Exhibition: Anne Tyler

from there to here: Autumn Drawing development

Rules for art and planning a drawing. Artist research: Ad Reinhardt

 Ad Reinhardt, contemporary of abstract expressionists, had more in common with minimlists and rejected the angst and expressiveness of Pollock et al.
His late works, Black paintings (1964-67), inspired by Malevich, sought to remove all extraneous references including representational elements. 

"a pure, abstract, non-objective, timeless, spaceless, changeless, relationless, disinterested painting—an object that is self-conscious (no unconsciousness), ideal, transcendent, aware of no thing but art." Ad Reinhardt


What appeals to me about Reinhardts work, though I have yet to seen any 'live' in the subtle use of gradations of colour, the lack of expression, may imply a lack of emotion and disconnection, but I like this contrasting lack of ego to the maniacal expressionism of Pollocks more muscular and passionate work.
This is an artist being more mindful and contemplative, especially towards the end of his life, and he mentions that the black paintings could only have been done in those years.

 On a different note, he also contributed a series of technical rules.
In contrast to others who would use inspiration and guidance to create their works, note number 3!
I can relate to the thinking what I want something to look like before starting. But the drawing and experimenting has led to further ideas and as a result, clarified what elements I need and has highlighted how important composition is. As it had felt a bit instinctive before, and a nod to photographic rules, I had dismissed it before as something I should be erasing and approaching things differently with a more complete covering of the paper. However the smoke paintings that I ended up liking least were the ones that had the most marks and were least thought through, even if the marks made by the candle were spontaneous.

The Twelve Technical Rules (or How to Achieve the Twelve Things to Avoid) to be followed are:

1. No texture. Texture is naturalistic or mechanical and is a vulgar quality, especially pigment-texture or impasto. Palette-knifing, canvas-stabbing, paint-scumbling and other action-techniques are unintelligent and to be avoided. No accidents or automatism.
2. No brushwork or calligraphy. Hand-writing, hand-working and hand-jerking are personal and in poor taste. No signature or trade-marking. “Brushwork should be invisible.” “One should never let the influence of evil demons gain control of the brush.”
3. No sketching or drawing. Everything, where to begin and where to end, should be worked out in the mind beforehand. “In painting, the idea should exist in the mind before the brush is taken up.” No line or outline. “Madmen see outlines and therefore they draw them.” A line is a figure, a “square is a face.” No shading or streaking.
4. No forms. “The finest has no shape.” No figure or fore- or background. No volume or mass, no cylinder, sphere or cone, or cube or boogie-woogie. No push or pull. “No shape or substance.”
5. No design. “Design is everywhere.”
6. No colors. “Color blinds.” “Colors are an aspect of appearance and so only of the surface,” and are “a distracting embellishment.” Colors are barbaric, unstable, suggest life, “cannot be completely controlled” and “should be concealed.” No white. “White is a color, and all colors.” White is “antiseptic and not artistic, appropriate and pleasing for kitchen fixtures, and hardly the medium for expressing truth and beauty.” White on white is “a transition from pigment to light” and “a screen for the projection of light” and “moving” pictures. 
7. No light. No bright or direct light in or over the painting. Dim, late afternoon, non-reflecting twilight is best outside. No chiaroscuro, “the maldorant reality of craftsmen, beggars, topers with rags and wrinkles.”

 

 

Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting, 1960–1966.

 

 8. No space. Space should be empty, should not project, and should not be flat. “The painting should be behind the picture frame.” The frame should isolate and protect the painting from its surroundings. Space divisions within the painting should not be seen.9. No time. “Clock-time or man’s time is inconsequential.” “There is no ancient or modern, no past or future in art. A work of art is always present.” The present is the future of the past, not the past of the future.10. No size or scale. Breadth and depth of thought and feeling in art have no relation to physical size. Large sizes are aggressive, positivist, intemperate, venal and graceless.11. No movement. “Everything is on the move. Art should be still.”12. No object, no subject, no matter. No symbols, images or signs. Neither pleasure nor pain. No mindless working or mindless non-working. No chessplaying.




Despite the slightly heavy duty nature of his paintings, in terms of their possible difficulty in being appreciated for their apparent uniform colour, they would be difficult to reproduce.
Subtle crosses become more visible the longer one stares at them, due to the different shades of grey and colours that are used.

In contrast to his strong views on the strengths of abstraction, and the need for art to be 'art for art' not 'artists for artists'
he had a satirical side and was known for skewering the art world in his cartoons...
 
  

Ad Reinhardt, untitled cartoon originally published in PM

 Links:

http://www.art-agenda.com/reviews/ad-reinhardt/
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-reinhardt-ad.htm
http://www.artnews.com/2015/01/24/less-is-more-ad-reinhardts-twelve-rules-for-pure-art/

artist research: Richard Hamilton

European 'pop artist' contemporary of David Hockney, trained at the Slade after working in advertising in the 1940s.
Much influenced by Paolozzi, a scottish artist of Italian descent, himself influenced by american artists defying stylistic conventions such as Pollock and Dubuffet.
Hamilton liked the use of collage, as an antithesis to painterly, time consuming art, he named the collage as an 'instant art form'.
Using pages from magazines and catalogues, combining images to produce surreal stylistic visuals that challenged the idea of 'high' art.
Social progressive change, especially across the Atlantic was important during the times. Europe was developing it's own pop culture, with the Beatles (and their Peter Blake designed album covers. Over the pond, Jasper Johns, then later Roy Lichtenstein would be revolutionising pop art culture in turn.
One of the other greats that influenced Hamilton was Duchamp, whom he met and befriended after travelling to the States after Hamilton's wife died in the 1960s.

i came across Richard Hamiltons works when looking for collage/representations in art of female faces.
Looking for similar more modern takes after Man Rays disturbing images of obscuring the eyes on portrait sitters faces. This old world objectification and fetishisation of the female sitter sat alongside what I've been researching for Freudian symbolism for the Edwardian cloakroom.

Study for a Fashion plate, Richard Hamilton

 

Man Ray: Aurelien, 1944

Man Ray: Marchesa Luisa Casati portrait, technical error caused the blurring which Man Ray used in later photographs

LInks:

reference:Fineberg J, (2000) Art since 1940 Laurence King Publ. p239-240

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jul/25/richard-hamilton-duchamps-exhibition-tate-1966