Henri Matisse
Miki Willa offers the trait of Discipline for the artist. Miki recently returned from a long tour around the U.S., and shows many pastel landscapes of her visits. Anyone care to write an essay on discipline? I will post a well written one here if you do.
Lisa Bachman offers Perseverance. It has certainly taken perseverance for Lisa to get all the way from A to Z in her informative Alphabet Art project. Find out what a zoopraxiscope is, and marvel at her entertaining illustrations for each letter entry.
Ready to be challenged? Hilary Spurling reveals this about Henri Matisse and his art:
"It is not easy to understand today how paintings of light and colour...could have seemed at the time, both to their perpetrator and to his public, an assault that threatened to undermine civilisation as they knew it. But Matisse was not simply discarding perspective, abolishing shadows, repudiating the academic distinction between line and colour. He was attempting to overturn a way of seeing evolved and accepted by the Western world for centuries, going back to painters like Michelangelo and Leonardo, and before them to the Greek and Roman masters of antiquity. He was substituting for their illusion of objectivity a conscious subjectivity, a twentieth-century art that would draw its validity essentially from the painter's own visual and emotional responses." Spurling, The Unknown Matisse.
I am still looking for your input on artist's traits. What are the traits you consider valuable to an artist's character?
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15 comments:
Hi Casey. High on my list of traits for myself as an artist and for my work is- Authenticity. By that I mean possessing an aesthetic which is "of its own time" (reflecting both the time and place of its making)as well as one that successfully announces the unique passion of its maker. This is something I am a bit obsessed about at the moment and perhaps too esoteric for your purpose, but I thought I'd throw it out there!
Not too esoteric at all. Thought provoking is more like it, Deborah.
Authenticity is not esoteric at all, at least to me. It goes to the heart of the matter for me. I want to represent what I am seeing and feeling about a subject, not just copying it. I find this a challenge sometimes as I come up against the "rules" of good painting. This may be tied to coming to painting later in life, but I am not sure.
The daring and audacity to share their humility and awe faced with this worlds' wonders and shames.
Well I'd better jump in on this one since I am such an admirer of Matisse. I admire that he had the ability to work outside of his box and with such great humor too. Matisse didn't always paint with vibrant yummie colors, but it seems once he started it was no going back. Thanks Casey for a wonder job on your blog. I love reading and keeping up with your posts..........
Laura.
http://www.amosaicstudio.wordpress.com- blog
Pleased to meet another Matisse fan, Laura. I am reading the 2 volume biography now. I'll be looking through your blog, too.
Thanks Anon.; thanks Miki. We are never too old to loosen up!
Me again! Casey I never knew they had so many books on Matisse until I did my "bookstore" with Amazon. WOW now it's hard to keep from buying them all.
I was just thinking about you, Laura, as I want to do a post with some broad Matisse links. Your blog gave me that idea, and of course I'm going to link it, too.
I'm on the fewer posts schedule for a while, so look for it next week! Cheers!
Wasn't Matisse a terrible self-doubter?
Yes, Adam, I am reading that he had horrible insomnia as a result of it. His whole situation in life fed this, I think.
What a breakthrough artist he was!
well then can we say that doubt & questioning is part of the mix of ingredients?
Doubting is part of the critical functioning & must work in a way that is constructive to creativity. When it works well it is analytical & opens up the artists to new opportunities. However, in my experience, the suspensions of the doubting, critical self in the beginning phases of making a painting is important, for if the artist is to dig deep within himself (herself) & tap into the authentic, the natural - 'le Propre du Soi' - then this is more of an affiramtion, a kind of YES as it feels natural & as if it always were & will be. The opposite of doubt maybe?
Do some research into the the idea of Genius as the Ancient Greeks meant it.
So my traits are doubt & genius.
Doubt & Genius - well thought out traits. Thank you, Adam.
CURIOSITY is an essential trait.
Tenacity is an artist trait. If I didn't have it I would have quit 5 years ago and I would quit every other day.
Add tenacity and curiosity. Thanks, Jala and Paula.
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