Surrealism, The Nonsensical Narrative
There are two distinct psychological aspects involved in making a picture go. One is the picture’s subject matter, myth or the artist’s personal story, the second is the means to make a picture work or not. First the artist says: I want to paint an apple because I like to eat apples, apple pies, apple tarts and turnovers. Because of this obsession with apples it becomes the artist’s own personal story or myth, in very simplistic terms. The second aspect hopes to make the picture ‘work,’ as we say, line, shape, color, texture, illusionistic space and their relations within a composition. These are the means the artist uses to convey the love of apples, that must be confessed, if there is to be connection between artist and the artwork’s appreciator. When a painting works and this connection is made taking the personal myth beyond its prosaic beginnings into our collective myth, then a beautiful painting of an apple, orange, pear or kumquat is not a fruit but a beautiful painting.
In my work, my love of the ‘Apple’ is the ‘Nude,’ in a mysterious and somewhat surrealistic context, presented in my own personal artistic language. However, my story is like my morning cup of coffee, it may be what gets me out of bed but it’s not what my day is all about. I may begin with an idea, that becomes a set of ideas and then a story of sorts, but at some point, I have to let it morph into what it wants to become. Then my task is not really to illustrate my story, but to make a picture work as a picture, to rub the thing till it glows, though the ways and means of picture making; line, shape, color, texture, illusionistic space and their relations within a composition.
In that sense, the more formal sense, I am as much a cubist as the more famous cubists of the first part of the 20th century though I am no cubist stylistically. Still, I am doing what the cubists did, I am creating a shallow 2illusionistic space by dividing the 2D space into colored forms, shaded to suggest solidity, that relate to each other with verve and gusto, hopefully, and convey what is to be conveyed.
My own style tends toward a sort of realist expressionism and nonsensical story telling. But style is on the surface and is a vehicle for a deeper expression that evokes a sense of presence. The nonsensical narrative lends itself well to evoking presence because it frustrates reason and suggests a nonrational and subconscious experience of presence, a haunting and a mysterious connection to what is missing in our ordinary perception of reality. It is something like magic.
Did you know there is a missing color in creation, it was left out of the spectrum somewhere between, ‘Let there be light’ and its manifestation. If you have ever tried to use interesting and evocative color to make a picture work, you’ll know what I mean, you have felt that something is missing from the color spectrum in our shared reality. Even if you can’t put your finger on what it is. It’s the missing color, it can’t be perceived without mystic sight, as artists who are not mystically inclined, yet we are still tasked with the co-creation of the universe. It is up to us to find a work around if we are to suggest, evoke and conjure what can’t quite be perceived, the missing color. Just as poets evoke meaning between the words, painters conjure the unseen from between the colors. And so, in place of the missing color we create a color relationship to keep our compositions balanced and evocative. The relation between things can evoke a presence, a suggestion of that which is, but can’t quite be perceived. Discovering this relation is like discovering an unseen light in the dark on your birthday and will be celebrated long after you're dead.
So why Nudes? I don’t know really. It is probably, at its inception, as simplistic as liking to eat apples or not caring for them. My love of painting nudes is my apple and a part of my personal story or myth, so I paint them. But if that is all there is to it, given what I’ve said above about what makes a picture go, why bother about my personal story at all. Many artists have found their freedom in their renunciation of all myth, personal or collective. Indeed, modern art began with the renunciation of the mythological references so in fashion in 19th Century academic art. Although myth was kept alive by the symbolists and later the surrealists, but revitalized and made more personally poetic and less overbearing religiosity. That is where I am, those are the traditions I am most at home with, for better or worse. A deeply erotic art that hopes, on a deeper psychological level, to arouse those longings for male female union. And to draw from the appreciater’s imagination as much as my own, to complete the picture.
