Everything collapses

Everything falls

Every structure constructed will eventually come under the impact of some equivalent to gravity.

The combination of intrinsic flaws of idealism and the exterior dependance of change ensure that the rise is followed by the fall

In all cases, whether outside or existence or central to it, we just stand by and watch the beauty of the spectacle

The tragic inevitability of the collapse is the one constant drama we can rely on

dysphoria

Painting is dysphoria. ‘An impatience under affliction: morbid restlessness: uneasiness: want of feeling of wellbeing.’ (chambers concise dictionary)

My pictures totally lack tension. Tension is the key to the kind of pictures I want to make.

Neu Rauch has the kind of tension I would love to have, that sense of expectancy

Bacon has tension, its the balancing of forms which are on the verge of implosion and collapse.

Matthias Weischer has architectural tension, I tihnk this is a product of the synthetic and artificial nature of his creation of illusionisitc space. It reads as real but seems fragile and on the verge of falling back apart, of decomposing

Titian has tension, Shakespearian tension. It is a multiple tension which functions on so many formal and iconographic levels to the point of being a complex but eloqunet expression of the entire tension of episodes of the human consciousness.

Rothko has tension, colourisitc and spatial mianly, but one which leads to an emotive and traigc frame of reference. Read the rest of this entry »

A window points to depth

A wall reflects and absorbs flatness

All thats in the frame passes before being reached

 All ascribed to the crumbling surface is soaked up in a dry mouth

Idealism has depth

Realism has flatness

The place is flat

The Journey has depth

Love is depth and desire it flatness Read the rest of this entry »

Tragedy is not singular. Each artform has its own form of tragedy, as does life itself. Lifes tragedy is obvious, the inevitability of death as a consequence of birth.

Narrative, literary, tragedy is the closest to this. Moving through time and space it necessitates plot. The tragedy in narrative is always tied up in cause and effect. What will happen is an inevitable consequence of what is happening, the end is defined by the start.

Photographic tragedy is different. The photograph is about a moment in reality which had been. Its static nature only focus our attention on the inevitable death of the moment recorded. It is not held in eternity but killed and embalmed. Photography is never about idealism but the depressing realism, the shadow of reality. Its oppositions are tragic reminders of lifes tragic transcience. Read the rest of this entry »

Everything divides into opposites

It all decomposes into mapable coordinates

Composed artificially for need of idealism

These constructs are ascribed to our particular psyche

The imprint of a repetitive history

Never intrinsic but forcing its way beneath the skin

The vertical is male Read the rest of this entry »

Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ is the most famous painting in the Western world. Judging it on its appearance alone people often wonder why. Such universal iconic status, however, is never the product of aesthetics alone. It is various wider contexts which have promoted the picture to such fame. Initial context: Da Vinci and ‘intention’. In 1503 Da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa. Vasari states that he carries on working on it for four further years, and implies it was left unfinished. Its unfinished state is disputable, but the possibility adds weight to its general position within the framework of Da Vinci’s aims.

 For Da Vinci it was one piece of his broader fascination with the phenomenon of life. Da Vinci is the embodiment of the stereotypical view of the Renaissance genius. A man obsessed with the advancement of the human mind through an expansion of our knowledge and awareness of every facet of life. Painting was merely one aspect of this study, amongst literature, music science, astronomy and engineering. In the limited number of paintings made by Da Vinci a chief fascination seems to be the deconstructing of vision. Da Vinci seems interested in recording objects in paint as the eye records them on the retina. For him an object was the collection of light gathered together. The soft edges of the Mona Lisa attest to this notion of images as merely shadows of objects, the result of light hitting the object in space and then transferring into image be the light being re-gather onto a flat surface. The warm glow of the Mona Lisa also supports the notion of painting as a devise through which Da Vinci could challenge the nature of light and image making. If we believe these to be Da Vinci’s intentions then we can project such notions onto the original incarnation of the image. Save damage, vandalism and the ageing of time the painting itself has remained physical similar. Yet our reading of it has shifted, numerous times. The first significant shift happened within 100 years. From this point on it is no longer Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

