The Romantic Path

Don't get the wrong idea...

CCS today  - two great lectures on Romantic art - an overview from Susan Halvey delivered with passion and enthusiasm; a close reading of the Romantic landscape in the persona of Caspar David Friedrich from Dara Waldron.

 

Evening Landscape with Two Men  - 1830-35   25 x 31 cm

 

 

The Wanderer above a Sea of Mist - 1818   74.8 x 94.8 cm

 

I could quite cheerfully write several blogs on C.D. Friedrich and his images so filled with mystery and ambiguity. There is so much about the Romantic era that has always appealed to me not least of that being the difficulty of defining exactly what it is.Some years ago when I was involved in Englit studies I covered Romantic literature and encountered the concept of the Sublime for the first time. It  took a while to get to grips with it but I believe that it is something that is part of us always, through all      -isms and eras. In the end, we all love vicarious thrills, without the risk, do we not?

But there are so many other important and influential artists from the Romantic period  - Turner, Constable, Blake, Delacroix, Gericault -   that I feel (note that word) that a whole course could be devoted to to this era.

 

Okay, no pride allowed : this is the one he didn't want you to see:

 

 

It would have been alright if my viewpoint had been up somewhere near the ceiling - indeed, I 'lost the plot!'

 

You may have noticed that I haven't -as yet - posted any artists that I have been interested in, but I am in the process of making a very big entry in my contextual notebook; I have also found a number of contemporary artists with whom I am totally unfamiliar - Modern Painters and Parkett - and I will follow them up online  -if I can find anything of interest about these I will talk about them over the weekend when there is more time.

 

In passing here are a couple of images:

 

I wonder how many people in school would recognise this but most would have passed it today

 

Answers on a €5 please

 

In Modern Painters today I was reading an article on Victor Vasarely and at the station I came across this:

 

Is Op Art on the way back?

 

 

Maybe, maybe not, but what is

 

 

Public Print

 

 

 

 

The Path of Pigment

So you thought you were getting rid of me............... not yet.
I have to admit to having been tired and am still tonight but duty calls.

I saw this this morning:

Piranesi, eat your heart out.

Paint again today, but much more intense and more physical. Up to the first break we used the objects we had brought in to make ......what?  tableaux, still lifes, constructions, installations? ...... Well, all of those:

What fascinated me about this exercise was what happened to me  - I immediately set out to string stuff all around and to spread and build and generally try to draw in the space around me and to express that space then by both colour and structure.

You might even say I was trying to sense my space (..that sounds familiar:it has a good ring to it )
 Stop being facetious; no, really I was surprised, because it was a totally instinctive reaction.

Later:

 

Blind-drawing with paint - I have done this before but not with paint - the same thing applies: it is really exhausting because it requires total concentration on the object and theoretically one should move one's brush at the same speed that one's eye moves over the border one is attempting to draw.

It is a good exercise in looking, though.

 

In the afternoon, using only three primary colours and a 'credit card' we had to mix paint and set out to make images of the structure in front of us from various viewpoints. I will show you three of mine, but pride forbids the fourth (it was really poor -tired and rushing: bad combination but no excuse  -maybe I'll show it tomorrow):

 

I would have to say I enjoyed using the card to paint : no room for preciousness there.

 

During the day I used  a stairwell unfamiliar to me and I met this guy who gave me a laugh;

 

 

Okay,okay, I know -I'm easily amused.

 

And the letter for today is....

 

 

Public Print

 

 

 

 

 

 

Squalls on the path

Just to briefly pursue the last theme of winter trees, we were out walking this morning as as we got home another squally shower blew in with its boiling edges and the trees black against the grey.

While those who know my interests might be surprised at these,  so much of what we do originates in such elemental images; I believe  that in CCS we will soon be covering Romantic landscape art and there is much there that I have always liked, particularly Turner ( as any of my readers will know) but also C. D. Friedrich about whom I acquired a large book some years ago. Perhaps you can see now where I am going with these pictures. They become a starting point for an infinite number of possible journeys.

