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!
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."
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.
BELOW
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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BELOW
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).
Robert Hughes: Commentary on Art Collectors (excerpt)
9 minutes, 58 seconds
Robert Hughes interviews an art collector who has paid millions of dollars for what hangs on his walls. Hughes obviously didn't tell the person being interviewed ahead of time what he (Hughes) thought of the paintings, or of the artists who made them.
I saw some pictures of marvelously decorated Pakistani trucks the other day and I've been thinking about them ever since. First I wondered, is this art? And why do men all over the world seem to do this same kind of thing? What is it that makes them decorate their vehicles like this? I recalled seeing pictures of decorated taxis and other kinds of work vehicles in other parts of the world, and after I got my fill of Pakistani trucks, I started looking for those, too. Here are the conclusions I've come to so far.
Men everywhere have apparently always decorated their horse and donkey carts, trucks, taxis, buses, and anything else used in their work (when not working for others who do not allow this) that they see as an extension of themselves -- something they're in close proximity to and personally directing and manipulating as if it's a part of them. Such things as parade floats do not count ...The kinds of decorated vehicles or carts, etc. I'm referring to here are experienced as a part/extension of the person who makes them do what they do (move loads from one place to another, plow a field, etc.) in connection with their work. Ideally, these decorated "extensions" of the man reflect or enhance the persona he wishes to project.
It seems to me, also, that men wouldn't have a great need to do this kind decorating if they didn't think the results were going to be seen by other people. Can you imagine them doing this if they truly never expected anyone else to see it? It's a display type of behavior. This is a very primitive urge, I'm sure.
Women have a need to decorate, too, but not carts or buses. Women have traditionally done their "decorating" in the home, and they also decorate themselves; they build "nests" and make themselves attractive with their decorating instincts -- Men, on the other hand, construct their displays (sometimes at great expense) to attract the females who build the nests, and also to impress and intimidate other males who will feel in awe, and inadequate, at the sight of such a wonderful display (and, it is hoped, will slink away). It makes men feel really good about themselves to do this.
I don't think I demean women by saying that in general they have an urge to decorate their place of abode (including their office if they work in one) -- They do this for the good of those who live in their homes (their "nests") and also for visitors, and generally it pleases women greatly to do this -- I think this is very natural and is true of most women (it's in their genes), not to say they can't sublimate this instinct, but it's what comes with the package when they're born and if their surrounding culture doesn't suppress this instinct, it usually flowers.
And so it occurs to me that this very strong creative urge (by "creative urge" I meana very strong impulse and a great deal of energy directed toward artistic creation and/or decoration) probably has a lot to do with testosterone in the case of men, and estrogen in the case of women.
Another thing that I thought of is that the primitive, powerful urge that both sexes have to decorate (basically, though usually unconsciously, for reproductive purposes) may well be the basic urge that is behind all kinds of art, not just primitive, or folk, art. It may underlie all things that we make in order to express ourselves, to say or show something, and to say it in our own way and to make it as impressive and "artful" as we are capable of making it. Not things made according to plans made by others, not copies, not "art from a kit." I mean original, passionately made art that we have such a desire to create that we can hardly keep ourselves from doing it. It's probably our hormones that cause us to need to create artwork, that is. That is the conclusion I've come to. What do you think?
I started out by mentioning the Pakistani truck drivers. I want to include links to pictures and a couple of videos showing their trucks because of all the decked-out vehicles I've ever seen, these are the most interesting, and look the most "primitive" and for me have the most impact and are what started me thinking. I'm also going to include a short video on "chivas" (decorated buses in Colombia) below, and maybe some other links. But mostly I want to focus on the truckers in Pakistan. I have seen lots of pictures of decorated trucks in Japan (and will have one link to pictures below), but they're all very "modernistic" looking -- sleek and "stainless steel" looking with lots of lights, not like something out of the past but like something futuristic from outer space. I've seen other male-decorated vehicles, etc., too, from other parts of the world including here in the U.S., but the trucks in Pakistan are my favorites.
VIDEO
MOVING CANVASES - TRUCK ART
(In Pakistan)
TIME: 1 MINUTE, 44 SECONDS
"From the shores of the Arabian Sea to the peaks of the Himalayas, highways are filled with Moving Canvases. Truck Art is the unique practice of transforming cargo carriers into masterpieces. Throughout South Asia, especially in Pakistan, huge sums of money, years of experience and training, and painstaking detail have brought artwork to every city, village, and port with a road. Their inimitable style has evolved into a genre of art that is extending into a broader culture."
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VIDEO
TRUCK ART IN PAKISTAN
Mohammad Ameer Muawiya Langrial
TIME: 2 MINUTES, 29 SECONDS
Decorated trucks, buses, and other vehicles in Pakistan.
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HERE ARE SOME LINKS WHERE THERE ARE NEAT PICTURES OF AND/OR ARTICLES ABOUT DECORATED VEHICLES:
This is a slide show - Click on tiny pictures below and they will show up in large size above ...You must have Java installed in order to see these pictures. There are pictures of these vehicles out on the road in Pakistan - Very interesting backgrounds as well as trucks.
