extraneous work (3): writing about art, presenting art

[you will by now understand that the word `extraneous' in the series' title is meant thus: `not immediately pertaining to the creation of art'.]

i write about art in different ways, one important way is this blog. but i also have two other art blogs, in dutch. the first of those is called trijntje fop gaat op de schop. it is an extensive tribute to the many many artists that inspire / have inspired me. it takes the form of poetry, specifically light verse, with animals as characters. the name `trijntje fop' comes from multatuli's ideas (multatuli = eduard douwes dekker, see the previous post), from a famous and hilarious passage containing school children's poetry. it was taken as a nom de plume by the dutch poet kees stip (1913-2001). the name is currently used to describe light poetry with the following style characteristics:

• about 1 or more animals (`on a ...' ) with typical human characteristics - as in de la fontaine's work
• abundance of spoonerisms.
• 2 to ... lines, mostly 6 lines in aabbcc form.

most of my trijntje fops are about a specific artist, where the 'punchline' usually consists of some wordplay on the artist's name. i illustrate these poems with relevant artworks and background information, which is where the real work creeps in. all in all i've written some 200 trijntje fops so far...which was a lot of work. to give an idea, let me present my latest trijntje fop -not about a specific artist- below:

op n tasmaanse duivel en n duivelsrog


briest thea tasmaanse duivel:
`alleen maar banaan met zuivel?
vervloekt zij wie steeds ons hellevoer
weer boekt bij die zweedse melkboer!'

de helleveeg eist n vragenuur:
voor welk beest spijst t vagevuur?

`besef toch' sust dragan duivelsrog
de chefkok van satans ruif en trog
`aan types als bok beëlzebub
heeft íedere kok n helse club

de stamppotstampij
van harry harpij!
of maak maar ns snert voor ruziester
en drama queen slechtvalk lucifer

misschien stopt de hel met kniezen
indien k ze zelf laat kiezen?'

bel nu 666 voor vlammetjes!
-of stuur sms voor bammetjes



tasmaanse duivel
(foto chen wu)



duivelsrog
(mobula mobular, foto david sim)



bok
(tekening van de sève, gravure van c. baquoy, in  illustrations de histoire naturelle générale et particulière avec la description du cabinet du roy, tome v, 1755)



harpij
(foto bjørn christian tørrissen) 



slechtvalk 
(john james audubon, uit the birds of america)



waterspuwer harpij (mythologisch)
(foto véronique pagnier)



duivel = satan, beëlzebub, lucifer
(tarotkaart van pamela colman smith)


drama queen: iemand die graag van een mug een olifant maakt; vlammetjes: scherpe snack, bammetjes: boterhammetjes

john james audubon, for example, features here. what an incredible artist! the world of art is very strange, for the recognition of audubon is no doubt formidable, yet one does not usually see his works in art museums, nor is he usually mentioned in art history books. [one reason of course is that his main work is contained in the incredible book birds of america (link to digital version, only 120 complete sets exist), and it is hard to display books]. anyway, the older i get, the less i understand of this world. but the less i care, too, for fitting in, for understanding...what i perceive as the general insanity of our society.

(in the trijntje fops i often comment ironically on this general craziness.)

extraneous work (2): writing about art (van gogh)

perhaps you remember that i wrote about multatuli earlier (my favourite dutch author, more or less from the same time period as vincent van gogh) as being perhaps the inventor of blogging, see his published ideas. sorry to see that they are still not translated in english, an unbelievable state of affairs to me. i'm not a chauvinist, this is a terrific author with truly original prose and ... ideas of course.

but vincent van gogh is an example of a visual artist who also wrote prolifically, on art. of course, contrary to multatuli he never intended these writings to become public, they were after all personal letters, mostly to his brother theo, who was a close supporter of vincent. theo died shortly after vincent, and fortunately for us theo's young widow johanna bonger took great pains to spread appreciation of both vincent's art and the brothers' letters.

crediting multatuli with the invention of blogging is probably unfair to earlier minds which i'm unaware of. and of course, there was an essential ingredient missing: pictures. in vincent's letters one does see pictures being integrated, abundantly so and in much the same way as on this blog. [so even though i would like to be original or prolific or whatever epithet: the truth is that i'm neither of all these things, compared to certain giants in the past and present. but does it matter?]


