Quiet Moments in Art

This morning I was listening to NPR Saturday Edition when Scott Simon interviewed New Republic film critic, David Thomson, about his new book, Moments that made the Movies.  During the conversation,  Thomson talked about the power of quiet moments, or looks or lines, in films that are remembered long afterwards - think Casablanca, for instance. Thomson went on to say that during those quieter moments, we are more able to think ourselves into the scene as viewers, shaping our perception of the film, and thus, later, remembering those moments more vividly than more action-packed scenes.

The conversation made me reflect that in essence, the same reaction often occurs in the visual art world, as each of us walks through a gallery or a museum, looking at art work.  For me personally, many of the works that remain with me, long afterwards, are not the paintings of "sturm und drang", the high voltage works that leap off the walls.  Instead, indeed, the quieter works have more resonance, more power to stay with me and come floating back into my mind's eye to delight again. Obviously, each of us has a different character, different tastes and a different life experience which we bring to the viewing of the art.  Nonetheless, when the art is elegantly quiet, simple and impactful, it often lends itself to being "expanded" by each viewer and allows an "ownership" that then becomes part and parcel of the viewer's experience.

One of the most fascinating examples of a quiet work that I have met is a minute drawing that I have only ever seen in reproduction,  Measuring a little over 4 x 3 inches, it is a silverpoint drawing, Horse and Rider, done by Leonardo da Vinci in 1481 as part of a preparative study for his commission of an altarpiece,  the Adoration of the Magi, in the Church of San Donato a Scopeto, outside Florence. 

Horse and Rider,Leonardo da Vinci, silverpoint, 1481

This tiny drawing, which was consigned for sale in 2001 at Christie's by the late J. Carter Brown, once Director of the National Gallery in Washington, was so esteemed that it fetched the astonishing price of £8,143,750 ($11,474,544) before transaction costs. Clearly, this is a piece of art that haunts people.  Its immediacy, the skill in depicting the foreshortened horse and its motion, its utter simplicity all make it an astonishing piece of art.  I know that it is the first piece of art to comes back to me when I begin to think of art that I have long remembered.

Usually, the works of art that have the most impact on me as I go around a museum are ones that I can guarantee will not be readily obtainable as reproductions in postcards, books, etc.  I seem to have a gift for liking things that are not the popular ones by museum standards - I don't know what that says about my tastes!  However, one remembers, as much as possible, and the magic floats back into my mind at times from those quiet beauties.

Other works that have retained their influence over me range from Alfred Sisley to Chardin, Fatin-Latour to Rothko and beyond - a totally eclectic mix, I acknowledge.

Carafe of Water, Silver Goblet, Peeled Lemon, Apple and Pears, 1728, (Image courtesy of the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe)

White Lilies, Henri Fatin-Latour, c. 1883, (Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum)

Purple and Blue, Mark Rothko

Each of us has a different collection of remembered quiet moments when art has resonated and stayed with us.  Its diversity and power to uplift, move and inspire come with moments of contemplation and emotion. Those encounters are what  make art so extraordinary and so necessary.

When is a Work of Art "Finished"?

Listening to an interview with author Khaled Hosseini the other day on NPR about his new novel,And the Mountains Echoed, I was interested in a remark he made about his books.  Talking about this book and his two previous best-selling books on Afghanistan, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns,  he said, in essence, that he would like to be able to go back and alter things, rewrite things and generally revisit the books.  In other words, in his view, his work is not really ever finished, despite being hugely successful in the market place.

I think that most creative people must feel this about their work. I know that personally, when I have tried to finish a painting or drawing to the best of my ability, I am sure that I will later look at it again and see things that need to be changed, if possible.  With silverpoint drawings, however, that is often a difficult proposition, and even with watercolours, changes are often complicated to make.

There is also another dimension to this question of when a work is "finished".  Mark Rothko, for instance, was very conscious of the fact that he needed to achieve a communion with his public in each painting, to reach out to the viewer and establish a bond.  Without that dialogue, the work would never be completed.  Rothko himself might have applied the last brush strokes, but that was merely the beginning, not the end of the creative act, for him.  The viewer had to play his or her part in the creative act, becoming an active partner in the painting.

Responding to Rothko at the Tate Modern

Responding to Rothko

Responding to Rothko

Responding to Rothko

Hardly surprising that amid the many reproductions on the Web of wonderful glowing Rothko paintings from the late 1940s onwards, there are many images of people communing with his works in the museum galleries.  Rothko himself said,  "Silence is so accurate".  This open-endedness about defining his work and its stage of completion allowed each viewer to expand and clarify the painting.

Every artist, writer, musician or creator becomes aware that while a work may seemingly be "finished", it seldom is. But there comes a point when the work has to be cast off into the world to stand on its own feet, at least for a while.

