ still kind of kept a leg in, through and through. Well, the basic premise was begin R then fuck with it. Dali did paint a christ figure on a tesseract, but I mean, wrong dude... the moment was typified by blending, endless blending, morphing the old idea into an impossible new. Americans got wind fascinated with ritual mixed the local hiro rejecting the European mo --that's when paint began to look something different facing a new --interpretations hullabaloo. Stella said he didn't want to fuck with the brush with a draw, but then went back and drew. There was the gaze with the Newman, and the shoot with the hip crew. However the closer the Americans came to their idea the closer it came back to making sense in terms of the original Europeans joo[t]. This would not do! It was a journey, all men, and amen. And that blew. The beer was said to be good, if you knew. Vinc was a guy too, and painted like this.
2006
apelles, point taken. though i certainly do not view renaissance art as propaganda. i am only wary of the use of religion and mythology as a vehicle, be it for subversive commentary, adulation or otherwise, solely for the fact that it is an art unto itself, one that does not seek to encompass what art has done since, for better or worse (but surely for the fact that it must) twisting and turning toward but mostly away from such sweeping and resplendent allusions and dire phrases, at least thematically. and yet i confess, it is something to be revisited occasionally if only to gauge an ongoing trajectory. though should not be pursued exclusively! the technical brilliance in color modulation and paint handling etc of renaissance work is to be eternally respected, though can we now find that somewhere else? i don't always believe art always has to be about greatness, suffering, masterpieces, and all that pillar column oak solid stuff. a mind spew of a rant this most certainly is, though not unfinished, for dare i remind myself that artistic inclination was written in the human psyche a long long time before the renaissance and continues to manifest in different cultures subject to the condition of life at that time (its tools and knowledge), which is always in flux, therefore continually evading effective comparison between the ages. i understand your wish to see an improvement to the state of current art production, though the how of it can only be negotiated on canvas and not in print, and in lieu of the old is good, new is bad operative, which is very fashionable, i seek to resist the cynicism that either painting is (again) facing death, or that it is to (again) be charles'd, i mean triumphed... because what artists are really doing is getting 20 stretches ready... ignoring the marketable historic of super-glue fixed styles and seeing how malleable artistic identity can be, so i guess we may almost agree if only in looking forward. i must however admonish the importance of finding some thread or current inspiration from recent work in the generation of new work. perhaps the mystical element the old masters had was time, as life sure has accelerated since. i did enjoy seeing what titian would be doing if he were here among the nu-milleniumers. what a sordid dose of braingoo, i quit!
Wthing Horatio IX
In defense of religion in art: many great painters have been tremendously inspired by their faith and devotion. Painting images depicting moments from the life of Christ was not a chore for them, not a necessary sort of "fine" they had to pay in order to get any work, not a mercenary bit of propoganda -- but rather an extension of a life of faith and their love of God. For the artists for whom this was the case, it drips from their paintings; I don't think that kind of total involvement with their subject matter can be faked. Truly devotional painting painted by some of the greatest painters ever have a kind of power that is rarely paralleled.
I realize, that for most people the above is accepted as common knowledge. I just wanted to say it here because it seems to be getting lost in the shuffle.
blackcatbone.blogspot.com-re 'the golden couple"get real ,here.Not to say I haven't been following this story,but,for gods sake,they were cute,and mildly successful,and elitist-
Nomi –
Titian’s ‘faith’ according to the experts, is by no means manifest. See Gaudioso et al Titian: Prince of Painters 1990 Prestel – especially the super dud The Pentacost (p280) - with all those silly little flames leaping out the top of everyone’s heads. Seems it didn’t wash theologically or pictorially.
Faith, then as now is highly controversial: one church’s piety another’s heresy.
But Titiano’s faith it seems didn’t always stay even with his craft. And this work for the Church of San Spirito in Isola – began to rot and mould so fast the administering monastery withheld payment. The master’s fast and loose approach to oil painting had its limits. There was a four year legal fight – Titsi using his Farnese contacts, cardinal and papal muscle to try and bluster out of it – but eventually it looks like he or his studio replaced it.
‘Faith’ when you’re dealing with a church or client turns out to be a pretty elastic or cynical thing, when you look more closely.
I'm all for the separation of devotion
and administration. Especially
when it comes to an artist getting
fair pay. Nothing elastic about it.
O.G.-"Faith’ when you’re dealing with a church or client turns out to be a pretty elastic or cynical thing, when you look more closely."
How So? I don't read that in your example necessarily. (And incidentally, I didn't read Titian in Nomi's post..)
Time throws a curved ball.
Hey Ryan, you are puffing up there, guy!
There is time and space between all these comments, things blend. It's not court.
anyway...
while you're on the old stuff...
