What to say? First and foremost, my heart goes out to the Japanese people. Words in this regard are totally inadequate. I’ve experienced some deeply moving moments in reflection. The following touches some of the highlights. Bear in mind these are verbal thoughts which miss the essence of the experience. They are, however, perhaps valuable on their own merit.

Everything to follow is based on a biased view towards human life quite outside the norm. Having said that, I need add that at my age I no longer feel any sense of judgment towards the society in which I live. Quite the contrary. I’ve written elsewhere about my opinion that our evolution is not done in a progressive linear manner. This has been well documented in the case of prehistoric cave paintings. But we do progress. It may be that over a given 100 year period we progress in humanistic manner 100 steps. Perhaps in the next few year we digress 99 steps. Well, that is still a net advance of 1 step. Has not our value of the human life progressed in this manner? Ever so slowly has the dignity and quality of the individual human life improved.

This model held true until the last 150 years. The photographic image has both directly and indirectly transformed our artistic/esthetic sensibilities. We have yet to begin understanding its significance. A, short, few decades later industrialization was in full swing. And given the choice between a horseless carriage and its alternative we started down the slippery road of mass consumption.

This abbreviated digression was necessary to preface what I wanted to say about my special experience. I felt a deep sense of identity with the Japanese people. This could not have been possible the day before yesterday. Many; if not most of us now can have the feeling of being in the same boat together.

My hope is that this catastrophic event may trigger steps in a different direction. Perhaps an understanding that a world devoid of artistic and esthetic sensibilities is a world that stepped into a deep precipice. If we do not come to our senses someday we will believe when looking back at the fruit of Western Civilization … “well, you can’t get back there from here.” Humanity will have become blind to the importance artistic sensibilities hold for society at large.

Here it is in a nutshell; If the big questions become muted, then the important question of, “how man should live”, becomes as important or unimportant as how ants should live.

Published in french as La mécanisation de l’homme et de l’art

Published in french as Plus sur l’enseignement de l’Art

Okay, I begin to rant. I know that things in general are much as they have always been. Since Plato the artist/painter has played a marginal role. But, at least he had a role of sorts. Even as a worker he had a role of sorts, may be in many respects a healthier one.

A few days ago I found an English translation of the important speech of Aude de Kerros, pronounced (march 09) at the French “Académie des Beaux-Arts”. It looks at word games played with Art since the Second World War. I highly recommend that you read this. Then I would hope that you can understand that this sort of chicanery has been going on at least since the time of Plato. Recently, Courbet was imprisoned and then run out of France. Cezanne was stoned by village children and so on. Not to speak of unknown artists who starved to death in their garrets.

The thing interesting about this article is the suggestion that a big change in the business of art is taking place. It seems that the financial bubble burst has disturbed the connections between the good old boys who manipulated artistic matters on a global scale. There is the suggestion that art and the world of art is about to become more democratic. Imagine, then if you are an artist you will no longer be a degenerate outcast.

Published in french as L’artiste est un exclu

The slave to beauty artistic attitude developed in the void of this rather sterile social/political situation. Oops, I wrote a rather judgmental word here. My wish is to write clearly without any reactionary digressions. When we begin looking at stuff like this clarity must be maintained. Understanding can only come when we suspend judgements and wipe the words from our eyes so to speak. That said, we have to ask why it is that mankind has found it so difficult to peacefully co-exist with each other. Social history in this area is not a pretty picture.

The relationships we can observe in recorded history between ideologies, social groups, religions, prominent philosophical thought, and the creative individual becomes pertinent when clearly considered. In saying “creative individual”, let us remember that we did not have anything approaching what we know to day as art until a mere couple of hundred years ago. We need some understanding of what we have on record (the text) and what had preceded it (social history, i.e., the context) which will be pursued in subsequent articles. Hopefully this can be done in a straightforward fashion. Simple but not easy!

Published in french as Rapport entre le social et la peinture à l’huile

I believe that our creative and intellectual efforts have today reached a similar crossroad. Collectively, humanity has a choice to make. It is quite similar to conditions in Europe 400 years ago but in a very subtle way. Once again it is a question of elegance of thought.

