The impermanence of art

The impermanence of art

I suppose, if you want to be pedantic about it, ever thing is impermanent, but talking specifically about art; there are certain art forms whose temporary nature is an integral part of what they are.
I’m talking here about, for example,  performance art, once the ‘performance’ is finished, the art ceases to be, until the next performance, and then its not the same performance as it was, it’s not even an exact replica of the original. that would be impossible.

Performance art


There are other types of temporary art; Sand art for example, beautiful pictures created in sand that are constantly changed into other pictures. None of these pictures are permanent, the only thing that remains after the pictures vanish is the sand box and even that is dismantled and moved around.

Sand Art


And then there is water art, this is a relatively new one on me. Its nature is quite similar to sand art, pictures created out of water that emerge and then disappear.

Water art




 I think I have, (completely unintentionally), created something else that has built in obsolescence. I’ve told every one I’m copying my art and poetry posts from Multiply directly Blogger. There is debate about these posts will continuing to exist after 01.12.2012 when Multiply turns the  lights off. I’ve made a complete online gallery called, ‘The Forgotten Studio’, which is exactly what it will be if every thing disappears. The more I read what Frank says, the more I see the logic and believe it will cease to exist. But when I read what Bennett says, she makes a good case for things never actually being deleted from sites and every thing remaining. The uncertainty adds another element to the whole thing, this site isn’t exactly ‘impermanent’, but it’s not permanent either. I feel a bit like those people who were doing the countdown to the end of time according to the Mayan calendar.  It’s a case of, lets make the most of it until Dec 1 this year’ and then wait and see. I have really enjoyed making this gallery, I’ve seen paintings I forgot I posted and read poems I’ve not read for ages. I’ve read comments and treasured the times we spent together discussing this painting or that poem. The gallery isn’t finished, I still have about 6 months worth of posts to copy/ past and post but I’m taking a break because; I’ve posted so many things I have to decode those awful little words every time I post something new and its driving me mad. That is especially difficult for me given the state of my eyes right now. The album, ‘’The Forgotten Gallery’’ is on blogger, it is open to every one you don’t need a blogger account and any one can comment. If you want to take a look at the many, many art works we have discussed in the last 5 years or so, I recommend you go there as soon as possible and certainly before Dec1 this year………..we are on countdown

My next challenge is to post this, including videos, on 4 separate sites……….
Oh happy, happy learning curve.

http://theforgottenstudio.blogspot.co.uk/

Art Sunday; Samuel John Poploe

This is the guy whose exhibition I went to see at St Andrews on Friday. Normally still life is not my favourite subject matter, but his are truly amazing. He is what I would call a ‘painterly’ painter, more than anything else he is into ‘paint’.
When you see his work in the flesh it’s alive, vibrant and above all, he loves paint. The actual medium is as important as any thing else. I think he is a paint worshiper.

Samuel John Peploe

(27 January 1871 – 11 October 1935) was a Scottish Post-Impressionist painter, noted for his still life works and for being one of the group of four painters that became known as the Scottish Colourists. The other colourists were John Duncan Fergusson, Francis Cadell and Leslie Hunter.

More of this  here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Peploe

The Scottish Colourists

The artists, Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935); John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961); George Leslie Hunter (1877-1931) and Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883-1937) have achieved international acclaim in recent years following major retrospective exhibitions at the Royal Academy in London and the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Despite the diversity of their work and their relatively independent careers, they are now recognised as an identifiable movement within the history of art and their influence is still apparent in painting today.

The four painters became known as the Scottish Colourists because they grafted their knowledge of contemporary French Art – Monet, Matisse, and Cezanne - onto the painterly traditions of Scotland, redefining the qualities of light and colour in their still life, landscapes, figurative paintings and drawings into their own singular styles.

