Why Beauty Matters - BBC - Roger Scruton (2009)
Time: 58 minutes, 59 seconds
Here are philosopher Roger Scruton's ideas about what art is and what it's for. Artists have stopped making art that's beautiful, he says, and replaced it with "art" that's shocking, that has nothing to do with "beauty" and is even purposely ugly in some cases.
Quotations from this video:
"The masters of the past recognized that we have spiritual needs as well as animal appetites."
"[T]hinkers of the Enlightenment saw art and beauty as ways in which we save ourselves from meaningless routines and rise to a higher level."
"But art turned its back on beauty. It became a slave to the consumer culture, feeding our pleasures and addictions, and wallowing in self disgust."
Have in mind that this video is about an hour long!
EPISODE 1: THE REPUBLIC OF VIRTUE
First broadcast 3 November, 1996
The first Part of the First Episode of American Visions is shown in the video just below. There is also a text link to this first video, and links to all other Parts of the First through the Last Episodes of "American Visions." Each video is close to eleven minutes long. If you intend to watch the whole series via these links, you could copy this entire post and paste it into an email that you send to yourself, so that whenever it's convenient for you, you can watch the next video in the series by clicking on a link in your email rather than having to get online, find your way to this post, and start all over again. At the bottom of this post there is avideo interview with Robert Hughes (who died this month: August, 2012), as well as links to a biography/obituary and to the bookAmerican Visions by Robert Hughes.
THE PROMISED LAND - PART 5 of 5
10 Minutes, 59 Seconds
(This looks like it ends at around 6 minutes, 40 seconds, and then it starts in again with what seems to be a "preview of episodes to come" - I would skip that part and go on to Episode 3.)
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EPISODE 3: THE WILDERNESS AND THE WEST
First broadcast 17 November, 1996
THE WILDERNESS AND THE WEST - PART 1 of 5
10 Minutes, 49 Seconds
(Be forewarned: This is the part that is so disturbing because of the cringe-inducing scene showing American "eco-extremists" wailing on and on. However, aside from this one scene, this, to me, it's fine.)
This is the fourth in a series of posts with videos of artists painting (or drawing) "Away from the Daily Grind." I hope you enjoy being out with them as they're doing what you're probably wishing you were doing right now. (Me, too.)
(Links to earlier posts in this series are below the videos.)
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BELOW - AN ARTIST IN THE U.K. WATERCOLOUR SKETCHBOOK WITH BRIAN RYDER 2 minutes, 22 seconds
This short video gives the feeling of being at seaside on a brisk cool day. (Yes, there's a train at seaside...Also, boats.) The artist talks about his watercolor sketchbook and says that sketching on location before painting is a good idea for watercolor artists because when you're using simple means you tend to get down just "the essential bits," or, in other words, the essence of the subject. There are a couple of other sketching tips. I get the feeling there's a longer video of this somewhere.
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BELOW - AN ARTIST IN MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN RIVER FRONT PLEIN AIR OIL PAINTING 2 minutes, 40 seconds
Artist Fred Bell braves quite a unique painting spot under a bridge in the city where space is rather cramped and there are very few other people around (and those who are in the area are sometimes rather suspicious-looking characters). It's quite interesting to to me to see somewhere that's so different than the usual kind of painting/drawing spot. Thanks for taking us with you, Mr. Bell.
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BELOW - ANOTHER ARTIST IN WISCONSIN CAVE POINT EN PLEIN AIR ("FINDING THE MOTIF") - ARTIST: BRAD TEARE 2 minutes, 39 seconds
The artist points out that it's critical to do a sketch of the motif you've chosen before starting the painting because the shadows will change dramatically. He says that he uses the sketch "to maintain that basic design that attracted me to the motif." What a beautiful place to paint.
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BELOW - AN ARTIST IN THE ARCTIC CORY TREPANIER'S "INTO THE ARCTIC #65" - FORT CONGER (Canada) 4 minutes, 54 seconds
And now for something entirely different -- This artist finds himself in a very rugged place in the Canadian Arctic, where there are ruins of wood houses abandoned by 19th-Century explorers of the area. He hitched a plane ride to this place and has just a couple of hours in which to choose a subject and make a picture before the plane takes off again. Even in that short a time, however, the tide comes in and his painting gear is stranded.