excerpt from letter to john russell, vincent van gogh (click on the image for an enlargement)

the letter is in english (which is why i chose it for this post) since john peter russell was an australian artist who made vincent's acquaintance in paris. vincent was completely fluent in dutch, french and english, and also a voracious reader. here is a portrait of vincent by john russell:


portrait of vincent van gogh, john peter russell (1886, click on the image for an enlargement)

anyway, vincent wrote over 840 letters (844 have survived due to theo and johanna), containing a staggering amount of prose and sketches. seeing the interest in these letters i should remind myself that perhaps my writings here are not as uninteresting to others as i often fear them to be. but already for vincent the letters themselves were enough, and so it is for me as well: a main reason to maintain this blog is to help me crystallize and develop my thoughts on art.


yellow house sketch from letter vgm 491, vincent van gogh (click on the image for an enlargement)

intermezzo: francis bacon and van gogh

should have posted this before starting the series... my `study after van gogh' reminded me suddenly of francis bacon and vincent van gogh (both in a league of their own), just let me put up some pictures of bacon's amazing series of studies 'after' van gogh:


study for a portrait of van gogh ii, francis bacon (1957, click on the image for an enlargement)

i am as usual enthralled by bacon's way of distorting space and spatiality. i really am working on spatiality myself, but am a long way from where i would like to be.

the series of portait studies was inspired by the van gogh painting painter on the road to tarascon (destroyed in world war ii, bacon only had a photograph)


painter on the road to tarascon, vincent van gogh (1885, click on the image for an enlargement)


study for a portrait of van gogh iii, francis bacon (1957, click on the image for an enlargement)


study for a portrait of van gogh v, francis bacon (1957, click on the image for an enlargement)


study for a portrait of van gogh vi, francis bacon (1957, click on the image for an enlargement)

however, i suddenly realize that this intermezzo is even more to the point than i thought. if there is any artist who wrote about his art, then it must be vincent van gogh. let's elaborate on this in the next post.

extraneous work (1): 6,5 years of this artist's blog

so time flies. and it happens i repeat myself. what i would like to do next is start a little series on all the extra -sometimes extraneous- work that comes along with being an artist, for me at last.

is this an interesting subject? not sure. why would a musician blogging about practising scales interest me? how she has to make recordings to submit to ... and how she has to do photo shoots, buy strings, tune the instrument, heat the appartment... we take all these things for granted, even when we're in awe of her music. even then, would my interest stretch beyond reading what influences / influenced her, her coming of age as a musician etc? not sure.

when i look at the large amount of time i spend on music (practising, myself; listening to music) and compare it to the amount of time i read about musicians/composers... it doesn't bode well for how interesting my own blog would be to others than myself. [still, the blog at least makes my art available on the web, and it has the added advantage of offering me the opportunity to crystallize some of my thoughts on art.]

but i suppose i would be interested in a description of this musician's activities, if it is well written, and offered some real insight in what drives her, both musically and as a person i suppose, since it seems hard to separate the two completely. and if like on this blog, the description would be interlaced with music...

anyway. it seems i would do well to at least write well on this blog. yet i tend to think that if i had wanted to become a good writer, then i would not have become an artist. most things takes a lot of time and energy to do well, and writing a blog is no exception. worth it too, since writing this blog helps me in important ways with my art itself: to present my art, to think about art and artists, to rethink my art, to rethink my artist's position in life and society, and even to create my art.

in order to present my art here, i spend quite some time on photography and subsequent tuning of digital images with photoshop and other image editors, such as picasa. a subject for the next post in this series, but as an example:


outsider in woman-man dance (own work, 2010-2013, 21 x 30cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

difficulties abound: the colours of the drawing are hard to capture even with my canon 650d; then apart from often tricky colour adjustments the white-balance and the brightness of the picture need to be calibrated for use on computer screens. for shiny paintings, reflection-specks are edited out. then the image has to be saved for web, in a typical compromise between size and detail.

the drawing itself combines two themes: man-woman dance, and outsiderness (being an outsider). much as i would like to be able to write strikingly about my art, this is where i usually find myself at a loss for words.

