P A R T I C L E S
Particles is a set of short, particulate and generally unrelated observations, questions and proofs. If any set of thoughts coagulates, they will be extracted and given their own space for further analysis.
The T H R E E O R D E R S
[2016: 05: 22] There are three orders; they all do the same thing. And, I'm the angel God picked to decide which one will hold up the world.
Which do I choose?
P L U R A L I T Y and H O M O G E N E I T Y
Snow White And The Seven Dwarves Fourteen By
Fourteen Gallery Wrapped Canvas Eighty Nine Dollars
Probably painted during the Nineties
[2016: 05: 30] Here's seven sentences [1] on Thomas Kinkade:
(I) “He characterized himself as "Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light", a phrase he protected through trademark but one originally attributed to the British master ˙JMW˙ Turner (1775~1851).”
(II) “Kinkade's production method has been described as ‘a semi~industrial process in which low~level apprentices embellish a prefab base provided by Kinkade.’”
(III) “Kinkade's works are sold by mail order and in dedicated retail outlets." (IV) "Some of the prints also feature light effects that are painted onto the print surface by hand by ‘skilled craftsmen’, touches that add to the illusion of light and the resemblance to an original work of art, and which are then sold at higher prices.”
(V) "A self~described "devout Christian" (even giving all four of his children the middle name "Christian"), Kinkade believed he gained his inspiration from his religious beliefs and that his work was intended to contain a larger moral dimension."
(VI) “The Los Angeles Times reported that some of Kinkade's former colleagues, employees, and even collectors of his work said that he had a long history of cursing and heckling other artists and performers. "(VII) "The Times further reported that he openly fondled a woman's breasts at a South Bend, Indiana sales event, and mentioned his proclivity for ritual territory marking through urination, once relieving himself on a Winnie the Pooh figure at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim while saying, ‘This one's for you, Walt.’”
Portrait of Thomas Kinkade
Circa ˙2005˙
Tom’s alright.
What about his work is any less art than anyone else’s? Especially in relation to other works ~ the plurality of the Art World is only improved by the presence of a guy like Kinkade.
“But that assumes that plurality in the art world is a good thing. If we look back to the history of Modern art, we can see that modernists thought plurality was bad. Each ~ism was governed by a manifesto that intended to reveal what art is really for. Are you prepared to judge plurality superior to homogeneity?”
Maybe we should qualify the contraries first: if you think Kincade is bad ~ that his work should not be considered with other major figures of the time (for example Hirst, Peyton, Whiteread, etcetera), then you defend the limitation of plurality. On the other hand, if you think that Kinkade’s presence was good, even if his work was not your taste or does not survive the muster of critical objectivity, then you take a critical stance against homogeneity.
If I say Kinade's work is "good" because plurality is good, then any thing that enhances the diversity of the Art World must also be good. Is that the case [2]?
If I say that Kinkade's work is "bad" because it affects the homogeneity of our narrative of what art became, anything that diverges from that narrative is also bad. Still, most of us can think of artists that did diverge and are (we think), rightfully celebrated. While some of them remained beyond the pale, like Henry Darger, others who had once appeared beyond the pale ended up redirecting history, like Andy Warhol.
If I say Kinade's work is "good" because plurality is good, then any thing that enhances the diversity of the Art World must also be good. Is that the case [2]?
If I say that Kinkade's work is "bad" because it affects the homogeneity of our narrative of what art became, anything that diverges from that narrative is also bad. Still, most of us can think of artists that did diverge and are (we think), rightfully celebrated. While some of them remained beyond the pale, like Henry Darger, others who had once appeared beyond the pale ended up redirecting history, like Andy Warhol.
From In the Realms of the Unreal by Henry Darger
Early to Middle Twentieth Century
Eight Elvises
Andy Warhol ˙1963˙
Notes
[1] These sentences are directly quoted from Kinkade's Wikipedia entry.
[2] An individual example of a work that is bad because of it's enhancement of plurality escapes me, so I leave the question open. I guess that I imagine more of a trend, wherein some works are routinely validated for their difference, not their goodness.