A man before Galileo, William of Occam, succinctly put it this way: “The best model is the simplest one – the one requiring the fewest assumptions and modifications in order to fit the observations”. Do we still need today pundits who write and argue convoluted ideas about art and science? Why is it that so many of us are unable to tell the difference between a common criminal and a potential Nobel prize winner? Such questions beg for answers.

Published in french as Èveil artistique

It is necessary to first read or reread my previous article "The Painter’s Desire". What follows is the result of some reflective thought following this article.

As a young man I found motocycles and airplanes to be on a higher order in terms of function and aesthetics. In both cases their highly refined function results in designs highly pleasing to our senses. When young I begin riding a motocycle and continue to this day. Why would a person devoted to an artistic path do such a thing? I should add that the motocycles that I ride are very fast motocycles. To me they do not make sense otherwise. For a couple of years, early on, I raced them. I quickly determined that this was a bit too dangerous for my taste.

Before my racing days, a friend had dubbed me the wild one-half. This was not long after Marlon Brando”s movie, "the Wild One". In order to be the wild one, first of all, a man must be a joiner. This I was not. I was not out to make a social statement, nor be part of a group large or small.

To maintain integrity as an artist or as a person is not an easy thing. If we react we lose our integrity. Likewise in going along with the croud. Simplicity and order is the pathway we follow to find a place where we can be of one piece. In this way we begin to hear that small fragil voice within that gives us direction in life as well as in art. Otherwise we are like the stupid fish asked to describe water.

Published in french as Ordre et Simplicité

What are the effects of the painter’s desires? What about the motivations leading to the perceptions and execution of a particular work. At what point do conviction and a sense of purpose come into play?

In asking these sorts of questions we come to realize that we cannot separate the painter from life. The life of the painters, their thinking and ideas, what they eat for breakfast and so on come first. Technique and style we find to be of only secondary concern.

A painter arrives at the moment of making a brushstroke as a consequence of living. The past that constitutes that life invokes itself in the stroke. If the painter is of one piece each of these brushstrokes contribute to a painting that speaks to us as a complete statement. That is to say we have then something felt and seen as a unified whole.

It feels strange to write these words. Is it not self-evident, these things? Well, no. They are routinely overlooked and misunderstood even as they appear to have been questioned in depth.

The obvious is not understood simply as the context for a relationship with our lives. To the question: Why question life? Ray Bradbury in the “Martian Chronicles” writes “Life is its own answer.”. In other words I am suggesting that we habitually confuse the content with the container. When it comes to creativity this seemingly subtle distinction is profoundly important.

How the idea arrives in the mind of the painter is complex. That the idea is prior to technique should, however, be to the sensitive observer evident. In contemporary work hanging on museum walls we can see an obsessive concern with technique, materials and style.

The painter concerned with digging below the surface of things suggests dimensions beyond the mundane three. This, I am strongly suggesting, is the path to deeper meaning. The painter invents the necessary techniques as needed in this pursuit. This involves decisions made instantaneously during fleeting moments. This is neither a technique of working nor an acquired style. It is nothing less than the creation of technique at the instant it is needed.

Now this is not a haphazard thing easily contrived. This creation of technique is the result of a person deeply involved in the process and the organic order involved. When we get right down to the nitty-gritty of what art is we find it to be an unwavering devotion to the understanding of this order. By studying the relationships, relative values and fundamental order in the world around us we get in step with organic law. However difficult this is, it is the only path by which one arrives to a refined level of taste and judgement. Engaging the process for the sake of doing things well is a price we enjoy paying. The reward is a deep appreciation for simplicity and order as well as good health. Many painters have lived a long and fruitful life in the pursuit of art. Much of their best work was done late in life. Life and art ARE intimately connected when we deeply desire one we end up getting both. Kind of funny how simple this is; Simple, but not easy!

I am not sure when I first read Robert Henri’s “The Art Spirit”: it must be something like 40 years ago. This extraordinary human being and artist moved back and forth several times between Paris and New York at the end of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th centuries. The book is a compilation of notes and letters to his art classes at the Art Students League. He was a remarkable teacher and this is truly a remarkable book. Highly recommended! I am indebted to this apostle of Art for my direction in life and many of the ideas expressed here.

Published in french as Désir du peintre

What does this have to do with art and painting? To adequately address this question would require a much longer article than I have the time to write. Nonetheless, I will continue.

