Testing and playing with ideas about 'Identity' and how to create visual representations offered me a huge range of subjects to consider last week week. I am beginning to move away from the set example of exploring this concept through super heroes though.
Exploring the theme again from scratch gave me the opportunity to re-set a personal mind map. This will help me to identify and recognise a number of subset groups which again can be represented visually.
In psychology and sociology, identity is a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations. The concept is given a great deal of attention in social psychology and is also important in place identity. We explored the relationship initially from a people centric view, but clearly, identity can be applied to any object, collection, city, plant, animal etc...
Meanwhile, with reference to my own journey of discovery, after reading a quote from the book, Shock of the New, by Robert Hughes, (which was paraphrased from Tannhauser in 1860...)
"Je Raisons de m'informer du pourquoi, et de transformer ma valupte en connaissance!"
= I set out to discover the why of it, and transform my pleasure into knowledge!"
It seemed a fitting quote or affirmation, to help me in this journey to gain a better understanding of Contemporary Art in general...
.... Anyway, back to the plot!
To research the visualisation of identity, I thought that a simple review of the early 20th century artists would help to start some creativity. So I make no apology for the brief free lesson in art history, over the last few hundred years....
I was initially caught by a simple statement that I found, - that prior to the Renaissance, almost all representations of people, objects and landscape scenes were "flat" and without perspective. I simply hadn't realised this until now. Recalling my limited memory of historically ancient images, such as cave paintings, Egyptian reliefs, and the religious iconography of the early progress of Christianity, it seemed an obvious observation, - all the images were indeed 'flat'.
However since the renaissance, almost all new paintings obeyed a wonderful new convention, that of having one point of perspective. This was a geometrically new system, for depicting the illusion of reality. (Which is based on the notion of things that appear smaller, the further away from the eye it is). This radical new convention was probably received with awe and amazement for the next few hundred years, however there was little challenge to this convention. That is, until Paul Cezzanne started to question the concept that the "looker" affects the sight and that sight is affected by the memory of what the brain already knows, based on what has been seen before...
However, before I move away from the renaissance, perspective is a form of abstraction, and so it obeys it's own rules, to simplify the relationship between eye, brain and object. This relies on a 'static' viewer or observer, and hence a stabilised or ideal field of view. But this view is a separate single image of what light falls onto the retina of the eye, whearas the brain is free to indulge in separate contemplation.... An identity therefore, is merely a perception.
How we record the image in our mind, therefore constitutes an identity.
I was amazed that some of the most famous artists in history were able to capture an identity so immediately and so readily, and without the advent of photography, the ability to complete extremely quick paint sketches (i.e. contemporaneously) was vitally important for their craft. We nowadays take for granted the camera and it's ability to freeze a moment in time that can be shared around the globe in an instant.
Since the establishment of the convention during the Renaissance, the method of capturing an image through the use of painting with perspective remained unchanged. What the eye saw was translated through the artist's skill into as close to perfect a rendering of the subject before them, or in the case of a religious commission, the artist usually required models to pose for them with all the appropriate theatre and decoration.
During the 1800s, Artists continued to record generally what they saw.... We of course have the history of Constable and Turner as wonderful landscape painters, (plus too many others to name as portrait and landscape painters here). At this time though, art was beginning to come into the reach of more ordinary people.
No longer did the heads of religious orders, nor extremely wealthy, nor the nobility have exclusive rights to own or commission new pieces of art.
With this slowly increasing availability of art, came a greater sense of commercialisation too. Art was being compared. Art was being valued (based on traditional institutionalised values of clarity, beauty, elegance, and of course skill). Art was being bought and sold, - particularly in the Paris Salons, which were the centres of congregation of the wealthy and 'trendy' from France and the rest of Europe.
These grand old institutions where all about conventions and rules and "how things should be".... This general stifling by the academias, salons and institutions of creativity must have been hard to deal with, especially during a time of huge social change, the industrial revolution, and the start of a cultural revolution (where Art, as that observer of such, was intrinsically intertwined. - I wonder if I had lived during that time, I may have wanted to rebel?... ). The world was (especially in Europe) in a state of some turmoil, with regular national upheavals, wars and the Franco-Prussian war provides punctuation to that period.
These various factors may also be some of the reasons why the Impressionist movement of around the 1860s to 70s emerged. This group of artists wanted to record everything going on around them, all of what they witnessed in the new bright world, and in a new and colourful way. Nevertheless, even the impressionists were continuing to create art, based generally on what they saw.... It was the representation of styles, colours and recording the images that was different and new. (The title of the movement, "Impressionists" was not actually created by any member of it. It was in fact a label given to the artists, thrust on to them by an arty newspaper reporter & critic of 1874 who was negative and antagonistic to their work).
One of these newly inspired Impressionists, Paul Cezzanne, slightly outside on the fringes of the core Impressionist movement of Pissaro, Monet and Renoir, is generally recognised as the one who challenged the fundamental and stable conventions set in the time of the renaissance, (which was mainly that of perspective and painting a scene for the purpose of the viewer to gain recognition through copy and representation of the subject). Cezzane changed his style to capture the viewer's actual participation in making perspective and perception of space through the critical use of colours and particular types of brush strokes to create the illusion of texture and shadows and hence space too as a viewer perceives the painting in itself.
What Cezzane did that was so radical, was to shift away from simply copying the images that he saw. At a time through the 1880s, Cezzane had experienced a number of personal blows, his father had died, and having had only little success as an artist he became quite isolated working as a virtual recluse to his vocation, despite being significantly influenced by impressionists earlier in his career.
