Surrealism | Redtree Times

Posts Tagged ‘Surrealism’

Yves Tanguy and Automatism

Posted in Advice, Biographical, Painting, tagged Automatism, Giorgio de Chirico, Surrealism, Yves Tanguy on January 2, 2020| 2 Comments »

Yves Tanguy – Indefinite Divisibility – 1942

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I found that if I planned a picture beforehand, it never surprised me, and surprises are my pleasure in painting.

–Yves Tanguy

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Thought we’d start the new year with a quick look at the Surrealist painter, Yves Tanguy. I can’t say I know a lot about Tanguy, who was born in Paris in 1900, raised in Brittany and died in Connecticut in 1955. He first was attracted to painting in 1922 after seeing a Giorgio De Chirico painting in the window of a Paris art dealer as he was riding a passing bus. He jumped off the bus and went back to study the painting. That was the experience that set off his career.

But with the little info I could quickly glean, I found that we shared a few similarities. One was coming to painting with little training. I consider myself basically self taught and, while he had did some sketching before his brush with De Chirico’s work, Tanguy basically set out on his career as a painter with no formal training. His self taught style developed quickly and was recognizable and celebrated within several years.

He also practiced automatism in his work, which is just a more formal word for having no real plan as you start a painting. I actually didn’t know there was a word for this though I’ve been practicing it for decades now. Much like he said in the quote at the top, I also take great pleasure in the surprises that come from working this way. There’s a form of revelation in working this way that I can’t get when beginning a piece with a predetermined outcome.

Tanguy also described the effects of his automatism this way: The painting develops before my eyes, unfolding its surprises as it progresses. It is this which gives me the sense of complete liberty, and for this reason I am incapable of forming a plan or making a sketch beforehand.

I understand this completely.

He also said: I believe there is little to gain by exchanging opinions with other artists concerning either the ideology of art or technical methods.

I hate to admit it but I kind of agree with this. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoy talking with other artists, hearing about their experiences and their breakthroughs. But I don’t really like to talk about my own process or my ideology with other artists. Oddly enough, I am more likely to do this with a group such as at a gallery talk. There, I feel like I am simply describing what I do and not giving advice or direction, which I dislike giving to other artists.

I think art comes from having an idea of what one wants and needs to get from their art as well as their individual knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses as applied to technique and materials. I can’t tell someone what they need from their own art or how it should make them feel. Nor can I tell them how they will better understand what they know about the paints or tools they use. I can give little ideas but they must gain their own insights through their own experiences.

I’ve often said there is no right or wrong in art and this hesitancy to exchange opinions is just an extension of that. What might be right for me or Yves Tanguy might not be right for another artist.

Okay, I know there is a that can be debated here but I am tired of even talking about this right now. Let’s just look at few Yves Tanguy paintings, okay?

Yves Tanguy- The Sun In Its Jewel Case – 1937

Yves Tanguy- There, Motion Has Not Yet Ceased – 1945

Yves Tanguy – Azure Day – 1937

Yves Tanguy – Mama, Papa Is Wounded – 1927

Yves Tanguy – Promontory Palace 1931

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Hello Dali

Posted in Influences, Painting, tagged Salvador Dali, Surrealism on March 12, 2019| 1 Comment »

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The fact I myself do not understand what my paintings mean while I am painting them does not imply that they are meaningless.

–Salvador Dali

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Been writing this blog for over ten years now and this is the first post about him so you might understand when I say that I am not the biggest fan of the work of Salvador Dali, the famed Spanish Surrealist painter who died in 1989 at the age of 85. His work was always visually interesting, sometimes in a disturbing fashion, and was painted in a high traditional manner. Some of it is beautiful work. But it just never fully clicked with me. Some pieces I liked very much and others left me completely cold.

I will say that for me and many people of my age, he was the face of art, being one of the few artists who sought (and found) attention on television. If you had asked me at the age of 12 how an artist might act, I would most likely have described the wild antics of Dali that I had observed on a variety of shows of that time. He was always eccentric bordering on a lunacy that, even as a kid, I could never decide was real or contrived.

And maybe it is this public persona, the one that had him seemingly mugging and posing for attention at every opportunity, that tainted how I looked at his work. Sometimes it seemed like his paintings were doing the same– just trying too hard. A little too engineered and manipulative. Nowadays, I try now to set aside that image of his persona and focus now on each painting individually. It allows me to fully enjoy the work that speaks to me and to simply take in the others.