The gifted individual discovers at a young age that most of his peers are not up to speed. The really intelligent amongst us guard against this knowledge. As Herman Hesse said, it leads to a lovelessness. Many of us endeavour to understand how it has come to pass that so many of us came to be so stupid.

If, by some twist of chance, one of us has the good fortune to be intellectually well equipped, have plenty of time, live a long life, etc., at long last he may acquire some deeper insights into the complex riddle of man’s ascent. So, at long last he or she has some insight. What is the person to do with it? If the person is by chance a writer then another question follows: is it possible to convey these insights through the written word? The conventional wisdom of today would say yes. Some of the painters and intellectuals of the 19^th Century would have strongly questioned this assertion.

I, as an artist painter, am at a strong disadvantage when it comes to discourse with the pundits. Some of our concerns may be similar but they quickly diverge. Our largest difference is, however, the vast gulf between the abilities to convince. We are not even in the same league.

First of all, if, as noted above many of us become curious about the evolution of thought and man. Many are quite preoccupied with these concerns. Not to say that the writer does not have interests in these areas. But his orientation is obviously quite different. He does not have the intimate concern with questions of the eye: the questions about vision and the gaze. (See Jacques Lacan, “The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis?).

Please accept my apologies for not spelling this line of thought out more clearly. I will, in subsequent articles expand on it and hopefully find more clarity. This is an understanding I am just in the process of realizing so I will feel my way into it so to speak. It appears that the real argument is between two different ways of seeing. Or, it could also be said, the argument is between two different ways of being in the world. This sounds awfully dualistic, and of course it is in large part the structure of linguistic thought that produces this dualism. Be that as it may, it is here that we arrive at the crux of the matter. This was, in fact, the impetus for modernism and post modern thought and writing is not addressing it. Contemporary writing assumes that the problem is between vision and the word. And they are doing a good job of presenting this as gospel. Whether they realize it or not these writers and pundits are scared. They are frantically looking for a way out of the box they have created for themselves. You see, impressionism was just the day before yesterday. A different way of seeing the world could yet rule the day.

Published in french as L’impressionnisme, c’était avant-hier

A much used method of explaining modern culture is to class people into two groups: the literary/artist type and the scientific type. Then you oppose art and science and explain art on scientific terms. All that has been written based on this reasoning is nonsense. Point. Okay, I understand those who live in a glass house should not throw stones. But this is too important. I have read tons of art criticism. Most of it, particularly from the 20^th century, is nonsense. Literary people are no longer seeing the forest for the trees. It must be the fault of our education system. Verbal expression is by its very nature dualistic. Visual imagery in the form of paintings or photographs is two dimensional. We can allude to the non-dualistic or to the third dimension but we cannot change the nature of the medium. When we try to do so, for me, it simply becomes nonsense.

Art is not technology. Art is measured in terms of EVERYTHING. Art is directly related to the world (all there is). A work of Art contains NO content. Confusion continues on this point because the literati continue as though it is possible to separate form and content. THERE IS NO CONTENT. Nothing is hidden. Art’s function is to nourish us; to expand our sensibilities and our consciousness. There are not any formulas to follow. None the less this is the big answer to the question of Art. What our modern and somewhat deprived world needs is a new and more open way of looking at the world. Hopefully, we will reaffirm our connection to the sensible.

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.” Oscar Wilde, in a letter.

Published in french as Grandes réponses

The words we use are important even though, at the same time, they erect barriers and limitations to the clarity of our thought. The word culture did not even appear until the year 1510. This was the early beginning of the modern attempt to separate content from form. Most people today are concerned with art only in terms of its content. They put works of art in the box and label it accordingly to it supposed purpose. Where did the magic go ? Mankind’s earlier experiences of art most certainly where magical.

Now, today, it has become quite problematical to speak or write on these matters. We can today only question our way of justifying art. Beyond that it has become like a never-never do-do land.

One more thing before I stop ranting. Art critics have now found a clever way to circumvent the entire problem. They do not talk about art at all. They simply psychoanalyse the artist. What better way to make art opaque and manageable ? Is this the intellect triumphant or a clear avoidance of deeper thinking?

It is not easy to “overcome” our race mind thinking. To approach what we call the artistic and creative side of life demands much effort. The concepts we use in this effort are crutches. Just crutches.

Denis

Published in french as Clarification