A trio of fascinating books. Schreyach’s Totality, in which he deconstructs and analyses Newman from the outside in, to Ric Reuben’s The Creative Act: A way of Being, himself a player, ruminating on the act of creativity, and I Paint What I Want To See, Philip Guston’s deep dive into the trenches of where paintings are made; the doubts and angst of what it is to be a painter and what a painting is and isn’t, laid bare. Had I read Guston’s book many years ago, I might not have gone down this road of painting; in stark contrast to Ruben’s “everyone is creative.” Ruben is the yin to Guston’s yang. Guston is immersed, in the basement of the creative process, making, destroying, reworking, ad nauseam. As a painter, I found myself repeatedly saying, yes, I know what you’re talking about, even when I didn’t.
Reading this passage of Guston’s rang true as I recalled seeing those Rembrandts at the Frick’s temporary home at the Bauer monstrosity. He says: “In those great Rembrandts there’s the ambiguity of paint being image and image being paint, which is very mysterious…The point about the late Rembrandt is not that it’s satisfying but on the contrary that it is disturbing and frustrating. Because really what he’s done is to eliminate any plane, anything between that image and you. The Van Deck hasn’t. It says: ’I’m a painting.’ The Rembrandt says: ‘I am not a painting, I am a real man.’ But he is not a real man either. What is it then, that you’re looking at?”
In his interview with Clark Coolidge he states: “I once made an analogy that, in painting, creating, it’s a court. But unlike a court, you’re the plaintiff, the defendant, the lawyer, the judge, and the jury. And most artists want to settle out of court.” Amen to that, I say, there is no editor.
Franklin states: “Art may require you to transcend craft so totally that craft disappears, and then you disappear. But that way is clear and you’re free to walk down it. In the meantime, you would be advised to give up on the idea that the way leads anywhere.”
Guston says “The laws of art are generous laws. They are not definable because they are not fixed. These laws are revealed to the artist during creation and cannot be given to him. They are not knowable. A work cannot begin with these Laws as a diagram.”
A wonderful book and one I am embarrassed to say I never read before. Thank you!
Insightful. The Piero example, very fine. Does one choose art or does art do the choosing? The artist's choice, it seems, is whether to accept the yoke. One had better want it. As for disappearing when and if one is really painting, generally speaking, the lightning is more likely to strike during the blind stumble which follows that part where ego has gotten lost. PS: The Drifters' Spanish Harlem is tasteful, romantic. Aretha Franklin's treatment is merely sexual, and not especially preferred because nothing is left to the imagination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7F2sJjoJP8 For more influential gospel precedents, Mahalia Jackson, Leontine Price, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Dorothy Love Coates and the Gospel Harmonettes and so many more.
I'm afraid reverence for Piero della Francesca, not to mention Christian religious art, is so far out of bounds that it's practically otherworldly--and as we know, the essence of correctness is unconditional adherence to the prevailing orthodoxy and hostile rejection of any deviation therefrom.
A trio of fascinating books. Schreyach’s Totality, in which he deconstructs and analyses Newman from the outside in, to Ric Reuben’s The Creative Act: A way of Being, himself a player, ruminating on the act of creativity, and I Paint What I Want To See, Philip Guston’s deep dive into the trenches of where paintings are made; the doubts and angst of what it is to be a painter and what a painting is and isn’t, laid bare. Had I read Guston’s book many years ago, I might not have gone down this road of painting; in stark contrast to Ruben’s “everyone is creative.” Ruben is the yin to Guston’s yang. Guston is immersed, in the basement of the creative process, making, destroying, reworking, ad nauseam. As a painter, I found myself repeatedly saying, yes, I know what you’re talking about, even when I didn’t.
Reading this passage of Guston’s rang true as I recalled seeing those Rembrandts at the Frick’s temporary home at the Bauer monstrosity. He says: “In those great Rembrandts there’s the ambiguity of paint being image and image being paint, which is very mysterious…The point about the late Rembrandt is not that it’s satisfying but on the contrary that it is disturbing and frustrating. Because really what he’s done is to eliminate any plane, anything between that image and you. The Van Deck hasn’t. It says: ’I’m a painting.’ The Rembrandt says: ‘I am not a painting, I am a real man.’ But he is not a real man either. What is it then, that you’re looking at?”
In his interview with Clark Coolidge he states: “I once made an analogy that, in painting, creating, it’s a court. But unlike a court, you’re the plaintiff, the defendant, the lawyer, the judge, and the jury. And most artists want to settle out of court.” Amen to that, I say, there is no editor.
Franklin states: “Art may require you to transcend craft so totally that craft disappears, and then you disappear. But that way is clear and you’re free to walk down it. In the meantime, you would be advised to give up on the idea that the way leads anywhere.”
Guston says “The laws of art are generous laws. They are not definable because they are not fixed. These laws are revealed to the artist during creation and cannot be given to him. They are not knowable. A work cannot begin with these Laws as a diagram.”
A wonderful book and one I am embarrassed to say I never read before. Thank you!
Very glad to acquaint you with it! Thanks for reading along.
Insightful. The Piero example, very fine. Does one choose art or does art do the choosing? The artist's choice, it seems, is whether to accept the yoke. One had better want it. As for disappearing when and if one is really painting, generally speaking, the lightning is more likely to strike during the blind stumble which follows that part where ego has gotten lost. PS: The Drifters' Spanish Harlem is tasteful, romantic. Aretha Franklin's treatment is merely sexual, and not especially preferred because nothing is left to the imagination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7F2sJjoJP8 For more influential gospel precedents, Mahalia Jackson, Leontine Price, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Dorothy Love Coates and the Gospel Harmonettes and so many more.
I had to look up that performance by Aretha Franklin. Go, witness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBKwV6oNYvw
Great review of a wonderful book - one of my favourites.
I'm afraid reverence for Piero della Francesca, not to mention Christian religious art, is so far out of bounds that it's practically otherworldly--and as we know, the essence of correctness is unconditional adherence to the prevailing orthodoxy and hostile rejection of any deviation therefrom.