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This is an article that tells about how the trucks are decorated. The truckers themselves (there may well be exceptions) don't do the work. There are truck decorating workshops where this is done, which are described as "garage, art studio and service station rolled into one. The trucks start out as a cab 'and a skeleton.'.....The truckers can also get a cup of tea, a hot meal, a shower and even a bed for the night."
Below the article, there are links to two short videos showing work going on at two of these workshops. The second video features close up views of some heavily decorated trucks.
These places make truck stops in the U.S. seem extremely dull.
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There are six color photos of decorated trucks in Japan on this page, so scroll down to see the rest after you've looked at the first one (if you are inclined to continue looking at these). Five of the six are pictures taken at night. The trucks have colored lights on them. One shows the inside of a truck from the back. It looks very cozy in there (someone's in there).
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VIDEO
Chivatour la Quindianita
1 MINUTES, 59 SECONDS
This is a promotional video (but not very "slick!"), advertising decorated bus ("chiva") tours in Colombia (in Spanish). Being on a bus in this place is not like being on a bus in, say, Los Angeles, believe me. I've seen these called "party buses," too, and that sounds about right from the looks of it.
"Most Haitians get around Haiti by Tap Tap a colourfully painted 4x4, bus, school bus or truck. This one is just being loaded at the Bus Station in Port Salut, Dept. Sud."
Would you like to participate in a poll on this subject (Are hormones behind our basic urge to create?)? There's one on the right-hand side of this page, about halfway down (at the bottom of the blue strip).
To subscribe to the Thinking About Art Monthly Newsletter see near bottom of page.
I've spent several hours over the last few days learning more about camouflage. I really enjoy this. You may wonder why I'm so interested in camouflage (this is my fourth post on the subject). It's because I believe that an artist must always be aware of camouflage principles and techniques, and know why they are needed and be ready to use them. Besides, I'm fascinated by the subject of perception and camouflage has everything to do with perception.
What I've been thinking about as I've read articles and watched videos over the last week or so has led me to write this post so I can have it all down and easily available to refer to. I'm including two new videos on camouflage I've just discovered.
Surely humans have used camouflage techniques throughout human history, and even earlier (many if not all animals/fish/birds/etc. use camouflage to hide from predators and/or prey though they are not aware of it; it is "built-in") and yet not until late in the 19th century was camouflage as we think of it today used by armies (some armies by necessity may have gone without uniforms but probably only small groups and individuals (such as snipers) intentionally used some kind of camouflage regularly). In fact, quite to the contrary, large groups of fighting men often wore attention-getting colorful outfits and were purposely very visible to the enemy (though this is a kind of camouflage, too - called "Aposematism" - See below).
Camouflage became necessary as technology started to produce changes in the weapons and techniques of warfare that required men to hide themselves. It became particularly important in World War I when armies started using airplanes. This is when artists were asked to help design camouflage (there is more on all this in other posts - Take a look in the list of Topics on the right side of this page for "camouflage" and if you click on that it will bring up a web page with all of the camouflage posts on it, including this one).
Camouflaged Marine Sniper, in Ghillie Suit
Source: Wikipedia
Artists - and Camouflage Artists
I believe that camouflage designers are artists, and certainly they have been around throughout human history (or human history would have been very short-lived). Nevertheless, artists (painters, set designers, architects, etc.) were consulted when it came to really ramping up the camouflage for new challenges when World War I came along. These artists were probably called in because although no doubt there were already people in the military who had some good ideas about camouflage, artists of did this kind of thing all day every day when planning and producing their artwork.
Principles of camouflage - or, What you should be thinking about and working with in order to accomplish the aims of camouflage.
Note how the visual tools of military camouflage listed above are just about the same as what are usually considered the "elements of art."
Elements of Art - Line [which can be used to imply "movement"]
- Shape [which would be the same as "silhouette"]
- Form
- Value
- Texture
- Color
- Space [using perspective to indicate three-dimensional space]
In fact, both lists would work for artists, though artists might not necessarily want to "hide" something; the idea is to change someone's perception of that "something" whether it is to hide it or make it more obvious or something else. The elements of art (or "principles of camouflage") are the things you have to work with in order to get the effects you want.
Why artists need to know about camouflage principles and methods
The ideas behind camouflage design seem like common sense, but still sometimes we need to be reminded of them in order to make conscious what we may already have "known" but weren't really making full use of in our artwork. That is, it seems to me that although we may have more or less "instinctive" common sense knowledge of what needs camouflaging and what must be done in order for it to be perceived in certain ways, or to not be seen at all, this knowledge can lie dormant (and therefore useless) within us for different reasons, for instance if we've been taught to do or see or present things in certain ways and we assume that these are the "only" ways to do/see/present things and so our minds close to other possibilities. Another reason might be that some of us don't see any need to change the way things are seen (we don't see the problem and therefore don't feel any need to do anything about it).