More of this here

http://www.exploreart.co.uk/artistic_styles_details.asp?artistid=62&artisticstyleid=4

A Biography

For those who want it, A more in depth biography:

Peploe was a passionate and serious artist who devoted himself to work but also had powerful influence on a surprisingly wide circle of people, including many artists of the next generation. Born in Edinburgh and educated at the Collegate School in Charlotte Square, he had good academic ability but no interest in the professions, preferring to walk, sail or sketch.
By 1893 he was enrolled for classes at the Trustees Academy (the forerunner to Edinburgh School of Art) and the following year was in Paris at the Académie Julian under the neo classicist, William Bourgereau and later at the Académie Colarossi. A long period of study nurtured his natural ability and helped him perfect an early style based on Dutch masters, particularly Franz Hals, and Edouard Manet. He began a lifelong habit of taking painting trips to northern France and the Western Isles, accompanied by J D Fergusson whom he had met in Paris. He was successful in exhibiting his work and regularly submitted paintings to the Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Glasgow Institute and the Society of Scottish Artists.
His first one-man show was held at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh in 1903. By 1906 his earlier still life and figure paintings, characterised by dark backgrounds, gave way to paler colours, greys and pinks. This was in part due to a move to a new lighter studio in the East end of Edinburgh at York Place, from his previous west-end base at Shandwick Place. His second exhibition in 1909 was successful but his eyes were turning to Paris and the next year, he moved there with his new wife, Margaret MacKay, whom he had met on a painting trip to the Isle of Barra in 1894. France liberated his palette and on his return to Edinburgh in 1912 with dozens of paintings and a young son, Willie, the new work proved to be much too advanced for the city’s audience and his original dealer. Unperturbed, Peploe put on his own show at the New Gallery in Shandwick Place, where the Society of Eight (including Cadell, John Lavery and James Paterson) had their inaugural exhibition in the same year.
For the next fifteen years Peploe retained a brilliant palette, evolving a mature style containing elements of Cezanne and Matisse. By the late 1920s he had reverted to a more sonorous tonal painting, still enlivened by brilliant colour chords, but weightier and cooler. In 1933 he taught two terms at Edinburgh College of Art making quite an impact. Best known for his still life paintings of roses or tulips, Peploe had a wide range of subjects including figure and landscape painting.
From 1914 he was a regular visitor to Dumfries and Galloway, particularly Kirkcudbright and also from 1919 onwards to the isles of Iona. On the recommendation of Cadell he visited Cassis in the South of France in 1924, and returned in 1928 and 1930. His landscapes have a conviction and a passion, which belie the rather diffident, shy public face of the artist. His family and closest friends knew a wickedly funny, compassionate and sincere man.
Text source: Samuel Peploe (Guy Peploe, S J Peploe’s grandson); the Dictionary of Scottish Painters, (Halsby & Harris) and The Scottish Colourists, (Philip Long).

Art Sunday; Blue Skies

Art Sunday; Blue Skies

Today I’ve chosen a couple of paintings roughly linked by the theme ‘Blue Skies. These paintings ‘fit’ with the way I feel right now, happy, tired after a long day in the sun and with a head full of blue skies, fluffy white clouds and birds singing in the trees. A perfect summers day. These paintings have a happy whimsical feel to them.

The Wedding by Chagall


The Blue Window by Matisse.


Ladders Cross the Blue Sky in a Wheel of fire by Miro


Black Magic by Magritte


Blue Star by Miro


Blue Sky by Kandinsky

Art Sunday; Cake Art

Been a bit bust this weekend, had family staying, been out for a birthday meal and now I'm left with one grandchild who is staying for the rest of the week. School holidays must be a nightmare for parents, I didn't realise how much child care actually costs but to send two children to 'holiday club' while the parent works costs a minimum of £15.00 per child per day. That ads up to a huge chunk of wages, which is why I've ended up with one child for the week. This way at least my daughter only has to pay for one child to go to holiday club.

