Post Modernist Post-Mortem

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst (1991)

Source: Wikipedia.

Prospect Magazine has published the post-mortem on Postmodernism. Author Edward Docx reports on the Victoria & Albert Museum's upcoming exhibition,  Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–1990.

"Gradually we hear more and more affirmation for those who can render expertly, the sculptor who can sculpt, the ceramist, the jeweller (sic), even the novelist who can actually write." Edward Docx.

Read the article at Prospect to understand the ineffable movement just a little bit more.  And, start wondering what to do next.

Compulsory throw-away link to Wikipedia on Postmodernism.

Tumblr Archive

Tumblr.

School Days Are Approaching

 August In Spokane.

...and I will be back in the studio full time.  Summer is a slow time online, isn't it?  Thanks for tuning in here at The Colorist for your "art fix."  I have been working on some computer projects, plus I did complete a large work at 25" x 39.5," which is photographed and waiting to be posted later in the week.  The computer projects are a secret, but you may know about them soon enough.




This weekend I sat in my booth at the Arbor Crest fair high above the Spokane Valley.  It is a beautiful venue, and I had a nice time.  Next: Sausalito.

I've Been Posting Daily at Tumblr

The Red Haired Girl, 1918

O/C

18.1" x 11.4"

Amadeus Modigliani

Private Collection

I think Modigliani's work improved dramatically each year of his short career.  This is one of his portraits of Jeanne Hébuterne, and it gives the lie to photography.  She is pretty in the photos, but lovely through Modigliani's eyes.


Still think Modern Art is bad?


The Colorist at Tumblr.

Bright Trees Through

Bright Trees Through

@ 8" x 5.5"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

This image is ping - ponging around on Tumblr, which is some fun.

John Salmon Reports on London

John Salmon.


h/t Maggie.

Summer 2011

My Daughter

 Plein Air - Fresh  Air

Decorating Grandpa's Grave

Photos: Lorie Klahn

Fun Time at Tumblr

Tumblr is extra much fun.  The blog posts are very easy to do, and it is kind of like a world wide blog and your slice thereof.  My Tumblr Blog.

Tomorrow we'll be back on summer vacation.  I will stay in touch, but won't be prompt.

Favicons for Blogger

My wife, Lorie, took some great promotional images, and we immodestly used the following inspirations for our efforts: 

this and that.

Blogger has now provided, after probably 5 years of requests, the ability for you to embed your Favicon (icon) with a simple upload to your Blogger design page.  My own struggles with keeping a Favicon on my blog may finally have been resolved by this new tool.


The icon that I used to have which was posted at an image hosting site just disappeared one day.  I suspected that it was a Windows update that caused this action, but it turned out to be the demise of the hosting site that was to blame.


My recent efforts involved embedding an icon in the code of my blog template. That was successful, except for the problem of my icon being present with IE and Firefox, but not on Chrome.  I tried to research a fix for this twice, but came up against some walls that stumped my feeble technical mind.


Now you can ignore the image hosting site, and the funny HTML embeds that most of us have no idea how to work.  Just get your image in a 16 x 16 pixel size and you're ready to apply it to your Blogger design page.  Woo Hooo.


Get the basics on Favicons:

Shoestring Branding




Some Favicon ideas:


Making a Mark
Lines and Colors
Astrid Volquardsen

Bill Hosner

Words on Words

Holiday Fun

I'll be on vacation for a couple of weeks.  If I can get the iWorld to cooperate, I may have the ability to answer comments on the road.  But, don't bet on me and technology.

Enjoy this farce, first published in 2007.  Also, you can visit my new tumblr.

Le Coloriste

Vincent et moi consultent le long des banques de la Seine.

UN BULLETIN POUR DES PATRONS D’ART DE COLORISTE SANS ARTSPEAK

Expressionisme abstrait, critique d'art, artistes, art de coloriste, schéma, histoire, impressionisme, art moderne, peinture, pastel, impressionisme de poteau

8 février 2007

Revue de livre de Van Gogh

Bien, le vieux garçon, ce livre de Gayford, la Chambre jaune, était bonne lue fendante,  dit I à l'apparition de l'artiste.

"Hharumphh," il offre. Peut-être que la blessure de coup de fusil méchante au coffre donne lui à des douleurs. Peut-être que la serveuse française n'a pas apporté à son cappuccino assez vite.

Et là nous avons le coeur du problème avec ces livres concernant le grand artiste ! Ils essayent de l'interpréter par de divers objectifs. Qui peut vraiment deviner son intention dans une oeuvre d'art donnée ?