"Democritus explained senses along these lines, as well. He hypothesized that different tastes were a result of differently shaped atoms in contact with the tongue. Smells and sounds could be explained similarly. Vision works by the eye receiving "images" or "effluences" of bodies that are emanated. He stated that, "Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, color by convention; but in reality atoms and the void alone exist." This means that senses could not provide a direct or certain knowledge of the world. In his words, "It is necessary to realize that by this principle man is cut off from the real." Later philosophers use this to assert that any reliable knowledge can be obtained, but Democritus felt differently:
There are two forms of knowledge: one legitimate, one bastard. To the sort belong all the following: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. The legitimate is quite distinct from this. When the bastard form cannot see more minutely, nor hear nor smell nor taste nor perceive through the touch, then another finer form must be employed. - Democritus, Fragment 11, The Symmetry of Life"
Heraclitus, another old-timer, thought all things [are] whole and used the word logos, which translates to word [st.james], but is not. Translators are good with words and building convention...
anyway...
He claims to announce an everlasting Word (Logos) according to which all things are one, in some sense. Opposites are necessary for life, but they are unified in a system of balanced exchanges. The world itself consists of a law-like interchange of elements, symbolized by fire. Thus the world is not to be identified with any particular substance, but rather with an ongoing process governed by a law of change. The underlying law of nature also manifests itself as a moral law for human beings. Heraclitus is the first Western philosopher to go beyond physical theory in search of metaphysical foundations and moral applications.
Democritus was a complete badass. Yes.. time and blending, true enough.
Puffing? I thought I was being brazenly tangential. Oh well.
I can't remember the poet, or poem, but "I want to say, Heraclitus, I've stepped in the same stream twice, and it wasn't the same, but it felt the same, and feeling has a truth of it's own."
Something like that.. Stephen Dunn maybe?
Ryan, Jpeg, -
1) Titian didn’t always paint in ‘good faith’ as far as the church’s beliefs went (the depiction of God as human candles). The results are not faithful to depiction (look dud).
2) Titian didn’t keep faith with the basics of oil painting (a stable surface and pigment mixtures) and for a work commissioned in the days when contracts for this were pretty strict, his failure to meet standard terms of workmanship is bad faith for the artist or businessman. (the work’s depicted ‘bad faith’ turns out to have an unfortunate extension)
3) To pick and choose how and where you display faith is to take a pretty elastic view of Faith. What exactly does he keep faith in? His bank balance? His skill in depiction? His guild principles? His assistants? His church? Titsi might have had faith in the Farnese but that’s not faith enough to get paid for, and the pay is never fair for that much faith.
4) Titian is not Nomi’s only example, but I think is included in her general remarks on traditional painting and religion. It’s perfectly valid to read my reply as particular example to general principle.
5) Nothing is lost in taking my reply as general principle in itself, in reply to Nomi’s view.
Old Guy-where did you get the idea that faith to depiction and faith are the same thing?
And where did you get the idea that having a workshop and disputes with patrons (or about iconography) precluded faith?
I got the idea that faith in general includes faith in particulars - that religious faith in fact demands honesty and 'good faith' in things like contracts, in particular to one's own church, to an accepted iconography, and studio practices.
I do not say these things preclude faith - they are surely opportunities to demonstrate it! - but if we're talking about religous faith in general - then this is a pretty good example that supposed religious faith in painting was not necessarily obvious or earnest.
What abstract notion of faith do you propose?
Faith to social convention?
Reality being a kind of convention (the ideas that are held to be true - the part of science that is taken on faith by those who do not question)
Unscientists of brutish mysticism!
How much longer must we be ensnaired by the enchanting art of Richard Serra? WHen will we be free of the cruhing weight of Julian Schnabel? Canonical men of iron, spewing cannonballs of liquid mercury at walls of glass! Who are the new x men? WHat mutant permutations will the cascade ignite?
Faith, the unweildy vorpal sword of unreason in the face of the momrathic foment!
Faith, arbiter of the verifiable logos from the infinite hot regression to inevitable and cold despair.
But what faith? What religion? WHo's god? How many? How much?
And the last, the empty caress of a paid prostitute.
Glamour.
I propose that people are complex and live complex lives. I don't think having broken a contract demonstrates a lack of faith. If leading entirely exemplary lives is the criteria for people having had faith, I suspect no one had faith.
Old Guy, thanks for clarifying.
Galileo was described as a devoted catholic.
Can you still buy your way into heaven? those were the days!!!
lthough I feel bad for Lisa McPherson and her surviving kin, there is
something that my mother and I are not able to understand about this death.
L. Ron Hubbard states that a "Clear" {which Lisa McPherson attested to
being} is a "Well and happy high I.Q. human being who no longer has their
own reactive mind".
If Lisa was Clear then why did she go crazy like that so as to fall into the
hands of Scientologist's that killed her? Is it because she said she was
Clear when she was not? Is it because she said she was not Clear when she
was?
Less questions and more answers works best, but most people claim
Scientology killed her. That I don't believe. I believe both Lisa McPherson
AND Scientology killed Lisa McPherson.