When I was in school, we were taught to be afraid of beauty. ‘Beware of beauty,’ our professors said, they preferred us to make a powerful statement out of the moment without pondering its beauty or not lack of. ‘Don’t get sucked into a preconceived aesthetic, readymade, inhibiting and overarching idea, you should avoid.’ Such as the concept of ‘Beauty,’ which has come down to us enshrined in the venerable walls of our museums, all used up. Who could disagree that we need to avoid what is false in art, including false notions of what we think Beauty ought to look like. However, I think our professors are making a big mistake in telling us to beware of Beauty herself, as if we ae to be afraid of losing ourselves and committing a terrible art sin, by courting Her. Our venerable art professors have made us afraid of being inauthentic and simultaneously have taken away the means of preventing it. It is easy to lose a sense of what we ought to be about without a concept of what that is. What we ought to be about is our essential beauty within trying to show itself through art. It is what makes a picture go, its composition work, colors evocative and subject matter interesting. It can’t be defined, contrived or presented in any ordinary way but can be recognized when it is there and missed when it is not. So at least we know that it exists. Essential beauty exists as the missing color I spoke of earlier, evoked but never understood, it is what catches your breath and connects your personal myth to our collective myth, so that a work of art when it works, will stand out alone in perfect ease and ephemeral grandeur.
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Presence & Essence
There is some question as to whether art can be defined or if there is any value in the effort, Barnett Newman made the famous comment that “art criticism is to the artist as ornithology is to birds.” If wit is the measure of truth then his comment must be true because it certainly is a witty. If he means that the artist should be up and doing and actively ignoring the type of criticism that attempts to define the artist’s place in art history or worse the current art scene, then I get his point. But if he is suggesting that the artist is not to reflect about the doing and the meaning of the work or considering his or herself in relation to the doing of the work then he is wrong. The basic question of “who am I” is no less valid for the working artist as for the philosopher or any other thinking person. Since artist’s are involved in the doing of artwork, the question for the artist will be “who am I in relation to the doing of the work?” The artist will naturally reflect on this just as anyone will reflect on what they are doing with the time they are given. If this kind of reflection or criticism is to be of value then an education is needed and the quality of that education determines the value of the criticism. The kind of education that leads the artist to contemplate his or her standing in art history or the art world is not what is needed, attempting to validate yourself in comparison to the work in the museum, gallery or marketplace will place the artist in the realm of endless possibilities, not where he needs to be, present to the work at hand. The education that is of value leads to an understanding of what is essential in art, this informs the artist and inculcates an attitude towards art, art history or art criticism that is beneficial. The artist seeks a presence in art, a reflection of something deep in self, profound but intangible. And in art history the artist seeks inspiration through an act of friendship, finding understanding in like-minded artists and critics, long dead yet relevant.
Art history is important for inspiration by finding an affinity with a long dead artists and bygone traditions. Are they really dead and gone? Can the artist to find friendship with the dead, find inspiration in bygone forms, defunct modes of expression and deconstructed philosophies? Isn’t there something of a long dead artist’s consciousness left to us in the work, something deep and profound but intangible that speaks to us through bygone forms, defunct modes of expression and deconstructed philosophies. What is present to us in a work has little to with, subject matter, mythology or historical context, the work’s message is its presence, what is essential to us is its presence. The work’s subject matter, mythology or historical context is only of value to us as a further expression of that presence. The artist seeks and finds in museums, galleries and dusty old artbooks a connection as in friendship. By being present to the work’s essence, we are present to the mind of the artist who was long ago present in the doing of the work.
Therefore, we arrive at something like a definition of art, in terms of presence and essence. This is not a definitive definition, that would be saying too much, but a vague and transitional one. The essence of art is its presence and to be present in the doing or appreciating of the work is essential to connect mind to mind, art is then defined by its connection between one mind and another. One creates the work and the other appreciates it both uncritically and critically, first by seeing it then by thinking about it. What is that presence in a work, what is it that brings the work of long dead artists to life? You breathe life into the work as you look at it, the long dead artist is resurrected by your kinship. The artist long ago made a million little aesthetic decisions one for each mark on the paper or paint stroke or chisel stroke, this encodes the work aesthetically and you read this code when you look at it, as you read you project into the work something of yourself that agrees with what is encoded. When I speak of aesthetic encoding it must be understood metaphorically because it is not read so much as experienced as a whole, in a moment, its essence as a presence in the work. An analysis of the ways and means of the artist’s picture making may come later but without an initial ‘aesthetic moment,’ a mind-to-mind connection that analysis will be of little value.