Some other ways camouflage is useful (besides in war and painting pictures)
Hunters, of course, use camouflage techniques. Makeup is camouflage -- There is even makeup that is called "camouflage makeup" or "camouflage cosmetics" for "heavy duty" hiding of bruises and scars, etc. caused by medical procedures, but ordinary makeup is camouflage, too, and is often advertised as such. Here's an article on Camouflage Cosmetics.
We can use camouflage techniques in decorating our homes (for instance, "How to make your rooms look bigger," or "How to ensure that visitors will take a certain path through your house and not go off into private areas"). And many people have camouflage ideas in mind when they dress and groom themselves.
Covering up what you don't want people to notice is probably something we have all tried to do, in many situations. Distracting attention from things we don't want others to notice with a decoy or something that provides a more compelling focal point is another camouflage technique.
Camouflage can be, and often is, used in the preparation of food. Camouflage, in fact, seems to be almost a synonym of "preparation" when it has to do with preparing something to be experienced in such a way that the intended "target" ("observer" you might say, but that implies that all camouflage has to do with sight and it doesn't) perceives it as much as possible in the way that the artist wants it to be perceived.
Something else we probably all know about is blending in. If we don't want to be noticed, we try to look, act, talk the same as the people around us, or blend in with the background. We could be in plain sight but unseen for example if we are wearing the same clothing style/colors as a crowd of people and appear to be doing whatever those people are doing. We become part of a pattern in that case and do not stand out.
The opposite of hiding things is making them very visible, of course, and this is another kind of camouflage. There is a name for it: Aposematism.
Here is a Wikipedia article on Aposematism. Aposematism is a warning to would-be predators that this thing they're observing would be a terrible thing to catch and eat -- probably because it would taste terrible, or kill them (or both). "The warning signal may take the form of conspicuous colours, sounds, odours or other perceivable characters. Aposematic signals are beneficial for both the predator and prey, who both avoid potential harm." (Quote is from the Wikipedia article Aposematism, link just above.)
I am guessing that this is the reason behind soldiers of the past wearing bright, colorful clothing. They wanted to show they were so strong and powerful that they had no fear at all. I suppose this at least in some cases scared the enemy who thought they must have good reason for being so confident.
How artists use camouflage
Although most of them probably don't think of it in that way, artists think about camouflage problems and possible solutions all the time as they decide how to compose their pictures, if not consciously then unconsciously.
I don't mean to say that artists use camouflage techniques just try to make things look "better" than they really are (though they may want to do that), as a person attempts to do when they put on makeup. Artists use these techniques to make their artwork say what they want it to say, and to not say what they don't want it to say.
Just for a simple example, sometimes there has to be something included in a picture (say it's something really big, or even the entire background) because the situation requires it -- you just can't leave it out -- but the artist doesn't want that "something" to really be noticed because it would detract from the main idea of the picture -- So how can they have this usually very noticeable object in the picture without it calling too much attention to itself? This is a job for camouflage, right?
Or what if you want to have several people (or trees, or anything) in a picture but you want people to focus mainly on just one or two of them. You have to figure out how to emphasize the people you want people to look at (Aposematism!) and de-emphasize the others. You can do both with camouflage techniques.
You may want something or someone to look very obviously like it/he/she does not fit in, not as a distraction from the subject but as the subject itself. You may want it to look like it doesn't belong there, the opposite of what you'd want if you were trying to hide it. You may try to make the viewer either sympathetic or unsympathetic toward it but it still doesn't belong where it is (that may be exactly what you're trying to get across).
Or possibly you could take something or someone who doesn't fit in in some ways but does in others, to evoke a feeling of appreciation of diversity perhaps.
Those are just a few examples I just thought of. There is much, much more you can do with the ideas and methods of camouflage in mind.
Insofar as artists are aware of camouflage principles and techniques they can control how people see their pictures. Artists who are not doing this might want to learn about camouflage. The more they learn about it and how it's used in nature and by humans (in the military, for hunting, and for many other purposes, some mentioned above), the more imprinted it becomes in the brain and available for guidance.
A COUPLE MORE VIDEOS ON CAMOUFLAGE - THESE ARE FAIRLY NEW
Nicholas Rankin on the history of camouflage
Nicholas Rankin, author of Churchill's Wizards: The British Genius for Deception 1914-45, discusses the development of camouflage.
2 MINUTES, 56 SECONDS
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Nicholas Rankin on British deception in WW2
Nicholas Rankin on the techniques used by the British during the Second World War to hoax Hitler
2 MINUTES, 26 SECONDS
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No artist's workspace is quite the same as any other's. Artists are of course creative by nature and can adapt whatever they can find or afford to buy or have on hand to suit their own needs and desires, and in fact just as their artwork is a pleasurable challenge for them and reflects their own personalities, interests, and inventiveness, the setting they make for themselves to paint or draw or sculpt (or etc.) in is also an enjoyable challenge to put together, and the resulting "studio" tells us at least as much about the artist as his or her artwork does.
Many artists have to make all sorts of compromises when it comes to making a work space for themselves, though if they have plenty of money they will need to compromise less or even have the "studio of their dreams," perhaps in a separate small building in the yard. Or they might rent a space somewhere in a building where other artists have their studios and go there as if "to work." This would be a good place to get to know other artists, and also to escape the inevitable distractions at home.