I also enjoy some of his writings, which are often more lucid and focused than his public appearances. For example, I like his feelings as expressed above about the meanings of his work as well as this other short observation:

If you understand a painting beforehand, you might as well not paint it.

Both quotes could apply to my feelings about my own work. I have often felt that the best and most alive work is produced when there is no contrivance, no clever idea at the beginning of how I can manipulate a response from the viewer. Almost as though there is an absence of forethought, a void that allows the subconscious mood at the moment to dictate in color and form without the dull, wooden clutter of thought out cleverness.

Sometimes, I find that the paintings that I expect the least from when beginning often produce the most when done.

You might disagree with this. Your argument might be valid. I will not argue the point and can only speak for myself and my experience.

I apologize for not going into more detail on Dali’s career here but there is a ton of material out there that anyone can easily find. I thought I’d just share a few words and images for you to consider. You make your own judgments.

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Max Ernst/ Painting

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, Quote, tagged Max Ernst, Quote, Surrealism on October 1, 2018| 2 Comments »

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Painting is neither decorative amusement, nor the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.

–Max Ernst

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I like this quote from Surrealist painter Max Ernst. It seems that a painting that follows this described route– invention, discovery, revelation— takes on the sense of timelessness that makes it art.

The invention comes in the actual composition and the initial execution of the painting. Discovery comes in allowing the painting to build in itself, to follow directions that arise during the process. Revelation is recognizing something more in the painting than the subject itself suggests.

There’s a lot more that could be said on all three of these elements but the shorthand version suits me at the moment. Take that for what it’s worth.

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Dorothea Tanning

Posted in Favorite Things, Motivation, Neat Stuff, Painting, Quote, tagged Dorothea Tanning, Quote, Surrealism on August 13, 2018| 2 Comments »

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Art has always been the raft onto which we climb to save our sanity. I don’t see a different purpose for it now.

—Dorothea Tanning

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Doing research for this blog, I run into so many artists that work well into their nineties and beyond that I begin to get hopeful for my own longevity. I try to see if there is some sort of common denominator among them, something that might be a key to their long careers and lives.

There seems to be among many, at least to my eye, a constant striving for growth and change in their work. There are often new subjects, new styles, new mediums and new processes. But a constant state of wonder.

Dorothea Tanning is one such example. Born in 1910, she worked until late in her life and died at the age of 102 in 2012. Her work changed throughout her career, having multiple phases, but always remained her own. I am only showing a few of her pieces here, a few that immediately grabbed me this morning, along with a short video with a bit of an overview. Like many artists I show here, I don’t know a lot about her work but hope to use this as an introduction.

Hopefully, in forty years or so, I will still be following Ms. Tanning’s example. But most likely only if I try continue to attempt to grow. Because as Dorothea Tanning also said: It’s hard to be always the same person.

Tanning, Dorothea

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Victor Brauner- The Surrealist

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Neat Stuff, tagged Hitler, Nazi, Paul Klee, Romania, Surrealism, Victor Brauner on December 15, 2015| 5 Comments »

Victor Brauner- “Signe” 1942- Mounted on his tomb in Montmartre

Painting is life, the real life, my life.

—Victor Brauner, epitaph on his grave in Paris

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The sculpted piece above is part, along with the quote above, of the Montmartre tomb of Victor Brauner, a Romanian Jewish painter/sculptor who lived from 1903 to 1966, spending most of his life in France. It depicts the heads he often portrayed in his Surrealistic paintings.

I can’t quite remember how I first came across the work of Brauner. I think it might have been in an article that had anti-Nazi art from the 1930’s. He had painted a couple of paintings in 1934 and 1935 during Hitler’s rise, one depicting a fantasy portrait of Hitler with his head being pierced with all sorts of implements. A knife in the eye , for example. The other depicted a German military figure standing atop a swastika that is crushing the bodies under it. Both are powerful propaganda images and are shown below.

But I stumbled across his other work apart from these images and they caught my attention on their own. They are surreal images that often have a Paul Klee-like mysticism in them that I am drawn to. Maybe I also identify with something Brauner once wrote in his notebooks: Each painting that I make is projected from the deepest sources of my anxiety…

Whatever the case, I find them interesting, something more to delve into. Take a look.

