August 2001
The Wittig Report - on the interface between Life and Art
Welcome to the Wittig Report. On the one hand
there is ‘Art,’ and on the other hand, there is ‘Life,’ and somewhere in the
middle, they meet.
It’s hard to have anything brilliant to say
about the past month, except it was HOT! Some day I will hopefully be able to
write this newsletter from the air-conditioned comfort of a nice clean (heh)
office, instead of my purgatory of a basement. Actually, the heat is good, in
some strange way, for oil painting. That archaic form of communication seems to
prefer that the practitioner be in direct contact with environment Not so, my
computer, which gives me reason to fear electrocution, should I sweat too
profusely into the keyboard.
If you hear a voice within
you saying, "You are not a
painter,"
then by all means paint... and that voice will be silenced...
Vincent Van Gogh
Inferno - an inner-city hellscape: http://www.robertwittig.com/full210.html
Corner Window - an
interior hellscape: http://www.robertwittig.com/full211.html
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The Joking
of American Medicine - Is Anyone Laughing?
“The slice of the financial pie that 'The Medical
Establishment' has been taking, has been on the rise for all of the years of my
adult life, at least. Regardless of the root causes, or rationalizations for
the situation, medical practitioners have had their income increase at a rate
faster than most of their patients. People see this financial disparity, and
resent it. Once they have been touched by it personally, and have had to pay
'out of pocket', amounts of money that significantly diminish their quality of
life, the resentment often curdles into something akin to 'class hatred'... “
To read the article, click here: http://www.robertwittig.com/paper31.html
“Just within the past few months, I have begun exploring the world of digital imaging more thoroughly, through programs like Microsoft Paint, Paintshop Pro, and GIMP, a full-featured graphics program for Unix and Linux. I noticed a considerable and immediate difference in how I react to the two approaches; working on the one hand with wet paints or dry media at an easel, and on the other hand working with pixels and bits, using a keyboard, mouse and monitor…”
To read the article, click here: http://www.robertwittig.com/paper30.html
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Featured Website: Emily S. Townsend
Emily is a fellow subscriber to the newsletter, whose
website came to my attention due to her sharing her opinion with me, on some of
the recent articles and features in the newsletter (her reply is included, just
below the link to her website, don’t miss reading it)
In Emily’s own words:
“I have a professional degree in Architecture, and have studied painting at the University of Maryland, the Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Aix-en-Provence, France, and with Walt Bartman at the Yellow Barn Gallery in Bethesda, Maryland.
I was director of the Barrie School Summer Arts Practicum, taught art at Pyle Middle School , Brookmont Church Center Bethesda, Maryland, the Munce Art Center in Zionsville and volunteer taught at Union Elementary School in Zionsville, Indiana, as well as directing the Brookmont Arts Alliance - a link between the community and the arts”
To visit Emily Townsend’s Website, click here: http://www.etstudio.cjb.net/
--------------------------Open Letter – Emily Townsend---------------------------
I read your "choice of subject" essay with interest, especially because I think I was the one "dissident comment, taking issue with the artist's choice of models."
Look at a Rubens lately? Not all Western art has had the same ideal model of beauty as the painter in question. Seen that little carved Minoan Goddess figure which is one of the starting points of Western art? Talk about fleshy figures!
Also - go to any swimming pool locker room, , , , on the other hand, don't go, but imagine it - you'll find that most young slender women do NOT look like the figures Eric Braks painted. I understand wanting to paint the ideal figure, just as I understand painting the ideal flower arrangement and the ideal fruit bowl - but the point I want to make very loud and clear is that the ideal version of beauty, be it a human figure or a flower arrangement or a landscape (a la Thomas Kincade's "Paintings of Light") are neither interesting or stimulating. They can be very boring.
In reference to the "Painter of Light", nothing is more maudlin, more sappy, more ridiculous than his paintings and his claim that they are God's message of peace and love. Seen one? Little girls marching up manicured paths in florally gardens toward rays of radiant light.
He is the landscape painter equivalent of much of the figurative work to which I'm referring, and I'm afraid you are defending.
But let's pose this as a more serious and worthy question - does art need to be beautiful? Is beautiful art more simplistic, less expressionist, less intellectual, less meaningful, more decorative, and more shallow because it is beautiful?
Can ugly art be good art? Is it better art because it is ugly? Probably not - but it might be more interesting art.
and I must add that these questions are being posed by a painter who was told by a professor in art school "You are unable to make an ugly painting," and it was meant as an insult.
SO - the big question is not so much about the sexist notion of painting an ideal woman - an "Ideal" male figure study raises the same issues. It is more the issue of "beautiful" art vs. "meaningful" art. There is certainly room for beauty in art, but "ugly" or non-traditional subject matter can make MORE beautiful art than the expected, the stereotypical, the 'slim, beautiful model of female beauty' that has been predominant in Western art as far back as the depictions we call Western.
Van Gogh's portraits get to the inner soul of the person; Renoir's certainly do not.
And I do challenge the notion that typical portrayal of the female figure is the slim, beautiful, voluptuous young woman. Paintings of the Virgin Mary, the one female figure which DID dominate Western art for a millennium, looked the idealized way they did due to religious reasons. There are ways to paint a body type that is young, slender and beautiful which are not overtly sexual. Ask the Pope!
-Emily Townsend
Questions, comments,
submissions
I’d be glad to hear from you. If you have any
questions, comments, rebuttals, ideas for future articles, or submissions of
your own, contact me at wittig@robertwittig.com and I will reply
promptly, and include your response in an upcoming issue, where appropriate.
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simply click the ‘Home’ link at the bottom of any article you have accessed. thanks,
-wittig