There are so many different kinds of workspaces for artists -- My own "art space" is right here where I'm typing this. It doesn't look like an artist's studio. Actually, it just looks like a mess. It's in what used to be the "living room."
In front of me is a roomy keyboard table (which has a lot more on it than the keyboard, including my electric tea warmer) and immediately behind this little table is a taller wooden dining room table holding my computer monitor (among other things). The clipboard that I use for drawing is directly behind the keyboard, leaning against the taller table that has the monitor on it.
To my right is an old metal folding dining room table bought for $2 at a rummage sale. On it are shallow cardboard boxes with the tops trimmed off which contain many of my art supplies -- mostly pencils of all kinds, Conte crayons, and pens, but also rulers, a couple bottles of ink, and other odd things. There are also a couple of boxes on the table holding stacks of my drawings, and a cookie can with a lid that has erasers (mostly kneaded) in it.
Underneath the table are a couple of plastic "art boxes" with handles (one broken) that I used to bring with me to art classes. And there are topless cardboard boxes containing other art supplies, including paper that is not in tablets. I have art books on bookshelves that are built into the wall, and also on the floor and in a short bookshelf that's just to my left as I sit here at the computer (where I also usually do my drawing -- and reading). A large Hewlett-Packard printer box (we don't have the printer, but somehow we got the box) is what I keep my tablets in. It's across the room. A regular clipboard is my easel and my drawing board...It's the same clipboard I used in college for notetaking.
I love to see artists' workspaces, just like I like to see where writers write. Just below are several videos I looked at today showing artists' studios. Some of the videos are very short, some a little longer (but you needn't look at the whole video in some cases, which I mention). The workspaces are all quite different from each other and I'm glad to say that just about all of them are a mess, just like mine! That's something we can't avoid, I guess. I would much rather be in a messy studio than a very tidy one, though -- I am much more relaxed and it's a lot more interesting and stimulating environment (at least for me).
VIDEOS - ARTISTS' STUDIOS
Aaron Kramer's studio TIME: 1 MINUTE, 33 SECONDS Left click gently once on one of the arrows to begin
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A Painting a Day Artist's Studio (Hall Groat II) TIME: The first 2 MINUTES, 50 SECONDS are about his STUDIO -- After that he talks about his painting of a bowl and some lemons; so you can stop looking after 2 minutes and 50 seconds if you're not interested in his painting. Left click gently once on one of the arrows to begin
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Jamaica Street Art Studio, Bristol
(Several artists have studios in this building) TIME: 6 MINUTES, 52 SECONDS Left click gently once on one of the arrows to begin
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Scott Hutchison's art studio TIME: 4 MINUTES, 21 SECONDS Left click gently once on one of the arrows to begin
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Cheap Joe Miller of Cheap Joe's Art Supplies Studio TIME: 1 MINUTE, 43 SECONDS Left click gently once on one of the arrows to begin
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Barbara Wurden's Art Studio
TIME: 6 MINUTES, 26 SECONDS (You only need to watch the first two minutes, when she shows us around her studio (I really like the greenhouse roof!); after that she starts cleaning up the studio and the music is loud and terrible -- I had to turn the volume almost to "off" before I watched the rest of it. At about five minutes into the video she shows how she puts canvases directly on the wall to paint on them (doesn't use an easel). Left click gently once on one of the arrows to begin
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John MacGowan's Studio Tour (in Newport, Rhode Island) part 1 of 3: The library area
TIME: 3 MINUTES, 32 SECONDS Left click gently once on one of the arrows to begin
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John MacGowan's Studio Tour, Part 2 of 3: The palette Area
TIME: 2 MINUTES, 55 SECONDS Left click gently once on one of the arrows to begin
Mr. MacGowan is obviously an art teacher, so if you do oil painting, you might learn some things here.
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John MacGowan's Studio Tour, Part 3: The easel Area
TIME: 3 MINUTES, 18 SECONDS
Continuing the part above, which seems to cut off abruptly, but actually he is changing to the next subject - the easel area. The easel isn't really an easel. He does what the last artist (mentioned above: Barbara Wurden) does -- He attaches the canvas directly to a wall.
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This post goes along with my last post, also on a video series about the Impressionists. The videos shown here are taken from a different TV program, a BBC series called The Impressionists produced in 2006. I would very much love to see the whole thing, but I'll take what I can get for free. This is fun to watch even though it consists of selected scenes, far from the entire original program.
The person who uploaded these videos to YouTube says that the scenes he's chosen for this particular video are "mainly about the paintings and painters doing their work."
The series is about Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Bazille...and Manet. (Manet was a realist painter who knew and had a big influence on the Impressionists), and Cezanne (post-Impressionist painter). Everything is seen from the point of view of Monet as an old man looking back while being interviewed at his home in Giverny.
The original series consisted of three one-hour programs, the first about Manet's influence on the Impressionists, the second focusing on Degas, and the third on Cezanne (a post-Impressionist painter).
