aesthesis

Discussion: The waxed moustache

Salvador Dali, “proud owner of one of the world's pointiest moustaches” (From), was as well known for his bizarre lifestyle as he was for his art. Whether this distraction from his painted works is appropriate or not will likely be debated ad infinitum.

Dali brings up a good question. Is it reasonable, appropriate, or effective to consider biographical information about an artist in the process of interpreting their work? Is the artist’s life part of his body of work or should works of art stand on their own?

This is the first aesthesis discussion and I’ll post apt responses to aesthesis on 31-May-2004.

Responses should be clear and concise (less than 1000 words) and may include examples of specific art works. You can submit them by e-mailing them to me or by responding to this entry.

Two Galleries Modestly Proposed

I read two interesting headlines yesterday.

First…

THE PROPOSED NATIONAL GALLERY OF BRITISH ART IN DANGER.

Mr. Henry Tate. "NO, THANK YOU, MR. RED TAPE, I DON'T WANT MY GIFTS TO THE NATION TO BE TIED UP BY YOU, THEN PACKED AWAY, AND NEVER SEEN AGAIN!"

This was from “Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890, by Various, Edited by F. C. Burnand” and I found it here.

The second (in the spirit of Punch) “New Gagosian in London: Whoop de doo” (Here)

You can read a more complete and decorous article on the same subject here. Gagosian To Open London's Biggest Gallery (here)

It’s interesting to note the difference between the two men’s thoughts about art. Henry Tate thought of the art as a gift to the nation. The works were treasures to be given.

Gagosian takes rather a different view.

Cristina Ruiz, editor of the Art Newspaper, said: "Everything you hear about Gagosian stresses that he loves to close a deal. He loves the art - but he is one of those dealers who absolutely loves to sell, and he is very successful at it. Yes, he employs aggressive selling techniques, but that's how dealers get stuff done." (From Guardian Unlimited, here)

For Gagosian art is a commodity—the power source for his lifestyle. He may actually care about art but his new gallery isn’t intended to promote art. The largest commercial gallery in London will promote art sales.

I’m in favor of art sales (particularly my own) but I sometimes wish that artists would label works that were created primarily for pecuniary purposes. The public has been told that to dislike a work of art is well nigh heretical. It would be nice if there were a convenient method for distinguishing between those works which an artist considers exemplary of his ideals and those works which an artist hopes will fit into your décor.

Just think how much easier this would make future scholarship. A young art historian could easily weed out those works that the artist created under the duress of their landlord and focus on those in which the artist tried to communicate something timely or timeless.

Interaction vs. Perception

Artblog.net has this two part article (“dueling media” part 1 and part 2) on the debate between artists about which medium is most effective.

The article/s quote Vasari (quoting Giorgione) and Hockney. It’s important to note that the aesthetic view of the quotees is inextricable from their argument.

Both Giorgione and Hockney hold painting up over other mediums. They both, Giorgione of sculpture and Hockney of photography, present their opposing mediums as factual presentations but their defense of their own mediums are divergent based on what they value in art.

Giorgione values the challenge of vision over audience interaction. “Giorgione used [a painting described in the full quote] to prove that painting requires more skill and effort and can show in one scene more aspects of nature than is the case with sculpture.” (a href="http://www.artblog.net/index.php?name=2004-04-26-06-49-dueling">part 1) For him, it is the exhibition of the artist’s powers of perception that make a painting worthwhile. The argument for sculpture was that the viewer could experience the form from different angles by walking around it. With sculpture the viewer could interact with the form in space thus changing it appearance. This interaction was unimportant to Giorgione. His answer was a painting which showed several angles of a figure in a single image. The viewer can stand in one place and admire the artist’s powers.

Hockney, speaking of a particular Goya painting, says that the value of painting is potential neutrality. He claims that a photographer must take sides in a photograph where as a painter can manipulate the image until you don’t know which side he is on. The author of “dueling media” rightly questions both the general premise and the specific instance that Hockney sites. Whether you agree with Hockney or not you can’t help but notice that it’s ambiguity that Hockney favors. Could it be that Hockney wants a painting to remain neutral so that the audience can have some control over the meaning? I don’t know. I’m not sure Hockney knows either. However great a painter he is his arguments don’t add up. He says at one point that photographs are too ambiguous to be presented captionless but then offers the Goya example for it’s neutrality.