Larry
I'm saving my money, and buying my way into Heaven
My T.V. Evangalist showed me the way into Heaven
Now make no mistake, and I won't be forsaken (in Heaven)
Save all of my pay, at the end of a day to (Heaven)
Pack all my belongs, and send them away (Heaven)
Yes, I'll do without, so my lord can be richer (Heaven)
I'll be laughin', and jokin', and drinkin', and toastin' him (grunt)
(Heaven)
Buying my way into
Buying my way into
Buying my way into Heaven
OK – let’s bear in mind the kind of compelling faith Nomi feels is often demonstrated in traditional religious painting. We’re not just talking about ‘correct’ iconography, but something much deeper.
Now say you were a painter supposedly with this feeling and you painted a scene from the bible in a way you felt really expressed an acute devotion, even though it was a bit out there for iconography, but you didn’t care too much about some of the details, or how the assistants prepared the paints or canvas, because your faith, or perhaps just your reputation was so strong.
You don’t think this would undermine (literally!) the painting? You don’t think it points to a lack of consistency in your faith, and the painting? After all this blog often talks about how the materials of a painting influence the meaning of the picture – you don’t think sloppy craftsmanship MUST affect the faith depicted?
And now say this isn’t just a painting for yourself, but is in fact commissioned by the same church you share your faith with, so that this inconsistency is not just a private thing, but actually carries your attitude toward the church to some degree. You don’t think the faith is looking a little superficial? A little selective?
And then say these shortcomings are pointed out to you, perhaps as accidents, but you refuse to fix them, not because you can’t, but because of sheer arrogance, that your fine reputation could ever be associated with such carelessness. And so rather than discreetly repair or replace the thing as a favor to your church (after all) you take the whole thing to court and it drags on and on, and word gets around and in the end you still have to make amends in order to get paid (and then not enough for doing the thing twice anyway). So this time the replacement has perfect materials and execution – EXCEPT – on that one sticking detail that has been there from the start, that question of faith in iconography for the divine, and on this point you deliberately let the youngest apprentice ‘practise’ flickering flames.
It looks crummy and now it’s meant to. In fact it looks like a loss of faith.
Thats a nice story old guy. Who sued who? Or are you talking arbitration? Isn't it considered bad form to sue the church you belong to? keep a lid on it!
Hence the passive agressive move to "sabotage" the work with a "conceptual" statement. Block absolute transcendence (idol worship) with a niggling flaw - a McGuffin, an objet petit a, a Navajo rug of perfection broken only by the single thread of deceit. A sand painting to be blown away by the winds of perception. A bottled process fermenting in the minds eye. A second third and fourth strike of the plate of thought, on newsprint or on skin, degrading infinitesimally until the photocopied transmission fades to black.
I heard lawsuits are all the rage though - starting with but not ending in the campaign to take down the warhol authentication board (which is itself an ironic joke!) - I swear if the NYPost is in on it, the conspiracy must go as deep as Charlie Finch, a yardstick which is sort of lateral to the shallow end - maybe as far as the pet jacuzzi.
Here in the kiddie pool, indulgences are around a dollar a bottle and god is an interesting but unverifiable concept.
Keep the faith homies.
Where is faith reflected in marketing?
The church used art to demonstrate its power and spread influence. The faith of the painter comissioned to do the work wasn't the most important aspect and was the least visible.
Slop probably translated more as failure to carry off a certain technique than a spiritual lack, but I could be wrong.
Old Guy- I’ve seen somewhere around 50 Titians over the years that are still in pretty good shape. Some mythological and some religious subjects. Most of them, if not all of them were commissioned. By your logic they are evidence of his faith.
It seems like a pretty big leap to assume that a painting with technical failing (and the refusal to fix it) is evidence of a lack of faith. Was DaVinci also faithless? I think you are projecting a contemporary skeptical attitude (that I suspect we share) backwards, and that it is probably anachronistic. I think in catholic Europe, Catholics received the world through Catholicism.
buncha protestants
Pentecostal.
If you want a winnabego, tell god what color you want.
Prosperity theology or Prosperity doctrine is the doctrine that prosperity and success in business is external evidence of God's favor. This favor may be preordained, or granted in return for prayer or merit-making.
Prosperity theology is commonly a part of televangelist and pentecostal churches which claims God wants Christians to be successful in every way, including financially. Proponents claim that its purpose is funding of preaching throughout the World, and is based largely on a Bible verse (Deuteronomy 8:18) which says, "God gives you the power to get wealth to establish his covenant."
TULIP
Total Depravity
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints
Mania?
