Horizontality and Composition

Some people may wonder why I'm writing so much about how we respond to "flat" landscapes (or cityscapes, or most any view other than of a single compact object) when it may seem to them to have little to do with art, but of course it does have much to do with art.
An artist has to know (if only unconsciously) what effects horizontality/verticality/mixed heights have on a viewer. As is the case with any other aspect of a composition he or she must know what to include or not include, and what to emphasize and what to deemphasize in order allow the basic shapes to help get across what it is he or she wishes to "say" about a subject and not inadvertently give the "wrong" message or make it confusing.
Just for a few examples of what you might be trying to get across: possibly you want to emphasize the subjugation of nature by man for his own ends, showing a landscape that seems to not allow for anything accidental, unplanned, or different from what man "needs" - or to make life "easy" - no matter that it might flourish in that environment ... Nothing that is not "necessary" is allowed to protrude/impose itself and although horizontality itself may not be required to achieve the effect you're after in this case (or in others), it could be something you would make use of.
Or you might want to show the triumph of nature (not necessarily plant life ... this could include other manifestations of individuality and accidental effects that interfere with the intention of man to impose his will on what comes naturally) over man's efforts to manipulate it and hold it back/down, in which case you might show a variety of directions and heights, not emphasizing the horizontal at all, or else show definite horizontality peppered by contrasting, very vigorous verticals of various heights (think "weeds"). Or you might want to show a happy mixture of the two ideas - man and nature getting along just fine.
Or perhaps you'd want to give the impression of  "hopelessness" via a barren-looking very flat landscape or show "individual uniqueness and spontaneity is respected and accommodated here" via a landscape in which there is a variety of plant life: bushes, trees, vines, seemingly growing naturally, appearing to not have been planted intentionally by people, where it appears that people have arranged their lives around what's in nature rather than the other way around...As I say, it need not be "plants" and could even consist entirely of man-made structures that appear to not have been constructed to fit a strict plan but instead to have arisen "spontaneously." Or a combination of plants and structures. It could include whatever is seen in the air, too.
These are only a very few examples of the endless possibilities.
You can see how horizontality can help you achieve what you want in some cases, or hinder it if you're not careful in others. (If you do not think about what impression your picture will make because of such things then it may confuse people or you may inadvertently be sabotaging your intention.)
The bottom line is that what is out there (in "real life" or on canvas or paper), no matter whether it's recognizable as things we see in the everyday world or not, has one or more (usually more) "messages" for us, and in art we must know what these are (otherwise why would we bother to produce art ... We can try to copy what we see as if we're a camera or we can just dab or scribble away and try for something "pretty" or "interesting" but if there is nothing in particular we want to communicate, why do it? And what is "artful" about it?).
The messages our pictures convey are not usually communicated only by the alleged "subject matter." They are communicated by the way the entire picture is composed -- through lines, colors, textures, shapes, patterns, rhythm, size relationships, directions, etc. We "understand" what the "whole picture" means because of how all of these things work together. We understand not only because of what we have learned from reading and listening, and from looking at pictures, and from watching videos and movies, from thinking about these things, and even from personal experiences with whatever the subject matter might be, but also from our what you might call "generic" or "non-specific to any particular subject" familiarity with the physical world we live in (i.e., the earth and the tiny part of the universe we're able to experience from here) and how it basically "works." (Our understanding of how gravity works is an example, and this is very important ... There are several posts on this blog that have to do with gravity, though there are presently only two that have gravity as a keyword that I've noted on the list at the right side of the page -- You can take a look at that list for gravity - Click on the word and posts that have quite a bit in them about gravity will come up on one page ... but, also, any post that has to do with the Cartesian grid is also about gravity as the Cartesian grid exists because of gravity.)
Click on the words "horizontal format" in this same list at the right side of each page to see the posts that are most closely related to this one you are reading now.

Stormy Weather

Artist: Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875)

Picture Source: Wikimedia
What do you think Corot might have been trying to communicate about man and nature in this picture, and how did he make use of horizontality to help him do so?
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JUST REMEMBER THAT A FLAT LINE SUGGESTS THAT "THERE'S NO LIFE HERE ... THERE'S NO THREAT ... IN FACT IT'S PRETTY DEAD HERE ... WE CAN TAKE OVER NOW."

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Subject Matter in Art - Part Three

This is my third post on Subject Matter in Art. Click here for Part One, and Click here for Part Two.

Blue House on Fire - One of my Conte crayon drawings

What subjects are most popular (in other words, what sells the most)? Who cares? Okay, I myself have been interested in knowing this, and I remember once thinking that I should try to draw pictures that people liked. That was before I became much more confident about what I should be drawing (though I have strayed now and then...but not for popularity's sake).