These videos do not have the dialogue on them, but who cares -- They are beautiful. There is good background music, and since we have a good idea of who the people being played are (we know they're Impressionists, we recognize their paintings), and where they are (France), it's possible to follow along and enjoy this even though we can't hear anyone talking. Although they are actors, we get to watch the artists "painting" these pictures we know so well.
Hoping that a lot of good research was done before doing the filming, I like to think that I'm seeing more or less how it really was back then -- getting more of an idea than I had before at least. To see the train chugging along through the French countryside with steam pouring out, and inside the train an artist sketching a fellow passenger, for instance, brings the time to life.
It's interesting to see the world in which these artists lived and their relationships with each other (and their families) rather than just imagining each one of them as a person contained inside their clothing with no relationship with anything outside themselves (as one appears in a typical portrait). We see the artists trudging out into the woods, for instance, setting up their easels, wearing what I would consider "too nice" of clothes to be painting in. There's lots of squeezing of big blobs of paint onto palettes -- Looks expensive. Painting at the seashore, at a lake, etc. Their families very much a part of their lives. I'm sure these scenes were made at the actual places where they happened, and it's wonderful to "be there" and have it seem so real.
VIDEOS
(There is no dialog in these - just the background music)
Part 1 - The Impressionists BBC Series (2006)
6 MINUTES, 12 SECONDS
My notes on this are below the video
MY NOTES ON THIS VIDEO: Manet's pictures are wonderful but they don't seem to fit in here, especially the ones of people being shot. But I remember that he wasn't one of the Impressionists. Lots of squeezing of paint onto palettes. Painting at the seashore. At a lake.
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Part Two - The Impressionists BBC Series (2006)
8 MINUTES, 12 SECONDS
My notes on this are below the video
MY NOTES ON THIS VIDEO: Degas. Ballet dancers. Renoir. Monet. Monet got up to paint the sunrise, wearing his nightshirt, but the paints were all ready on the palette, imagine that, and not dried up. Outside in a poppy field with Madame Monet and their son in a little hat. Now and then when they're painting you get an idea of how they painted, even though these are actors. Renoir again, then Degas.
Cezanne again. And so on. Very pleasant looking at the scenery, the people, and the paintings. Even the train station in Paris painted by Monet (and from which he no doubt took the train to paint out in the country). Besides paintings, pastels by Degas. Monet painting his wife on her deathbed. A few more paintings by Bazille near the end of this one.
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Part Three - The Impressionists BBC Series (2006)
7 MINUTES, 30 SECONDS
My notes on this are below the video
MY NOTES ON THIS VIDEO: In this one it shows an actor playing Cezanne. The finished paintings have the title and name of the artist. You can see how the scenes he painted look now from the same viewpoints. Monet is also in this one, with his wife and her little parasol, and the haystacks. The cathedral. If we had inspirational music like that playing as we worked, we might make some great paintings, too! Monet, his garden, the water lilies.....the curved bridge reflected in the pond. Monet now an old man with a long white beard.
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THE IMPRESSIONISTS - A TRAILER
This video is from a trailer made while the series was still being filmed. There are bits of several scenes, and it includes not only background music but also the dialogue.
THE IMPRESSIONISTS (Work in progress trailer)
3 MINUTES, 49 SECONDS
Here are comments by the person who uploaded this video: "The picture is still ungraded, the sound unmixed and the music itself is from other movies. It also contains shots and scenes which were eventually taken off the final cut (Monet screaming, various lines from old Monet...and a steam train from the wrong period, just to mention a few). It is divided in various sections: one about Monet, one about Manet, Degas and Cezanne."
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Here is a longer trailer, with the same comments (see just above) by the person who uploaded this video to YouTube:
THE IMPRESSIONISTS (Work in Progress) Long Trailer
8 MINUTES, 43 SECONDS
If you want to skip to the videos, scroll down the page.
The videos in this series on Impressionism are different and much, much better than the usual "just pictures, with music" kind of videos. The name of this series is IMPRESSIONISM, REVENGE OF THE NICE, with Matthew Collings (British artist and art commentator). This was originally a British TV series (in 2004).
These videos are not only enjoyable to watch, they're also educational, or the ones I've seen and heard have been -- Out of the ten videos in this series (there are links to all of them below) I have only been able to watch six, the reason being that no matter how many times I've gone back and tried again, different days and different parts of the day, there are four that I haven't been able to get past the very beginning of -- no more than ten or fifteen seconds into them --because they only play for literally about two seconds at a time, with a very long break and then another couple of seconds played, and so on and on and on (the others worked just fine). But don't go away! You needn't see all of them in order to come away with some new information and ideas on this subject (though you may have known all these things before; I didn't). Even one video would be better than none, truly.