During this period of isolation though, he was able to develop and progress his own unique style. He captured various studies of a scene that clearly he identified with, and inspired him during each of the passing seasons, and even at different times of the day. The scene was of Mont Sainte-Victoire and his painting style was altered in order to portray the "mood" of an image, as well as the record of the image in itself.
Cezzanne was almost obsessed with this mountain it seems, as, over the course of the next 10 years or so, he painted it again and again.
This notion of looking at objects in a different way, that Cezzanne established, communicated and socialised with his peers, influenced further work through the later artists and the establishment of the Cubist Movement, Pablo Piccasso and George Braque. These guys experimented in different ways of seeing, i.e. " to represent the fact that our knowledge of an object is made from all possible views of it; Top, sides, front and back." They wanted to represent an image of their knowledge of an object by compressing it into one single view...
This, concept, surprisingly, was aided by "borrowing" an ancient and possibly primitive style of representation used in African Art, and in particular, the woodcarvings made, such as the Mahongwe Masks from the Gabon region.
Looking at the African mask in the lower section of this photograph shows the similarities quite clearly.
However, the new way of looking at things did not stop there... By breaking down images to the minimal construction of squares, triangles and circles, any image can be rendered. Piccasso and the Cubist movement also explored this in a three dimensional recreation through the use of corresponding cubes & cylinders, cones and spheres...
I hope this provides a very condensed introduction to the 20th century emergence of why the traditional or classical conventions of art has been challenged by contemporary artists ever since.
The style of creating identities in very new and dynamic ways continues to this day. The example of a preparatory study "study for narnia" by Euan Uglow in 1999 demonstrates how identity plays a massively important role in contemporary Art.
ROLL ON TO WEEK 3!!!
Since the establishment of the convention during the Renaissance, the method of capturing an image through the use of painting with perspective remained unchanged. What the eye saw was translated through the artist's skill into as close to perfect a rendering of the subject before them, or in the case of a religious commission, the artist usually required models to pose for them with all the appropriate theatre and decoration.
During the 1800s, Artists continued to record generally what they saw.... We of course have the history of Constable and Turner as wonderful landscape painters, (plus too many others to name as portrait and landscape painters here). At this time though, art was beginning to come into the reach of more ordinary people.
No longer did the heads of religious orders, nor extremely wealthy, nor the nobility have exclusive rights to own or commission new pieces of art.
With this slowly increasing availability of art, came a greater sense of commercialisation too. Art was being compared. Art was being valued (based on traditional institutionalised values of clarity, beauty, elegance, and of course skill). Art was being bought and sold, - particularly in the Paris Salons, which were the centres of congregation of the wealthy and 'trendy' from France and the rest of Europe.These grand old institutions where all about conventions and rules and "how things should be".... This general stifling by the academias, salons and institutions of creativity must have been hard to deal with, especially during a time of huge social change, the industrial revolution, and the start of a cultural revolution (where Art, as that observer of such, was intrinsically intertwined. - I wonder if I had lived during that time, I may have wanted to rebel?... ). The world was (especially in Europe) in a state of some turmoil, with regular national upheavals, wars and the Franco-Prussian war provides punctuation to that period.
These various factors may also be some of the reasons why the Impressionist movement of around the 1860s to 70s emerged. This group of artists wanted to record everything going on around them, all of what they witnessed in the new bright world, and in a new and colourful way. Nevertheless, even the impressionists were continuing to create art, based generally on what they saw.... It was the representation of styles, colours and recording the images that was different and new. (The title of the movement, "Impressionists" was not actually created by any member of it. It was in fact a label given to the artists, thrust on to them by an arty newspaper reporter & critic of 1874 who was negative and antagonistic to their work).
One of these newly inspired Impressionists, Paul Cezzanne, slightly outside on the fringes of the core Impressionist movement of Pissaro, Monet and Renoir, is generally recognised as the one who challenged the fundamental and stable conventions set in the time of the renaissance, (which was mainly that of perspective and painting a scene for the purpose of the viewer to gain recognition through copy and representation of the subject). Cezzane changed his style to capture the viewer's actual participation in making perspective and perception of space through the critical use of colours and particular types of brush strokes to create the illusion of texture and shadows and hence space too as a viewer perceives the painting in itself.
What Cezzane did that was so radical, was to shift away from simply copying the images that he saw. At a time through the 1880s, Cezzane had experienced a number of personal blows, his father had died, and having had only little success as an artist he became quite isolated working as a virtual recluse to his vocation, despite being significantly influenced by impressionists earlier in his career.
Cezzanne was almost obsessed with this mountain it seems, as, over the course of the next 10 years or so, he painted it again and again.
This notion of looking at objects in a different way, that Cezzanne established, communicated and socialised with his peers, influenced further work through the later artists and the establishment of the Cubist Movement, Pablo Piccasso and George Braque. These guys experimented in different ways of seeing, i.e. " to represent the fact that our knowledge of an object is made from all possible views of it; Top, sides, front and back." They wanted to represent an image of their knowledge of an object by compressing it into one single view...
This, concept, surprisingly, was aided by "borrowing" an ancient and possibly primitive style of representation used in African Art, and in particular, the woodcarvings made, such as the Mahongwe Masks from the Gabon region.Looking at the African mask in the lower section of this photograph shows the similarities quite clearly.
Piccaso's iconic paintings which virtually kick started the 20th Century took the way of looking at scenes to a whole new level!
I hope this provides a very condensed introduction to the 20th century emergence of why the traditional or classical conventions of art has been challenged by contemporary artists ever since.
ROLL ON TO WEEK 3!!!
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