Actually, it's easy to find out what sells. All you need to do is go to the online stores that sell reproductions of artworks (prints, posters, paintings copied by artisans onto canvas, etc.). Those people certainly will have done all the research to find out what sells (at least on their site), and that's what they show you. They would never show things people don't want to buy.

Some of them have lists of the most popular subjects, as if you wouldn't be able to figure out what you liked without knowing what other people like. And then under each main category they may tell you what the most popular sub-category is, and then when you get to that sub-category and start seeing the pictures, they are probably by default arranged in order by popularity (most popular shown first).

Art.com (Posters, Art Prints, and Framed Art) for example, has lists like these. When you get to the site, look at the left side of the page and click on "Most Popular." The main categories are these (in order of popularity, I assume, since they're not in alphabetical order):

1) Scenic
2) Botanical
3) Places
4) Animals
5) People

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Just below is a list of the most popular art subjects at the PaintingAll Art Gallery (where they sell oil painting reproductions), in order of popularity.

The main categories --

1) Landscapes
2) Seascapes
3) Floral still lifes
4) Genre paintings
5) People
6) Still lifes
7) Countries and famous cities
8) Animals

Click on a sub-category (e.g., landscapes/winter) to see their selection of pictures with that subject; presumably the pictures are also shown in order of popularity.

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There's an article at the About.com site called Selling Paintings: Which Subjects Sell Best?

In this article there is a list of the "Top 10 best-selling subjects for paintings in the UK," according to "Art Business Today." Here is the list:

1) Traditional landscapes
2) Local views
3) Modern or semi-abstract landscapes
4) Abstracts
5) Dogs
6) Figure studies (excluding nudes)
7) Seascapes, harbour, and beach scenes
8) Wildlife
9) Impressionistic landscapes
10) Nudes

Also on this page they list the best selling media (different types of prints, different kinds of painting, etc.)

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I don't believe it's a good idea to decide what subjects to draw or paint based on their popularity (see my other posts on the subject -- Subject Matter in Art - Part One, and Subject Matter in Art - Part Two for a lot more I've written about this) but I can understand why some people do so when they must sell their pictures in order to earn a decent living (though I'd think it would be better to make a living doing something else, if possible, and devote their free time to art so they can choose the subject matter they're best at and enjoy most working with).

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"I used to say to my students during 20 years of teaching high school art, 'If you market target your art, it is a sure way of becoming a nobody.' This means you join hundreds of others in reploughing the same furrow and don’t express your unique self." -- Robert Bateman (Canadian naturalist and wildlife artist)

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Subject Matter in Art - Part Two

In an earlier post, I wrote about Subject Matter in Art, and I want to add more on the subject here.

I recently came across a quote by poet Ted Hughes that seems to me is as applicable to any of the other arts as to writing. It's about subject matter. Here's what he said:

"You write interestingly only about the things that genuinely interest you. This is an infallible rule .. in writing, you have to be able to distinguish between those things about which you are merely curious – things you heard about last week or read about yesterday - and things which are a deep part of your life … So you say, ‘What part of my life would I die to be separated from?" – Ted Hughes (Edward James Hughes), English poet (1930-1998) in Poetry in the Making.

Keeping this in mind should certainly help narrow down the choices of subject matter we would do best to concentrate on, which would include the things we feel deeply about, think about often, and understand (or "know") better than what might have currently caught our imagination but might not be, at least until we've gone into it in depth and have truly been transformed by it -and are still fascinated by it - our cup of tea.

Besides making it more likely that we will produce a more creative and meaningful (to us and to others) work of art, being genuinely and "for the long haul" enthralled with the subject means we'll probably have the energy, determination, patience, and stamina to actually move forward with our art. If, on the other hand, our interest is not deep, we will only be nibbling around the edges of something that can neither hold our attention nor inspire us, and obviously this will lead to some pretty pathetic output. Neither we nor anyone else will really think what we're doing is up to much, because it won't be.