Giorgio Vasari: idealism and bastardisation

Vasari is the first, and a great, Art Historian. Unfortunately such a status has allowed him to have to autocratic a role in the History of painting. His seminal text, ‘Lives of the Artist’s’, chronicles the Italian Renaissance in three stages. It is an incredible record of the times, yet it is not a text which we should take as gospel truth. Its construction, like any, is biased, and the History it creates therefore artificial. It splits the Renaissance into three clearly definable stages, suggests a chronological rise towards absolute end goals. The arrival at the final fulfilment of these goals is reached in Central Italy in the 16th Century. This is conveniently at the same time (and location) as Vasari was painting, running an art school and during the career of Michelangelo; for whom he was the chief apologist. This was a brilliant marketing strategy. If we judge the art by Vasari’s rules then his account rings true. These rules were; truth to nature, selection of the finest parts, the collection of figures in space to depict moral narratives and painting as a window onto another world. For Vasari design, as a masculine and intellectual qualitiy, was the key ingredient of such a repertoire. Yet this is presuming that all artists discussed desired the total fulfilment of these goals. The Venetian’s (Titian et al) gave paint itself a greater primacy. The early and mid renaissance artists were not so much incapable of creating deep perspectival stages but delighted in the ordering of form across the surface as much as through it. I digress. What is key to realise is where Da Vinci sits in Vasari’s account.

Vasari heralds Da Vinci as one of the key figures in the third, and greatest, stage of the Renaissance, perhaps only just behind Michelangelo. I am not suggesting history is totally false, there is plenty in Da Vinci’s work to justify such celebration by Vasari. What I am suggesting is that Da Vinci’s work, and thus the Mona Lisa, is shifted in its meaning by the role played by Vasari. Vasari’s celebration of Da Vinci means we begin to judge his work by the rules laid down by Vasari. These are rules which have survived as measuring tools in much, perhaps most, literature which follows. Yet when we analyse such a correlation in any detail it seems an uncomfortable fit. Vasari celebrated solid line as the foundation of great art. Da Vinci seemed keen to focus on soft lines, seeing objects as culminations of light, not forms idealised into solid shape by the god like mind of a genius. It is a different belief system in the progression of representation.

Da Vinci’s Millanese ways of seeing perhaps link more closely to the ideals of Venice than those of Vasari and Michelangelo. The impact of Vasari’s account is vast. The painters of the Renaissance were great enough to survive through history with or without him. Yet with him the structure of our memories is more firmly defined the shape of history more rigid. Da Vinci’s work is no longer read entirely on what is seen but through the eye of history tinted by Vasari. It does not matter if we have never heard of him. His ideas have helped clearly define canonical ideals which have filtered into our general understanding and analysis of such work. The Mona Lisa thus becomes misread as fitting too clearly into this picture.

Napoleon and repatriation

There is certainly an active history for the Mona Lisa between its creation and the opening of the Louvre; yet it is that moment which I see as the next significant shift in its reading. Louis XIV had already brought the Mona Lisa to France and had it housed in the Palace of Versailles. Yet the significance of its geographic location came with the rise of Napoloeon I. After the revolution Napoleon has the Mona Lisa moved to the Louvre. The regal building had been transformed into the first major art Museum opened to the public. It was a symbol of the French empire. Its collection was the cultural identity of French imperial civilisation. Housed in the Louvre were objects purchased, gathered and stolen from around the world, often as a by product of their imperial expansion. The Mona Lisa would prove to be the jewel in the crown; a symbol of the high point from the Italian Renaissance. By repatriating the work in Frnace it shifted from being a signifier of Italian creative heritage to a reference of French cultural dominance. It was positioned to be the high point in a museum hung to mirror a particular Vasarian narrative. Sat at the peak it represents the rise to powers of representation. It was exhibited in such a way to imply the French academicians which followed were an inevitable continuation of such perfection. It is a story told through the gaze of French imperial power.

 Myth and fame: Symbolism to The Da Vinci Code.

By being housed in the Louvre, as the star attraction, the Mona Lisa attracted the sheer weight of numbers to create an iconic status. Responses to objects are as important as the object itself in form its status and meaning. By its sheer location the work ensured it had a weight of responses to out bid its rivals for lasting fame. It was during the mid 19th Century that creatives started to be drawn to the Mona Lisa as an image to respond too. The symbolist movement saw the Mona Lisa as a figure full of mystique, a notion supported by the enigmatic smile as well as the paintings own history. It started to take on magical and legendary status.