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BELOW - AN ARTIST IN BELGIUM THE PASSIONATE PAINTER IN ANTWERP: ALVARO CASTAGNET 3 minutes, 2 seconds
"Alvaro Castagnet is a highly respected watercolour artist with an international reputation. His paintings capture the essence of his subjects with passion, boldness and elegance. In this film he travels to Antwerp and selects a range of subjects which include street views, a café interior, inside the railway station and one of the oldest bars in Antwerp painted at night."
In this post there are five more videos of artists painting outdoors, including an artist who sketches in Seattle, Washington, another artist painting in Florida (there's a video on a Florida artist in the first of these posts), another artist in Australia (there was also an Australian artist in the first post), an artist on the streets of New York City, and one in Silver Creek, Idaho. There will be more posts with videos of artists working outdoors soon.
I hope you enjoy going outside with them.
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BELOW - AN ARTIST IN SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
SEATTLE SKETCHER
2 minutes, 47 seconds
Gabriel Campanario is a journalist and illustrator at the Seattle Times. A native of Spain, he has been in Seattle just a few years. He feels he is getting to know the city better by sketching it, as he doesn't even notice some things until he's assigned a subject he may have passed many times but hasn't really "seen." And he's doing the same for others, showing them what they may have not seen or known about even if they are natives of the city. He really likes the idea of being able to share his discoveries through his sketches. He also gets to meet a lot of people while out on the streets.
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BELOW - AN ARTIST PAINTING IN SILVER CREEK, IDAHO
PLEIN AIR PAINTING DEMONSTRATION - GREGG RUSSELL
3 minutes, 24 seconds
Nice music, at least to my taste. No voice. The entire time the camera is on the artist's shoulder and arm and hand and on his canvas, along with the actual scene he's painting in the background. The video is either speeded-up or else he's very fast. :-) We can see just how he approaches his painting, and what he's looking at as he does so. He ends up with a very nice painting, but for me, at least, it's enough of an inspiration just to hear the music.
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BELOW - ANOTHER ARTIST PAINTING IN FLORIDA
PLEIN AIR PAINTING DEMO BY PETER PETTEGREW ("In the Florida wilderness")
6 minutes, 49 seconds
At the Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Florida, the artist stops his car to capture the look of a sunrise from the back of his car, then goes on to find just the right scene to paint (using his sunrise sketch as the background). He says that the trick to painting on-site is to get the things that are changing (the sky, usually), and give them top priority. He also says that painting is the best way to describe not only a place but the time of day or an experience.
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BELOW - AN ARTIST IN AUSTRALIA
SUMMER LIGHT IN WATERCOLOUR: ROSS PATERSON
2 minutes, 32 seconds
Is Australia really as unpopulated and pleasant and rural as it looks in the videos I've seen of Australian artists painting outdoors? Or is what we see in the videos just a small part of it! It makes me wish I lived there. Though I'm not sure I'd like to be outside with all those flies.
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ON THE STREETS OF NEW YORK (SKETCHING IN NEW YORK CITY)
2 minutes, 11 seconds
This one makes me think of the Seattle Sketcher (first video, above). I love hearing the sounds of the city as well as seeing what this artist is seeing and capturing. It really looks like an enjoyable way to spend a day away from the daily grind.
In January I put five videos of artists painting outdoors ("away from the daily grind") into one post. In today's post there are six videos. There will be more posts with more videos coming up.
There's a seemingly endless supply of videos of artists working outdoors, and I have hunted down and watched several dozens of them, looking for the ones that I like best for one or more reasons. Some are done as trailers for DVDs that are for sale -- That's okay with me, as long as they are interesting and show one person painting or drawing alone. Many show a group of "plein air" painters out together, usually with a teacher, and I leave those out (I believe there might be one or two exceptions to this, but no more, among all the videos that I will eventually show on these posts). I'm sure that painting in a group is a useful and enjoyable experience for those artists, but I'm most interested in one person (sometimes with a companion who holds the camera, but most often taking care of the camera themselves) trudging by themselves to some place that intrigues them enough to make them go to all the trouble.
It doesn't matter to me that these individuals often produce very "unprofessional" camerawork, or that they don't come across as experienced speakers (sometimes laughably not. :-). Those things aren't important. What's important is that they're out there away from their ordinary living conditions (and sometimes they are in very uncomfortable or even dangerous conditions), working on their own to wrestle a drawing or painting out of something they're experiencing at that moment, using the equipment that they have chosen themselves, and that they can carry under the circumstances.
Okay, here are six videos, showing artists outdoors at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, in Sicily (Italy), in South Africa, at a beach in California, in the Peak District (U.K.), and in Hong Kong. I hope you enjoy going outside with them.