lately i realize that this has something to do with a `trite' question: what do we mean with `meaning'? i cannot explain the meaning of art, i feel. if it has meaning (whatever that means), then the most important part of that meaning to me is essentially non-verbal. what is the meaning of the goldberg variations?

art appreciation, a study after van gogh, and an old rotring-pen drawing

study after van gogh (own work, 2013, 30 x 21 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

always drawing, always thinking... i also share some other artistic characteristics with van gogh. like lack of artist recognition :-). [van gogh was very avant-garde, i'm just plain old-fashioned (except in the `details'): painting, drawing, sculpting.]

seriously, after having had three exhibitions this year, i find myself wondering once again what it takes to get people interested in art? it hardly seems to matter how hard it is and how long it takes to achieve a certain artistic mastery, it seems to be all about `buzz' (generalized page rank...see previous posts).

with just little recognition, at times i find it difficult to keep up my motivation to go further, work harder, push beyond my current limits. but on the other hand, i find the work to be its own reward and its own recognition. there something special in having drawings that i made 30 years ago, and from every period in between till now, and see the development, see aspirations coming true.


horse (own work, 1984, 20 x 30 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

(this drawing i made with a rotring pen...and i'm still drawing with rotring pens over 30 years later.)

there is also some artistic merit in lack of recognition: it gives a lot of freedom, and quiet. especially the quiet i'm starting to appreciate more and more.

[a year ago i wrote on this subject also, see this post on frida kahlo. the downside to my dedicated-to-art blog seems that inevitably i repeat myself. i also have trouble highlighting other artists (much as i would like to!) since i'm always running behind with putting up my own work on the internet, due to health issues.]

young woman in tangerine dress (notre dame des anges)

young woman in tangerine dress (notre dame des anges) (own work, 2014, 55 x 80 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

this painting also arose from experimenting, but it appears more traditional. if you look more closely you can see the paper cut-outs that i used to start the painting. the light tangerine colour is captured poorly by the photograph. my current three main points of painting people: expression, expression, expression...

and still more (notre dame des anges)

notre dame des anges with folded hands (own work, 2014, 55 x 80 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

see the previous post: i'm simply working very hard to get things to work... which for now seems to imply that i'm hardly involved on a conscious/verbal level, so i can't really add much to the picture itself. endless reworking, adding of extraneous materials etc., to achieve a certain expression. once again, a photograph hardly does justice to the real thing.

[repeated from previous posts: the woman portraits made in this series share the name `notre dame des anges´. this is a reference to the `medieval´ spirituality i mentioned above. but the portraits are of course not a depiction of maria. they are intended as portraits of contemporary women emanating this type of spirituality which i find hard to describe.
in this series i experiment with all sorts of visual elements. you can see that i do not shy away from outsider-like techniques. at the same time, i'm also studying the human form and face, as a means of expressing spirituality, vulnerability, openness, unarmedness etc.]

notre dame des anges (again)

notre dame des anges with shells (own work, 2013-2014, 55 x 80 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

well, i worked hard on this painting, and yet it's like i'm still feeling my way around... perhaps this is a sign of finally reaching a stage where the result is not in my own hands. this might seem strange for an artist, but if i really want to reach other planes, then at some point i must allow for results that are difficult to judge from where i'm currently standing.

which is why i think the painting is finished. it is what it is, and in reality it touches me with its colour, form, and expression (although the photo doesn't capture all of this very well).

[repeated from previous posts: the woman portraits made in this series share the name `notre dame des anges´. this is a reference to the `medieval´ spirituality i mentioned above. but the portraits are of course not a depiction of maria. they are intended as portraits of contemporary women emanating this type of spirituality which i find hard to describe.
in this series i experiment with all sorts of visual elements. you can see that i do not shy away from outsider-like techniques. at the same time, i'm also studying the human form and face, as a means of expressing spirituality, vulnerability, openness, unarmedness etc.]

street art project by google

google launched a wonderful project: street art on google view.

i'm a longtime fan of street art, for various reasons. one of these reasons is that street art relates closely to the human need for artistic (visual) expression, stripped from commercial and elitist considerations.

you can of course wonder why i do not engage in street art myself...

