Mimmalism in Art

Digital Diary – Minimalism

The concept of minimalism was a response to abstract expressionism, which was a dominant art form for quite some time. The object of minimalist art was to focus the attention of the viewer onto the object, and the minimalist artists also strove for complete simplicity in their work.

The leading Minimalist artists were Frank Stella, Robert Morris and Carl Andre. Sculpting was a major interest of the minimalists, and they blurred the lines between printing and sculpting. This was very much what they aimed to do. It was also a reaction against the excesses of abstract expressionism. The minimalists were not interested in self expressionism or of showing raw emotion in their art. They strove to remove metaphors or references of any kind from their paintings/sculptures. They labelled themselves as the “Masters of Less”.

Their chosen mediums were usually flat surface colours, industrial materials and flat finishes. Often they would work in a series of ‘repititions.’

Frank Stella, born in 1936 in Malden, Massachussetts, has been considered a major American artist for almost fifty years, becoming in 1970, the youngest artist ever to have a career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He is best known for the monochromatic pinstriped paintings that first brought him to prominence, which when seen in person have a very moving, vulnerable quality and (a few years later) for the colour field paintings on odd shaped canvasses. He also help to bring printmaking to the fore as an art form in the late 1960s, and his work in the 1980s included paintings stuck on objects such as freestanding metal pieces. This was in high contrast with his very early minimalist works.

Stella’s Black paintings series consists of parallel black stripes. These were exactly painted, and the medium used was house paint.

The painting pictured above is part of Stella’s Black series paintings. It is painted with house paint. It is just one of a series. I like it for its directness, its three dimensional feel, its painful exactness. It obviously took time to paint. There is nothing but order. Everything else is stripped back. When I look at this work, I think bare minimum, neatness, geometry.

"I like real art. It's difficult to define 'real' but it is the best word for describing what I like to get out of art and what the best art has. It has the ability to convince you that it's present - that it's there. You could say it's authentic... but real is actually a better word, broad as it may be."

The above is a quote from Frank Stella, which I feel defines his work well.

Stella’s main intention was to define and outline the flatness of the surface, to draw attention to this.


 Then Came a Dog and Bit the Cat, 1984
 

 

Degenerate Art

Degenerate Art - Entartete Kunst

Degnerate art is the term that the Nazis applied to describe modern art, which as a style of painintng, they absolutely loathed. The National Socialist Party championed much more traditional, "heoric" art. Hitler himself had applied to study at the Vienna Schhol of Art, and was turned down three times.

The above works are by Hitler, and part of his submission to gain entry into the Vienna Academy of Art.

Once Hitler came to power, he was able to stamp his authority onto the artworld. Along with Joseph Goebbels and other main pkayers in the Nazi party, Hitler and his cohorts worked to suppress modernist artists. The Nazis, overly interested in pomp and ceremony, utterly rejected abstract art. They labelled it as degenerate art, and created an entire exhibition in Munich, in 1937, to basically show their contempt towards abstract painters of the day. Some of these included Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, Emil Nolde and Ernst Kichner.

The works were purposely displayed very poorly, hung asmiss and crooked, with blaring, critical labels hung alongside, including taunting, unbecoming text. This was their way of reeucationg the German people as to what was art and what was not. The Nazis openly made fun and scoffed at these works, but history has obviously proved such arrogance to be wrong.

After this exhibition, entitled, Kunst, many of the unsold works (some of which had been confiscated from musuems/galleries) were destroyed by the Nazis.

Paul Klee, one of the most infamous abstract painters from this time, was of Swiss birth. His father was a talenteld vionlisist and Klee himself showed a great love and apptitude for music..(in progress)

Painters I admire

Paul Cezanne - how I just adore his still lifes. Love the colours, shapes, tones and his terrific
 sense of colour.
Cezanne's still life's are an absolute favourite of mine, I have learned much by studying his work, and I love his supreme mastery of the form. His fruit looks absolutely delectable and almost three dimensional.





(will come back and add more in due course...when I can)

 

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The Action Painters and the art of Jackson Pollock

The Action Painters are also known as the Abstract Expressionists. Jackson Pollock was probably the most famous of this group. He was born in 1912 in Wyoming. The youngest of five brothers, he was a needy child who craved attention. Pollock's father was an abusive alcoholic, leaving the family when Jackson was only eight years old. Charles Pollock, Jackson's older brother, became his mentor and father figure. Charles himself was a talented artist, and considered the best in the family. At the age of eighteen, Jackson moved to New York, where Charles Pollock lived. Jackson began to study art with Charles' art teacher, Thomas Hart Benton.

It was not until after the Depression that Jackson Pollock met painter Lee Krasner, and the two eventually married. Both were influential on each other's style.

The painting below is one of Jackson's drip paintings, and it is massive in scale. I like it for its organised randomness, the placement of colour against colour, and the s subtle choice of colours. The greens against the greys against the strident black lines. The splodges of orange, the grey-green, the pattern in chaos. It has the look of a map, the detail within is absolutely intricate.

