Writes Peter Schjeldahl in "The Revelations of an Unlikely Pairing/In a show at Zwirner, the soft cosmos of Giorgio Morandi’s domestic tableaux is relieved and refreshed by the architectonics of Josef Albers’s squares" (The New Yorker).
How awful is it not to be looking directly at paintings? Schjeldahl takes a strong position.
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45 comments:
It’s possible to appreciate art you’ve never seen in the flesh, sure, but I’ve definitely been bowled over too many times by seeing a piece in front of me. It’s almost the difference between reading a book and reading about a book.
Q: any artists who owned slaves?
After a year of masks and store shelves devoid of toilet paper, the snootery and pretense of the New Yorker is so refreshing
"How awful is it not to be looking directly at paintings?"
Considering that it is not awful not to be looking at paintings, it cannot be too awful not to be looking directly at them.
When I used to be more involved in the art world, a common thought among certain peers was that art openings were really for socializing. You come back to actually look and enjoy the work later when there is not such a crowd of people around. I adopted this view myself to some degree, even though I think the social function of art openings is immensely important.
Specifically for the impressionists (not ruling out others), I can say that looking at the actual picture versus a reproduction (digital or analog) is an amazing improvement. The actual colors, the bumps and mounds of paint, the more evident technique (brush, knife, etc.): these stand out in the presence of the actual painting. Reality is full of surprises and mirandum.
Kay said...It’s possible to appreciate art you’ve never seen in the flesh, sure, but I’ve definitely been bowled over too many times by seeing a piece in front of me. It’s almost the difference between reading a book and reading about a book.
That's a good way to put it. I wonder, though, if it's the original artwork that's necessary or the atmosphere surrounding the artwork that's necessary?
That is, might a high-quality electronic reproduction be just as good if put in a beautiful frame on a wall in a museum? Do we have to see the actual canvas van Gough painted on? Maybe the problem is not the computer reproduction, but our otherwise drab and dreary home office. If so, a little attention to home decorating might be the solution.
""Nearly a year of being disheartened by the online garishness and promotional smarm of digitized images has set me up to rediscover the pungency of direct aesthetic experience.""
Personally I prefer maker's mark.
joshbraid said...Specifically for the impressionists (not ruling out others), I can say that looking at the actual picture versus a reproduction (digital or analog) is an amazing improvement. The actual colors, the bumps and mounds of paint, the more evident technique (brush, knife, etc.): these stand out in the presence of the actual painting. Reality is full of surprises and mirandum.
Ok, that's a great point. The best resolution won't fully capture the 3-D effects of the medium. Not yet, anyway.
There can be no meaningful discourse about art divorced from [pungency].
OK, boomer.
"Nearly a year of being disheartened by the online garishness and promotional smarm of digitized images has set me up to rediscover the pungency of direct aesthetic experience."
I know three languages but that isn't written in one that I understand.
The paintings were kind of nice but the discussion seemed to me to be a put on. Just trying to fit in every promotional art word he could think of. But maybe I misjudge him. It's exciting to go anywhere these days and to go to an art gallery where you view art - a person really doing something - and not just art but a show - two people both really doing something - well, it may have been just too exciting, too thrilling. Then, too, you note that the monotonous content is somewhat like the covid experience where you see those same kitchen items, day after day. I'm pretty sure I like the daffodils and hyacinths I bought so much because they flower and die, and I get others. Change. Where my bouquet of spatulas, strainers and ladles in a cookie jar stays. The Same. They change position slightly because I use them and the light on them changes but, sorry, they're boring. "Well, you wake up in the morning/you hear the ding dong ring/You go marching to the table/You see the same damn thing/Well, it's a-sitting on the table/ A knife, a fork and a pan/ And if you say a thing about it/You're in trouble with the man/ Oh, let the Midnight Special/Shine it's light on me"."
Word salads are disgusting too.
Speaking of art:
Last night I watched "the chosen". Terrific movie about a friendship between an orthodox and hasidic boy.
It started with a contains nudity.
Oy, vey I thought. Hasidic nudity? I have to see this.
So the orthodox boy takes the hasid to a big NYC art museum. While in the museum they spend 30 seconds gazing on a marble nekkid woman. Nothing salacious.
Since there was nothing else, I am guessing this is what the "nudity" was.
What a pussified nation we have become. (pussified as in fraidy cats. Not, you know, the other thing)
John Henry
Started with a "contains nudity" warning
John Henry
promotional smarm
The use of smarm to promote anything seems like a flawed strategy...
I'll endorse the idea of 'being there' for statues and architecture, but for two-dimensional artworks like paintings, the difference in experience of the artwork is pretty minimal -- and often the print or digital display is superior. With a reproduction, colors can be corrected to reveal what the work looked like when it was new. And too frequently in museum galleries, the lighting is not great, there are shadows from the frames, and when there is texture in the surface, there is also glare from the lighting and glossy surface of the varnish. Also docents tend to get nervous if you try to take too close a look. For me, the value of going to see paintings in art museums is to discover works that are less famous and not available in print. I sometimes 'steal' those with my digital camera.