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Nakedness in Art
Nakedness in art is a quality essential to the integrity of its message and its aesthetic, it does not matter if the piece portrays a naked person or not, it only has to do with the artist’s willingness to approach his or her art making, naked in spirit. You can look at art naked too, it is not necessary to take all your clothes off in the gallery to better appreciate a work of art, though it wouldn’t hurt and might be fun. But you can approach a work of art naked in spirit without creating a stir and risking arrest, you only need to unveil yourself of any thoughts and expectations of what the work is supposed to do and be, you must connect with it as it is not as you may wish or expect it to be. We are using ‘naked’ here as a metaphor for the openness required to make a connection between the mind of the artist and the appreciator of the artwork, even if the artist is long dead. If you want to be present to what’s real in a picture you have to be present to what is real in you. Being naked in spirit is an unveiling of self to self for both the artist and the appreciater, as the work gets inside your head you reveal yourself to the work as the work reveals itself to you.
This nakedness in spirit as a psychological state is as necessary in making a landscape, still life, abstraction or any other form of expression you can imagine, as it is in depicting an erotic nude. However, the reason for the nude’s importance as an enduring motif in art is that she stands as a symbol and explicitly proclaims the works essential nakedness though inherent in any true artwork it resonates and connects more directly if the subject matter is as naked as artist and appreciator. It is like becoming conscious of stirrings that were always there but not quite perceived and the sexual nature of these stirrings presented in public through art can be embarrassing to some.
It is odd that over the centuries there has always been an objection to the public display of nudity in art and yet the nude persists despite all moralistic objection or perhaps because of. Which suggests, when done well, the nude is an expression of an archetype that touches a deep and essential longing in men and women for union with divinity. This archetype insists on expression, which is why artists continue to be drawn to draw the nude even when they’re not supposed to. The nude is both the fruit of and the symbolic equivalent of essential nakedness so that merely moralistic objections are straw to the erotic fire these images convey.
There is a great difference between painting a picture of someone naked and making love to a naked person, the one act is intensely mental and the other is primarily physical. To make art requires dispassion while your lovemaking must be passionate if it is to be worth the time spent. And yet they are too often seen to be the same thing or the painting to be merely a story about sexual love, a kind settling for a substitute, while the real thing eludes. In other words, ‘porn,’ even if it is a classical nude tasteful and refined, meticulously painted and we call it erotica, though its still porn in the minds of most. But this reading misses the real point because it is not in the spirit of nakedness. The truth is the artist of an erotic image chooses dispassion over passion and values the erotic image for its aesthetic appeal, not for its sexual appeal. It is an expression of libidinous urges of a different sort, it is like a higher love. The artist longs for a connection with his or her appreciator, that spans space and time.
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Why Erotic ?
Why do some artists make paintings with erotic intent, beyond just simple nudity? I will argue that all nakedness in art is erotic, whether it is understated or overt, some artists choose to press the borders of what is decent and what is indecent, and others do not. We are concerned here with overt erotic intent and will let the understated remain understated. We make erotic art because eros is important, for better or worse, it is of the utmost importance to us, the libido is a very big deal to most of us, by cosmic arrangement. So, the real question should be, why not? Given that erotic love is overwhelmingly important to most of us, why wouldn’t artists feel a need to deal with it more frankly in art than we are able to in our social circles. The difficulty culture has with this all important form of artistic expression is not a moral one as it is often presented, porn and erotica being seen as obscenity, antisocial and demeaning. The real difficulty in accepting erotica as a legitimate form of artistic expression is that it is embarrassing, no one wants to go bare ass and we fear the psychological nakedness required to both create and appreciate erotic art. It is not moral objections that make us flush with shame. That comes after when our shame gets extroverted and becomes anger, the moral, political, social and religious objections are only to deflect; to give us an angry pose that covers our embarrassment, and our bare asses. The real question is not moral as in, decency versus indecency, the real question should be phrased: What is better nakedness or shame? I hope by now you’ll see that the question answers itself. back to top
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Comments, praise, criticism & threats remit to:
Mark Price
Thoughts on Nakedness in Art
Artist Statement:
1 Surrealism, The Nonsensical Narrative
2 Presence & Essence
3 Nakedness in Art & Real Life
4 Why Erotic ?