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Critical Annotation

I aim here to develop the Realism-Romanticism model by testing an analogy with the pair consisting of Skill and what I pose as its antithesis: Chance.

It is possible to analyse this dichotomy as it appears in contemporary painting by considering the Kitsch Movement.  This movement was initiated by Odd Nerdrum as an attempt to take back the word ‘Kitsch’ from Clement Greenberg’s relegation of academic painting to the same category as mass culture.

Some of the tenets of this movement initially appear attractive.  There is the appreciation of painterly skill, which I feel should be important.  Technology has superseded skill, but it has not eliminated it.  Cameras have allowed everyone to reproduce images and prior to that Carravaggio had his secret lenses.  The Realist element is a clear demonstration of technical skill.  Having said this, skill is not limited to technical mimesis.  There is also skill in convincingly making subconscious connections and the ability to evoke feelings.  This is something less easily measured.

In Kitsch, the Romantic is substituted by the sentimental, which it celebrates.  For me this is problematic.  The essence of Romanticism in art is ‘that which cannot be rationalised’ and addresses the realm of feelings as an element of the human condition.  The Romantic movement had a revolutionary tradition and was associated with human progress.  The sentimental is self-indulgent and Kitsch says: ‘Look!  Here is how people have always felt about this and so should you!’.

So, what role does chance play in evoking feelings?  In Deleuze’s review of Francis Bacon, he proposes that Bacon’s use of random mark-making is his way of avoiding the cliché in moving from photographic reference to painting.  I think this describes half of the process.  The other half is the feedback from the marks that have been made to the artist’s assessment of his work.  Bacon talks about the paintings telling him what to do and it is this feedback where the feelings generated by chance events are is recognised.  He scrapped a large proportion of his painting, presumably because they stopped speaking to him: he did not recognise feelings in the work.

I think this heuristic process may be the essence of all creativity and it may be true to say that new ideas are exclusively a result of chance.  All we can really do as humans is reproduce what we have already experienced, no matter how we dress it up.  Chance acts outside of human consciousness and can lead to something novel or something to be discarded.  The choice of which being totally subjective and that the new thing is recognised as such.  There is an analogy here to natural selection and I therefore suggest it underpins human progress, at least in the cultural sphere.

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Francis Bacon, Portrait of George Dyer in a Mirror

Bacon believed in a structured application of chance in his painting, whilst relying on reference photographs.  The random distortions and allowing the painting to speak back is the essence of the creative process.

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Szabolcs Veres, The Couple (VS/M 46)

I seem to be drawn to contemporary East European painters.  This raises the question of where they fit into the Western canon.  I think there may be an evolutionary branching going on whereby they were never subjected to Postmodernism.  I see them as rebelling against older traditions.

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Artemesia Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes

Contrasting this with Caravaggio’s version of the same scene, I wonder whether Gentileschi had been allowed into the secret of the lens technology.  Maybe not.  I think that though less photorealistic, this composition hangs together better than the male artist’s version.  The woman are much more into it here.

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Michelangelo Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes

David Hockney suggests that Caravaggio used lenses in his process.  I would say this theory is reinforced by the way the figures here don’t quite work together.  There’s an impressive use of cutting edge technology to achieve a realistic depiction of a mythical event, but something doesn’t quite work.  (Is Gestalt the right word?)

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Cecily Brown, Teenage Wildlife

On reading into Brown’s practice, I have taken note of how she uses reference photographs and drawing so that when she is painting, she does not refer to the photographic source, but has internalised the images through repetitive drawing.  Must draw more.

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Otto Dix, Metropolis

A reflection of its times - the beautiful people pushing the poor and disfigured out of the frame.  Portraying this distinction today requires more subtlety, reflecting the blurring of social structures.

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Odd Nerdrum, Dawn

I include this as something of a warning to myself.  I had been initially drawn to the Kitsch movement as an example of the demonstration of painting skill.  However, the more I look into it it appears as something reactionary and not of its time.  It harps back to a sentimental, classical past that is difficult to relate to today.

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James Ensor, The Intrigue

I came across Ensor as an influence to Tuymans.  I see the grotesquerie as a mocking of social veneers and maybe as a precursor to Neue Sachlichkeit.

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Luc Tuymans, Der Architekt

Tuymans flattens out his images which, I think, invites the viewer to round them out and look for the back story.  This is an innocuous image until you know that it is of Albert Speer.  This external information becomes more important to an interpretation of the work than the image itself.

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Daniel Richter, Zurberes

Richter has said “The studio is a sponge dipped into reality and squeezed out”.  He makes a point that painting can come across as lecturing, which I see as a warning about being didactic.  It is important to put yourself into the painting.

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Critical Annotation

I attempted to describe a concept last semester whereby traditions in (Western) painting can be mapped in relation to where they stand in comparison to Realism and Romanticism.  This is the case wherever they occur in history and does not depend on when the terms were coined.  {I am not declaring that this is novel, but I don’t have a reference for it.).  In essence the concept reflects the dialectic between what we see and what we feel and how they synthesise our response to the painting.  This may be parallel with, but not necessarily equivalent to, contrasting rational and irrational elements.

All the works included in the dossier can be analysed on the basis of how much of Realist and Romantic elements they contain.  The abstracts sit at the Romantic end of the spectrum while the photoreal sit at the Realist end.  Most of the works I have chosen, however, strike the right balance for me in that they are grounded in reality, whilst evoking emotions around the depicted situation.

The dynamic between the poles of this model is complex and may be demonstrated by considering, for example, in Eric Fischl’s declared influence by Edvard Munch.  Munch is the iconic Expressionist, very much in the Romantic tradition, whilst Fischl’s work is, on the surface, Realist.  I would argue that it is the Expressive elements in Fischl’s work that are essential to make it resonate with a viewer.  This is not only in the materiality of the painting, but very much the choice of composition.  He has stated that he never paints the moment, always just before or just after.  This approach sets up the emotional tension, which I take as a pointer for my own process.

Having said this, what is useful to me is the internalised model I now have for analysing my own work.  This model allows me to be conscious about where the work fits, both as a whole and its individual elements.  ask the question of my work – how much of each element does this have?  For me, the success of the work depends entirely on getting this balance right.

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Zdislaw Beksinski, Untitled

Beksinski’s work could be described as dystopian surrealism.  It has the blend of darkness and humour that I correlate with a confluence of the Romantic and Realist traditions.

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Radu Belcin, Nightfall

There’s a sort of collaging of symbols to create a snapshot of a dream in this work.  I’ve just recalled the word ‘tenebrism’, which is all about darkness.  I think the dark tones draw the viewer in to explore what’s hidden and consequently feel a greater sense of disquiet on discovering there elements in there.

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Charles Avery, Untitled (It Means It Means; Bourgeois, Friedrich, LeWitt,...,

Avery has created his own set of laws and everything he does is governed by them.  This is a risky strategy for an artist as any future movement outside of the frame of reference may be questioned.  On the other hand it demonstrates commitment to a life long project, over which he probably has more control than anything based on the world we know.

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Gerhard Richter, Abstract Painting

Richter talks about his search for ‘rightness’ in his abstract paintings.  In contrast to his representational paintings where the mimesis of nature is always, ‘right’, the abstraction needs to be worked until the feeling is right.  I don’t think it can be put into words.

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Lisa Yuskavage,  The Toasters

There is a grotesquerie in Yuskavage’s work that (John Currin’s work does the same - they were at the same art school) reminds me of Neue Sachlichkeit.  It’s an expressive objectivity.  The use of colours in particular sets the mood, but there’s a disruption of reality that moves the viewer into fantasy.