30/Jun/2004 06:34
I picked the term 'Modern American Realist' out of the air. Back in March 2000, when I was finished setting up my website for the first time, and was registering it with the search engines, they all had a space that needed filling in on the submission form, for a brief description of the website's contents. The phrase 'Modern American Realist' popped into my head, so I typed it in. Sometimes I hit closest to the truth, when I answer without thinking.
A couple years later, when someone finally got around to challenging me to explain the term, I cobbled together what I thought was a reasonable answer (yeah... I just make answers to questions up as needed). I explained that my work contained elements of traditional Realism, but it also contained elements of Modernism, and I was seeing the world from an American perspective... hence 'Modern American Realism'. This seemed a pretty good 'five minute answer', so I have been using it ever since.
Now, though, I am sitting down and cobbling together an 'eight hour answer'. Whether it is any better, or more accurate, is yet to be seen.
Three words... 'Modern', 'American', and 'Realist'. 'Modern' and 'American' are modifiers, so I will start with 'Realist'.
'Realist' isn't about how I paint pictures.
When I first started painting, it was a goal of mine to paint realistically. After a few years painting, I was turning out some very respectably realistic stuff. Gradually, I began to loosen up, and paint what I felt. The internal pressure to 'prove myself competent' was less... I could concentrate on the composition, instead of fretting the details.
For me, 'Realist' isn't entirely about painting... it is also about who I bring to the easel... making sure that the painter is in possession of a respectable degree of personal honesty. Not truth... honesty... big difference. I don't know what 'the truth' is most of the time. If you ask a group of people what is true about almost anything, you will get more answers than you have people, and some of those answers will be delivered in terms that betray absolute certainty on the part of the person doing the delivering.
'Absolute Certainty'... isn't Realism.
I don't know how it works for the rest of humanity, but for me, the more rigidly certain I am about something, the more full of bullshit I am. I start having to 'defend my position', and defending my position has nothing to do with 'looking for truth', or 'maintaining a high degree of personal honesty'... it has more to do with 'winning', and 'being right'... in the sense that the other fellow is 'wrong'.
If I want to actually 'see' the world I am painting... and 'seeing' is a more important part of painting, than actually putting the colours down on paper or canvas... then I have to keep as open a mind as possible about what I am seeing, or I am just painting a 'right' image of the world, that I already have stored in my head, and that is no longer subject to change... a rather inflexible approach, to both painting and living.
So, by calling myself a 'Realist', I am describing my approach to 'seeing', more than I am defining my approach to putting colours down on a substrate, and I am also more generally describing my approach to life... an approach in which liberal use of the phrase 'I don't know', where appropriate... is more valuable than being 'right'.
Sure, I know... 'Realism' already has an accepted definition in the fine arts, and my definition has nothing to do with the accepted definition, and might wind up causing confusion. This doesn't bother me too much. People are screwing with the definitions of words all the time, and quite often, with motives far more sinister than mine.
Go complain to the advertising people, about how they use words like 'new', 'improved', and 'better', and phrases like 'best movie of the year'. If they change... so might I.
Now, to deal with the modifiers 'Modern' and 'American', and see what they do to 'Realism'.
I'm an American (using the term carelessly, to mean I am a United States citizen). I was born here, I've resided in the country for 54 of my 55 years, and I've never been a citizen anywhere else. My perspective of the world is one formed living in America, whether I always like it, or not. The only culture I have ever really known is the culture of America... even to the extent of arrogantly calling myself an 'American', even though there are a lot of other countries on the American continents, and that most of the people residing on both continents are not indigenous natives... but came here from somewhere else. So, whether I like it or not, and whether it is a good thing or not... I'm an American.
With 'Modern', I'm pretty much in the same boat...stuck there whether I like it or not. I don't live in the past, and couldn't even if I wanted to. In everyday life in the U.S.A., there is little to no chance of completely escaping modern times, and where painting is concerned, Modernism happened, and I saw it, and I can't go back and 'unsee' it. I don't want to, but even if I did want to, I couldn't. In that sense, 'Modernism' is sort of like getting laid... once you've seen it, you can't go back to being a virgin.
So much for the semantics of the phrase...
I look around me, and I see America, and a lot of what I see, doesn't thrill me to death, but also, there is some stuff about America that is extremely worthwhile... no matter what 'World Opinion' might be. The folks who write 'World Opinion' might not be too pleased to know what I think of them, either... but I am not talking about them right now, and besides... I know how it feels to see America getting ripped in the news every day, by most of the world, so I'm not going to bother dishing up a heaping helping of the same flavour crap that I don't like the taste of, myself. Being a Realist... I know that I am probably not 'right' any more than anyone else is. .. or as 'wrong' as anyone else might claim I am, simply by virtue of my being an American. Better to resist the temptation of self-righteousness, than to step in the same pile of doo-doo I have seen others step into, criticising America.
The United States... 'America'...isn't a 'country', in the sense that most other countries are. Our national identity is, that mostly... we are refugees (or the sons, daughters and grandchildren of refugees) from someplace else. The entire world population is represented in the American population. Our architecture, art, dress, music, food,... anything you can name... reflect this diversity. Just guessing here, but I think the U.S.A. has the most diverse population, and the most diverse conglomeration of cultures, of any nation on the face of the planet. Being an 'American'... whatever it might mean... cannot have the same kind of meaning that 'being German', or being Iraqi' or 'being Chinese' does.
'Being Modern' is almost built into the concept of 'being American'. Even the most backwater place in the U.S.A. is modern... with and without a capital 'M'. I could leave the 'Modern' off, and just say 'American Realist' (I do this a lot on eBay, when I run out of space in my auction headers), and the meaning wouldn't be appreciably changed. For better or worse, whether anybody likes it or not, America is a thoroughly modern society. Too modern, perhaps... or maybe, just maybe, at the edge of becoming 'modern' in a new, 21st century way... if Americans have the guts for it.