Victor Brauner- The Surrealist 1947

Victor Brauner- Hitler 1934

Victor Brauner- Untitled 1935

Victor Brauner- La Petrification de la Papesse

Victor Brauner- Prelude to a Civilization 1954

Victor Brauner- Consciousness of Shock 1951

Victor Brauner- Antithesis 1937

Victor Brauner- The Triumph of Doubt 1946

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Manipulated Reality/ Erik Johansson

Posted in Neat Stuff, Photography, tagged Erik Johansson, Photography, Photoshop, Surrealism on March 4, 2015| 3 Comments »

Erik Johansson is a Swedish photographer working out of Berlin who has made quite a name for himself by taking the ordinary moment and inserting a twist in its perception through a very skilled manipulation of the photos, creating a new and surreal reality. Johansson can look upon a very mundane scene and see all sorts of other potentials. In his manipulated reality there are row boats plowing through fields, a driver is faced with with a giant chrome ball that blocks his way and a biker comes upon a road that is cut like a piece of paper, its ends splayed high in the air above him. Real life houses appear like those from an MC Escher drawing. And that is just a small sample.

It is an incredible combination of imaginative vision, skill and technology. You can see more of his work at his website by clicking here. There is also a wonderful blog on his site that gives a real inside look at his process, including a number of videos. Here at the bottom, there is one of these videos that shows in great depth the many layers of editing and manipulation that take place in composing his photo, Cut and Fold, shown at the top of this page. If you’ve ever used photo editing software such as Photoshop, you will appreciate his great skill.

If you don’t care how he came to his final product, it may take a way a bit of the mystery. Or not. I don’t know.

Anyway, it’s great fun so take a moment and let your mind wander into a different reality.

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Poetry for the Unknown

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Quote, tagged Corning NY, gallery talk, GC Myers, Quote, Rene Magritte, Surrealism, West End Gallery on August 7, 2014| 6 Comments »

I conceive of the art of painting as the science of juxtaposing colours in such a way that their actual appearance disappears and lets a poetic image emerge. . . . There are no “subjects”, no “themes” in my painting. It is a matter of imagining images whose poetry restores to what is known that which is absolutely unknown and unknowable.

–Rene Magritte, 1967

In a letter two months prior to his death

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I am giving my annual Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery this coming Saturday, August 9. I don’t usually come in with a prepared speech, instead speaking off the cuff and responding to the audience, but I still prepare myself in a few different ways. One is to go over possible themes and clarify my thoughts on these subjects to minimize awkward pauses at the actual talk. Oh, it doesn’t eliminate them but it helps to have some sort of thought formed beforehand.

The quote above from Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte reminds me of an instance where I didn’t fully get across what I was trying to communicate in response to a question. While speaking to a regional arts group consisting of enthusiastic painters, some amateurs and some professional, a question was brought up about the importance of subject. Magritte elegantly stated in his words what I was trying to say that evening, that the purpose of what I was doing was not in the actual portrayal of the object of the painting but in the way it was expressed through color and form and contrast. To me, the subject was not important except as a vehicle for carrying emotion.

Of course, I didn’t state it with any kind of coherence. Hearing me say that the subject wasn’t important angered the man who was a lifelong painter of very accomplished landscapes. He said that the subject was most important in forming your painting. I fumbled around for a bit and don’t think I ever satisfied his question or got across a bit of what I was attempting to say.

I think he was still mad when he left which still bothers me because he was right, of course. Subject is important. It is the relationship that you have with the subject that makes it a vehicle for accurately carrying the emotional feeling you are trying to pull from the painting. While I am not interested in depicting landscapes of specific areas, I am moved by the rolls of hills and fields and the stately personae of trees and that comes through in my painting. Yes, I can capture emotion in things that may not have any emotional attachment to me through the way I am painting them, which was part of what I was saying to that man that evening, but it will never be as fully realized as those pieces which consist of things and places in which I maintain a personal relationship.

It is always easier to find the poetry of the unknown in those things which we know.

Hopefully, I will not be as inelegant Saturday as I was on that evening. I hope you can come to the West End Gallery around 1 PM and test me a bit. I think I’m ready. Plus, you might walk away with a painting from my studio!