O.G. I was with you earlier, but now I have to disagree. You can't use one example, no matter how well documented and historically accurate it may or may not be, to demonstrate someone's faith or lack of faith. I understand what you are saying about faith translating to honest action, even in small matters.. in fact most importantly in small matters, and the many meanings of fidelity. So yes, Titian, one painter of religious imagery, could have had a faith that came and went. Probably he was like most Catholics (myself included) who can hardly make it home from confession without committing three or four mortal sins. However, people, especially religious people, are so prone to contradictory behaviour that it is practically a synonym for being human. After all, it was St. Paul who described himself as(paraphrased) "not doing that good he would do, and doing that evil he would not".. not to mention denying Christ three times at the most important moment in his life. And it was on him that the church was founded! Faulkner describes it best though in Requiem For A Nun, when he characterizes men as "gentle" but of the sort would stop in the middle of a lynching party to let a family of lizards escape from a log before he throws it on the pyre.
Titian sued the monastery for withholding payment. The monastery withheld payment because of the state of the painting.
This is not an issue of paintings just deteriorating ‘over time’. I am not aware of a lawsuit over Da Vinci’s Last Supper. The present version of The Pentecostal is in excellent ‘condition’.
If human failing is so common, why bother having laws? Faith is often broken obviously – but if a painting is meant to demonstrate holding a faith (in Nomi’s sense) in this instance it does not (even though Titian is a ‘great’ painter, even though the subject is religious). Arguing that losing faith is part of faith is a contradiction (from which anything follows).
Wanting to get paid for work doesn't demonstrate a lack of faith.
OG-You seem to assume that the painting was intentionally shoddy.
Waste - You want to get paid, you've got to do the job.
I definitely suspect that the version of The Pentacost we have, is intentionally shoddy - with those flames. I can't believe Titian couldn't do better flames than that, if he really wanted, I can see why (with a bit of research) he might want to leave it like that.
early 20th century "owns" the word "modern". which is at once imperative for discussion and yet sadly, completely absurd, an oxymoron, as "modern" now carries in it to mean something "obsolete". the word modern has pretty much been retired, at least in artland. will "contemporary" one day be hung next to it? a rather silly pattern is emerging. maybe once "contemporary" passes on, "emerging" will step up louder than presently. the game gets trickier, perhaps harder.
in this manner, catholics own the word "faith"? i don't know about that. some of the greatest landscape painters had faith in exactly that, lest we forget. displaying your "faith" does not mean depicting catholicism and it never will. displaying your "catholicism" in a work on the other hand, is fine. "faith" as i know it, is in artwork today (and not in the historical sense being discussed). It is more personal, and difficult to decipher, even to detect. But it is there! O.G, thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Pentecost flames are just painted in a different style (of icon painting?) - I don't think thats a sign of bad quality. You don't like it, fine. But I'm sure the monks were into the enlightenment version of onward and upward. Little did they know things just wind down into entropic chaos.
I jsut read El Greco worked in Titian's studio. Thats something - maybe they made a bet and decided to see what would happen That would be a great story. Two painters trying out their bag of tricks - Greco was considered an inferior painter thought right?
I enjoyed the Greco show at the met - prob more than any titians I've seen - maybe cuz I love cloisone almost as much as beer, adn I love beer more than anything.
cloisone? you're losing steam . -at the least u coulda made an offhand joke about bukkake and strabismus
I aint gadda da vida
those flames do look like sperm though. Spirit, oh lord.
I don't say Roman Catholicism owns faith, certainly. But in the case I cite, it happens to be the church. And yeah, there are others faiths, many with churches.
The point Zip raises seems to fall in step with Nomi's intuition – essentially, that spiritual flames here are different from material ones - can't be realistic (by our standards) - only declare devotion. To which I say, even if a sort of flame, then needs more flammable attributes. Even as a metaphorical flame, needs to be literally more flame-like.
On this I rest my faith in pictures, and to picture faith first requires a faith in pictures.
So I reject the schematic sperm or flame where the rest of the work urges more literal properties.
If I saw those flames in a William Blake painting, for example, I might go along with them.
If Titian deliberately left the flames hokey I suspect he knew the debate would then be theological, and at that time even between orders, there were rifts. It would not be as easy to reject his wild interpretation. So he could register a subtle disapproval of the monastery, if not other faith.
But say I’m wrong – and he didn’t get an apprentice to do them, but lavished all his care on them, and they were the best spiritual flames he could come up with. The argument still then goes to how familiar the iconography is (for the church) how recognizable they are (for a picture to me).
Then it’s just Titian the big shot wanting to have his way with both the church and pictures – as a measure of his faith in himself?
hey... have you guys seen the new post on christiansnyc.blogspot.com?
Interesting comparison - that titian. Its like classical composers stealing folk melodies (because they are good) and turning them into entertainments for the rich (who must be shielded from the common). This matches the pattern of colonization of the low to the present. That there still exists a dialectic between the classes attests tot he enduring power of class.
If the flames on the Titian are a deliberate "in the style of" then its a pastiche. If they are merely a rip off then its In this postmodern era that juxtaposition might be considered a cheap trick or a lazy rip off. But stuff gets recycled eternally, doesn't it?