I had an experience myself recently (not the only one I've had like this) in which I came to realize that the reason I wasn't really putting myself into a drawing I was working on, and in fact was wondering if I'd ever "get right," was that it wasn't "my" subject. It's a picture (which I was doing from a photograph) of an old two-story wooden house that looks like it was probably built in the 19th century. It's in a neighborhood that obviously has changed, yet this house (a corner house) and yard has been left intact, and with tall old trees casting shadows on it, and I could imagine -- for a few forced seconds -- how the scene looked 150 years ago or so. Looking at the photograph, sent to me by a friend who took it not far from his own home, brings back "old times" - I see a neighborhood with sidewalks and tall trees lining the streets and think of life going by at a slower pace, and so on, yet I can't help but see the little changes and realize there is probably a Wal-Mart with a big parking lot just down the block now -- In other words, there's sadness along with the pleasant thoughts because it makes me aware that there is no going back, and that this house is fragile and will probably not be there for long. The emotions this scene brings up in me gave me the false impression that this subject was quite meaningful to me and would be a good thing for me to draw. The fact is, though, that it is someone else's subject and I really don't know or care that much about that particular house, even though I find it interesting and know I would like to see a drawing or painting of the same subject by someone who knows the subject and also can do this kind of thing very well.

If I were really good at depicting old wooden houses and thought I could do the job well, I believe that my best approach to the above-mentioned scene would be to emphasize and even exaggerate things that suggest what I myself do feel most strongly about and often think about when observing such a scene, which things include how everything in the universe is constantly and inexorably changing, insuring that old things, no matter how precious they seem (at least in retrospect) all eventually go and in fact are never one day what they were the day before, and are in the end replaced completely, and so on and on forever. All things, all the time, change - they just do, and there's no stopping it. Now that means something to me that I can hang a hat on, and feel passionate about, and would give me the energy to make something unique and more likely worth the effort. But still, I'm not skilled at drawing old houses of this type and there are other things that I would rather draw and that I would draw better, and so I'd be better able to express my thoughts and feelings and ideas and so on via other subject matter.

I'm going to add a quotation to this post that I forgot to add to the first one I wrote on Subject Matter in Art:

"'What shall I paint?' - the answer is a pretty obvious one, 'Paint what you are, paint what you believe, paint what you feel.' But to go a little deeper, such a question seems to indicate an absence of opinion, or perhaps it indicates a belief, not an uncommon one, that painting ought to be this or ought to be that, that there is some preferred list of appropriate subjects. Again I think that many young people if they were asked 'What do you believe, or hold most dear?' would reply honestly, 'I do not know.' And so we again go back to our first outline for an education: 'In college or out of college, read, and form opinions.'" -- Ben Shahn (1898-1969), Lithuanian-born American artist, in The Shape of Content.

Subject Matter in Art - Part I
Subject Matter in Art - Part III

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Subject Matter in Art

A second and third post have been added on this subject: Subject Matter in Art - Part Two and Subject Matter in Art - Part Three.

"The curse of us all is to do what the world calls beauty - not to look with our own eyes frankly on the world." -- Charles Hawthorne -- American artist and teacher (1872-1930)


Rembrandt van Rijn - Slaughtered Ox - 1655 - oil on wood - Musée du Louvre, Paris

If you've wished you lived in a more picturesque place so that you could draw or paint some really pretty pictures, perhaps you should forget about that idea. You may be luckier than you ever dreamed if you live in the most mind-deadeningly boring place that can be imagined, as so many of us actually do. Tracts of houses with a basketball hoop over the garage door of every one of them (but yours, maybe), narrow, busy streets, or big wide busy streets, your ugly apartment building backed up against a wall that's the back wall of a K-Mart parking lot ... you know, the typical kind of place where "real people" live. There are many of us (believe it or not) who don't spend vacation time painting in the Tuscan countryside, but instead just stick around home, such as it is, hoping the neighbors don't drive us to drink with their loud "music" and lack of ability to keep their dogs in their own yards.

It's not easy to come to the conclusion that you're in just the right place to produce artwork that is fine and certainly distinctive, but your chances of making art in these circumstances, in fact, are probably as good as those of anyone, anywhere, if not better because you absolutely must be inspired in order to do so. Whether or not you can create beautiful artwork is up to you, not your subject. Are you tough enough, and creative enough, to grab onto the opportunity that you didn't know you had living in a very ordinary kind of place - and make it work for you? If so, you can do it.

Just don't trust your family, friends, and neighbors to judge the artwork you produce. Trust yourself and trust those who don't look for "prettiness" in the artwork they admire, but for "truth" and "beauty." And make sure that you truly feel that way, too. Start looking for the subjects you have strong feelings about, even if those feelings include "utter boredom" and a great desire to escape. Look deeper than that, though. You have to see things as an artist does, which means you don't just see things but also feel them deeply. And be aware not only of your feelings and thoughts about the subject but also of the aesthetic challenges and delights in it.