See you then…

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Fearless Rousseau

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, tagged Henri Rousseau, Influence, Picasso, Surrealism on March 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Henri Rousseau- Self Portrait -1890

I wrote a tiny bit on this site about Henri Rousseau over five years back, showing a few of his paintings that I count among my favorites. Over the years, that little blogpost is consistently my most popular page, receiving a considerable number of hits each day. It’s a testament to the power of his imagery, both in its ability to draw in the viewer and in the timeless quality it possesses in its evocation of mood. I know those are the two qualities that drew me to Rousseau and the qualities I sought to emulate in my own work.

But going through a large book of his work yesterday, I was stuck by one of his greatest attributes, one that I had overlooked: his fearless approach to painting. His work never tried to be something that it was not and always displayed his hand proudly, always declaring itself as his. It gave even his lesser works a strength that is undeniable and true.

It was evidence of a supreme belief in the manner in which he was expressing himself.

That’s not a small thing. I know for myself, there is a constant struggle to maintain my own voice and vision, to not try to conform to the expectations and definitions set down by others in my work. To remain fearless like Rousseau.

Rousseau was born in 1844 and worked most of his life as a civil servant, a clerk who collected taxes on goods going into Paris. He didn’t start painting until he was in his early 40’s and was not a full-time painter until he was 49. He was basically self taught and worked for the next seventeen years as a painter, blissfully maintaining his fearless work even though he was ignored or disparaged by most of the critics and much of the art world in general.

Yet, among the painters of his day he remains one of the most influential, directly inspiring other giants such as Picasso and many of the the Surrealists. I think they, too, were drawn in and empowered by his fearlessness.

I think he might have been one of the great examples of someone painting the paintings he wanted to see. And that, too, is not a small thing. This and his bold approach are constant reminders to painters who want to maintain their unique voice, who don’t want to be lumped in with genres and styles and schools to stay fearless.

I will try.

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Jim Nutt’s Obsessive Portrait

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, tagged Chicago Imagists, Jim Nutt, Pop Art, Roger Brown, Surrealism on February 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I wrote last week about the work of the Chicago-based artist Roger Brown, who was part of the Chicago Imagists which were a group of artists who were inspired by the pop imagery of comic books as well as surrealism. Another artist who was in this circle was Jim Nutt, born in 1938 in Massachusetts and educated at a variety of universities including the Art Institute of Chicago, where he met his wife, artist Gladys Nilsson. He has lived and painted in the Chicago area since the 1960’s.

Nutt’s early work in the 60’s and 70’s was very much in the comic book/pop art style with bold, flat colors that were often harshly contrasting and fantastic imagery bordering on the bizarre, as can be seen here in the image to the left. It’s strong, exciting work but for me the more interesting part of Nutt’s career has been his obsessive, repeated painting of a single imaginary female portrait over the past twenty-five years. He spends nearly a year neticulously painting each of these portraits of a woman with a hairdo that evokes the 1940’s and a most unusual large nose that is typically colored in direct contrast to the rest of the woman’s face. He paints these works in thin acrylic paint with tiny brushes which accounts for the long time frame for each piece. The resulting work, as a result of this technique, is meant to be seen up close where they reveal their refined surfaces and subtle tones, revealing beauty that belies the sometimes grotesque appearance of the image from afar.

I am always drawn to the artist who repeatedly revisits a form, finding something new in each new foray. This subject of Nutt’s may be the same image he sees in his mind but each piece is decidedly different in presentation and feel. And, while I feel his early work is interesting and distinctive, it is this obsession that has held Nutt for the past 25 years that defines Nutt for me.

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Roger Brown’s Rhythms

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Neat Stuff, tagged Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Imagists, Comic Book Art, Primitives, Roger Brown, Surrealism on February 15, 2012| 2 Comments »

I was looking up something totally unrelated to his work when I stumbled across the paintings of Roger Brown, a painter who was one of the group of Chicago Imagists, an informal school of art in the late 1960’s that had it roots in comic book art, Surrealism and Primitivism. The work was highly individual and always bold in style and statement. When I saw Brown’s images, I wondered how I had missed him before. Strong work with big rhythmic patterns. Just plain good stuff that turns my wheels.

Brown was born in Alabama in 1941 and came to Chicago in 1962 to study at the Art Institute of Chicago and remained a resident of the Windy City until his death in 1997 from liver disease at the age of 55. I can’t give a lot of info here about his biography as I am still learning about his life and work myself. I will let his images tell the story here .