Oh, my. I never intended to use Titian as an example of a painter of authentically devotional paintings. I don't know what his beliefs were. (Though, I don't think the "hokey flames incident" is indicative one way or the other.)
And I probably overstated things considering that we don't know a lot about the personal religious beliefs of many Renaissance painters. Additionally, I didn't mean to ignore the inherent difficulties and conflicts of doing commissioned work.
I suppose I just meant to say that it wasn't all a cynical game of make believe.
To me, Fra Angelico conveys a tenderness of devotion that is unparalleled. In his case we do know that his faith was authentic and profound. There are other painters whose work is similarly moving and whom I feel must have been working from the heart; but that is only a feeling.
Anyway, I do not agree that painters working before the modern era were all "imprisoned by religious indoctrination," as one poster put it. Not that there were not dissenters, non-believers and those with idiosyncratic views; of course there were. But there were also artists who were the opposite of imprisoned by Christian faith.
Legend has it that when Fra Angelico painted Christ on the Cross, he was on his knees with tears in his eyes.
Legend also has it that King Charles stooped over to pick up one of Titian's brushes.
all this for MARLENE MOCQUET.
wow.
appelles, where did you go? opened up the renaissance can, and vanished. we can argue about the greatness of the past, but really, debate in the footnotes? valuable to the present, but certainly not more important, or superior.
are those shards of light beaming down between the eyes on MOCQUET?
Who is Marlene Mocquet? What are you talking about?
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
-Sid
webthing: "what artists are really doing is getting 20 stretches ready... ignoring the marketable historic of super-glue fixed styles and seeing how malleable artistic identity can be, so i guess we may almost agree if only in looking forward. i must however admonish the importance of finding some thread or current inspiration from recent work in the generation of new work."
Take a look at the paintings on this page. What do they all have in common? For me, it is that most of them are pervaded by Modernist ideas.
If you open up a book on modernism, you might find cliche terms such as "gesture" or "all-over." Most of the works I see look like they have been painted by someone who has read these words somewhere and then applied them in their own works, as if having these traits in their painting will make it as important as something by Mondrian, Rothko, or Pollock.
Is Painter doing a social experiment?
There are a limited number of moves to make in painting. You can make them slow or fast though. You can sigh, kibbitz or fidget, but that is considered bad form.
What is important is to make a statement, open a dialogue, make loud noise, or quiet noise, or loud quiet loud noise.
Some people prefer their statements as arguments, and call all statements arguments.
Some people claim the right of contingency and call all of their statements actions.
Is action an argument? Semanticly no, but functionally yes. Dance harder! Every move a question, every pause a fight! Coup d'etat by autonomic nervous function! Comatose but still gesturing!
It is a game because the detached say so. Life is a movie Life is a game! I am free of the wheel of karmic pain! I walk in the rain! Everything seem the reason!
appelles it's a fair point you make, and one that is not uncommon in contemporary discussion. in fact it seems everywhere to prevail. i do try to see what you mean by pervading modernist ideas, but i don't see that as a problem, and rather than begin comparative analysis, can i suggest that everything is essentially derivative of a previous form, such that unique form must always be borne of the parent, but let's not laud the parent too much, keeping in mind that it too was derived from a predecessor, and so on. we have been mixing pigments and creating images for a very long time and i find that as a digital reality looms further over our lives the more interesting it becomes that painting, something essentially ancient, still finds many ways to incite us to endless discussion. the structure for new visual approaches having been established prior does not mean that we cannot continue to speak, and hence evolve them, if indeed they can be applied to this life. though i have to ask, can you really see mondrian, rothko or pollock in mocquet, or the others on the page? i know what you mean in a way but to me it seems they display a different sensibility, something less serious and less likely to drive one to self destruction. you seem very enamored with all the great names, most of whom suffered the burden of these very discussions until their end. but on it goes, and i can't pretend i know why, but can discuss its progress, and i do believe it is progress. as much as art incites its own antecedent, i don't think the paintings on this page look like they came from any other time but now. nice poem zip.
no I do NOT see pollock, mondrian, rothko in the work of the painters on this page. But I DO see tactics like gesture, all-over painting, color field, pop irony being used without the artists really seeming like they understand WHY they are using the techniques they are using (except, maybe for Mocquet). as if they think that using these tactics will make their paintings great. or, at least, that it is only correct to paint this way using these tactics.
I think you could call most art derivative, but I think a better word is that some artists assimilate the works of other artists well, but some do not do it too well.
Which specific contemporary painters do you think are making the most progress?
welcome to the valley of the uncanny
I don't see a lot of uncanny work - because the uncanny is a context sensitive menu item on an instance of life.
I wonder if the next post will be the Old School show at Zwirner.
Human first religion if you need it second. If you need a rock, there it is. Life is lucky like that.