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BELOW This one is not for people who are afraid of heights
GRAND CANYON MASTERPIECE, LOVE OF AN ARTIST, AMERY BOHLING 4 minutes, 5 seconds
Hiking along a narrow trail at the edge(falling away at both sides) of the Grand Canyon to get to the place she thinks will be perfect for capturing the mules coming up the trail, she says near the beginning: "My main goal is not falling, and keeping this pack on...It's a little heavy." Even before that my heart skipped a beat when I saw her view of the edge of the canyon (as I am afraid of being in high places...even just a few feet off the ground). She was not only carrying her easel and other supplies on her back, but at the same time carrying (and aiming) the camera. This video definitely takes my mind off my own problems, but the truth is that it scares me half to death (which is a new problem). I wouldn't do this much for my art as I don't want to die, especially in such a horrible way as falling off the edge of a cliff. (One has to be alive in order to draw and paint, right?) This is definitely making art "away from the daily grind," but it makes the daily grind seem to me - at least while watching this - not so bad after all!
This artist knows right away after looking at all that is there in front of him what will make an interesting, charming composition, and he goes right to work, sticks with it, and finishes it up while he has the opportunity.
This artist lives in a little village near the location where he's painting (at the ocean's edge), having moved there "because it wasn't on the map." So he had already escaped "the daily grind" to some degree even before trekking out to his painting sites. I see he has a very small canvas, no doubt not only because it doesn't take nearly as long to apply the paint (light changes fast as clouds move about in fast-changing weather conditions and only the essence of the scene can be captured when time is limited) but also because a small picture can be easily made secure in the wind.
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BELOW PLEIN AIR PAINTING ON MOONSTONE BEACH, CALIFORNIA Artist Karen Winters 1 minute, 42 seconds
This artist was at an artist's "paint out" in San Luis Obispo, when a storm started moving in, apparently putting an end to the "paint out," so she took the opportunity to paint at a nearby beach. Although the incoming storm brought strong winds, she was able to wedge her easel into some rocks to keep it secure. Realizing the clouds were changing fast, she painted those first.
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OPEN AIR PAINTING IN THE PEAK DISTRICT NATIONAL PARK (U.K.) with American Timothy Haglund 3 minutes, 34 seconds
While Timothy Haglund's wife was stationed near the Peak District National Park (U.K.) for seven months as a visiting professor, Haglund painted in the Park three or four times a week no matter what the weather (freezing temperatures, high winds, frost on the ground, etc.), taking about three hours to do a painting.
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BELOW - AN ARTIST IN HONGKONG PAINTING A FISH FARM BRIDGE by Hongkong Artist Kwong Ko Wah 3 minutes, 31 seconds
And now for something that seems completely different than what you see in the first five videos, above....Yet, as is the case with the others, it's an artist, painting alone, from life, in his own way, a subject that, one assumes, appeals to him and that he himself has chosen.
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There will be more posts with videos of individual artists working "away from the daily grind" all over the world. The last post with these videos are from the U.S. (two of them), Spain, Australia, and Thailand.
ALFRED STIEGLITZ, MODERN ART, AND NEW YORK CITY - Early 20th Century
BELOW
STIEGLITZ AND THE NEW YORK ART SCENE (1905-46)
1 hour, 9 minutes, 31 seconds
This video, produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, contains two (illustrated) lectures given the same day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the fall of 2011. Note that it takes over an hour to watch this entire video!
The first lecture is called "Alfred Stieglitz: His Time, Influence, and Vision," and the speaker is Lisa M. Messinger, associate curator, Dept. of 19th-Century Modern and Contemporary Art.
The second lecture is called "Extreme Modernity: The Avant-Garde Looks at New York, 1910-40." The speaker is Jessica Murphy, research associate in the Dept. of 19th-Century, Modern and Contemporary Art.
There were three short films shown after these lectures. The films are not included in this video, but you can see them on YouTube videos (below, on this page).
In the first lecture we learn about Stieglitz's promotion in America of modern artists, including Matisse, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Georgia O'Keeffe (who would become his wife), John Marin, Arthur Dove, and Charles Demuth, among others.
In the second lecture we are shown what New York City was like in the early 1900s, and what it was becoming and how the artists Stieglitz promoted...especially John Marin and Arthur Dove, Charles Demuth and Georgia O'Keeffe...represented it.