but that is a question of circumstance and personality. i'm shy to perform in public, and i'm also not at ease with anti-street-art legislation. if i would have a commission, and if i could work in reasonable peace, it would be different... so i can see myself doing murals (i did some inside murals long ago, and it was very inspiring) but only if the wall in question is given to me freely and explicitly.

nonetheless i have great respect for many street artists who are more daring in their approach, and who create wonderful pieces for everyone to see. in my opinion, we need art very dearly in this technocratic society. and this whole capitalistic structure where a very few rich people control all the infrastructure, buildings, land...why? do not all people have a right to this earth?

street art is a way of challenging these rigid and corrupt societal structures, in a way that i often find endearing and enriching. we need societal change. we really do. so instead of wasting our attention on football and fickle politicians and corrupt bankers and other media `stars', why not simply go look at art once in a while?

museum van bommel van dam (15 june - 10 august 2014)

from 15 june - 10 august 2014 i'm participating in the art event

join in!

in museum van bommel van dam (modern art, venlo, the netherlands)



mountain blaze (78 x 200 cm)

exhibition `dance' in galerie meander 18 may - 20 july

from 18 may - 20 july 2014 i will participate in

dance

a theme exhibition in galerie meander, zevenaar (near arnhem)




dance has always been important to me, and is a main theme in my drawings for over 25 years. also on this blog you will find many posts related to dance.

you are of course cordially invited to come see the show.

LaTeX in blogger

you may or may not be aware that i also maintain a math & science & philosophy blog. an important reason for starting this as a separate blog on wordpress was that the mathematical typesetting of formulas used to be difficult on blogger. but recently things have changed, and now it is possible to use LaTeX (math formatting language/software) also in blogger, through the platform of mathjax, see here how to run this on blogger.

so, just because i like math formulas also aesthetically, let me write some simple formula here. Let $f:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$ be given by:

$$f(x)=\int\frac{\theta(y)^2x}{\sin^2(\frac{1}{2}xy)+1}dy$$

whatever that may mean... and i'm left with the problem of deciding whether i should integrate the two blogs or not...

[update: since this post scores way too high on google search, let me include the instructions for installing mathjax:

to get mathjax to work in blogger, go to your blogger account. click through to your blog's dashboard called `overview', and then click `template' on the left-hand menu. (at this point i myself always backup first, top right side). next click "edit html". after the first <head> you see, paste:

<script src='http://cdn.mathjax.org/mathjax/latest/MathJax.js' type='text/javascript'>  
    MathJax.Hub.Config({
        HTML: ["input/TeX","output/HTML-CSS"],
        TeX: { extensions: ["AMSmath.js","AMSsymbols.js"],
               equationNumbers: { autoNumber: "AMS" } },
        extensions: ["tex2jax.js"],
        jax: ["input/TeX","output/HTML-CSS"],
        tex2jax: { inlineMath: [ ['$','$'], ["\\(","\\)"] ],
                   displayMath: [ ['$$','$$'], ["\\[","\\]"] ],
                   processEscapes: true },
        "HTML-CSS": { availableFonts: ["TeX"],
                      linebreaks: { automatic: true } }
    });
</script>

you can now use $...$ or \(...\) for inline equations, and $$...$$ or \[...\] for displaying equations centered in their own line.]

art appreciation a century ago and today...

some time ago i came across the book of tea written in 1906 by okakura kakuzō. and i was surprised to see what he had to say on the subject of art appreciation, in chapter v:

%%%%

V. Art Appreciation

...[i omit the beginning of the chapter]

It is much to be regretted that so much of the apparent enthusiasm for art at the present day has no foundation in real feeling. In this democratic age of ours men clamour for what is popularly considered the best, regardless of their feelings. They want the costly, not the refined; the fashionable, not the beautiful. To the masses, contemplation of illustrated periodicals, the worthy product of their own industrialism,would give more digestible food for artistic enjoyment than the early Italians or the Ashikaga masters, whom they pretend to admire. The name of the artist is more important to them than the quality of the work. As a Chinese critic complained many centuries ago, “People criticise a picture by their ear.” It is this lack of genuine appreciation that is responsible for the pseudo-classic horrors that today greet us wherever we turn.