Actually, there were five out of the ten that kept stopping and starting, but I watched one of them anyway (Part 5) -- It stopped and started in the same way as the other four, but I stuck with this one and I would say it probably took at least an hour to get through it (it's supposed to be 10 minutes and 22 seconds long). It was worth it, but I don't have forever to watch these in that way. These are really good, interesting videos, though, and I feel good about what I've learned from the parts I've been able to watch no matter that I haven't seen the others (I've watched them twice so far). But I wish I could see the others, too! If anyone knows where all-the-way-through smoothly playing, versions of Parts 4, 5, 7, 9, and 10 can be found, please let us know in the Comments section. Thanks!
Not only do we see all of the paintings Collings talks about in these videos, but he talks directly from inside the museum where the paintings are, from the sidewalk outside in a neighborhood Impressionists (or their precursors) lived in or from a seat in a cafe they frequented, etc. It's present-day Paris (and other locations, such as the French countryside, but mostly Paris), and present-day people milling about, but it's in the same places where these things happened - and, after all, people are people. The settings - and someone speaking directly from the settings - bring that time to life, and make it all seem more real.
The artists Collings talks about are just these four, the first two pre-Impressionists (and Impressionist precursors) and the last one a post-Impressionist -- with Monet being the only Impressionist in the bunch:
I wrote down some comments and a few quotations while watching the six videos that I have been able to watch (1, 2, 3, 6, and 8), and I'm going to add those below, where the videos they pertain to are listed.
I'll put the videos that worked fine for me right on this page, and will just add links to their YouTube pages for the ones that hardly worked for me at all. You might have no difficulty with them, who knows (I hope you'll be able to watch them).
If you click too hard on the videos themselves, you will be taken to the YouTube page they're on -- but if you just left-click gently one time on one of the arrows on the front of the video, you will be able to see the video right here on this page.
VIDEOS
Part 1 of 10 Parts (IMPRESSIONISM, REVENGE OF THE NICE)
10 MINUTES, 31 SECONDS
My notes on this one are below the video
Click here to watch Part 1 on its YouTube page if you have any trouble viewing it on this page.
MY NOTES FROM THIS VIDEO: Collings tells us what led to Impressionism and what kind of art was being produced before it came along. He first points out that at the time Impressionism was invented it was avant-garde and not understood or liked by most people. It was shocking, in fact. We think it's very "nice" now and find it hard to understand why people didn't like it back then.
The two artists he says "opened the door for Impressionism" were Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet. Claude Monet was the first (and "main") Impressionist. And the artist who turned Impressionism into Modern Art is Paul Cezanne.
All of these artists knew each other. The "radical idea" they all shared was that art should be real and not false. The "art of the salon" at that time is shown to be quite "unreal."
Collings first talks about Courbet, who was not an Impressionist himself (he was a "Realist"). Courbet had the idea that art should be about what's really happening in the world around us, now, showing people as they really are, rather than about mythological figures with perfect, unrealistic bodies enjoying themselves in some idyllic, unrealistic setting, for example.
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Part 2 of 10 Parts (IMPRESSIONISM, REVENGE OF THE NICE)
10 MINUTES, 29 SECONDS
My notes on this one are below the video
MY NOTES FROM THIS VIDEO: This one is about Courbet, not an Impressionist but one who inspired the Impressionists. "You should paint the truth. Paint your own time, from your own point of view." -- Courbet
If you want to watch Part 2 on its YouTube page, click here.
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Part 3 of 10 Parts (IMPRESSIONISM, REVENGE OF THE NICE)
9 MINUTES, 26 SECONDS
My notes on this one are below the video
MY NOTES FROM THIS VIDEO: More on Courbet ("Courbet gives to Impressionism rough surfaces and being against the salon, being for truth and against lies"), but it's not only about Courbet; before the end of this video he begins talking about Edouard Manet, another precursor of Impressionism. Manet makes color important. Courbet and Manet were Impressionism's two most important precursors.
If you want to watch Part 3 on its YouTube page, click here
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Part 4 of 10 Parts (IMPRESSIONISM, REVENGE OF THE NICE)
10 MINUTES, 31 SECONDS
Part 4 is one of those in this series that I have not been able to watch because it's constantly stopping and starting. You can try watching it on its YouTube page, here. I hope it works for you.
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Part 5 of 10 Parts (IMPRESSIONISM, REVENGE OF THE NICE)
10 MINUTES, 22 SECONDS
Part 5 is another of those in this series that constantly stops and starts, or it did for me every time I tried it. However, I stuck with this one to the end (it is supposed to be 10 minutes, 22 seconds long, but I'm sure I spent over an hour watching it). You can try watching it on its YouTube page, here. I hope it works for you. If it doesn't, you still might want to watch the other videos -- I missed out on four out of the ten yet I'm very glad I watched the six.
MY NOTES FROM THIS VIDEO: As I did stick with it even though it drove me crazy, I took notes on this video. There is a comparison on this one between Courbet and Manet's ideas about what should be painted and how it should be depicted. There are many scenes of present-day Paris in these videos, the same places that were painted, lived in, where artists met, etc. "back then."
Impressionism was inspired by both Courbet and Manet although they themselves were not Impressionists. Courbet's art was (at first) revolutionary, "menacing" art (later it was more sensual and [sometimes] erotic and not concerned with politics), and Manet's was "a relaxed leisure type of art.....In Manet's art is the sense of modern life, conveyed in the liveliness of painting."
