Latest posts by michael wilson (see all)
- JORDAN RIVER - February 5, 2019
- Inspired Art - August 2, 2018
- Waiting for Inspiration - July 31, 2018
- The Bridge between Painting and Photography - July 31, 2018
A work of two dimensional art typically represents one of two fields of art psychology. The first is the more typical painting which essentially gives us a window into another world, the world the artist has discovered and now wants to represent. It is a slice of time. We are drawn into it in the same way we are drawn to look out a window. The window frames the world outside – a home or building across the street, a wide field, a backyard, a lake. The second field is really a shift in our psychological view. IT is where the ‘The Image as the Thing’ becomes the image itself and it does not point to another world…we do not look to another slice of time because the painting itself is the message. The Image as the Thing, has the inherent intent of being the construction itself. It does not point to another. It creates its own identity rather than attempting to duplicate another.
I call it two fields of psychology because there is a distinct and conscious effort that describes the second effort and this is quite different from the first. THis requires some adjustment for the viewer who is used to seeing that window into another world, something we might call the standard view. The artist however who seeks to paint ‘The Image as the Thing’ is after an effect quite different. The painting becomes the object and we no longer look to see beyond it. Our focus is only on the painting as object. When we look at a typical landscape or portrait or still life we see the objects that are painted. This becomes our focus. When an artist chooses to abandon those objects to create a painting that is itself the object, then we have something that is quite different. Assuming each become framed, the first provides us a framed image that points to a particular scene. In the second the frame encompasses the object itself. This may sound like I am splitting hairs but the intent and the resultant effect are actually quite distinct. It is important that we understand the differentiation especially if you are an artist wanting to understand just where your personal style is going – what are you trying to do?
To give you some example of what I am talking about here – the distinction of these two very different ways of painting, let me point you to the works of Klee, Rothko, Jackson Pollack and of course Kandinsky. Those artists chose an entirely different psychology, a different point of reference that abandoned any particular point in time, any geographical location. In many cases the application of the paint itself became the focus or the characteristic design, or more often, the effect created by both. The idea was to have The Image As the Thing. Those artists I have mentioned and there are many more, didn’t want you to focus on any particular bucolic scene but wants the viewer to fully experience the painting itself. The painting no longer looks to an image beyond but is itself the image…immediately reflecting the viewer’s response. This is certainly one of the main reasons Abstract Painting intentionally lacks depth and perspective.
These artists changed the way we view art. Perhaps what they were after was a more honest psychology, not an idealic setting but a candid view of our own diverse and often opposing reflections of the world we experience. Those artists were perhaps wanting to honestly express personal and inner impressions. The various methods of Abstract painting made this easier. Stripped of the need to represent natural scenes which even Van Gogh was bound to, contemporary abstract artists were able to express themselves more intuitively and more spontaneously. Though Picasso was curiously bound to the female image right to the very end of his career, he nevertheless was probably the first to point in this direction. He did this by abstracting form. The form however remained but he pointed towards the need for a new method of interpretation – Braque and then Kandinsky and the others picked up where he was, shall we say, wanting to go. They abandoned the natural form.