Gayford, dont recherche et la bourse est en second lieu seulement à ceux qui ont compilé et ont catalogué les travaux complets du VG, a écrit beaucoup que j'aime, et beaucoup avec lesquels je discute.

Discutez-vous jamais avec des auteurs pendant que vous lisez leurs livres ? J'espère ainsi. La pensée critique est une partie essentielle d'étude.

Gayford propose la manie de ce VG, qui est pensée par certains pour avoir été désordre bipolaire (dépression maniaque), est essentiel aux résultats de ses peintures. Mais, il énumère simplement quelques autres artistes, auteurs et les compositeurs qui ont soufferts de cette maladie, sans n'importe quel exemple ou recherche la montrant est des effets sur leur art.

Je pense qu'il doit éliminer si quelconque d'entre ces hommes affligés aurait réalisé les mêmes niveaux sans manie, ou avec la suppression de la manie par l'intermédiaire du traitement. C'est un ordre grand, je savent.

Le travail de Van Gogh's est unique dans l'histoire, et tout à fait irracontable. Personne d'autre sauteront jamais le début le mouvement moderniste, depuis c'est « dans le bidon », ainsi pour parler. Mais, le niveau de la transformation travaillé par l'art du Néerlandais, tel qu'influencer une vingtaine de mouvements de suite, l'ouverture de la manière pour une plus grande abstraction dans l'art, et pour que la permission concentre plus sur la couleur pure que jamais avant, est son seul manteau.

Sa grande influence sur l'art est une échelle de concordance, plutôt qu'un sous-produit d'euphorisme.

Naturellement, son histoire personnelle est plus dramatique, je pensent, que n'importe quel autre artiste un peut penser à. Elle l'a est effet sur l'appréciation du public de lui, et lui même des stéréotypes tous les artistes de quelques manières plutôt sans attrait. Mais, sa postérité est plus une question de l'acceptation de ses travaux par le monde critique d'art, de sa pairie, et du désir faisant rage du marché de rassembler son art. Cela continue à ce jour. J'ose la parole qui si vous trouviez un fourgon Gogh à une brocante à domicile, vous ne s'arrêterait probablement pas à l'exposition de route d'antiquités pour une évaluation. Vous feriez un beeline pour Christie ou Sotheby!

Je labourerai par les travaux complets, maintenant, à la recherche de plus de données sur cet artiste énigmatique. Mais, j'encouragerais

Barnes Foundation Virtual

The Conversation, Henri Matisse, 1938.
at SFMOMA.

One Mr. Albert C. Barnes had the foresight to collect deeply in the Modern Art movement.  His foundation, for years a quirky and intimate museum, is now available to your eyes, too.  Follow the link for a virtual and interactive tour, and be amazed by rooms full of Matisse, Cezanne, Renoir, Seurat, Modigliani and Picasso.


Tour.

Dealing With The Wolf, In Which I Tell a Rock Climbing Story, Get Long-Winded, and Bring It Back Around To Art.

Riverside Grays

@6" x 6"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Every art has it's context.  Just because you want to paint the future thing, this doesn't mean you will necessarily have to lose the older things.  These things can co-exist: the new and the old.  Wolf Kahn employs the uber-abstractionism and expressionism of his era (which era still continues) and yet he paints nature.  It is a balancing act that has to be done; a voice that must be heard.


In a comparison from my days as a rock climber, I think of the old-timers (many of whom I have talked with and had the pleasure of being at the same crag with) who used a climbing trick of standing on their partner's shoulder to gain a high reach.  What do we painters do when we consider the earlier painters?  Do we stand on their shoulders, or do we put our foot on their face, so to speak, and say, I have no regard for you?  Whatever the case, we still find ourselves elevated to the higher stance by their work and its stature.


To continue the metaphor, I well remember the first time I led through on a hard rock climb that my mentor crumped on.  He offered me to lead through, which was a compliment.  For some inexplicable reason, the thing worked out, and I climbed past my master (just once).  To fill out the analogy, this climb was rated the same as a particular climb that is near Los Angeles and was the hardest climb of the decade of the nineteen fifties.  I met the first ascensionist and we got to be on a first name basis for a short while.  My hero, whose work was breakthrough stuff a few decades past, was now easy to match.  But, only because the march of time had brought his knowledge and techniques forward for every man to obtain with some effort.


I tell this story because I often think of the challenges we face when we try to be good painters today.  There are more paintings to paint and we can certainly try to paint to the highest standards, if we just put in the effort. 