We think of Georgia O'Keeffe mainly as a painter of New Mexico landscapes and of flowers, but when she still lived with Stieglitz in New York City in the 1920s she painted in NYC, and some of those paintings are shown in the video. Also, look at this website for paintings by O'Keeffe of New York skyscrapers (and one of the East River).
BELOW: THE THREE SHORT FILMS THAT WERE SHOWN BETWEEN AND AFTER THE LECTURES YOU'LL SEE ON THE ABOVE VIDEO:
Drawing and Painting Away from the Daily Grind - Vicariously
Do you have a hard time actually getting around to drawing or painting even though that's what you want to do more than anything else? One thing after another comes up that you "must do" first, right? And then there's just no time. In my case, even on those rare occasions when I'm able to begin, I'm seldom able to finish the projects I was so anxious to work on. It can get really depressing.
Recently I've been under lots of pressure, having many things that really are urgent and much more important than drawing that I must concern myself with, but I found one way to feel a little less depressed about this situation, if only for a few minutes at a time. It's a kind of daydreaming, actually, but it seems relatively "real" and is very refreshing. I've been watching videos of artists drawing and painting away from home, in the city or way out in the country...really getting away from the daily grind. I vicariously join up with these individuals and see the world through their eyes for a while. They are doing what I wish I was doing, and I'm doing it with them. And when they do a good job, I feel I've done it. :-) Best of all, though, I'm away from the usual grind, outdoors, trying to bat away hungry mosquitoes or keep from freezing to death or from falling over the side of a cliff -- annoying or miserable or frightening things that do a really good job of keeping my mind off very worrisome problems that aren't so simple. And sometimes the artist is having no problems at all, just having a wonderful time. That's good, too! Besides, it's really interesting to see how others draw and paint, especially in such challenging conditions.
I've gathered several of these videos that I particularly liked for one or more reasons (some may make you wonder about me!). The artists are from all over the world. I'm going to put them together into several posts. I hope you'll enjoy some of these, too.
Below are five videos - Come back for more posts with more videos of more artists, painting and drawing outside all around the world - Next ones coming up soon.
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ED COOPER - PAINTING LANDSCAPES OUTDOORS
2 minutes, 16 seconds
I don't know where this video was made. It seems he paints in many places. Here he's on a grassy bank under shady trees, looking out at the water, with another grassy bank and trees beyond. There are foothills, and mountains in the distance. A lovely peaceful-looking place. Here is Ed Cooper's website.
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PAINTING IN A FLORIDA SWAMP
7 minutes, 37 seconds
I'm not sure I really, really want to go along with this fellow. I don't like a lot of heat, especially humid heat, and I don't like the idea of being covered with mosquito bites, stepping on snakes, having my legs cut up by sharp-edged undergrowth, or having slithery creepy-crawlers climbing up my legs. But it does take one's mind of their own troubles. You have to admire this guy.
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BELOW - AN ARTIST DRAWING IN BARCELONA, SPAIN
DRAWING WITH INDIAN INK IN OPEN AIR
8 minutes, 27 seconds
"Spanish artist drawing in the open air with a wooden stalk, Indian ink and water, on paper. The subject is the main door of a noble farm in Montmeló (Barcelona, Spain)."
Wait 'till you see what a beautiful job he does.
I love the sounds in this video: Lots of birds chirping along with very light traffic. What a pleasant place it must be to sit and draw. It reminds me of when I lived with a couple of different families over several months in Morelia, Mexico while I attended language school. I used to think back then how much I'd love to come back some day and draw and paint there.
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BELOW - AN ARTIST IN AUSTRALIA
A PASSION FOR PAINT: HERMAN PEKEL (a"trailer" for a DVD)
Several subjects in and near Melbourne, Australia
2 minutes, 58 seconds
This is a trailer for a DVD, but it's fun to watch, and even more fun to listen to. It's "art instruction," but it's not at all tedious. He is obviously having fun when he goes out to paint, and that's the best part to me.
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BELOW - AN ARTIST IN THAILAND
SKETCHING AT ERAWAN WATERFALLS, THAILAND - KHWAN BARTON, ARTIST
2 minutes, 26 seconds
And finally, here is an artist who really gets close to her subjects, in a location that seems idyllic...She doesn't mention mosquitoes or snakes, anyway. But really, it's a beautiful, peaceful place and she blends right in with it - and she does make some very nice drawings under somewhat distracting conditions.
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More artists working outdoors in many different places, in more posts (coming up soon).