On my travels yesterday I was marooned in Whitewater shopping centre (if you value your sanity, don't.....) without pencil, pad or book so I bought Art Review (Issue 65) and have been working my way through it. One particularly intriguing piece from Berlin by Astrid Mania is called 'Who's setting the art agenda' and concerns the balance between commercial galleries and art institutions; the premise is that now the latter are being led by the former and are attempting to be cool or as she says: 'Everything has to be so now, so wow'.
I'm sure this should be in the library - good read, especially for those going to Berlin.

Okay - tomorrow I start a new elective - painting - and have received the introductory sheet; one of the instructions was to have five objects no smaller than my head and in my case coloured orange. Well, I mobilised various members of my extended family and that is done, in fact overdone!
Now the hard part  - two images from contemporary artists which I must discuss - so many. I think a good source will be Art Now 3 and I will tell you tomorrow who it was and what I thought....and maybe some pictures.

A treat for all you lucky people


Public Print

 

 

I hope you have been paying attention and you know where we are...

 

The path through the trees

I was in Marlay Park - in Rathfarnam - this morning and while it had been beautiful earlier, clouds ere more in evidence than sunshine.
Still a walk up to the playground through the woods was demanded because I find this one of the most attractive suburban spaces in Ireland and whenever I am visiting I would always try to go there.
This time we went by a path I had never seen before and a number of surprising images cropped up along the way.
I won't comment much but we were lucky  - it started to rain, and we had to abandon coffee etc and head for cars..........but not before I managed to pick up a rather nice book with some great drawings and words:

 

  

 

                                                                           Who?

 

The walk:

 

 

 

So bright and green on a cloudy January day

 

 

 

Found Object

 

 

 

 

 

The Fairy Tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You could see where Hockney was coming from, all the same.

 

 

 

I know these are a bit hackneyed, but the endless variety of the tree skeleton

never fails to attract.

 

Paint on Monday and tomorrow a bit about that.

 

 

 

 

the end of the print path............. for now?

Today I worked on something completely different.

When I was in Vancouver a few years ago I found this amazing art shop close to their art school  on Granville Island and there I was able to buy something I had been hunting for some time - powdered graphite. Since then I have used it in various ways, but its something you have to be careful with for the merest hint will stain everything within range,
Anyway, on the basis of  Kieran's lecture yesterday. I decided to try glueing it to an acetate plate and working it in various ways.
Here is the plate in prep:

Or rather, I should say one of the plates because I was quite pleased after some initial doubt. Later in the day I put in some monoprint colour which I felt was quite effective. Here is the other plate in progress:

 

  

 

 

 

It took quite a bit of work to get the desk in order, but here it is ready for the assessment:

 

 

 

Actually, now that I look at this, the afore-mentioned prints are very presentable here .

 

 

It just keeps coming:

 

 

Public Print

 

 

The Path of Knowledge

CCS resumed today with an introductory lecture in the old building across the river beside Barringtons Hospital. More modern, less gravitas, smaller screen than the church  - in all other ways,vastly better: more contact between audience and speaker, much better accoustics, brightter, better chairs.... and some fresh air on the way to and from.

At 1.30 we had an introductiory seminar on print from Kieran Cashell which was great: the content was great, the pictures were great and most of all the passion was great - hope to hear more like that.

Tidied up the sketchbook somewhat and updated contextual some more; there is so much more I could put up here or/and in the notebook but it would tend to become rather too all-encompassing and I must try to be more selective and to cut the verbosity somewhat (that will be difficult!)

I also took some pictures which I will show here to give some more idea of the process.

Let's first have a look at the woodblock day on Monday - here are the two blocks:
























First, the black key block                                                                Second the grey underlayer



The black proof print:

:
With grey layer under:

 

This is with the paler grey

 

 

 

With an over layer of acid blue:

 

 

 

 

Poorish photo but the final result was quite interesting - not sure about the blue.

 

 

 

Finally, here are a few more pipes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.....but not least:

 

Public Print