I'm have twitchy twinges of nostalgia reading this from Sebastian Smee in The Washington Post:
Twombly’s restive, twitchy marks are cryptic, conjuring both the fog of battle and an atmosphere of human and creative fade-out. The “math” part of “aftermath” is old German for “mowing.” And there’s a sense in which Twombly’s work relates to the Old Masters as a field of stubble relates to a golden wheat field in high summer.
Even the headline is a throwback to the distant past: "Yes, your kid could (probably) do this. But it might still be great art." That was the cartoon of the time: Ordinary people looking at "modern art" and saying "My kid could do that." It's kind of sad that the headline writer drew from that long-faded meme.
Who has cared in the last quarter century about the shock of "modern art" in the form of paintings that have messy-looking drips and scrawls and blotches? There are things in art that can still shock people, but it would need to involve hurting a living creature or destroying something of value, not merely the chaotic application of paint to a canvas.
But I am touched by Smee's writerly efforts in an archaic style.
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It all started to go downhill when "paint by numbers" kits got a bad name.
Captain Hook was unavailable for comment.
The only thing that was shocking about that kind of 'art' was that anyone was fool enough to pay for it.
Would the art be considered differently were it named something less historical, such as, "Chicken Scratches" or "Quasinormal Distribution Reconsidered From the Perspective of a Pill Bug," because while an abstract piece can have value as art, attempting to overlay abstract art with historical meaning seems a bit of a stretch.
Sure, the word "ISSUS" appears in the upper left corner. But in the lower right corner, there is a "6P" and a "9x21" and "flank," so the painting could alse refer to a half shilling, numerology, or fajitas.
Born with the name Smee, he had no choice.
"Restive" is the word for this age.
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I like Twombly's work tremendously. (One must see it in person to get an accurate sense of its beauty and impact.) I can see why some dismiss it as (literally) just scribbling. I can see even more why so many art critics are ridiculed for the pretentious verbiage they produce when discussing even good artists.
Sebastion Smee, what an awesome name. Apparently it's his real name.
Most of Twombly's work looks, to me, like someone's brain short circuited on an overdose of LSD and a resulting partial paralysis of the body while trying to paint.
I've not seen any of his works personally, however there are a very few that I have seen do look like actual representations of "something". This one vaguely looks like some chrysanthemums or maybe glazed donuts. Either way, that ONE is not hurting my brain to look at it.
Art /shrug. All in the viewer's perception. I don't like it.
Sebastion Smee, what an awesome name. Apparently it's his real name.
It sounds like a character out of Trollope.
Twombly's art is the fish in our cultural barrel.
Were they even writing about Twombly in this way half a century ago?
Shock fades.
"Captain Hook was unavailable for comment."
LOL. I don't know why it took me 2 seconds to see why you were talking about Hook. Oh, I do see why. It's because I was thinking about the hook and the fact that I'd mentioned hurting a person. I had to contemplate a performance artist cutting off someone's hand.
But I know what you meant. Smee. Anyone who does the NYT crossword can never forget Smee. Is there any fictional character who gets in the crossword more than Smee?
"I like Twombly's work tremendously. (One must see it in person to get an accurate sense of its beauty and impact.) I can see why some dismiss it as (literally) just scribbling. ..."
Who does that? You mean 50 years ago? No one bothers with sloughing off painters of that ilk anymore.
"Were they even writing about Twombly in this way half a century ago?"
I probably should have said 60 years ago. Or 70.
Painting used to be soooo important back then. And *writing* about painting was important (as Tom Wolfe famously explained in "The Painted Word").
He has a style. That's something. Everyone else writes like a conversation.
Sometimes things are archaic for a reason : )
A lot of 'modern' art now is driven not by talent but by marketing and social media hype.
Especially the young 'prodigies,' the 12- or 16-year olds who are the next Michelangelo.
It's all about story and 'narrative' and not talent.
Some of the 'great art' today could, indeed, be done by children or trained monkeys.
Everything old is new again. Wonderful name. Trollope or Pratchett would use it in a heartbeat.
Twombly may be a great artist but can he plead sufficiently in federal court?
Art is a con game, and mainstream art is dominated by those with the sharpest elbows. Best to choose what you like from what is out there and ignore the critics, by and large.
How about menstrual blood? Does that still shock? After the thousandth use?
"It all started to go downhill when "paint by numbers" kits got a bad name."
Loved those as a kid...
Smee and Twombly both sound like Dickens characters...
The reason art doesn't shock us anymore is that everything in our everyday life shocks us. Hell, we've got national news organizations telling us that no one knows the gender of a newborn. That's news to humans going back to the age of cave drawings.
There's so much bizarre about our everyday lives now. Throw in a year of Wuhan virus restrictions and we've not even considered going to a museum in months. (I'm actually planning to go the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg next month.)
All that said, Twombly's art was never something that caught me. I want to say it was never something that I could take seriously. I guess I just did. To me, art should please. To others, art should shock, shake up, make a statement. And to others, art should be so obscure that you can make anything you like out of it, just make sure you give it the praise it demands. It's a gut level thing to me. I know instantly if an artist has my attention.
Kay,
Were they even writing about Twombly in this way half a century ago?
Well, Roland Barthes was, at least. The illustrations in his The Representation of Forms are about the only Twombly I've seen. They mystified me then, and still do now.
Actually the whole book is mystifying. There's a fair amount on music, which is why I was given it to read in the first place (by my husband, who candidly told me that if I read it, he wouldn't have to!): about the "bodyness" of Schumann's piano music, about of Fischer-Dieskau was a terrible Lieder singer, &c.
Which reminds me that the passage Ann quotes sounds very much like what I aim to do as a music critic. It's terribly difficult to convey the qualities of a musical performance to someone who hasn't heard it, especially if the music itself is unfamiliar as well as the performance.
Funny, I was just thinking of Twombley yesterday, by way of thoughts of an old friend who was a big fan of his. "Haven't heard that name in a while," I thought to myself. Still alive?
Narr
Smee's no John Updike
postmodernist art - definition
Crap produced by those who cannot execute art requiring talent and skill.
Sometimes literally crap, produced by those who think taking a dump is an artistic expression.
"Were they even writing about Twombly in this way half a century ago?"
His first show was in 1951.
He was considered an influence on the artists of the 1970s.
So, definitely yes.
Twombly is not mentioned in "The Painted Word."
Twombly was the name of my Jr High School drafting teacher. The poor guy looked like a Twombly. I think drafting was considered a sort of shop class back then, so no girls allowed.
Big O: most art is crap. The art you like is most likely crap. Taste requires effort.
The “math” part of “aftermath” is old German for “mowing."
When I hear "German" and "mowing" together, I don't think of wheat fields, I think of battlefields.
Some people think the role of art is to shock or to teach, I think the role of art is to elicit an emotional response. Good art does not have to be technically good (in fact, a lot of technically proficient art is boring and useless), but good art does have to make you feel something.
Yeah tim m. Joseph Campbell said great art is transcendent.
meaningless rebuttal - definition
A banal statement meant to sound profound.
example:
Taste requires effort.
In Madison, N.J., there stands the Florham estate built during the 1890s for Hamilton McKown Twombly and his wife, Florence Adele Vanderbilt. It is now a campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University.
"Who does that? You mean 50 years ago? No one bothers with sloughing off painters of that ilk anymore."
Are you excluding your own blog readers from that collective "no one?"
Big O: You say banal like its a bad thing. First principles thinking is all the rage in Millenial World.
The art featured and discussed in current times is reparational.
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