The eyes unfiltered by a camera and screen is a superior view. Duh. That said, those still life's are the bomb. Very plastic.
Read the title, thought New Yorker, and started counting the extra words inflating every sentence. The art is modern, the writing baroque.
I could savor the museum visit and could appreciate the scale of the lily pads, the density of the Caravaggio, the luminescence of the Turner, the proportion of the Brancusi, the meticulosity of the dutch cityscape. Then they went woke and I feel like I'm not welcome. They'd still like my money though- MoMA begs like a Seattle tent dweller, but I'm done.
The fish and penguins at the aquarium aren't as woke...
Modern art expresses an idea, and once you see the idea, the art piece is almost beside the point. One artist "occults the obvious," making the viewer of two dimensions acknowledge that there are only two dimensions in the painting. The other artist repeats shapes. Got it.
Now look at the hyper-realist Yellow Wall, an oil painting from before 1989 by Wei Luan of China. There is technique, yes, expressing an idea. But there is also a narrative, historical relevance, personality of characters portrayed, symbolism, and so on.
A picture in the magazine of the squares transmits the idea transmitted by the squares just fine. I've seen Yellow Wall, in person, and it grabs you. It is a piece of art I've ever lusted to own, to be able to see it in person again and again.
YMMV. IDC.
The trouble with digital is the regular arrangement of pixels, which produces moire patterns if you photograph something with a regular arrangement itself, e.g., chain link fence, house siding.
To prevent moire patterns from showing up, they put in a blurring "anti-alias" filter, which spreads all light over at least two pixels.
That of course blurs the image, so they follow it up with a software edge recognizer and sharpener. That software step gives digital images weird and artificial edge contrasts.
Regular film avoids that by not having a regular arrangement of grains, so there's no moire pattern to avoid in the first place, and nothing needs to be blurred or sharpened.
I always wondered why the arts world put up with the pandemic lockdown. Art studios and museums had to be hurt. I had many opportunities during the lockdown to visit such a place, but couldn't, because it wasn't essential and therefore open. But those places usually employ few people generally. On the other hand, performing arts often employs hundreds of people, from set designers, costumers, actors, musicians, stage crew, ushers, and box office. Even when allowed to operate, capacity restrictions wrecked the tight margins these facilities need to survive. And thus Broadway is shutdown for two seasons. I guess they blame Trump.
It seems only the crew for Hamilton and the operators of the Kennedy Center did well during the pandemic.
First, let me just say that the first time I saw a favorite Paul Klee painting from a computer screen, it was a gamechanger because the darn thing was so Illuminated from within! The color on a flat canvas was now replaced by color infused & shimmering like a stained glass window. I thought perhaps I might never appreciate non-screen-illuminated art again. (Glad to say that is not so)
Glad to say that is not so: There is nothing like direct experience of original art, and yes, the thoughtful placement of different kinds of art can set off explosive realizations in one's viewing.
My best "art class" was not a class at all. James Michener donated his incredible collection of 20th C art to the University of Texas when I was a freshman there. There were so many paintings, UT had to rotate the viewing selection every few months to give them all a fair shake, choosing a different emphasis or theme each time. That meant that with regular visits, you'd see the same painting but in new contexts, and next to different work over time, and it affected more vigorous discernment. Regular visits acted like a steady workout for my personal growth in understanding.
Some paintings I LOVED immediately and ever after, while others I loved were one-night stands. Some works i hated, but over time came to absolutely treasure, while other works i hated and continued to go "pfft". Returning was always a surprise, always a reward.
thanks for the viewing, Althouse!
hawkeyedjb said...
"Nearly a year of being disheartened by the online garishness and promotional smarm of digitized images has set me up to rediscover the pungency of direct aesthetic experience."
***********************
Pungency?
No museum guard has ever let me get close enough to a painting to give it a Joe Biden-like sniff.
Almost every day for years AceofSpadesHQ has put up a painting. Literally a couple thousand works, mostly European.
Maybe seeing them on a website isn't as "pungent" as the real thing, but there's NO WAY anyone could look at all those works in person.
'reminds me of an old joke:
"Hey, Fred. Nice to see you. How's the wife?"
Fred: "Oh, better than nothing, I guess."
To me, seeing a great painting in the flesh is akin to hearing great music performed live; I'm not as attuned (ha) to painting as I am to music, but there's still a distinction to be made between real and Memorex.
I wouldn't go across town to see the stuff featured in the article, FWIW.
Narr
Pun gent
How awful is it not to be looking directly at paintings?
Less awful than not looking directly at the subjects of the paintings.
tim maguire said...
Kay said...It’s possible to appreciate art you’ve never seen in the flesh, sure, but I’ve definitely been bowled over too many times by seeing a piece in front of me. It’s almost the difference between reading a book and reading about a book.
That's a good way to put it. I wonder, though, if it's the original artwork that's necessary or the atmosphere surrounding the artwork that's necessary?