America... just over 200 years of age... is reaching the place where it will either stagnate... like other countries have done in the past... and succumb to its own corruption... or it will cast off its corruption, and remake itself again, in response to the demands of the new Millennium.
A lot of people who don't know what 'America' is, very well (including a lot of Americans themselves) are fond of believing that America is a 'top down' deal, and that as go the leaders, and the pundits, and the media, and those at the 'top'... so will go the rest of the country. I don't believe this, any more than I believe the ads I see on TV, or the promises that politicians make. I think it's the 'bums at the bottom'... like me... who wind up actually deciding which way the country and culture will go... simply by virtue of sheer numbers, and the incredible ability of the human psyche, to eventually figure out who is lying, and who is not.
So the question I now have to answer for myself, is... what can I do about myself, personally, in response to the demands of the new Millennium, in order that I, 'wittig the painter', will not stagnate in my own, personal corruption? Heh! Once I have even a decent partial answer to such a question, I had better act fast... before enthusiasm has a chance to wane.
For today, I found approaching this question easier, by answering it in the negative... what kind of 21st Century American Realist I *don't* wan't to be... by identifying my most obvious points of corruption.
As with all of my articles, perhaps this one is 95% useless... so just grab anything you can use, and toss the rest.
I think that lying was hard-wired into the species, before it was even what we now consider Homo Sapiens. Being able to deceive one's opponent in the struggle to eat, as opposed to becoming someone else's supper, had a definite short term advantage, and since human beings were not in a position to destroy the planet... no matter what they did... 'short term' was Ok. These are Modern times, though, and humanity definitely has the capacity to destroy the planet, in thousands of ways. The short term gain... one monkey over another, or one small gang of monkeys over another gang of monkeys... or over a saber-tooth tiger... just isn't good enough anymore. In the new Millennium, 'short term' is going to have to mean looking about 500 years out, not five minutes, or five years. Lying just doesn't work all that well, when the monkeys have nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons to play with.
I had to look 'resent' up in the dictionary. It means: Feel bitter or indignant about. Then I turned on the news, and observed the results of ongoing resentments... some centuries older than America... now better called blood feuds, or race and religious hatreds. When I'm feeling bitter and indignant about someone, it messes with my ability to paint, or do much of anything constructive. This is something that I want to avoid wasting time and energy on.
Drugs, alcohol, tobacco, all that shit... I don't want to mess with it. The (heh) war on drugs isn't going to be won by the DEA, or the cops. The only way that little war can ever be won, is when people stop using the shit, and stop buying it. Petroleum, while not an actual drug, when used to excess, can create unhealthy dependencies that are similar to those created by drugs. I wonder what would happen to the 'War on Terror' if some smartassed Yankee scientist actually succeeded in figuring out cold fusion, or another extremely cheap, non-polluting energy source, and published it on the Web, for all the world to see. Between petrodollars, and drug money, America is funding its own demise... or not. The choice is almost entirely ours.
I like waking up at 5:00 AM, seven days a week, and most of the time... working. I like working hard at what I do, and keeping busy most of the time, earning a living. Introspection is a good thing too, in its allotted time, but idleness sucks. I don't think I will ever have to worry about this one... I was just wired to stay gainfully busy... something I inherited.
I used the word 'stupid' for its shock effect. What I'm referring to, though, is the deliberate stupidity, that people cultivate, in spite of their having perfectly good brains to begin with. I don't know whether to laugh or cry, thinking about the 'educational crisis' in the U.S.A. I don't think that the crisis is the sole responsibility of the administrators and teachers, and I really don't think that it is a problem that can be fixed by throwing more money at it. Past about the fifth grade, people of average intelligence, who want to learn, do ...whether anyone takes the time to teach them, or not. If a person actively pursues stupidity and ignorance, as a career choice... so it shall be.
I'm not very attached to 'stuff for stuff's sake'. Neither do excessive amounts of money hold any great attraction for me. Knowledge, free-agency, and intellectual / emotional autonomy are the coins of my personal realm. 'Stuff' is Ok, insofar as it serves a useful purpose. Beyond that, I do not want to be a caretaker and custodian of my 'stuff'. Stuff requires dusting. Money is pretty much the same. In excessive amounts, it attracts sharks that must then be defended against. A good sized shark... like the I.R.S... is above all law except the gun, and will take what it wants, when it wants, where money is concerned. I'm getting rid of what remains of my 'stuff' a little at a time. I plan on traveling as light as possible, when the time for traveling comes.
Yeah... I used Nazi for its shock effect, too. I don't want to be 'right'... and the other guys 'wrong', and get that 'black and white' mentality, where me and my pals are the good guys, and them and their pals are the bad guys, and since they're 'bad guys'... anything we do to them is Ok. I just don't want to go that way, because it looks and smells like a cultural dead-end to me. Sometimes living in a highly multi-cultural society like America can be painful, as in 'culture shock', but it breeds a robust and flexible society, in which there is going to forever be plenty of argument and discussion, about which ways are the best way for the society-at-large to go. America will never be able to travel too far, down the wrong path, because America will never be able to agree, on which path is the 'right' one, to such an extent that everyone is heading in the same direction at once.
By now, you are probably wondering what this all has to do with painting.
So am I.
Maybe it doesn't have as much to do with putting paint of a surface, as it has to do with what kind of attitude the painter brings to the easel... and from there, what kind of paintings wind up being delivered into the public record of 21st century American culture.
In the end... and apparently contrary to a lot of current belief, the world round... cultures rise and flourish contingent on what they build, that is of lasting value... not on how many members of competing cultures they can kill.