We live in a world of collisions, though seldom do these worlds collide. In the artworld they do but in fact they don't in the smaller merticularities of everyday contact and duristriction. The worlds we live simultaneously are many. And there are many. It's said that the word tofu best registers the contemporary artist, though while not exactly forming echelon bands [v] and lines [v] . We seem to be divided by forces with their projectiles, governance, and caves.
Old school looks to be a very tight show, with contemporary weaknesses easy to spot, among some surprises.
Old School looks like tactic and show off. OK I guess--I like showoffs.
I like painting as an anachronistic pursuit. I do like having breakfast with the past. bacon and eggs with the future too.
Reality is pretty much digital & image right now. "Progress" is not a concern. Resistance could be.
Back from my vacation CP. Big blue lake is still blue--for now. Trees are hurting. Rocks are still awesome.
More rich people than ever though--hummers and american flags all over. Bar B Que anyone?
No its MLM vitamin supplements for me - synergy. Im into he whole 1+1+1+1= 5 sort of thing. Get down to brass tacks, look at how the whole world is in his hands, and then ask yourself how you take a crap with your hands full.
BBQ is nice.
Alll y'all designers out there.
Illustrator:
Effects>3D>Extrude.
My god get over it.
Im talking human BBQ
OG- have you seen the Pentecost in the flesh? Those flames look as they do for iconographic reasons. They emanate from the light being passed down from the holy spirit.
Calling the rest of the painting depictive seriously oversimplifies it.
I thought it was a pretty amazing painting.
We live in a different world than they did.
Waste - I have not seen The Pentacost in the flesh.
If we live in a 'different world' from theirs, what basis do either of us have for understanding it?
Be amazed.
We live in different worlds from each other.
"If we live in a 'different world' from theirs, what basis do either of us have for understanding it?"
Those parts that are available to us now, in this time.
Doesn't sound much like 'a world' then. Sounds more like just a change in some circumstances.
Calling a bunch of people with 'flames' coming out the top of their heads, The Pentacost seriously oversimplifies The Bible too, but how is picturing (or depicting) a text ever going to 'equate' with it?
If you look closely at these 'flames' you will see they Do Not emanate from above, but that the Base of the flames lies with the heads (the thickest part of the flames). So one implication of this picture is that 'divine' spirit is actually fueled by collective action/faith. They power their God, rather than the more traditional view.
Little touches like this will not have escaped a commissioning monastery, the fact that the flames DO NOT belong to standard iconography (like say halos) means that they are subject to especial scrutiny both as a convincing depiction of fire, or as symbolic prayer.
This painting SSSSSSSSSUUUUUUUUUCKS!
Unless you worship Titsi.
I see OG never went thru the Boston Catechism. Just be lucky you are so ignorant me bucko. What you dont know cant hurt you, as they say.
Those little flames became the new iconography, so Titian had the last larf.
I don't worshop Titian. I've seen paintings of his I don't like.
I think the flames are meant to be like halos. The Holy Spirit is giving a kind of knowledge that the halo metaphor refers to.
OG- so if we disagree I get banished to a different world?
Titian rapidly priced the church pretty much out of his market anyway.
But this was at the time of the Reformation so the church had to look at a bigger picture.
One spark too many and the congregation looks like a revolution.
let there b bbq
I like my T parties with a little more A.
Waste: interpret pictures or worlds, words or works but halos are not flames. Let's at least share language.
And whatever the Bible says, being given 'spirit' is not giving it.
i like this painting.
The flames one, if you look close you can just make out a few shrimps there, I think? Hey rush, where I'm o from we call it the great outdoors, with outhouses, anyway can wegetta drink now?
Maybe Camp Zen will be the new thing.
I like getting it my way
You had me at Don't Scream
[Old Guy & waste - I feel silly adding to this, but here's "what the Bible says" about Pentecost (King James Version - I can't vouch for what the monastery used):
Acts 2:3 "And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them."
"sat upon each!"]
Painter, I hope you're having fun wherever you are.
Whatever that means much less looks like.
My Way The On High Way.
When you take the word make sure it's not to the letter.
Here is one dude's opinion: Horny Moses
Read the bottom of the page.
Michelangelo was devout though, right?
Ask John Knox.
satan will trick you
some say it was in the translation but I bet mick was playing with the rule.
He can trick me or treat me, but until he does he didn’t and isn’t.
0
"U.S. Special Forces are to work with the Turkish army to suppress the Kurds' guerrilla campaign. The Bush administration is trying to prevent another front from opening in Iraq, which would have disastrous consequences. But this gamble risks major exposure and failure.
Tres conceptuelle, nest ce pas?
Ou est le premiere artiste? Monseur Bush? Passez moi le mutarde.
actaeon time!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Actaeon.jpg
Thanks QQ.
Halos and flames are metaphors. They represent ideas. Their meanings aren't fixed. I think religious (and most figurative) (and some abstract?) paintings work using metaphor.