The theft of the work in 1911 was at first seen as an attack on tradition. Picasso and Apollinaire were suspected. Not surprising considering the later had publicly expressed his desire for the painting to be burnt. Eventually it was revealed that it was an Italian employee of the Louvre, Vincenzo Peruggia. He had wanted to have the worked rehoused in Italy. Despite his failed attempt the act added a new anecdote to the picture and thus another level of history to further aggrandise its status.

For Duchamp the image was a perfect vehicle for his Dada protests against tradition. Keen to attack tradition and convention Duchamp wanted to celebrate the irrational and illogical. Adding a fake moustache to a copy of the painting was a simple but effective subversion and parody of the image. Less political and intellectual puns have continued to be made. If you google the image you come across numerous humorous versions; from Lisa Simpson as the Mona Lisa to Banksy’s version of the Mona Lisa holding a rocket launcher. The iconic status of the image as a part of Western heritage is confirmed by its role in blockbuster books and films such as Dan Brown’s, ‘the Da Vinci Code’. The mass selling book and multi million pound grossing film take the image as the central selling point of their franchise. Regardless of any meaning it brings a certain weight of prestige and fame to the brand. This process of quotation and commentary alters our vision. It makes the Mona Lisa part of our very cultural fabric. It becomes a more detached, generalised, vague symbol of certain values we consider history and the masters attain too. It is Vasari’s doctrine filtered and modernised through the gaze of repetition. She has become a highly diverse actress in our cultural theatre. An empty vessel in the Louvre.

The most pressing incarnation of the Mona Lisa exists in the viewing of the work in its current location in the Louvre. The above readings seem to have become quieter, a far more depressing and empty noise has deafened the silence of the painting. Consider the mechanics of its current display. It has been given its own free standing, high rise wall in the middle of a room. It sits behind a bullet proof sheet of glass. Beyond this is an altarpiece like barrier and the obligatory guards. They stand like the bodyguards of some vacuous, superficial celebrity. This is exactly what the Mona Lisa has become. Behind this barrier are ropes for us to queue within, lining up like sheep’s for a few seconds of admiration of a secularised goddess; her iconic power drawing us in like moths to light or flies to shit.

Beyond the room is the paraphernalia that surrounds the modernisation of the Louvre; where the museum has moved conspicuously towards entertainment over value. In the shop and all around there is a plethora of Mona Lisa related merchandise, pens, notepads, t-shirts, posters, fridge magnets etc. etc. Is this the purest form of Kitsch? The work has become nothing more than the celebratory figure head of a business, merely a part of commerce. The irony, and its almost funny, is that its celebration leads to a total emptying of original meaning. That which got it to the heights is that which is lost. It’s like equivalent of celebrating reaching the top of a mountain by being pushed over the edge. In this current geographic and cultural context it has become a vacuous symbol of a capitalist societies need to consume and devour empty and quick experiences. The very mechanics of its presentation control the semantics of this new dimension of meaning. It is very hard to get beyond or transcend this. Thus it is possible to account for the fame and iconic status of the image. It is celebrated for numerous reasons which have shifted through history; each added a layer of weight and permanence. The irony is that such multiple refilling of the vessel has led to its eventual emptying.

Cy Twombly, Bacchus: Tate Modern Retrospective

The Bacchus series were the most recently of the works shown at the Cy Twombly, Tate Modern Retrospective. Made in 2005 they are some of the most vibrant paintings made by Tyombly.

What initially grabs you is the sheer vibrancy of colour. Ther Veridian literally glows, filling the room with a luminous red haze. It is no pun to say you feel drunk from the sheer impact of colour on the retina.

The paintings seem to be about the duel properties of wine. The loops taske us up. The luminous red lifts us. We are pulled to the top of the frame. Then the loops descend, the drips pull us down, the red becomes too much; too intoxicating. We feel nauseuous adn the lightness becomes a cloying heaviness.

The sheer power of colour in Cy Twombly’s, Bacchus paintings is remarkable. The Tate Modern Retrospective is well worth a vist.