Courbet and Manet were the painters who most influenced the Impressionists. Collings goes on in this video to talk about Impressionist Claude Monet (whom he calls the "main" Impressionist). "Reality, sensuality, color were Monet's inheritance from Manet and Courbet." Monet brings painting outdoors in nature to the mix. Monet was the one who founded the Impressionist group. Movement, spontaneity and light were its principles. Monet met Renoir while at a private ("shabby, cheap") art academy. They became friends and spent much time painting outdoors side by side.
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Part 6 of 10 Parts (IMPRESSIONISM, REVENGE OF THE NICE)
10 MINUTES, 32 SECONDS
My notes on this one are below the video
MY NOTES ON THIS VIDEO: Still on Monet. Monet adored Manet. Manet didn't like being confused with Monet. Manet didn't paint outdoors. Monet and other artists caught the train and spent weekends in the outer suburbs, formerly country villages. Monet painted outdoors along with Renoir. Monet didn't pay as much attention to details as Renoir did. It's in this section where we learn how the loose, informal style became the "Impressionist" style - This style came from their oil sketches they had intended to be preparation for finished works. Collings also talks about how Impressionism was inspired partly by photography. The Impressionists wanted to make paintings that were "emotional, full of feeling, aesthetically heightened," that photographs couldn't compare with.
If you only have time for one of these videos, this is a good one.
If you'd rather see this on its YouTube page, click here.
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Part 7 of 10 Parts (IMPRESSIONISM, REVENGE OF THE NICE)
10 MINUTES, 32 SECONDS
I have not watched this one yet. It's like the others that are stopped much more than they're working.
This one is about Monet. If you want to try watching it, click here to see it on its YouTube page. I hope it works well for you (and I wish it would work well for me).
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Part 8 of 10 Parts (IMPRESSIONISM, REVENGE OF THE NICE)
10 MINUTES, 21 SECONDS
My notes on this one are below the video
MY NOTES FROM THIS VIDEO: It starts out about Monet, beginning late in Monet's life (the last video was apparently about Monet up to this time). Monet was "the main" Impressionist. When Monet died "pure" impressionism was over. His type of beauty was no longer "in." Cubism, Surrealism were the new avant garde, and these were not beautiful in the sense, at least, that Impressionism was. Monet's art came back into fashion in the 1950s (long after his death). His reputation rose with the public then, but Impressionism wasn't in fashion with avant garde artists of that era...They were far beyond it.
Cezanne came next after Monet died. He was "the Impressionist who takes Impressionism into Modern Art. He takes the spontaneity and movement of Monet and puts in structure...He puts cerebral difficulty in with sensual pleasure." Cezanne's earliest paintings were nothing like those he ended up painting. They were dark and grim.
If you have any problem watching this video here, you can click here to get to it on its YouTube page.
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Part 9 of 10 Parts (IMPRESSIONISM, REVENGE OF THE NICE)
9 MINUTES, 2 SECONDS
I have not watched this one yet. It's one of those that is off more than it's on. If you want to try watching it on its YouTube page, click here. Good luck.
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Part 10 of 10 Parts (IMPRESSIONISM, REVENGE OF THE NICE)
I have not watched this one yet. It's one of those that's off more than it's on. If you want to try your luck with it, you can click here to see it on its YouTube page. How I wish I could see it.
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I was fascinated by two videos on Venetian mirrors (which you can see below) that I watched recently, in which anthropologist Alan Macfarlane explains how clear glass mirrors changed European art and science as well as the way in which we think about ourselves and our place in society (but people in the rest of the world did not do this, so we changed in many ways in which they did not change until much later). The setting of these videos is a glassmaking shop on the island of Murano (minutes from Venice) where the first really clear glass, and glass mirrors, were made.
The earliest mirrors were no doubt reflections seen in water. In fact, some Chinese bronze mirrors were shallow bronze jars which held water to reflect one's face.
The earliest man-made mirrors could be held parallel to the face, of course, or held up to reflect other things in the vicinity, but the reflected image was far, far from perfect. The first ones were probably made of polished stone (such as obsidian - a naturally occurring volcanic glass). This kind of mirror was made by about 8,000 B.C. You may have seen yourself in polished stone -- It can look good and reflect a lot of what's around, but can you imagine that kind of image helping in any way to produce better artwork?
Polished bronze mirrors date from 4,000 B.C. Also, other kinds of metal were used for mirrors. The Greeks were using polished metal mirrors by the 5th century BC.
Needless to say, the reflected images from these stone and metallic mirrors were not nearly as clear, bright, colorful, and detailed as the images glass mirrors (especially very fine glass mirrors made with clear, unwavy, flat, unbubbly glass) produce - and the color of the metal or stone affects the image, too.
The earliest glass mirrors (I've seen the dates for the earliest from between the 1st and 3rd century A.D.) were very small -- just a few inches across, but some Roman glass mirrors were large enough so that you could see your whole body in them. You could not see through the glass used to make these Roman mirrors, though -- It was translucent but not transparent.