Creating Something from Nothing

Listening to NPR, this morning, Rachel Martin interviewed the English songwriter-singer, Emeli Sande, about her music, now that she is launching her first album here in the United States.  She is a highly lucid and engaging young woman, a neuroscience major, who has reverted most successfully to her first love, music, since opportunity came knocking. 

At one point, when asked when she started writing songs, she replied,

"I began writing when I was about 6 or 7. And even at that age, I just thought it was so incredible that you could create something from nothing, and it was all in your mind and imagination," she tells Weekend Edition host Rachel Martin. "The combination of poetry and music I just thought was incredible."

The phrase, "you could create something from nothing, and it was all in your mind and imagination", set me reflecting on how the same thing is true about visual artists, all composers – just about any creative act.  It is all so, so simple, in truth.  From some magical recesses of one's brain, out pops an idea, an inspiration, a "what if you do such and such a thing?  It is like finding a shiny, perfect shell as you walk along the beach.  You pick it up and turn it over, marvelling at it, evaluating it, examining its possibilities.

This remark dovetailed in a way with many of the theses that Simon Schama puts forward in his marvellous book, The Power of Art, in which he had fascinating and stimulating chapters on eight artists down the ages, from Caravaggio to Rothko, who have been revolutionary each in their own way.  The 2006 book accompanied a BBC/PBS series of the same name, which alas, I have not seen, but in any case, the book is - as always with Simon Schama's books - a gem.

Each of the artists examined in this book basically dared to adhere to their own visions, the ideas that emanated from their minds and imaginations. They pursued these ideas even if they were totally at odds with what other artists were doing or even what their patrons wanted them to produce by way of art.  Of course, they evolved over time, but they kept believing in their own inner voices and ideas. 

Blue, orange, red, Mark Rothko, 1961

Perhaps the last artist written about, Mark Rothko, was the one who had to keep seeking and clarifying his ideas the longest.  He once said that paintings had to be miraculous, Schama wrote.  And indeed, he was fifty years old before the miracle paintings began, his dazzling, amazingly subtle colour stacks. (Above,Blue, orange, red,  and below, Pink and orange.)  

Pink and orange, 1950, Mark Rothko

Rothko said that painting was an exercise in continuous clarification, as Schama wrote, but once the artist had clarified the ideas, he had to ensure that this clarity was passed on to the beholder.  Back to the dialogue, the communion, between artist's work and the viewer, for instance.

So simple, so elegant, so difficult - this materialisation, seemingly from nothing or nowhere save the inside of one's head - of something that then becomes interesting, beautiful, inspiring, memorable enough to speak to other humans.  Something from "nothing".

The Magic of Art

Ever since man has been creating art, and especially for the last 30,000 odd years, magic and art are closely linked. Perhaps Marcel Proust said it best, when he wrote in Time Regained, "Through art alone are we able to emerge from ourselves, to know what another person sees of a universe which is not the same as our own and of which, without art, the landscape would remain as unknown to us as those that may exist on the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists, worlds more different one from the other than those which revolve in infinite space, worlds which, centuries after the extinction of the fire from which their light first emanated, whether it is called Rembrandt or Vermeer, still send us their own individual special radiance."

You only have to leaf through any art magazine or go online to any gallery website to see how accurate Proust was about the multiplicity of optics and voices displayed in art. Magically we are transported to other lands and other ways of life. We see faces familiar and unfamiliar, fantasy upon fantasy, different approaches to objects that we have never thought about before. A visit to a major museum proves Proust's point about the longevity of great art down the ages. The masters know how to combine passion, subject matter, composition, colour, technique and the elusive wave of their "magic wand" to create art that withstands the test of time.

Ellen Lanyon, an American artist noted for her wonderful juxtapositions of fantasy and reality, calls upon this element of magic in her art. Using nature, everyday objects and intertwining living creatures and technology, she advocates for ecological balance. Her approach is joyous. As she says, "I become the magician who can transform flowers into fire, create the animals out of the inanimate, and utilise osmosis and gravity to create an illusion. Artists have the powerful tool of the imagination to make everything happen."

Niagara,  lithograph, Ellen Lanyon, (Image courtesy of the artist)

The Persistence of invention, acrylic on canvas, Elle Lanyon  (Image courtesy of DePaul Museum and the artist)

Eagle Beak, Ellen Lanyon, 1985. Lithograph, 44 ½ x 30 ¼ inches. Collection of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.

Call it imagination, call it magic, but so many artists spring to mind when one thinks about how art forces us to see other universes. Surrealist Salvador Dali is perhaps an extreme example, but Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko or draughtswomen working today like Sky Pape or Carol Prusa all have shown me fascinating, magical worlds I had never conceived of. And those are but a small number of artists that come readily to mind - we can all make up our own list of magician artists.