Readings and Musings

I waited till the last minute again..ugh

The Blue of Distance by Rebecca Solnit

I cheesily made the font blue.

Monet, master of color, did it too.

In this article, Rebecca Solnit is exploring the concept of distance, and the (I think) romantic notions that come with it. She writes about how artists discovered that the color blue conveys distance in a painting, and if one looks at a horizon full of mountains, one will see that there is a bluish hue among the farthest ones. She also thinks about the more abstract feelings of distance, and the difference between adults and children.

This may be the reason that to us blue is melancholy--it is represented in nature as  something unreachable and fleeting.

A Painter's Wisdom by Max Beckmann

I would not liked to have been around Max Beckmann when he wrote this...bad mood alert! This piece mostly makes me wonder whether the art world has changed at all since he wrote this. My intuition says no, nothing has changed, and it never will. Society really does view art as an elastic good, something they can substitute for a vacation or a car, something that will always be here and something that no one really needs, just wants. It makes me scream--the world without art would be desolate and anti-intellectual, why cannot the public see this? Everyone takes everything for granted.



Tradition and Identity by David Smith

I like Whistler

David Smith came from the wide-eyed perspective of a small town that viewed art as something distant (and elastic..grr). When he explored art he realized that it's not so glamorous as it seems, it is dirty, rough, messy, no rules, no expectations. Art doesn't come from method and tradition, it comes from somewhere inside you.

Ok, I find this kind of pretentious! He seems to make art even more distant for those who can't naturally understand. This sort of thing really depends on the individual artist--if an artist uses traditional materials, does it make him/her less of an artist? I don't think so. Some people are more methodical than others. And using good materials creates lasting art. Paintings by people like Whistler who used whatever mixture of pigment/oil he wanted are starting to crumble and rot because of poor craftsmanship. Not that I'm a perfect example of a methodical person, but seriously. Not everyone is like you.