Originally posted on April, 26, 2007
In the old atelier systems years where spent simply learning technique: genius, the problem of becoming an artist, was not addressed. Conventional opinion was that art could not be taught. It wasn’t until very recent times that this began to change. Today, it is not really clear how to go about teaching art.
Originally posted on April, 17, 2007
Historically speaking, artists have not have a lot to say about their art. They have been more absorbed in the doing of it. Needless to say they gave a lot of thought to this doing. But for the most part they let the art speak for itself. After all, it is a visual language. Up to a certain point this worked out fine. However, when the impressionist came under attack by the “new generation” of the 1880’s things dramatically changed. The modern era required that everything be rationalized and justified. This became problematic for the artist. It is not as if he had nothing to do but to be concerned with what people where saying.
Originally posted on April, 10, 2007
I am of the opinion that we are not able to teach anyone art. But, having said that, we are not absolved from spending our life learning.
In my younger years I studied classical literature and philosophy. Then, for the last 30 years I’ve been obsessed with 19th century art and literature in my attempt to better understand how we got ourselves into this mess. Many years were spent in Portland, Oregon in the United States perusing Powell’s Book Store, one of the largest bookstores on the planet, as well as the Portland City Library. I lived between the two which were just 3 blocks
apart and was transporting piles of books back and forth to my apartment. Read the rest of "On life and art"