Rebecca Meredith: Ideas Made Visible
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The problems analyzed by the artist are embodied in the art object. The process used to create the work can be arduous and slow or spontaneous and easy. The created form expresses the realization of an idea, rendered by a labor formulation and abstractive vision. Artistic techniques don't convey what is represented but rather the vitality and feeling that constitutes the import of the work. As art philosopher Susanne Langer writes, "the image presents something like the objectivity of a percept but still bears the stamp of the thing it really is - part of the cerebral process itself" (Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, 1982)
Technique does not a good artwork make, and should be learned like vocabulary of a new language is learned, as building blocks for expression. There is plenty of artwork in the galleries that pleases the eye, but like candy, it leaves the viewer malnourished. The student of art learns anatomy, color theory, lighting, materials and methods, development from a sketch to a finished piece. These tools help avoid potentially crippling frustration in the work process, but they don't substitute for the thought or expression necessary to the work of art. If technical expertise were all that was required, machines could do the trick, but that alone wont make an artwork speak. Intelligence in art is partly a sensitivity, expressed through an external, skillful medium. We can learn technique imitating previous masters; however, the original expression known as style, is learned from observing the world and discovering provocative, gripping, questions which the artist will seek to answer.
The artist in creating a work is solving a problem, realizing a conception. We go to art for new experiences and new challenges to our thinking. Art does more than corroborate our experiences, it expands and liberates us through new perspectives. Every artist chooses his own problems - they will stimulate the energy to sustain a necessary momentum for formulating an expressed solution. While inspiring subject matter for the artist is found in experiences that are by nature subjective, we draw from the world around us for inspiration, not from an island of a self-absorption. Self-expression isn't self-exposure, although the two are often confused. Our psyche is not isolated but connected to our environment, from which we seek a sense of completion.
People turn to artworks for the same experience of completion. There is a feeling of heightened sensibility in the artist during acts of insight and intuitive judgement, which the viewer experiences later through the physical artwork. The artist is left changed from making the piece; the viewer is also changed; today, when one sees cypress trees and stubble field, one thinks of Van Gogh. At the very least, on a superficial level, what feels right to a viewer is something aesthetically satisfying, but on a deeper level, a problem which has taken hold of the artist has been resolved through the artwork.
The esoteric idea of fine art allows art to be separated from regular life, and permits paradoxes in real life to be examined with both detachment and involvement. The remove from reality allows us to look at certain issues in art that we would have trouble thinking about with distance in life. As essayist Samuel Johnson put it: "The delight of tragedy proceeds from our consciousness of fiction; If we thought murders and treasons real they would please us no more." The creation of art requires both involvement and detachment, as involvement allows the experience of empathy with our fellow man while detachment allows us to open ourselves to the ideas in the art piece. Art uses the physical universe as ends with which to answer a given question.
Art is self referencing in the sense that there is a relationship of elements to the whole. The context of the artwork shifts with each introduction of a tension, gestalt, contrast, accent, or rhythm. Empty paper is transformed by graphic means to create these tensions: the introduction of a spot, or spots of color, or color as a plastic means of creating intervals. Representation orients as it references something we know, and unifies a piece as a means of isolating abstraction, or in the words of formalist Clive Bell, representation "abstracts by emphasis." Representation is a means to understanding the formal elements of art. The medium used to create can be pictures, buildings, pots or textiles - the paradox in art is that the art itself isn't meant for utility, but as an end in itself. The artist gives an original, expansive and universalizing perspective to the viewer of the piece.
Steen Eiler Rasmussen, professor of architecture, touches on the human relationships with material in her description of the infant, who touches, tastes, and handles objects (eventually growing into an adult who makes new tools and designs buildings). From these developmental experiences, we learn to "touch with our eyes" the texture of concrete, hammered steel, or finished rosewood. For a similar reason, the artist must learn his tools and test out different mediums, because the tool affects our expression. When using a pencil, we see lines; when holding a paintbrush, masses. Such formalism is helpful when teaching how to apply this perceptivity to beginning students in art. Using all five senses, students can ask of an artwork: what is the smell (example:spicy or creamy) and sound (example: quiet or loud), the touch (example: rough or smooth), the look (example: orderly or chaotic)? A work which may have been difficult to access and interpret begins to be expressed in words through the accessibility of sensory experience.
Czichsentmihaly's theory of "flow" describes the necessary circumstances to create the autotelic state of absorption in one's work. An achievable degree of challenge moves a person from the stasis inherent in boredom, but not so much challenge as to overwhelm and paralyze activity or lessen resolve. The practicing artist must be perpetually challenged to build a new mountain to climb, and this autotelic (self-contained) activity protects the artist from a rut or from slowing down their own business. The autotelic activities by definition illustrate what is meaningful to the individual, and thus, who the artist is. She finds this continuous challenge by constantly discovering new questions to answer through the creation of art.
New Features!