Another common mistake is that of confusing art with archæology. The veneration born of antiquity is one of the best traits in the human character, and fain would we have it cultivated to a greater extent. The old masters are rightly to be honoured for opening the path to future enlightenment. The mere fact that they have passed unscathed through centuries of criticism and come down to us still covered with glory commands our respect. But we should be foolish indeed if we valued their achievement simply on the score of age. Yet we allow our historical sympathy to override our æsthetic discrimination. We offer flowers of approbation when the artist is safely laid in his grave. The nineteenth century, pregnant with the theory of evolution, has moreover created in us the habit of losing sight of the individual in the species. A collector is anxious to acquire specimens to illustrate a period or a school, and forgets that a single masterpiece can teach us more than any number of the mediocre products of a given period or school. We classify too much and enjoy too little. The sacrifice of the æsthetic to the so-called scientific method of exhibition has been the bane of many museums.

The claims of contemporary art cannot be ignored in any vital scheme of life. The art of today is that which really belongs to us: it is our own reflection. In condemning it we but condemn ourselves. We say that the present age possesses no art:—who is responsible for this? It is indeed a shame that despite all our rhapsodies about the ancients we pay so little attention to our own possibilities. Struggling artists, weary souls lingering in the shadow of cold disdain! In our self-centered century, what inspiration do we offer them? The past may well look with pity at the poverty of our civilisation; the future will laugh at the barrenness of our art. We are destroying the beautiful in life. Would that some great wizard might from the stem of society shape a mighty harp whose strings would resound to the touch of genius.

%%%%

well, a lot of the above still seems true today, in my eyes. yet it is somewhat heartening to see that other people recognize this as a problem too. maybe in another century's time things will be different :-)

vincent van gogh ... speechless

vincent van gogh, a lane near arles (painted 1888)

at age 48 i'm still astounded and usually speechless when i look at vincent van gogh's paintings and drawings. we all have our own story to tell, therefore no artist should have the need to be envious, but i am envious nonetheless, more than i would normally expect of myself. not that i would want to paint the same kind of painting ... it goes deeper. i am looking and have been looking for a long time to paint in a similarly intense and personal way, but with a similar link to reality.

it remains utterly inspiring and at the same time daunting for me to see how brilliantly vincent achieved this in his paintings. look at the above, the incredible colours, but also the incredibly effective mix of detailing and broad brush strokes. and this is just one of countless masterworks. thank you vincent, you are the wordless answer to all those sceptical and non-appreciative of art.

Philosophy, finally (`we live through maps', art & imagination from a different perspective)

You may be aware that I also maintain a math & science & philosophy blog... I have to admit that I sometimes regret not having integrated the latter blog into this one, which is my first and most important blog. But an important reason for not doing so was a technical one: Blogger does not support LaTeX, which is the formatting standard for mathematics and the exact sciences in general.

The drawback is the artificial separation between my thoughts on art and my thoughts on philosophy that sometimes results. After all, I consider art to be a profound form of philosophy, not less so for (mostly) being non-verbal. I have long been wanting to write something about the relation between art and philosophy, but in a way I was held back by the fact that I had already written something on that subject...in Dutch.

In my last year as a student of mathematics, I had to write a philosophy paper. Philosophy was quite an extensive requirement at the time, to obtain a Master's degree in math. I don't know how things stand nowadays. Now, as a math student I seldom went to math classes, preferring to study for my exams from the literature, since already then I devoted more time to my artistic endeavours. (I had already been to Art College prior to my math studies). But I did attend the philosophy classes faithfully, since philosophy has always interested me greatly.

The writing of a philosophy paper I found almost harder than the writing of my Master's thesis. I still remember the mental stress I felt, since I wanted to really write down how I felt about philosophy and our existence on this planet, but I strongly felt that words are often not my preferred medium. How then to put such a philosophy into words? Agonizing, but I did not want to turn in some rehashing of other people's thoughts, and the philosophy requirement could not be evaded.

The result of a month of mental hard labour was a 7000-words paper, a typewritten manuscript for which I used my preferred sketch paper type, which gave a beautiful `aged' feel. Not standard for documents of course. The teacher graded it an A-...which in my natural modesty I found too low:-). But the contents were even more non-standard I think than the exterior, so perhaps I should have been very happy to pass at all.

