魔术

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:42:13 GMT

艺术创作者就像是变魔术的人，艺评人就像是解魔术的人。真爱魔术的人不愿意解释魔术，他们对魔力有敬畏之心，小心珍藏着，断不会拿到街上吆喝。热衷于解释魔术的人肯定也从不曾对魔术着迷，他们迷信的是解释的力量（某种理论）。而魔力是施展在解释力之外的，水火不容，没有交集。

说一个东西有魔力，不是说我不明白它，而是说它彻底把我骗了，骗得神魂颠倒。而我之所以彻底被骗，是因为我那些脆弱的地方、小肚鸡肠、一脑袋的曲折它全数知道，它太明白我了。所以我一边被骗，一边欣喜这东西竟然如此明白我。说到底还是自恋。

所以当我们被艺术作品骗得神魂颠倒的时候，旁人不解，问它有什么好，我们闪烁其词，不是因为我们不明白它好在哪里，而是因为那里面的骗与被骗都不足与外人道。实在要说，也是支支吾吾，远不如魔术好看。

The Other Ego

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 06:57:15 GMT

From an interview with Mamma Andersson by BOMB magazine:

"I believe that the ego can be there for real but must be distilled in order to taste good. I believe that all of us lying there on the carpet clouds felt both at home and away in a similar manner. Perhaps this is identification: losing and seeing one's self in an unlimited number of others." （又想起：及吾无身，吾有何患？故贵以身为天下，若可寄天下；爱以身为天下，若可托天下。）

"You asked me about presence, about emotional consciousness...This is what I'm looking for all the time. The theoretical distance you mention can fuck off. It is in direct opposition to the desire to create. All of us who've become artists, musicians, poets, dancers, film directors--we were all once children who loved to delve into our other ego, where anarchy and limitlessness reigns. There we felt alive and creative. We long to find this aspect again in our adult lives--the place where we forget everything around us and just exist. "

"Since October, I've been trying to find this state of mind, but I can't find the entrance. Sometimes I'm filled with doubt and think that the magic has left me for good. But this is not the first time this has happened. Maybe it's just the way it is: sometimes it's easier to come to contact with one's other ego, or the spirits, or inspiration, or whatever it is."

"I'm a romantic who empties herself in order not to be a nervous wreck."

按学期整理画册

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 08:20:08 GMT

本学期还有一天就结束了（还差paper两篇@_@），在这欢乐吉祥、辞旧迎新的日子里，整理了一下pbase的画册，上传了一堆life drawings。照相照到手软。

集体 Party

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 02:51:48 GMT

新画了一幅画，４尺乘5尺。未经允许把六位同学当模特了。声明一下，画中人物乃本人肆意篡改加工处理的结果，同学们的真实精神风貌绝不是这样的。一切属本人虚构，请勿对号入座。如有雷同，纯属巧合。

捧屁踩马

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 18:50:15 GMT

净忙着诹作业都没空诹 blog了，贴篇作业凑数。 Picasso 没给我钱我和 Matisse也没有个人恩怨，捧踩之间也都是为了凑字数而已。数数字不够，就多骂了两句，呵呵。

Modern Art or Aesthetics – The Fundamental Difference between Picasso and Matisse: A Comparison of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Dance (I)

The widely-held belief that Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse are the two greatest 20th-century artists and the numerous publications and exhibitions devoted to establish the close relationship between the two can easily leave the public the false impression that Picasso and Matisse are equally important in the history of modern art and distract our attention from the fundamental difference between their philosophy of art. A walk around the fifth floor of the Museum of Modern Art should convince any viewer that Picasso’s significance in the history of modern art is matchless. A comparison of two paintings at the Museum of Modern Art, Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (figure 1) and Matisse’s Dance (I) (figure 2) reveals that in making art works, Picasso sought to be creative and expressive, whereas Matisse sought to be pleasant and uplifting. Clearly, it is this difference in their philosophy of art that determined their different levels of significance in the history of modern art.

Figure 1: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon

Figure 2: Dance (I)

Apart from the fact that the two paintings are products of the same era, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon made in 1907 and Dance (I) in 1909, they share quite a few similarities and are closely related to each other. Both are larger than life-size paintings (the former being 8’ X 7’8” and the later being 8’5” X 13’), both depicted five nude women in shallow space on crowded canvas, both are painted with a limited pallet (Les Demoiselles d’Avignon primarily in flesh pink, white, and blue; Dance (I) primarily in flesh pink, blue, and green), both consist of figures that are flattened and simplified to basic forms, and both are evidently influenced by Cezanne’s late bather paintings. The subject matter and composition of Dance (I) were developed from the distant background of Matisse’s earlier master piece Le Bonheur de vivre (figure 3). Painted in 1906, Le Bonheur de vivre created a sensation at the Salon des Independants, and Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is regarded as Picasso’s response to Le Bonheur de vivre. [1] Despite all these references and similarities, however, standing in front of these two paintings, a viewer would instantly realize that the two art works speak very different languages of painting, provide very different visual effects, and provoke very different emotions.