That is, might a high-quality electronic reproduction be just as good if put in a beautiful frame on a wall in a museum? Do we have to see the actual canvas van Gough painted on? Maybe the problem is not the computer reproduction, but our otherwise drab and dreary home office. If so, a little attention to home decorating might be the solution.
1/29/21, 8:37 AM
I’ve compared things I’ve seen in person with reproductions and found aspects that the reproduction missed. I think Impressionism, as someone else mentioned, is a good example. You miss a lot of the chunkiness of the paintings with a flat reproduction. Same can be said of a Pollock. When I look at one on my phone, it doesn’t account for their actual physical size, which you really have to be there to take in.
But! I do agree with your point. I think context always changes the way you view an object, and yup, sometimes the way other objects are arranged near a work, or where it’s placed can serve to minimize it.
I agree, however, a trade off is made and both have their advantages. While direct viewing of art has merit, the sheer volume and diversity of images you can see on line has its own benefits. If you are learning to paint oils - seeing paintings IRL would be helpful, but seeing many many images on line can spark all kinds of inspiration. It is also easier to access images/art by accident on line and to find artists you never would have found otherwise.
I sense a bit of 'art elitism' here. Digital media/internet has democratized art and made it accessable to many. This bothers some. I dislike this elitist attitude. A much bigger problem wrought by the internet = easy to steal images and call them your own.
How awful is it not to be looking directly at paintings? Schjeldahl takes a strong position.
That depends a lot on which paintings
When I get the opportunity, I love to look at art in person- all kinds of art. It is in person that you really can see the work. You see the textures, colors, and small things that you would never see online. Lighting can change an artwork, so how it is displayed can create an entire experience. Even with photography. It is best to view it up close in and in person.
That said, art is subjective and though this particular art moved this gentleman, it would not have done the same for me- up close and in person or not. Still, I agree with his premise, though no reason to salute New York for it. Fine art can be found in many places, some of them very unexpected. And, the reason for the huge number of galleries and artwork in New York is a direct correlation to the wealth in New York. Or should I say, the wealth that used to be in New York.
It's moving away. More and more, those that have, would like to keep it. And there are places in this country- at least for now- where that is allowed. California and New York are not those places. So those with, are moving to new lands. It'll be interesting to see how the galleries survive and who is left in, say...ten years? And...which cities start to become more centers of art than they previously were?
ALP said...
I agree, however, a trade off is made and both have their advantages. While direct viewing of art has merit, the sheer volume and diversity of images you can see on line has its own benefits. If you are learning to paint oils - seeing paintings IRL would be helpful, but seeing many many images on line can spark all kinds of inspiration. It is also easier to access images/art by accident on line and to find artists you never would have found otherwise.
I sense a bit of 'art elitism' here. Digital media/internet has democratized art and made it accessable to many. This bothers some. I dislike this elitist attitude. A much bigger problem wrought by the internet = easy to steal images and call them your own.
1/29/21, 11:44 AM
Agree with all of this. And I think there are lots of works of art for which this debate is kind of irrelevant.
I also think it’s possible and perfectly fine to have a strong connection to work you’ve never seen in person, or that the manner in which you look at the work via reproduction can add to your enjoyment of it. Like for me, microblogging helped me come to appreciate Renaissance and Medieval art (which I hadn’t really liked before, nor was I knowledgable) because I could scroll through a bunch of them in a short period of time and perhaps some other reasons.
Like everyone else, first saw Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" in a schoolbook. Big whoop. Decades later saw it live at the Met. Wow. Breathtaking. Admittedly a lot has to do with the size of it, but still, stirring in person. btw, I think Peter's an xlnt critic - artsy-fartsy language and all. His wheels are down sorry to say, if you know what I mean.
"The Revelations of an Unlikely Pairing/In a show at Zwirner, the soft cosmos of Giorgio Morandi’s domestic tableaux is relieved and refreshed by the architectonics of Josef Albers’s squares"
I like to think of myself as someone who can cross the threshold from the everyday parlance of the common man to the exquisite language of the intellectual, but what in the whole f--- does is that supposed to mean?
Let me take a stab: they mixed some somewhat contradictory shit and it works?
And he went and saw it live?
Kay said...I’ve compared things I’ve seen in person with reproductions and found aspects that the reproduction missed.
Between you and some other commenters here, I've come around. You're right, there are whole genres of art that are better viewed in the original no matter what else you do to improve the experience.
So everyone here is dumping on the guy saying lockdowns do damage. Sure, he’s saying it in a puffed up self important way, but he’s saying it.
Interesting post Hardin. Start a blog, seriously.
Sounds to me like he got a blowjob in the gallery bathroom.
Or gave.
Maybe it's a language thing, but assuming this piece was originally written or stated in English, this sentence clarifies why most modern art is crap: "Nearly a year of being disheartened by the online garishness and promotional smarm of digitized images has set me up to rediscover the pungency of direct aesthetic experience."
jvb
Computer art explains why the Robinhood shit show happened now, and does it beautifully. https://twitter.com/PathToManliness/status/1355103829650534405
He writes like a scorned woman.
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