Giorgione didn’t favor neutrality in art because for him artist’s made art, not audiences. Hockney favors neutrality the same as many artist’s who have developed in this age of arts interactivity. Aesthetic decisions affect both what they value and what they make.

Haiku – Sumi-e – Nokia

Is there a musical equivalent to haiku?

Encyclopedia.com says…

(hī´koo) , an unrhymed Japanese poem recording the essence of a moment keenly perceived, in which nature is linked to human nature. It usually consists of 17 jion (Japanese symbol-sounds). The term is also used for foreign...

adaptations of the haiku, notably the poems of the imagists. (here)

The closest style in art is sumi-e painting from Japan. One web page say of sumi-e “Sumi-e means: Black Ink Painting. Black ink on white paper, simple, elegant and serene. Simplicity is the most outstanding characteristic of Sumi-e. An economy of brush strokes are used to communicate the essence of the subject.” (here)

In haiku the poet creates complex, recognizable images using just a few verbal sounds. Sumi-e painting creates recognizable images using just a few terse brush strokes. The Aesthetic of each art form is based on economy, simplicity, and the involvement of the audience.

My first musical response was minimalism. “[M]inimalist compositions tend to emphasize simplicity in melodic line and harmonic progression, to stress repetition and rhythmic patterns, and to reduce historical or expressive reference.” (here) Glass and other minimalist composers use repetition so that it’s difficult to keep your frame of reference for the experience.

Scroll down to to see a Haiku by Basho (“The greatest Japanese haiku writer.” Here) altered in accordance to the minimalist aesthetic.

The phoneme pieces of the minimalist version may form a cohesive whole and if interpreted correctly they may make sense but there isn’t the immediate image transfer that makes the original a treasure.

Minimalism in art is aesthetically different from haiku as well. Picture a large canvas covered entirely with one shade of red, or divided by a single black line, or filled with a composition that employs only to shapes. The economy is extreme but it doesn’t communicate a recognizable image to the viewer. The viewer is not allowed to penetrate the colored surface. Minimalist painting seems to say that a painting is not a picture, it’s just paint on a surface. Minimalist music seems to advance the theory that music isn’t a song, it’s just notes spread over the space time continuum.

So what is the musical equivalent to Haiku. I submit that cell phone ring tones are the closest musical counterpart to haiku.

Song based ring tones often boil a musical composition down to a melody line. Just one note at a time. In addition, ring tones often cut a small recognizable slice out of a larger composition. Further, the sound produced is synthesized rather than a recording of what a particular performance of the original sounded like.

Despite this major mutation of the original most people can still recognize the “Brandenburg Concerto” or “Fur Elise.” Our minds and memories can fill in the many musical gaps.

We can fill in the blanks in any given popular tune the same way that our brains transform meaningless flicks of sumi-e ink into mountains, horses, or what have you.

Further, your own connection with a particular song can be evoked even by the mediocre (or worse) copy of it. In the same way, it is your own experience with jar cracking cold that lets the first line in the Basho haiku communicate a whole winter of imagery.

For Haiku, sumi-e, or ring tones to fulfill their image carrying capability, the audience must be engaged. The notes, or ink, mean little on their own. The sounds of the poem are only meaningful as a connection between the artist and the audience.

Does the artist make the meaning? Or does the meaning come from the audience? Or is meaning in art only found when communication between artist and audience has occurred?

I guess ring tones are more of a genre than a style. And it’s doubtful that cell phone composers will ever earn Grammy awards for their contribution to the world of music. Still, the potential is there to trigger audience response even with most economical of compositions.

W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat Wat ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter ter j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ja ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cr cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra cra ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck ck s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s:

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie ie a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke

Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th Th his his his his his his his his his his his his his his his his his his his his his his his his his I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy cy n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t.

The poem reads…

Waterjar cracks:
I lie awake
This icy night.

(I found it here)

Announcement 2

Announcement 2

Anyone interested in seeing what I’m working on art-wise can check out artprogress.

You’ll find images of works in progress as well as pieces I’ve completed recently.

Jason Waggoner