Buy from my website using Paypal
Rent a print: http://www.TurningArt.com
Make curtains or wallpaper: http://www.orangepiel.com/go/index.cfm/profiles/rebeccameredith/
Make t-shirt or giclee print on canvas: http://www.society6.com/rebeccameredith
The problems analyzed by the artist are embodied in the art object. The process used to create the work can be arduous and slow or spontaneous and easy. The created form expresses the realization of an idea, rendered by a labor formulation and abstractive vision. Artistic techniques don't convey what is represented but rather the vitality and feeling that constitutes the import of the work. As art philosopher Susanne Langer writes, "the image presents something like the objectivity of a percept but still bears the stamp of the thing it really is - part of the cerebral process itself" (Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, 1982)
Technique does not a good artwork make, and should be learned like vocabulary of a new language is learned, as building blocks for expression. There is plenty of artwork in the galleries that pleases the eye, but like candy, it leaves the viewer malnourished. The student of art learns anatomy, color theory, lighting, materials and methods, development from a sketch to a finished piece. These tools help avoid potentially crippling frustration in the work process, but they don't substitute for the thought or expression necessary to the work of art. If technical expertise were all that was required, machines could do the trick, but that alone wont make an artwork speak. Intelligence in art is partly a sensitivity, expressed through an external, skillful medium. We can learn technique imitating previous masters; however, the original expression known as style, is learned from observing the world and discovering provocative, gripping, questions which the artist will seek to answer.
The artist in creating a work is solving a problem, realizing a conception. We go to art for new experiences and new challenges to our thinking. Art does more than corroborate our experiences, it expands and liberates us through new perspectives. Every artist chooses his own problems - they will stimulate the energy to sustain a necessary momentum for formulating an expressed solution. While inspiring subject matter for the artist is found in experiences that are by nature subjective, we draw from the world around us for inspiration, not from an island of a self-absorption. Self-expression isn't self-exposure, although the two are often confused. Our psyche is not isolated but connected to our environment, from which we seek a sense of completion.
People turn to artworks for the same experience of completion. There is a feeling of heightened sensibility in the artist during acts of insight and intuitive judgement, which the viewer experiences later through the physical artwork. The artist is left changed from making the piece; the viewer is also changed; today, when one sees cypress trees and stubble field, one thinks of Van Gogh. At the very least, on a superficial level, what feels right to a viewer is something aesthetically satisfying, but on a deeper level, a problem which has taken hold of the artist has been resolved through the artwork.
The esoteric idea of fine art allows art to be separated from regular life, and permits paradoxes in real life to be examined with both detachment and involvement. The remove from reality allows us to look at certain issues in art that we would have trouble thinking about with distance in life. As essayist Samuel Johnson put it: "The delight of tragedy proceeds from our consciousness of fiction; If we thought murders and treasons real they would please us no more." The creation of art requires both involvement and detachment, as involvement allows the experience of empathy with our fellow man while detachment allows us to open ourselves to the ideas in the art piece. Art uses the physical universe as ends with which to answer a given question.
Art is self referencing in the sense that there is a relationship of elements to the whole. The context of the artwork shifts with each introduction of a tension, gestalt, contrast, accent, or rhythm. Empty paper is transformed by graphic means to create these tensions: the introduction of a spot, or spots of color, or color as a plastic means of creating intervals. Representation orients as it references something we know, and unifies a piece as a means of isolating abstraction, or in the words of formalist Clive Bell, representation "abstracts by emphasis." Representation is a means to understanding the formal elements of art. The medium used to create can be pictures, buildings, pots or textiles - the paradox in art is that the art itself isn't meant for utility, but as an end in itself. The artist gives an original, expansive and universalizing perspective to the viewer of the piece.
Steen Eiler Rasmussen, professor of architecture, touches on the human relationships with material in her description of the infant, who touches, tastes, and handles objects (eventually growing into an adult who makes new tools and designs buildings). From these developmental experiences, we learn to "touch with our eyes" the texture of concrete, hammered steel, or finished rosewood. For a similar reason, the artist must learn his tools and test out different mediums, because the tool affects our expression. When using a pencil, we see lines; when holding a paintbrush, masses. Such formalism is helpful when teaching how to apply this perceptivity to beginning students in art. Using all five senses, students can ask of an artwork: what is the smell (example:spicy or creamy) and sound (example: quiet or loud), the touch (example: rough or smooth), the look (example: orderly or chaotic)? A work which may have been difficult to access and interpret begins to be expressed in words through the accessibility of sensory experience.
Czichsentmihaly's theory of "flow" describes the necessary circumstances to create the autotelic state of absorption in one's work. An achievable degree of challenge moves a person from the stasis inherent in boredom, but not so much challenge as to overwhelm and paralyze activity or lessen resolve. The practicing artist must be perpetually challenged to build a new mountain to climb, and this autotelic (self-contained) activity protects the artist from a rut or from slowing down their own business. The autotelic activities by definition illustrate what is meaningful to the individual, and thus, who the artist is. She finds this continuous challenge by constantly discovering new questions to answer through the creation of art.
