Is Beauty Important in Art?

There is a discussion going on in an online art group, as to whether beauty should be important in art. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00p6tsd

My opinion is: yes. Very much so!

Of course one can be divided over what is beautiful and what is not, just as much as over what is art and what isn´t, but in my opinion, beauty in art has a purpose, now more than ever: To show that life is worth while, that there is a value higher than wealth, and a happiness which is not based on material possessions.

Beauty satisfies our human need for harmony and spirituality. Creativity and mastery of the craft are the other two important components art needs to have, in order to qualify as such, but if beauty is missing and replaced by brutal, obscene or outrageous content, the work of art, if it can be called that, will not be a positive force but a negative one.

If you ask me, artists should not endorse the ugliness and alienation that modern life presents us, by creating work that mirrors these negative aspects. Why emphasize what´s depressive and disturbing? The media do that pretty well, why should artists copy them?

After almost a century of ugliness being favored over beauty in the arts, don´t you think it is time to go back to that place where the real and the ideal can exist in harmony, where an artist, through his or her ability, can bring beauty to a place that lacks it?

Revolution and Independence

2010 is the year in which Mexico celebrates 200 years of its Independence form Spain and 100 years since the Revolution.

A lot has changed for the average Mexican citizen in this last century, but less for the indigenous population.

Which may turn out to be good.

The question arises: How much change is desirable, how much modernization can be called progress before it becomes the beginning of the end for the indigenous cultures?

Mexico would not be what it is today if it were not for its history, rich in prehispanic cultures. Mexico must be reminded that it should be proud not only of the temples and pyramids these ancient inhabitants left, but also of the fact, that their descendants are still alive in the indigenous polulation of today. Their old ways of producing arts and crafts are valuable skills to be preserved and, in the long run, this may be more important to the tourism industry of this nation than building more and more developments and golf courses at the beaches, in places where there is no sustainable source of water and where natural eco systems, like mangroves, have to be destroyed to make room for the so called progress.

Thanksgiving

And again, it´s time to think about turkeys and pumpkins!

A year ago, during a non-painting-trip to Austria, I saw a field full of pumpkins, ready to be harvested. It looked very pretty and I took some photographs. A week later, quite a few pumpkins remained in the field when early snow surprised the place. Now the view was even more stunning. The sun had melted the snow away on the south side to reveal bright orange dots, randomly strewn over the field.

With winter approaching, it felt like the right time to paint the scene now!

Beach Paintings

I love to watch - and of course to paint the waves rolling in at the beach. There is something reassuringly artistic about the fact that such a repetitive action can happen without it's outcome ever looking quite the same.

Not long ago I walked on a beach of the Pacific Ocean, at the Nayarit village of San Pancho in Mexico. A woman of the Huichol tribe, dressed in her brightly colored traditional outfit, was sitting on a pile of sand, looking at the sea. Maybe she was pondering the same thing while her daughter played with a dog nearby.

Realism

Not all realism is alike.

Since so called realistic, as well as impressionistic painting requires abstraction from reality, no two dimensional work can ever be totally "real", not even photorealism. The painter has a choice as to how much he or she wants to (or can) adhere to the scene at hand.

For me, realism is not about slaving over detail, nor is it about sticking to the correct number of trees, waves or rocks in nature, but it is about conveying the overall impression I get from the scene: The movement, the light, the texture of things, the temperatur and if possible the joy of being part of it all.

Yet Another Seascape

Here´s another one.
Different beach, different view point.

In this scene I loved the fact that the ocean, though in constant motion, gives a feeling of tranquility and, because of the repetitiveness and predictability of it´s movements, a sense of permanence.

Black

Black, just like white, is not a color.

Colors have three dimensions:
Hue, value and chroma.
Black is undoubtedly a hue.
As far as value goes, it is the darkest of all values on the scale, but it cannot vary in value like colors can. As soon as it is a bit lighter, it is not black any more.
And chroma, or intensity is fixed too, there is no blacker than black.

In painting, black has to be treated with a lot of respect. First of all, black easily dirties other colors. Also, black objects show a variety of color and values where the light hits them and it is important to look carefully to determine the hue of those colors. The most illuminated spot on a black object can be lighter than the darkest shadow on a white object.
I hardly ever use black (I believe there is still some paint in the one and only tube of black I ever bought), but rather mix the colors to interprete black with the three darkest transparent colors on the palette: Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue and Viridian Green. Real Black is only needed in the deepest of all accents, where no direct, nor reflected light hits the object.

White - is it a Color?

No, it isn´t.