I've not even thought about Art Sunday until now, and all I can think of is 'cake'. But that's OK because these days cake making is quite an art form. This is the lady who makes the cakes for me. I used to work with her until her 'hobby' grew into a demanding business and she didn't have the time to go to work any more. She resigned and now spends her days creating cakes for special occasions.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cakes-by-Momo-x/223012644431795

these are just a few of the cakes she has made but there are literally hundreds more on her FB site.

She's not the only one out there specializing in novelty cakes;
 
This is a  gardener cake from

http://www.om-nanya.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/pic-of-the-day.jpg

A Van Gogh cake from here

http://img.chan4chan.com/img/2011-01-26/1296058060964.jpg

A sewing machine cake from here

http://towse.com/wordpress/2007/04/28/amazing-cake-art/

A treasure chest cake from here

http://englishrussia.com/2007/04/19/cake-art/

And.........couldn't miss this, the famous 'cake car' advert

Art Sunday; De Chirico

Art Sunday; Giorgio de Chirico

This has been a very ‘surreal’ week for me, rain, rain, and more rain,  intermittent with days that are hot, humid and overcast.

With utter disregard to the weather the grandchildren spend their days out playing and reappear when hungry. They’ve made friends with the local children, oh if only life remained that simple.
My decorating is progressing nicely; I’ve come to a stop now until I persuade someone to take a cupboard door off for me. Most things I tackle myself but this door is beyond me, the hinges are welded into place with 50+ years worth of paint and I need the door off before I can sort out the door frame and then paper around the door.
Apart from this ‘cupboard door’ area and the middle bit of the ceiling, the room is finished, I just need to reassemble it and find some suitable curtains.

I’m not always that taken with surrealist work, but this I like. I like the rich earthy colours, the ambers and reds, the deep yellows and the hint of sunlight. I also like the architectural subject matter, these surreal street scenes devoid of people appeal to me.
Although; I’m not sure if they appeal to me because I’m a bit obsessive about architecture, or because I like the lack of people.

Giorgio de Chirico
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Giorgio de Chirico July 10, 1888 – November 20, 1978) was a Greek-born Italian artist. In the years before World War I, he founded the scuola metafisica art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. After 1919 he became interested in traditional painting techniques, and worked in a neoclassical or neo-Baroque style, while frequently revisiting the metaphysical themes of his earlier work.

Read more on Giorgio de Chirico from wikipeadia here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_de_Chirico

Biography of Giorgio De Chirico

Giorgio De Chirico was born on 10th July 1888 in Volos, the capital of Thessaly (Greece). His father Evaristo was an engineer and his mother, Gemma Cervetto, a noblewoman of Genoese origin. Two years later in Athens, his brother Andrea was born. Andrea adopted the pseudonym of Alberto Savinio in his work as a writer and musician.
During this time Giorgio, whose father always supported his passion for art, took his first drawing lessons with the Greek painter Mavrudis. And it was in Athens that De Chirico realized his first painting, entitled "Still Life with Lemons (Natura morta con limoni)". In 1906, following the death of his father, the De Chirico family moved to Germany where Giorgio attended the Academy of Fine Arts and came into contact with German artistic, literary and philosophical culture.

He read Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Weininger, continued studying the Ancients and studied the art of Arnold Böcklin.

Read more of the biography here

http://www.italica.rai.it/eng/principal/topics/bio/dechirico.htm

I found this a lovely description of his work;