Too bad Titian was done with that painting (the second time) before El Greco came along. Or, maybe El Greco saw those flimsy things, and spent the rest of his life showing Titian how to paint everything as if it were on fire.
Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth:
Deuteronomy 5:8
O0O
私はこのスポーツタイプは好きです。
This is probably the post that will lose PNYC the ‘sharpest art forum’ title.
Now we’re probably way back in the field.
Come to think of it how many other forums are in the competition?
Maybe I should read The Guardian instead of The Independent.
are there any forums that actually have real message boards where there are different threads and topics? and where you can search?
webthing, what specific painters do you think are making progress today?
appelles, i'm working on it, but got busy at work. a quick question until then, would you call dan perjovschi a contemporary painter?
Sure. let's say any kind of drawing or painting on any kind of surface.
But it can't be YOU. So you have to name more than one just in case you do say you cuz i won't know.
Has anyone read a book called Art since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism?
If so, was it worth reading?
No, it was the usual old stuff. I could tell that even in the bookstore.
I also saw a huge stack of a book called (I think) The Cult of The Amateur by someone like Keene or Keane (a Silicon Valley insider!!!!)telling us how blogging and Wikipedia are degrading standards, etc etc, no respect for real 'experts' the end of The Western World and CULTURE!!!!
Why assume that because people want to write, they expect everyone to believe what they read?
Why assume blogging threatens any standards of objectivity or validation?
This strikes me as just panic from someone insecure about their own status.
Walker Percy had a lot to say about the effects of giving authority to specialists. Loss of the sign's ability to signify, related to inability to "see" without the thing seen being designated as worth seeing by an "expert". I think (hope) it's a very important shift that's happening. I don't think the experts have to worry about being short on dependants any time soon though.
people have always believed the crap they've wanted to believe like the planets and sun revolving around the earth.
What kind of experts are we talking about?
If it weren't for experts, people would believe in the dumbest shit.
I hope there is a shift happening too, though. Maybe it will culminate in a period called High Postmodernism.
I got Ritchie ahead of Perjovschi (or is it Perjovski?)in the felt-tipperie stakes, but Dan is all heart.
babooie!!!!
high denotes authority, validation and expertise, which is exclusive. low denotes popular domain, lack of traditional academic enquiry, essentially hearsay. if the wiki is built by the nodes and not by the architect, we have what notable outfit once adequately termed The Low End Theory. Google earth 3d will be modelled by unpaid individuals out of their own ineterest, at least that's what google is hoping. Cultural production and encyclopedia's written by the readers? Would history have predicted that? By the way, fear of the loss of expertise by experts is not something we need to worry about. Heard of Neenstars? Miltos Manetas, unfortunately making recent links with the saatchmeister, but lets ignore that because i've been following him a while for painting progress, despite his otherwordly Hellenic philosophies. Look him up, links are everywhere, he might be the most prevalent interenet painter around, much more than Marcaccio was/is, though he too made some nice adddition to the lineage. manetas.com
it has become apparent that the global task is too big for a few experts to accomplish, is all i was trying to say. opensource is the only way to get it all developed to a point where the refresh rate of data and information in publishing is rarely out of sync with reality. however this raises questions of losing history, because everything is always updated and old sites, unlike old books, do not remain. (though there are some interent archival software out there). see manetas 07 exhibition internetpaintings.com, plus that other little graduate student who saatchi ate for dinner recently.
appelles, like i've been saying all along, history set out to establish rigid structures that would evade entropy, so rigid in fact that they stifle the present, however entropy still prevails, and now lucid application of malleable structures is the emergent reality, such that it's difficult to compare a stone to water. i think it's imperative not to try and phrase the present in previous terminology, a negotiation needs to be made and the method some employ to seek it is what i meant as 'progressive', but its a shit word i admit, lets go for super-cumulative, if that makes it any stranger.
i'm not digging this manetas stuff.
I always hate it when artists start doing tech stuff. It always seems like they're so obsessed with it because they think it's so great and fascinating and magical.
Like the paintings of his with the cables and wires and plugs. I've seen tons of those. Is it supposed to mean something? It looks like it's trying hard to be meaningful.
Artists that think technology itself painted in oils is something meaningful, or artists that think that technology itself is intrinsically meaningful think that way because they probably have no familiarity with how it works.
Once you figure out how technology works, it loses a lot of the magic. That kind of poetic technological sublime aesthetic is becoming stale really fast.
google!
manetas is redundant. The pollock painting widget (for example) he made is redundant on several levels - not the least of which is that it is a variation on a theme of a textbook example in the peachpit press flash book. Secondly being the idea of paint effects, implemented as "stamps" in Illustratore and painter, but also as "tubes" in Maya nd after effects. Not to mention that it is a digital version of an analog process (where have you seen that before?).
In the same way other artists get credit for implementations of ideas that are essentially parlour tricks, or stuff that they didn't (or can't) do themselves. Are we to give sole credit to the manegerial class? I dont think so.