Figure 3: Le Bonheur de vivre

Dance (I) speaks a highly decorative and somewhat archaic language of painting. The painting is an earlier version of the decorative painting Dance (II) commissioned by the Moscow collector Sergei Shchukin. [2] Similar to Le Bonheur de vivre, in this painting, the figures, the implied horizons, and the gesture of the composition are all composed of curves. The color combination used here is representational (the green indicating the ground and blue indicating the sky), nonthreatening, and visually pleasant. The painting depicts five goddess-like nude women dancing in a circle, floating above the horizon, self-absorbed in their sensuous dance. It is said that the subject matter of the painting is inspired by Greek vase painting and peasant dances. [3] It might also occur to a viewer that the curvy, fair-skinned, flat, and outlined figures incredibly resemble the figures in ancient Greek wall paintings and frescoes such as the Bull Leaping (figure 4). It seems fair to say that the art style of Dance (I) is merely a continuation of Le Bonheur de vivre, which is considered an Art Nouveau echo to traditional art works ranging from prehistoric cave paintings to Titian’s masterpieces. [4] The end result of such application of art style is the bright, airy, and colorful visual effect, which produces a calm, serene, and soothing emotional effect. Consequently, Dance (I) functions very much like a Minoan wall painting. As if because the painting is so drastically archaic and different from the rest art works exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art, it is held up in a stairway all by itself instead of being presented together with other modern paintings.

Figure 4: Bull Leaping

On the other hand, the art style of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is so modern and complex that the painting looks as if it is simultaneously speaking five different alien languages to an average viewer. Unlike Dance (I), this painting is primarily composed of straight lines and sharp-angled geometric shapes, creating a unstable feeling. The color application is dramatic: dark earth tones are used on the face of the far left figure; and bright red, green, and black are used on the masks of the two figures on the right, adding to the frightening effect of the painting. In contrast to Dance (I), this painting depicts five prostitutes from Avignon Street in Barcelona’s red light district. [5] The prostitutes crowded in a tent, displaying themselves to the viewer. All of them intensely gazing ahead. Picasso rebelliously created an complicated interior space with conflicting perspectives. A viewer is simultaneously looking down at the fruits in the foreground and straight on at the individual faces. Nor can we find a consistent light source in the painting. The randomly shaded breasts of the figure entering the tent from the left seem to anticipate the birth of Cubism. The far left figure looks like an Egyptian statue, whereas the two right figures are wearing African masks. The sitting figure on the right is showing her back to the viewer but at the same time facing directly to the viewer. The two figure in the middle are in the classical Venus pose, but their faces look very much like the face in Picasso’s 1906 portrait of the American feminist lesbian writer Gertrude Stein (figure 5). In that painting, Gertrude Stein’s face is painted like a mask. Here is an interpretation of the masked face offered by the authors of the book Matisse Picasso: “…the mask protects her from…viewer’s gaze. A conventional representation…would leave a figure too exposed to desire…but a masked figure will be an image of protected self-sufficiency, whose invitation to the viewer can be to identify enviously with its narcissistic omnipotence. ..with it, the object is empowered as never before…” [6] Same could be said here in interpreting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. The women are sexually exposed but at the same time emotionally empowered to the extent of being intimidating. The two figures entering the tent are in fact blocking the exits at the same time. As a result, the viewer is confined in this unstable and puzzling space, under the intense gaze from five emotionally detached women, jammed by their sexual yet undesirable bodies. The end result is the single most important painting in the history of modern art, haunting, aggressive, and with burning energy, like the tiger in the room. If it should ever be considered as a response to Matisse’s Le Bonheur de vivre, Picasso was responding in the same way that Manet was responding to Titian.

Figure 5: Gertrude Stein

In his essay ‘Notes of a Painter’, Matisse explained what he aimed to accomplish in art: “What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling of depressing subject-matter…a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.”[7] It is clear that Matisse is essentially conventional in drawing an equation between aesthetics and art, he only sought to produce lofty things that appeals to the sight, whereas Picasso, a truly modern artist, sought to do everything else in art.

[1] Elizabeth Cowling, Anne Baldassari, John Elderfield, John Golding, Isabella Monod-Fontaine, and Kirk Varnedoe, Matisse Picasso (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2003), 41.

[2] H. H. Arnason, History of Modern Art (New Jersey, Prentice Hall, Inc., 2004), 121.

[3] H. H. Arnason, History of Modern Art (New Jersey, Prentice Hall, Inc., 2004), 121.

[4] H. H. Arnason, History of Modern Art (New Jersey, Prentice Hall, Inc., 2004), 112.

[5] H. H. Arnason, History of Modern Art (New Jersey, Prentice Hall, Inc., 2004), 162.

[6] Elizabeth Cowling, Anne Baldassari, John Elderfield, John Golding, Isabella Monod-Fontaine, and Kirk Varnedoe, Matisse Picasso (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2003), 111.

[7] Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, Art in Theory 1900 – 2000 – An Anthology of Changing Ideas (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 73.

八道:: Art

魔术

The Other Ego

按学期整理画册

集体 Party

捧屁踩马