Melancholy and Mystery of a Street, 1914

'Here a desolate street has been captured bathed in that particular kind of afternoon sun in Autumn when all appears as if in limbo. It is not yet sunset, but it is clear the day will soon end. Long shadows accentuate every texture and movement. The ethereal light seems almost tangible, giving the world the appearance of a dream, and in the dark shadows night has already come.
In this eerie space something profound has or will take place, but we are not privy to that scene. This is an empty stage. We are shown the street soon after or just before an unseen dramatic event. The threatening shadow of a statue, out of sight, draws towards it a girl - also appearing as little more than an emanation. The box on wheels, with its shadowy interior, seems to indicate entrapment, further emphasising the sense of impending tragedy.
The imposing facade of a dark building dominates the foreground while an extended white wall on the left gives the illusion of depth, an exaggerated perspective foreshortening the vanishing point, creating an ominous sense of unreality, of sur-reality through spacial distortion. Each arch seems as if an eye, silently staring into the claustrophobic space. As De Chirico explains visiting Versailles, "Everything gazed at me with mysterious, questioning eyes. And then I realised that every corner of the palace, every column, every window possessed a spirit, an impenetrable soul."
In this unsettling, haunting work, Giorgio De Chirico, a founder of the Pittura Metafisica (Metaphysical Painting) style, a forerunner to Surrealism, presents the very concept of the street as it being dense in history and in possibility, in melancholy and in mystery. Any banal empty street, in this light, could be seen as sinister and yet disturbingly beautiful.

Overall, I think I like this work, and even if I didn't, anyone who reads ( and understands )  Schopenauer, Nietzsche has to be admired.

Art Sunday Marcia Baldwin

Art Sunday; MARCIA BALDWIN

It took me a while today but here I am. We had a brief window of sunshine this weekend, it lasted from Saturday morning all the way through to Sunday afternoon, and obviously I had to take the rare opportunity to spend some time in the garden. The granddaughter continued operation snail hunt and the grandson was away with his friends doing what ever it is that 11 year old boys do. And now the grandchildren are back to their mothers and the weather has resumed its usual torrential downpour.
Apparently the rain is set to last until at least Thursday, I’m so glad I decided to spend a much time as possible in the garden this weekend.

Finally I have time to think about Art Sunday……………and I’m devoid of ideas. I messed about on the net, I googled this and googled that and eventually came across this lady.
Her work is so vibrant, so colourful, so cheerful, so full of joy, I just had to post. This reminds me of all the wonderful, warm, sunny days we have had in other, less wet summers.

This is what the artist says about herself

         
''My name is Marcia Baldwin and I am a full time professional artist specializing in Oil Paintings.

I love large formats and brilliant color. My true passion is color theory and design and how compositions can play an emotional role in the viewer. Art has always been a passion of mine.
I knew from a very early age that art was going to be a strong influence in my life and that I wanted to know as much about art as I could possibly learn.
I still strive to learn something new every day.

It takes practice and patience to be a full time artist and I am finally able to devote one hundred percent of my professional life to my studio work.  After many years working in and around art, making a living as an advertising designer, art teacher, art consultant, photographic artisan and many other niches.

I finally opened my art studio to the dedication of purely fine art. I am a trained artist, receiving a BFA and a MFA in the seventies and eighties, respectively.
I loved the years I put forth to formal art training.

It is invigorating to be around people with that same passion to learning and exploring the creative and problem solving side of your personality.
The people who share this passion greatly influence your though patterns about your art work.
It is really great to see the different outcomes from the various people when working on a creative project.
We are all looking at the same thing, painting or sculpting or drawing, but each individual will see it a little different and the creation of beautiful works, each individually unique.
It is truly amazing.

 For myself, I love oil painting. I love animals and flowers and nature itself.
I believe that I was given a talent by God to share His beauty about the world through the use of paint and canvas.
I try to relate the love of nature and His Blessings through my art.
I hope that the collectors of my work can be touched in some way to Stop and Smell the Roses for a moment and reflect on the joy and beauty that has been given to us each day.

I live in a very beautiful state, working and living on the shores of a lake surrounded by huge tall pine trees and stately southern live oaks. Nature is bountiful. Foxes play and romp across my front lawn. Squirrels and birds hop from one feeder to the next. Wildflowers and flowering trees such as redbuds and dogwood are a blanket of beauty through undergrowth among the trees. It is truly a blessing that I have been given this time to work in my art studio and be surrounded with this serenity. I hope that the passion I have for art and the passion I have to share natures beauty is reflected in my work.''

And this is her web site

http://marciabaldwin.artspan.com/mbr_bio.php#.T_Cr1ZGhkY4