The Romans also made glass windows, by the way, though they were for protection from the wind and for security and not to look through and so it didn't matter to them that they couldn't see through them.
By the 1300s (about 900 years after the fall of the Roman Empire) glassmakers had begun making mirrors of a better quality by making thinner glass and spreading hot metal onto it. By the 1500s glassmakers in Venice had refined glassmaking and mirror making to the point where they were making by far the finest, clearest mirrors in the world. No doubt a major factor leading to this distinction was the invention of very clear and colorless cristallo glass by Venetian glassmaker Angelo Barovier in the 1400s.
The development of very fine glass and glass mirrors in Venice parallels (and probably had some part to play in) the beginning of the Renaissance, which involved a revival of the ideas and forms of the classical world of the ancient Greeks and Romans which had died out when the "Dark Ages" (or "Middle Ages") commenced after Rome fell early in the 5th century A.D.
The Renaissance lasted approximately from the mid-1300s to the end of the 1600s, and was at its peak in the late 1400s through the early 1500s. This was the era of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian (born in Venice), Raphael, and Bellini (also born in Venice), among other great artists. And they all probably
Parmigianino - 1503 - 1540 Self-portrait in convex mirror, c. 1524
used mirrors as a help in their artwork - Venetian mirrors, of course. Da Vinci mentions mirrors several times in his Notebooks (e.g., "You should take the mirror for your guide -- that is to say a flat mirror -- because on its surface the objects appear in many respects as in a painting," and "I say that when you paint you should have a flat mirror and often look at your work as reflected in it").
How art was influenced by the development of the excellent clear mirrors made by Venetian glassmakers is explained in the following two videos by anthropologist and historian Alan Macfarlane, a professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, England. -- For much more on the subject I recommend reading a book written by Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin (Glass: A World History) which of course contains much more about the development of glass and mirrors; I have read it. Here is an excerpt from the book.
Making a Glass Mirror
TIME: 14 MINUTES, 24 SECONDS
Effect of Mirrors on Art and Psychology
TIME: 7 MINUTES, 39 SECONDS
John Berger is an English art critic, novelist, painter and author who lives ("voluntarily exiled") in France. He made a television series called "Ways of Seeing" in 1972 for the BBC, and a companion book was published. I have had that (small, paperback) book for many years, and was just starting to re-read it the other day when I thought to see if there was anything on video about John Berger's ideas. It turned out that the whole "Ways of Seeing" series can be seen (broken into several small videos), but so far I've only found two sites where the videos are shown, and neither one has videos that are of good quality.
Nevertheless, it's a very interesting, thought provoking series and so today I finally got around to putting all the "Ways of Seeing" videos that I found on YouTube in order (they are all over the place on YouTube). Prepare yourself to gaze for quite a while at Berger looking awfully dated in that early 1970s hairstyle and flashy shirt.
VIDEOS
BBC TV DOCUMENTARY - WAYS OF SEEING - WITH JOHN BERGER FIRST EPISODE (LOOKING AT ART)
"The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe ..... Today we see the art of the past as nobody saw it before. We actually perceive it in a different way ..... The art of the past no longer exists as it once did. Its authority is lost." -- Quotes from the book Ways of Seeing based on the BBC TV series with John Berger.
LOOKING AT ART - PART 1 OF 4 7 MINUTES, 25 SECONDS
"A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. His presence may be fabricated, in the sense that he pretends to be capable of what he is not. But the pretence is always towards a power which he exercises on others.....By contrast, a woman's presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her.....One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.....Thus she turns herself into an object...." -- Quotes from the book Ways of Seeing.
THE FEMALE NUDE - PART 1 OF 4 8 MINUTES, 10 SECONDS
THE FEMALE NUDE - PART 3 OF 4 7 MINUTES, 23 SECONDS This particular part is not very interesting to me - It's just a conversation about the subject by some women sitting at a table with Berger.
"Oil paintings often depict things. Things which in reality are buyable. To have a thing painted and put on a canvas is not unlike buying it and putting it in your house. If you buy a painting you buy also the look of the thing it represents.....What distinguishes oil painting from any other form of painting is its special ability to render the tangibility, the texture, the lustre, the solidity of what it depicts. It defines the real as that which you can put your hands on.....Oil painting, before it was anything else, was a celebration of private property. As an art-form it derived from the principle that you are what you have." -- Quotes from the book Ways of Seeing.
"In no other form of society in history has there been such a concentration of images, such a density of visual messages.....[P]ublicity as a system only makes a single proposal. It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more.....Publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable." -- Quotes from the book Ways of Seeing.
ADVERTISING ("Publicity") - PART 1 OF 4 6 MINUTES, 50 SECONDS
A very thorough and interesting commentary by Peter Steven on John Berger and the Ways of Seeing series, which here is compared with Kenneth Clark's series called Civilization. The site is called JUMP CUT (which "publishes material on film, television, video and related media ad cultural analysis").
Review of a book written by Geoff Dyer about John Berger's works. Dyer considers Berger his mentor. The site is called The Complete Review.