Good afternoon Mr. Whalecrow. Mr. Tom de Freston here

I have been adding more paint to ‘Him who wanted to have fallen II’ for a few days now. I thought it was alsmot finsihed before but needed something else. That something else has grown into multiple editions, each one seemingly taking it away from the end point. Not that I really know what that end point is or even really have any idea of the reason for each step i am taking. I am just blindly fumbling about in the dark.

 I think i am becoming over whelemed by the multiple facotrs which make up a painting, and in trying to balance each am creating a mess of a work. Ill add a dash of colour and it will work fantastically in terms of how it sits next to the colour adjascent to it. But then it shifts the mood of the work, unsettles the overall depth and causes a refocusing of our attention. I start to get the picture working in tone and then realise that perhaps it does not matter if the picture is the most tonally perfect image ever made when the motif and content to wqhich this formal qualitiy is applied is so vacuous and pretentious. Ill then have faith in the motif, seeing it as a strong and relevant synmbol but feel that the execution of the formal aspects of the work means that a potentially interesting message is being articulated by the equivalent of white noise. The next moment ill believe in the idea but feel that the composition is flawed, that the sense of space, the position of the main figures is limited and immature. Then suddenly compositionally things will come together but the idea seems like something not worth piecing otgether with this clarity.

It is obvious I am confused and frustrated.

 What becomes clear in times like these is that you are actually mindlessly grappling. I actually have very little genuine comprehension of what painitng, or more importantly my painting, is really about. What set of values underpin it and give it  a foundation to hold together. Even when we construct ideas to try give ourselves something to believe in we realise that we lack the requisite technical expertise and knowledge to build upon these. Either the house comes tumbling down becasue it has no internal structure or it collapses around the structure due to shoody brickwork. At this juncture I feel I lack both the necessary deisng of the architerct or the craft of the builder.

eyond these specifics concerns lie greater ones. What about if I realise how to design and build. This does not solve the problem of why, even if what and how are sorted. It is a building with no purpose, a tower to nowhere other than to reach up in some pursuit of empty egotistical goals. Its some vain attempt to display intellect, skill and talent without any real purpose. It all feels a little pointless at this moment in time.

The photographer is far more democratic in his approach than the painter. By its nature his practise allows him to point and click with less consideration over the minutie of his creation. He considers tone, composition, scale and all the other equivalent formal elements that a painter concerns himself with. The difference is that his is a selective process, not an onnipotent one. Whilst he frames he chosen material other detritus are free to present themselves in any way that the occasion and time and space allow. The painter, however, tends to select every element of his imagery.

This results in passages of genuine naturalness in a photograph. We may frame a beach scene to capture the sunset and the image of two children playing bat and ball. In the left hand corner, however, we may accidentally have happened upon the edge of a man walking a dog half way through leaving the scene.

 Its the kind of dramatic positioning which has begun to filter into painterly image making through the influence of photography. These chance moments can now be lifted, directly or indirectly, from photographic discovery to painterly construction.

 It seems, Andy, that your continued fascination with the wandering dogs and man walking dogs is a direct result of such chance glances. I remember you chowed me a while ago a photograph you found that had someone walking a dog half cropped at its edge. i commented at the time how its the kind of framing a painter would never choose; not without the infleucne of phtogoraphy.

This seems to put painting, in this instance, in a subordinate role to photography in some visual hierachy. The reality is that in its borrowing painting transforms that moment.

The cut of figure almost dissovles into nothingness in a phtograph. The viewer is aware that it is an unconsider extra, an accident of the process. Their deconstruction of the pictorial dynamics remains attached to the central figures of the image.

The viewer of the painting cannot so easily show such selective vision. The moment we look at a painitng we are aware, or believe, that we are looking at something whose every motif has been selected. The cut of man walking the dog, therefore, can no longer be dismissed. Instead he must take on some anrrative, dramatic or visual role. He becomes an attendant figure, a supported, a protagonist perhaps. A figure leave the stage and opening up a potential dialogue with the rest of the image. He points to both a world outside of the frame and complkicates the selected world within.

When we conflate the visual referents of the photographic and painted worlds we always find that the collaberation of the two creates a shifted visual code which is perhaps not previously present in either.