This stream of thought is my response to an article about Wolf Kahn at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center in 2007.  Anyway, you should go read that if you are still with me this far. An excerpt:

The question of whether to use landscape to "capture" a moment, place, or light thereof, or whether to use it as a means to deliver personal self-expression, is one of the philosophical forks in the road for some landscape artists who choose one or the other. Kahn seems to be well aware of the question and quite satisfied not to answer it. Color can be subservient to place, or place subservient to color. Image can be subservient to abstraction, or abstraction subservient to image. All could have come from nature or from the artist's process. That's the game, so to speak. Find the painting.

I Enjoy Making Analogies Between Rock Climbing and Art Making, But Nobody Ever Gets It.  I Do Them Anyway.

Leonardo The News Hound

@@@

Salvator Mundi,  Leonardo da Vinci

o/p, 25 13/16" X 17 7/8 "

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Salvator Mundi, c. 1500 Oil on walnut panel, 25 13/16 X 17 7/8 inches (65.6 X 45.4 cm) (C) 2011 Salvator Mundi llc. (PRNewsFoto/Robert Simon, Tim Nighswander)

Although he has been safely dead for 492 years, Leonardo da Vinci continues to make headlines.  Arguably the greatest polymath ever, Leonardo is never uninteresting.

Is it possible that da Vinci painted an image titled Salvator Mundi, and that this has only now come to light?  News reports say that experts have re-attributed this painting to the master, whereas before it was said to have been created by one of da Vinci's students.  Incredibly, this would be only the fifteenth known painting by da Vinci that exists.  Unless, of course, somebody un-crates another one somewhere. 


Dan Brown!  Paging Mr. Dan Brown!


PR Web Press
Lairweb - best report.
h/t Vanderleun

The Colorist

Wine Steward Filches Famous Fine Art?

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More of the Subject: The Corner of the Field

Gifted Light Field

14.25" x 18.25"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

I think that a yellow phase is in the works.  

Choose Without Knowing Why

Whitetail Heaven

5" x 7"

Pastel & Charcoal

Casey Klahn

An example of intuitive choices is given by this small painting that I did from memory.  We have daily visitations by Whitetail deer  at my house, and so reproducing one on paper doesn't require actually looking at one - memory is good enough.  The trick, for me, is in rendering a four-legged animal because I almost never draw them.  Anyway, this was the result of my memory sketch of the buck.

After this one hung on my studio wall with a piece of tape for about a month, I looked at it and wondered why I had made these linear and color choices.  I realized that there are several layers of observation in this image, none of which I was thinking consciously about when I drew it.

Deer, while considered color blind, don't actually see in black and white, either.  According to the science, they are supposed to see the the ultra-violet, and perhaps also the infra-red spectrum spaces. They have been shown to respond to blue, and possibly yellow.  Why did I choose to bathe this image in blue?  Was I thinking, at some level, about the way deer see?  Consider also the fact that they aren't binocular in the same way that people are. They see outlines, but not much depth.  Movement is the thing they respond to, and they trust less of what they see, but everything that they smell.


Whitetail Heaven shows the vague, broken outline of this buck, who is sniffing the air at dusk and he is in motion.  Weird how this turned out that way.  Strange, in fact.


Maybe I'm making too much of it.  I gotta get out more.

Bright Pine & News

Bright Pine

10" x 11"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

This weekend, I started on a new project that is a wonderful departure for me.  I hope you'll be able to see it completed in the next month or two, but I'll keep it under wraps for the time being.  Hee hee.  It should be very cool.

My hands are very full with daddy duty now that school is out.  And, that caught me by surprise.  We watched the Eddie Murphy movie, Daddy Day Care, and got some laughs over the whole scheme of dad taking care of the youngsters.  

If you live in the Oakland or San Francisco areas, be aware that I will be teaching a workshop in your area in the next few months.  The date will be announced, along with the venue, soon.  Contact me if you are interested.  The announcement for On-Demand Workshops is here.

Paint Like This, Only Different

Orchard Grass

5" x 6.5"

Pastel & Charcoal

Casey Klahn

Below is the flyer for my new "On-Demand" workshops.  On Demand means you can now host a workshop in your area.  Putting together a workshop involves finding a potential venue, and gathering 5-10 students, and we can set a date.

Back In The Draw

In The Draw With Vermilion

6.5" x 6.5"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Buttes Are My Next Subject

Up Country Pines

11" x 17.9"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Butte

Smaller than a mesa and bigger than a berm.