Nonetheless, the paper actually surprised me, since it came very close to expressing my feelings on philosophy and on our Western culture. I occasionally reread it, and then each time was struck by how close to home the words struck me. Surprisingly to me at least is that I still feel the same way.

So finally, after 22 years, I decided to translate it into English. As a series of posts on my math & science & philosophy blog, titled `We live through maps'.

The paper should go a long way in explaining my feelings on art in relation to verbal philosophy. It also explains why I think we should actually integrate science with art and philosophy much more than we usually do. Finally, it gives me a basis to refer to when I'm writing on art and philosophy. This is really nice about the internet: we can share thoughts, knowledge, pictures, music much more easily than ever before.

(four seasons...) art & imagination: `blue remembered earth' by alastair reynolds

trailer for blue remembered earth by alastair reynolds

in the thread on the four seasons, i discussed the novel `the botticelli secret' in the previous post. it did not really capture me, but it rekindled my enthusiasm for botticelli's wonderful painting `primavera' (`spring').

it then struck me that the four seasons are in fact a result of our earth revolving around the sun. did you know that the seasons do not have equal length? on the northern hemisphere currently (and for a long time to come) summer and spring are longer than autumn and winter...(see this website on the length of the seasons). the landmass on the northern hemisphere being the larger by far, this is likely to contribute to global warming.

but to be honest, it provides me with a nice opportunity to discuss one of my favourite writers: alastair reynolds. here we have a science fiction author who imagines whole worlds and futures in an astonishingly visionary way. and more importantly, the science in his fiction to me is always daring yet convincing. it is clear that everything is carefully thought out and executed, just like in the `primavera', with amazing eye for detail and yet never forgetting the larger picture.

it turns out that reynolds is a scientist, who worked for ESA before turning professional writer. no wonder then that his descriptions of space and science are so rich. still, no author really captures me if the characters remain too `flat'. in this respect also i find reynolds' books fascinating. the humanity of the (human(oid)) characters is ever present, and rings true.

doesn't it tell us something though, that the word for `imagination' is ... `imagination'? in other words: creating images? a writer creates images in our minds. art and imagination are seldom far apart.

perhaps no coincidence then, that reynolds imagines art-rich africa to be so important in the scheme of things to come. in `blue remembered earth', one of the protagonists (sunday akinya) is a future artist. not only are reynolds' descriptions of her works intriguing, he also manages to capture something of the struggle that each true artist faces, in any time. simply an engrossing and wonderful novel, thank you alastair!

(four seasons:) botticelli's primavera

sandro botticelli, primavera (`spring', painted around 1482)

still on the topic of the four seasons...i recently read marina fiorato's novel the botticelli secret. as a novel, it didn't really touch me. but reading such `historical' works always helps me to understand a bit about long ago times. there were some strange historical mistakes in the book, but overall i could enjoy it enough nonetheless. (eg. in 1482 the protagonist refers to the statue of david by michelangelo...which was created around 1501-1504... that sort of thing).

the idea that botticelli's primavera depicts some sort of political plot strikes me as far-fetched but is actually a serious academic idea, it seems. i find the regular interpretation (that it is an elaborate allegory on the fertility of life) more convincing. it doesn't really matter to me, the novel helped me to look at the painting once more in great detail, which is a joy. the enormous diversity of plants used is amazing, for instance. and even though i remain ambiguous about any deeper meanings, the painting itself remains alluring in a to me undefinable way. i did not really learn much about botticelli from the book though, contrary to what i had hoped.

four seasons: autumn again

autumn leaves (own work, 2013, digital, click on the image for enlargement)

well it is autumn, actually, so i thought i'd put up one of the many many pictures i take year round of nature and what strikes me. photography is such a different medium than painting, yet it serves me very well to look through my camera and record images. one day i hope to integrate these two media more.

(finishing old work) four seasons: autumn

autumn (own work, 1996-2012, 40 x 55 cm, click on the image for enlargement)

see previous post...i remain a bit ambiguous about these cardboard panels. i like them for some reasons, but the photographic representation lacks convincing qualities i believe.

i think colours can convey many many things, and i like this type of experiment. however, i have diluted the experiment somewhat by going for non-seasonal colour effects during reworking.