Sure you can argue artists do or g "give permission" to do what others say is not allowed (too easy) but thats bullshit and you know it. Its a thin conceit - like giving the girlfriend of the drummer a cowbell and telling her shes a vital part of the sound.
Yeah, a lot of tech art amounts to illustration.
look up "stroking the path" with a"brush" in illustrator - its endlessly fun, but not really art, is it? I mean you could say it allows you to "quote" a brushtroke just like the big boys (lichtenstein) but you are missing a key ingredient.
Or not. All I know is I can pump out a Mehretu style diagram in about an hour no sweat - no shit.
or a sol le wit wall diagram - make it an endless mesh. I can plug it into an "action" in photoshop or illustrator and I dont even need a human. And it will be done the same way every friggin time. And you can change the input . And its basicly a program.
webthing: "now lucid application of malleable structures is the emergent reality"
That sounds like a positive way of saying "anything goes."
Do you think this came about because society destroyed the "rigid structures"?
Or do you think this came about because of our global world and global communication.
Also, how different is our society from modern society? Modernism was really not that "rigid" in terms of its production. Dada, performances, surrealism, abstraction, realism, conceptual art, etc all happened in the modern era. The aesthetic ideas of the major movements of modernism are what i feel drives almost everything being made today.
today the elites are redundant. Yesterday the elites were differentiated.
here
and
here
its like having two extra eeyes isn't it?
appelles, ok well manetas early work isn't so great, but the 07 stuff, overlayed screens, which is what i meant i found interesting, kind of, but it does seem emulative of, as zip mentions, things that can be done on computers, in this way it is much less engaging, on a human level, kind of souldead, jufashionable and illustrative. but it depends what we are looking for, and what we see painting as a document of. things that are accepted in their time usually have very little longevity. i like perjovschi's heart, as old guy mentions, and even ritchie's felt tip tumbleweeds, may have been known to enjoy the paintings of grotjahn if only for a few seconds, modernist as they may be, is it possible that modernism has not been fully explored? youth brings about a lot of discovery, age revisits and fathoms it, this may take a while. or that these EXTREMELY BROAD terms can be applied in some way or another to alomst everything right back to egypt or any period of rapid social change? I tend not to get bogged down in the greats or the isms, perhaps because my appreciation of art is not through the generalized lens of category. honestly, the lineage of master painting is not in paint anymore, it's probably now in film, and painting is not even about paint, as it is about physical questioning of the visual. has everything been done? no.
Art has no boundaries
.
See art as a representation of the human spirit or sub-conscious
.
Arrrgh yawn, I'm gonna get a cup of world bank coffee with privatised company water, in my made in china mug and get back to reality,not
.
My point- the details kill the enjoyment of art sometimes. Rationalizing the irrational looks to me like a dog chasing its tail
.
I guess its fun for the dog
.
.
The critic often thinks the artist too close to his ‘tradition’ to properly assess his ‘contribution’ (exaggerates his ‘advance’). The artist as often thinks the critic not close enough (unfairly diminishes key differences the artist has made).
I suspect Apelles falls into the trap of looking at the present as if it were the past and wanting to see big sign posts announcing You Are Now Entering The Hyper-Sub-Post-Late-High-Modernism of the best place and culture. Artists should form orderly queues under Schools, Times and Regions and that way we will know where we all stand, which work is truly innovative and which is just gimmick.
But of course as Webthing notes, all that takes time and the more certain you want to be, the longer you will need. In the meantime we bumble and fumble along, arguing all the way – and not least with our versions of art history. If nothing else is clear to me it’s that there is no recognition of important novelty or invention without revision of some art history.
It cuts both ways – you ‘discover’ the ‘great’ stuff of the present by reconstruing the history leading up to it. You can’t expect the present to respectfully follow on the past and merit the name (of art or present). In that sense there is a fight with art history; (as Sharon complained) but it’s for a more inclusive version rather than a replacement or improvement. We don’t discard Titian once we have The Baroque or Modernism, but they certainly change the way we look at him, the need to look at him so much.
So my point here is that if not enough stuff from today measures up to ‘Modernism’ then clearly ‘Modernism’ has to go. If you want to break clear of art history and discover the present (that sounds embarrassing I know, but you know… it’s early) then you’re going to have to give up some of that art history (rewrite it!) – not all of it or even most of it obviously – because we only need to accommodate today – but this trade-off is what it takes to see things afresh – and as artists have always done.
I guess its fun for the dog:
rational minds need new tricks.
mystical truths are like never ending sunsets
they always do.
dissecting is in the nature of the scorpion
when it's not drowning.
Early for me.
Tea?
No, thats mad!
See things aflesh!
All this endless becoming.
Scalpel!
I see stars!
Some people just wrap it up and go.
or rev it up. I'll take it.
Stray cats are for the birds.
Like words.
assdis
Great post about wearing false eyelashes! Ladies, Enjoy!
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