April Ends

April, Entangled. 2014.

15" x 10"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Blue Era

A Blue Room in the Forest. 2014.

@ 10" x 13"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

I love seeing young musicians doing well and being hip. Enjoy this live ensemble performing Erik Satie's Gn no.1.

Erik Satie - Gnossienne No.1 - Seth Ford-Young

Entr'acte Friday

Blue Cloud Sky. 2104

@8" x 12" 

Pastel 

Casey Klahn

Pianist: 

Alessio Nanni

Blue Certainty

"A certain blue enters your soul...a new era is coming. " Henri Matisse. 1952.

From the Tate:

A giant of modern art, this landmark show explores the final chapter in Matisse’s career as he began ‘carving into colour’ and his series of spectacular cut-outs was born.

Cinema event in the UK. 

Matisse - Video Support

Henri Matisse's groundbreaking cut-outs were rendered in the last decade of his life, from about 1943 in Nazi-occupied France, till about 1953, when Snail was completed, and are in London now and will be in New York in October. My post from yesterday regarding the exhibit.

One of the enjoyable aspects of this exhibit is the film support that illuminates the story of Matisse's process in making these great collages. Posted today: Alastair Sooke and A Cut Above the Rest.

Study notes for Henri Matisse.

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Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs at Tate Modern

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs.

Current Exhibition at the Tate Modern, London, and in October at the MoMA in NYC.

Dates:

April 17 - September 17, 2014 / Tate.

October 25, 2014 - February 8, 2015 / MoMA.

Tate posts.

Down By The River

The Rapids

@5" x 9"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Happy Easter!

Easter Fields, 2014
@6" x 7"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

Wolf Kahn 2013

Nobody Was Harmed In The Making Of This Artwork

Hanging Tree in Color

@7" x 15"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

How many people consider nostalgia to be the pinnacle of art?  An astounding number in your circle, no doubt, see the number one function of paintings and drawings to be taking them back to a bygone era. The Victorian era, perhaps. Roaring Twenties, anyone? 

Once upon a time, I showed a drawing of a tree that I had just rendered to this man I barely knew. He thought to compliment me by suggesting that there, on the branch, I ought to place a man hanging. That would amp the emotional appeal, I suppose. 

That is precisely what practitioners of fine art are supposed to avoid: the appeal to sympathy or nostalgia. The reason is that it is an attempt to recruit the viewer based on an appeal to his feelings about something. How in Bloody Sunday am I supposed to guess people's feelings? Is it wisest for the artist to take a pole of the relatively specific feelings of the greatest majority of rubes who might wander past his artwork as it hangs, in perpetuity, seeking those whom it will conquer? 

It's a rather progressive approach to marketing art, and altogether wrongheaded for lots of reasons.  The most important reason it is wrong is that contemporary art should be my soapbox - my ideas. Not Aunt Sweeney's, and not Joe Q. Public's sympathies. My ideas are universal enough to appeal and conquer plenty fine, thank you. 

No criminal needs to hang in a tree for the advancement of my art today. Live and let live, I say.  

Italy!

Riva Sole Reviso

8" x 9.75"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

In 2015 I will be going to Italy to teach a 14-day workshop at La Romita.  I first heard about this wonderful art workshop center from a local artist and friend. La Romita was established in 1548 as a monastery. Workshops are housed and catered on site, and logistics for painting forays are supported by the staff.

Here is a blurb from their website:

La Romita School of Art first opened in 1966, under the guidance of Enza Quargnali, as the summer art program of Rockford College in Illinois. For over 50 years people have stayed at La Romita, painting the landscape, people, and towns in the beautiful Umbrian hill country, whose radiant golden light has charmed artists since the days of Perugino and his famous pupil, Rafael.

La Romita.

I am gathering interest for October or July, 2015. Contact me.