* People have had deeply affecting experiences of Kinkade's work. With some finagling, we can prove this is a bad thing. But, my intuition tells me that some people are just never going to get it, and it is just as well that they find their peace and joy.
Personal testimony of Ron Dickman
On Kinkade's website 2015
A T T E N D A N C E
[2016: 05: 29] This picture reminds me of attendance. You know ~ how the teacher every morning would make sure that we got there alright. And she'd call are names and we'd raise our hands and say, "Here!"…
As old as forty thousand years
S A N D I E G O
[2016: 09: 18] I got to go to the San Diego Museum of Art this past Friday. A friend and professor from Chapman University (Rafael Luévano) took me.
The museum is a small but very nice, buried the city's Balboa Park. When I got back to Mexico, I told Kyle Rapps that I didn't see any "greatest hits", but many of the artists themselves were big time. "It sounds like a collection of ˙b˙sides for fans", he echoed back. So, I came across a number of works that I might have never had I not gone.
The ground floor had a variety of galleries, from eastern Asian and Twentieth century art. I saw a bunch of great things, but the most important had to be John McCracken's Saturn, because it reminded me to pick up a copy of ˙2001˙: a Space Odyssey before crossing the border. I didn't get a good picture of it, but McCracken's been making these slabs in diverse colors and materials for years. This is an example below:
Untitled ˙1967˙ John McCracken
The second floor seemed to be mostly European art; it was broken into three categories: portraiture, genre and devotional. In the far room of the devotional gallery, "tucked away in the corner", Rafael said, was "their most prized work": a statue of San Diego by Pedro de Mena.
Detail of San Diego of Alcalá's bright, soft~eyed face
˙1665˙ Pedro de Mena
The city and it's art museum are, after all, named after this saint. Although proud to have acquired the work, John Marciari, the curator of European art at the museum, described this fact as only a "secondary concern". His comment brings into contrast competing ideas of value: if a work were no good, it would be of little interest to anyone interested in it as art, but then again there would be no art if not for a person after which a work was dedicated. Maybe this case is not so much a difference between two schools of value theory, but between two branches of philosophy: namely, positive and normative. For example, I might not ought to kill an animal for food without such a necessity to do so, but I certainly would not ought to do anything without meeting my necessities, because I cannot do anything good without being alive. In a situation where I need to eat, physical and not moral law is determining factor in whether I kill the animal and eat it. In such a situation I have no real choice, because I will not be there to make the choice should I choose not to kill and eat the animal.
On the way out, one of at least two black paintings (the other being an El Greco) caught my eye; it was Agnus Dei by Francesco de Zurbarán.
Agnus Dei ˙1635~1645˙
Francesco de Zurbarán
He was an artist during the wars over religion in Baroque Europe, which began shortly after Luther's rebellion and continued until around Galileo's death. Art was, at the time, very frequently in service of one side or the other. Notice the halo floating over Christ's head ~ the dot in the center: it is as the sun in Galileo's heliocentric model.
At the time Galileo insisted on the reinterpretation of certain Biblical verses, Protestants were making similar demands. I guess Luther had some powerful ideas, but paintings like Agnus Dei inspire some wonder as to whether religion was the definitive end or even first cause of the Reformation.
T H R E E C R I T E R I A
[2018: 05: 28] {1} Some poems I read out loud because the sounds feel good to hear.
City of Arhirit
James Turrell, late Twentieth Century
{2} I like other poems because they tell true stories.
Two Models on Rocker and Stool
Philip Pearlstein, late Twentieth Century
{3} Others still are good because they have a message.
Katarina
Kieth Haring, late Twentieth Century
The best poems are sensuous {1}, speak of Reality, {2} and mean to communicate some moral {3}.
Katarina
Anselm Kiefer, late Twentieth Century
R E B I R T H and R E M I N D E R S
Italy and the North
[2016: 05: 22] Here's a picture from Italy:
The Birth of Venus
Botticelli ˙1485˙
Venus, the great object of the Ancient East and West is born from the sea foam, without acknowledgement of where that foam came from.