It is important to keep in mind, of course, that you cannot be sloppy, boring, and tasteless (some descriptive terms that popped into my mind immediately when considering typical man-made scenery in the area where I live) in making your pictures, which you might think would be perfectly appropriate for the subject matter. In fact, you must try harder to be careful, thoughtful, high-minded, aesthetically involved ... and so on, and never let boring subject matter cause you to make boring pictures - ever. You must bring your "artistry" to the ghastly sights that you confront, and show something beautiful or wonderful, or at least fascinating, about them. Something that transforms them without lying about them, and in fact incorporates the very ugliness that is so appalling.

1942 Chevy truck in Junkyard - One of my own old-vehicle drawings - Please don't compare it with the Rembrandt painting above!

The "job" of an artist is to show others what he or she has seen that most other people cannot see unless it is pointed out to them in a way that makes them really "feel" it. Everyone can see the beauty in a sunset, or a mass of flowers in a beautifully-manicured garden, or sailboats on a lake, but can they see beauty in what's around them all the time, in everyday things? It certainly would help people stuck in the very same kinds of situations as you are to appreciate their surroundings more (and thus enjoy life more) if they could see even just a hint of beauty in what they had only seen as ugly and even depressing before.

"He [the artist] must show people more - more than they already see, and he must show them with so much human sympathy and understanding that they will recognize it as if they themselves had seen the beauty and the glory. Here is where the artist comes in." -- Charles Hawthorne - American artist and teacher (1972-1930)
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The Ash Can school of American artists was conceived of by Robert Henri in Philadelphia around 1891. You can tell by the name given them ("Ash Can Painters") that their pictures were disparaged because of the down-to-earth subjects they preferred.

At http://wwar.com/masters/movements/ash_can_school.html (title of page: Ash Can School Art), there is a good description of the Ash Can School.

On this page: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/ashcan-school.html (at the Artcylopedia site, which I visit practically every day, sometimes several times) there are pages for all of the artists associated with the Ash Can school. Just click on their underlined names to get to their pages where there are many links to different websites that show their drawings and paintings.
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"Take the ugliest object or subject and make it beautiful. Do not look for pictures in nature, get a problem." -- Charles Hawthorne
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William Wray is a contemporary artist who brings out the "beauty" (feeling, understanding, truthfulness, beauty - not "prettiness") in his paintings of "ugly" subjects, such as, just for example, a paper factory, a liquor store at night, a storm drain, and views in a cement factory (there are several other subjects, too).

These paintings are not the slightest bit glamorized. The style is appropriate to the subjects...not fussy, not "pretty." These are so good. Maybe I think so partly because I recognize this kind of scenery, having lived in the general vicinity for many years - but, still, that doesn't disqualify me entirely from judging the effectiveness of these scenes because I know what it's like, and I can tell you that what he says about these things seems like the truth to me. This is what it's like, believe me.

When you get to the first page of his site, click on URBAN LANDSCAPE to see the ones I like best. The regular LANDSCAPES are not generally "pretty" subjects, either - They are good, too. He doesn't leave out the telephone poles, for instance, but the paintings are all the more poignant for these "ugly" realities that are incorporated into them. His "Urban Landscapes" really give an artist hope, and belief, that there are subjects -- unique, interesting, "soulful" subjects, right out there in the drab and dreary "real world" that most of us live in.

Imagine this scene - It would work! And as strange as so many people are, the way they dress and odd things they do these days, they won't even notice you. Imagine yourself sitting (uncomfortably, awkwardly - It adds to your "feeling" of the place) in your car with your paints and little canvasboard (or tablet and pencil or charcoal) at the edge of the chewing-gum-stuck, crippled-starling-visited, hot and miserable (or cold and miserable) BORING and mind-numbing, depressing run-of-the-mill mini-mall parking lot and having a lot of fun. What you find to paint or draw is up to you - A Radio Shack with pigeons sitting on the sign over the door for instance? If you have strong feelings or thoughts about something, show people,via what you paint or draw, just what they are - disgust, delight in little things, appreciation for (or just amazement at) incongruities and clashes of colors, the abandonment of shopping carts in any old place, and thousands of other things - You can find something interesting to say about the ugliest subject that you can imagine. That's where the challenge is, and where you can really show that you are an artist, not a maker of "pretty pictures."

And people will see the truth in your picture; don't make it pretty where it isn't, or it will take that absolutely essential quality away.

"One of the greatest things in the world is to train ourselves to see beauty in the commonplace. Out of a consideration of ugly tones grows a real beauty - a freight car or a wash line of clothes may be as handsome as a sunset. Discover beauty where others have not found it." -- Charles Hawthorne

NOTE ADDED JANUARY 21, 2008: I've added another post on this subject (Subject Matter in Art). Click here to read the new post.

NOTE ADDED APRIL 11, 2008: A third post has been added on the subject. Click here to read the third post.

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