Many years ago, when I studied oil painting with Sebastian Capella, I learned that White and Black are not colors.
Let me explain:
Color has three dimensions, hue, value and croma.
Hue, as in the tone like red, yellow, blue, etc.;
Value, referring to the degree of light or dark on a scale between black and white;
And Croma, as in intensity or purity of the color.

White fits within the first dimension, it does have a name, so it qualifies as a hue, but it does not have any variation in value, nor in croma. White will always be the lightest on the value scale and there is no more than one intensity - white is white.

Any color, added to another one, will change that color´s hue. For example, if you add red to yellow you get orange, blue to yellow makes green, and so on.
White, added to any other color does not change that color´s hue, it will only affect its value and diminish its intensity.

I don´t use pure white when painting a white object, pure white is rarely found in nature, there is always a hint of another hue present. Shadows and reflected colors will show us the white object in a lovely variety of colors! It´s only our brain which reads them as white.

Rosa

This is another painting I made of Rosa. It was done in a single session and I believe I painted over an old canvas. I am always happy with the rough brush work that results from doing that and, because there is already color on the canvas, the painting goes so much faster.
The windows of our studio looked like those of a factory, hence the title.

Models

Rosa used to be one of my favorite models. I remember clearly when she came to my group for the first time, shy and worried that she would have to model in the nude. She had recently immigrated to the US from the Middle East and was still steeped in the traditions of her country. As it turned out, after she modeled for us countless times fully clothed, one day she decided that there was nothing wrong with modeling nude.
Every model has a unique way of projecting her - or his - personality to the artist. Some gorgeous looking models turn out to be absolutely boring, other, less perfect figures surprise with a lot of spunk and personality. In Rosa´s case, I was always most interested in her face.

Pelicans

At the river mouth of Rio Tomatlan, just south of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, pelicans are ever present. They are excellent fishers, dropping themselves from high above into the sea, folding their wings and making a slight turn just before they hit the water. They hardly miss the fish they are after and carry it off in their expandable lower beak.
But why work if you can get food for free? Fishermen who gut their catch right at the river´s edge are very popular with the birds and have to be careful, or the pelicans might take their fish as well as the entrails.

From my Ethnic Series

When I visited Oaxaca for the first time in the early seventies, the markets were still held in the streets and the ware was spread out on the ground.

There was a street where baskets were sold, another one for clay pots, toys, flowers, crafts, etc., only some food was sold in an indoor market. Women (mostly) were busy arranging, weighing or unpacking whatever they sold and some of them were still wearing their traditional outfits.

If you go today, you´ll need to get a cab to the outskirts of town where you´ll find a market with regular booths, where everything is sold in one place. I bet it´s more comfortable for the people who work in it, but from the artistic point of view, the change was for the worse and one gets the feeling the merchants are banned from the touristic areas in the center of Oaxaca. There´s no longer a reason to proudly wear ethnic clothing, as hardly any tourists venture to the edges of town. A similarly unfortunate decision was made by the local government when they banned artisans from the center square during the Guelaguetza festivities. They too were relocated in an artificially created market in a remote area. I wonder whether the officials in charge of tourism ever ask tourists what they like to see when they come to Oaxaca.

Black Clay

One more from my Ethnic Series.
There is a village in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, which is famous for the production of black pottery. Its name is San Bartolo Coyotepéc. Contrary to what people might believe, the clay is no different from any other, it is the process which produces the black color: The pieces are fired very slowly and at low temperatures, in a kiln which is completely devoid of oxygen. After firing, the surface of each object is burnished - rubbed with a quartz stone until shiny. Most of the pots have rounded bottoms, and are to be displayed on a wreath of wicker. They look very attractive, but you can´t use them with water because the firing at low temperature does not make them impermeable.

Ethnic Series 2

Another painting in the ethnic series.
Women carry more than their fair share of the burden in Mexico and many other developing countries of the world. I don´t want to jump on the feminist band wagon here, but it is worth mentioning. Mexico´s culture is still a male dominated one, especially noticeable in rural areas.
Women who have many children, few modern inventions to make life easier, and little in the way of income, necessarily have a hard life in a place where it is seen as weakness for a man to help at home.
This young woman is preparing tortillas. She has the corn dough or "masa" sitting in front of her on the "metate", a volcanic stone. Next to her is the hot "comal", on which she bakes the tortillas, turning them twice in the process while the man in her life stands in the background, hands in his pockets.