Pollock was one of the founders of the now infamous 'Action Painters"  He rejected the more traditional tools of painting such as brush and easel, in favour of large scale, unstretched canvas (nailed to the floor) and sticks and knives. Pollock liked to be physically in his paintings, and he walked around and onto the canvas, using house paint. His whole body was involved in creating the works, and he would swirl and  drip on the paint on and around his canvasses The art critics of his time nicknamed him 'Jack The ?Dripper". Jackson pioneered the drip method of painting, and it defines both him and his work. The paint was flicked, smeared, dripped onto the canvas.

He was very influenced by American Indian art, and it has been argued that this can be seen in his works. Pollock was interested in the mural as genre, he saw this as the way of the future. He considered easel art to be dead. His large mural works were in response to this.

Pollock hardly ever stretched canvas onto frames. He preferred the rigid surface of the floor. He liked to feel as though he was in the paintings, which was something that the American Indians also did. Pollock believed In painting from the unconscious, and he did not like to make small studies first. He painted from intuition more than anyone school of thought. He had a direct approach and worked fast. Pollock was quoted as saying that when he painted he was not aware of what he was doing.

Pollock's infamous drip paintings are about both freedom and expression. He shunned the traditional methods of mark making and found a completely new way to make a painting. He has been often copied and his works although not popular at the time he made them, are now considered to be modern classics.

I love Pollock's work. It has such an immediacy and inventiveness. The paintings are very physical. For me, my response is that I can see the hand of Pollock in the works, he has left more than just a trace of himself. What a wonderful vision Pollock had, and what a valuable legacy he has left behind.

When I study a Pollock painting, I feel both involved and inspired. (still in progress, I need to name and acknowledge sources and pics below!)


"Jack the Dripper"

it's been awhile...

Poor, neglected blog. Too busy as a mum, student, Christian, life liver, to get here for awhile. Mixing up this blog with my course and whatever takes my fancy. I enjoy art, music, family, politics, Christian studies, reading, film and more.

Not enough hours in the day for it all sometimes! Sometimes its nice to just be.

Digital Diary due next week, the German Expressonsts and beyond. Learning and in progress...

The paintings featured  here is by Karl Schmich Rottbuiff, it is titled Houses at Night, and was painted in 1912. I like this painting for its simplicity and its finesse. The colours are bold and primary, giving a feeling of organised chaos. I love the way the yellow bleeds into the reds and the greens, and the shading of these colours. I also like the strident black lines painted around the houses, the push-pull feeling, the lack of blank space. This painting has a cluttered feeling to it, but the effect is of organised chaos.

The abstract expressionists came out of the school of German Expressionism.

German Expressionism  - The world of light and shadow

German Expressionism was largely a response to World War One and its barrage of horrors. German expressionism is a polar opposite  to the school of the impressionists, who were often criticised for their lack of subject matter. German Expressionism was also a response to both the symbolists and the neo impressionists. It was a response to the war torn world, it was about darkness and death, and the ravages of war.

This painting speaks to me of organised chaos, the painting feels unsettled.. This painting has primary colours toned down, the brushstrokes are rapid and confident, and the colours seem to compete with each other for attention.

Abstract expressionism

Abstract Expressionism helped to define the 1940's and was New York based. It included painters such as Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner,  Franz Kline, Willem de Klooning, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell. They were mostly interested in abstracting the figurative. The Abstract Expressionists also critiqued the Impressionists with their darker, deeper, supposedly more meaningful paintings. They were a response to the war and the depravity of man. They were commentators on the Great Depression, left wing politics, class war, the darkness of man (supposed), man's inhumanity to man.

The painting pictured below is a Rothko, called Untitled, painted in 1949. It is oil on canvas and of large dimensions. This is part of a series painted in the same year. Rothko did not name his work, as he preferred to leave titles and descriptions to the viewer's own imagination and response.

I like this work for its sheer boldness, the way that the colours are blocked in with what looks to be sweeping gestures. The colours are graduated, and behind the yellow white can be seen. It screams with vibrancy. I love the layered colours, the blocked in spaces, the immediate feel of paint on paint. This work speaks of elegance and urgency. How strong the colours are, yet there is a definite softness to them. Rothko liked to speak of the silence of his paintings, therefore he liked to leave his work untitled. It was for the viewer to respond.

Below is another Untitled from the same series. I love it for its rich vividness of colour. The deep, burnished red against the soft brown. The creamy, white flecked block of pale neutrality. The paint is applied thickly, with broad brushstrokes, applied fast, yet with careful organisation. This painting has depth and emotional impact. It has punch and power and life. I love the subtle tonal shifts in the two slabs of red. This paining is pleasing to the eye, and the juxtaposition of the colours and shapes give impact.

"Action Painters"