Now here's a picture from the Northern Renaissance:
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Durer ˙1498˙ish
Sinners are trampled under the hooves of Death Incarnate.
Again, a picture from the Italian Renaissance:
The Triumph of Galatea
Raphael ˙1514˙
Galatea wins.
Once more from the North:
Detail of Hell, from Paradise and Hell
Bosch ˙1510˙
Horned fish~monkeys with sharp objects torment the wicked.
The works above are insufficient in quantity and variety, so will yield no legitimate conclusion. But, so far as the above reveals, Italy and the North varied in some certain ways:
Female figures dominate the central mass of the Italian paintings;
The Italian paintings at best suggest violence, while the Northern paintings do not shy from violence's depiction;
The Italian paintings exalt the human form…
Three years after the youngest painting above (the Triumph of Galatea) on Halloween Day, Luther will nail ninety~five theses to the door of Wittenberg Castle's church.
Dissonance and Repetition
To the left is Alexander Antioch's Venus of Milo (˙BC200˙ Greece) and to the right, the Four Tetrarchs (˙AD300˙ish, Rome). Venus has mass ~ her shoulders offset her hips in contrapposto to reveal that she is in fact subject to gravity; her curves flow into soft reservoirs, where smooth lines can ball up momentarily and take a new course. She's lifelike down to her bellybutton, which came to me in my sleep one night. Despite hints of pectoral muscles below subtle collar bones (which in addition to a modern~looking boobjob suggest she may have been modelled after a man), she is a lifelike objectification of the ideal female form. The Tetrarchs are distinctly subhuman, though ~ their limbs and limbs' limbs are but cylinders ~ the signs of a body and not the appearance. Between each of the four faces, one cannot be told from the other. Although they lack heart and bodily sense, they're not without sinister intellect ~ conspiring postures and piercing gazes seem to say, "Yes, we're talking about you." Notice how they keep their comrades close, but put us at a distance with their cold glares and hands on the hilts of their swords.
If the relationship between the Renaissance paintings and the classical monuments is not yet to the reader obvious, here's a more explicit comparison:
There were stylistic differences between the Northern and Italian Renaissances, although the Rafael and the Bosch were painted within four years of each other. The differences are so great that Rafael's treatment of the body more closely resembles Venus from sixteen hundred years prior than it does Bosch, as the Bosch resembles more closely the Tetrarchs than it does Rafael. Although Greece and Rome are far apart, I think that time and not spacial proximity is the key factor that differentiates the treatment of bodies between Classical Greece and Rome (in another particle, I will venture to demonstrate this claim). Maybe Rafael was looking at sculptures from Classical Greece, while Bosch at those of Rome, but that can't be all.
A highly reliable source claims a key feature of Greek art to be "idealism", while Roman art is accurately characterized by "realism"…
If the relationship between the Renaissance paintings and the classical monuments is not yet to the reader obvious, here's a more explicit comparison:
There were stylistic differences between the Northern and Italian Renaissances, although the Rafael and the Bosch were painted within four years of each other. The differences are so great that Rafael's treatment of the body more closely resembles Venus from sixteen hundred years prior than it does Bosch, as the Bosch resembles more closely the Tetrarchs than it does Rafael. Although Greece and Rome are far apart, I think that time and not spacial proximity is the key factor that differentiates the treatment of bodies between Classical Greece and Rome (in another particle, I will venture to demonstrate this claim). Maybe Rafael was looking at sculptures from Classical Greece, while Bosch at those of Rome, but that can't be all.
A highly reliable source claims a key feature of Greek art to be "idealism", while Roman art is accurately characterized by "realism"…
The F A L L
[2016: 04: 10] I had only really begun to think about Ryan McGinley’s work when one of his people enlisted me to model for him a few years back (2013?). Standing naked in his studio a few weeks later, I asked him, had his work anything to do with the memory of Eden before the Fall? Although he told me “No”, something about the pictures still seemed to reach out to the idea that somewhere, if even in only a once~upon~a~time way, people exist unrestricted of the inherent narcissism that the Fall implies.
Fall ˙2015˙ Ryan McGinley