Resisting Kitsch - Or Not

I have stayed away from sunsets for the first twenty years as a painter, in order to avoid kitsch.
This one is my second ever and the first one I like. I think it works, probably because I simplified a lot, which is always a good idea. Or maybe it is because I just finished it!
I had been painting the whole day today, first blocking in a portrait for a commission I have been putting off, then finishing a seascape, also commissioned and finally, even though I was tired, I felt like doing something fast and fresh before quitting. I had a lot of color on my palette and a previously stretched 15"x15" linen ready to go. A couple of years ago I had painted at this location but resisted the sunset. Now the photograph of it was exactly what I was looking for.

Rodin on Portrait Painting

My husband keeps telling me, I should paint more portraits, he feels they are my best work. I don´t know if they are, what I do know is, that I feel happier painting outdoor scenes.
Portraits are a triple challenge because, besides getting the features exactly in the right place (likeness), and having to penetrate deeply into the consciousness of others (character), you have to please the subject of your painting.
I love what Rodin said, and I quote again from the book I mentioned a few posts ago:
"But the greatest difficulties for the artist who models a bust or who paints a portrait do not come from the work which he executes. They come from the client for whom he works."
A few lines below he continues:
"It is very seldom that a man sees himself as he is, and even if he knows himself, he does not wish the artist to present him as he is."
To that I might add another aspect: People know their faces mostly from their mirror image, not the way others see them. Since no one´s face is totally symmetrical, their real appearance looks a little wrong to them.
I have done portraits of married couples and it did not surprise me that he liked hers very much and she was very pleased with his. Their own likenesses, they thought, were a bit off.
I am glad that, in the case of Teresa´s portrait, both husband and wife were happy.

Music and Visual Arts

I believe music and visual arts have a lot in common and many artistic people have a sensibility for both.
I went to high school in Vienna, Austria, and I still regret the fact, that at a certain age we had to choose between art education and music. I chose visual arts, but would have loved to continue with classes about music as well.
Both art forms can express moods and atmosphere so well, both can evoke emotions in the audience (as can language, I guess, but I never got much into writing).
Recently, when I started teaching a course in color theory, I found myself using a lot of comparisons and referring to technical parallels between the two.
Both art and music benefit from contrast between economy and variety, rhythm and calm, a strong statement and an element of surprise. Accents make the work come alive but the general layout of the composition is more important than the detail.
In any case, I feel it is best not to say it all, but to leave a little room for the pleasure of interpretation.

Distance

Painting in a realistic, or impressionistic way is nothing more than interpreting what the eye sees and what the mind perceives in one´s own, personal way, creating a two dimensional illusion of a three dimensional reality on paper or canvas.
The illusion of distance or depth of
field can be achieved in a variety of ways: Objects become smaller, contours less sharp, and color and its temperature change too.
Atmosphere acts like a series of veils which "hang" between the foreground and what can be seen far away. The farther the distance, the thicker the accumulated layers of veils. Shapes behind these atmospheric layers will therefore look less defined and cooler in color than what´s up close.

Green

In past centuries, artists had all kinds of difficulties with green pigments. First, none of them were permanent, second, most were either weak or toxic. Of course, greens could, and always can be made by mixing blue and yellow, but there were also other sources in nature:

In ancient China, a greenish earth was used to make porcelain, but it was very pale in color. Malachite was ground to obtain a beautiful tone of green, but it could not be ground finely, or it would loose its color. Suspending copper over a bath of vinegar would produce a patina of another green, however it was corrosive and short lived.

In the late XVIIIth century, Scheele, a swedish chemist, experimented with arsenic, when he accidentally produced a wonderful, but highly poisonous green. He knew about the toxicity, but was advised not to disclose it, as not to jeopardize the potential economic success. It became known as Scheele-Green and was indeed immediately very well received by society. Textiles, carpets and wall papers in green became the latest must have in fashion.
By the way, Napoleon, who was exiled in Santa Helena and lived in a room decorated with Scheele-Green wallpaper, died in 1821. It was later determined, that his body was preserved like a mommy because he died of arsenic poisoning.

Blue

A few days ago I finished this harbor scene.
While I was painting it, I remember thinking what a pleasure it was, being able to mix these precious blues, not having to worry where the pigment came from nor how much of it I could use.
A few centuries ago artists were dependent upon shipments of Lapizlázuli from Afghanistan, or Cobalt from Iran. If they could afford them. Lapizlázuli was rather expensive especially if you wanted the really deep tone. Cobalt, which is found in the presence of arsenic, had the disadvantage of being poisonous. The third option for old masters was a blue found in copper mines: azurite. It was less expensive, but also less permanent and less beautiful.
By the way, today´s most basic tube color "Ultramarine Blue" got its name from the fact that the pigment had to be brought from "beyond the sea" (ultra mare), not from the comparison with the deep blue color of the ocean.