POINTILLISM AND FRAMES

Georges Seurat developed his individual style of painting using dots of contrasting colours close to each other so that they would merge visually in the eye of the spectator.  His idea was that it would produce a brighter effect.  In fact the process was rather laborious and ended up with rather dead paintings.  He also wanted to remove the Romantic element that people like Degas and Monet had introduced with Impressionism.  This effectively led to a flatter painting that might be said to be one of the many pre-cursors to abstract painting.

His style was emulated by Paul Signac who used Pointillist techniques in a slightly different way, placing cool and warm colours beside each other, the strokes were more like small dashes than dots.  They result still lead to pictures that lacked animation and liveliness.

Matisse tried this technique only once as far as I can see and Pissarro too introduced it into his work for a short while, but after the freedom of the Impressionist style of painting, both artists eventually abandoned it and returned to the freer more expressive style. Howard Hodgkin uses the dot almost as a construction.

Dots, however, have always had an attraction for artists even to the present day.  Roy Lichtenstein used the Benday dot emulating the comic print process in his work.  Aboriginal painting consists only of dots arranged in mystical patterns.  Ellsworth Kelly painted Spectrum Colour arranged by Chance, and of course Damien Hirst spent sometime developing Spot Paintings, which some people said was a way of  printing  money.  One of his Spot Paintings was sent up in Beagle 2, but the space craft was lost in 2004 – maybe it is still out there somewhere in deep space.  Yayoi Kusama, a Japanese artist, uses the polka dot almost exclusively in her work.  

It begs the question, what is it about the spot or dot which captivates the artist? The circle is a natural eternal form which at the same time is enclosing, it hints at infinity through cosmic associations and for that reason is also mystical, romantic and perfect, it can be used alone to great effect as Van Gogh used it in the Sower, but when used en masse it becomes a repetitive building block, a honeycomb of strength, which is how Howard Hodgkin used it.  Can the same be said of any of the other geometric shapes, I don’t think so, the nearest might be the triangle, and the combination of both the triangle and circle, for me is the ultimate symbol of infinite perfection.

The idea of using the frame as part of a painting is an extension of Jackson Pollock’s field painting, it enables the work to spill over into real space, rather than confining it within a framed space on a wall.  I personally don’t think it quite works, it has an awkwardness about it like a constantly hovering mosquito that you want to flit away.  Ludwig von Hoffman who was part of the Munich Secession and also a symbolist decorated his frames, as indeed to Klimt and Jens Ferdinand Willumsen who did it in Jotunhein to separate those who sought a link between the infinitely great and small and those men without a goal .Also Adria Gual-Queralt and Georges Roualt. Such decoration of frames may have  engendered.   The idea of decorated frames as a contemporary interior design style, which have now become rather passé.  That is the difficulty with 20th and post 20th Century art where movements come and go almost like fashion.  If artists  wish to achieve recognition and have a particular penchant for a style that has passed, it seems they are forced to consider the current avant garde trend, i.e. installation, conceptualism and so on, regardless of which direction their own inclinations and talents lead them.  Debuffet's inclination was presaged on the notion that the public were being effectively duped by non-artists into seeing only "framed" works.  Howard Hodkin's painted frames was also a reference to a similar desire for art to evolve and expand beyond the conventional.

OPEN SURFACE PAINTING

It is interesting to look as artists past and present and to see the influences from earlier artists affecting the techniques and ideas of later artists.  It is also illuminating to see how sculpture and canvas painting rub shoulders when thinking about artists who open up the painting's surface sometimes eliminating the canvas altogether to produce wall sculptures.  For example Tatlin whose corner Reliefs used modern everyday materials to display sculptural works that were placed in the corner like Russian icons.  Jean Arp also created wooden wall objects that might be regarded as sculptures, except that they maintain the traditional placement on walls. 

Using shaped canvases Elizabeth Murray achieved a similar effect to Arp but her work is on shaped canvases.

It is also possible to think of Matisse's cut-outs as an "open" canvas.  It isn't quite a collage but explores flat planes in similar ways to the work of Ben Nicholson.  Picasso also used materials to open up the canvas, for example rope to form a sort of frame.  He also made a guitar out of sheet metal which was wall mounted and virtually crosses the boundary, as the work of Arp and Tatlin did, between wall mounted object and/or sculpture.

Lucio Fontana slit or cut his canvases to create a fractured surface, literally opening the canvas.  Max Ernst created a canvas, Two children threatened by a Nightingale, that opened in a different way, using a wooden gate to gain access to the canvas. 

Francois Rouan stripped the canvas from its frame, cutting it into strips then wove it into a new image.  Michele Whiting used a similar technique, but she used photographs instead of canvas.

Rauschenberg uses various materials to his canvas and sometimes takes us into the canvas with an object, for example his goat painting or the painting with the chair placed in front of the canvas which then becomes part of the painting.  

Kenny Cole produces massed wall mounted boxes which open to reveal poetry and images, almost like opening a cupboard.

We then begin to move closer to installation which is the next stage in this artistic practice.  

SUPREMATISM (Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism)

Following on from Cubism, the art world was finding new ways of expressing form and indeed movement.  Picasso and Braque led this revolution and in Italy Futurism with artists such as Carlo Carra and Umberto Boccioni, movement in works of art were taken to new levels. Gleizes and Metzinger, in their essay on Cubism, wrote: "Let the picture imitate nothing and let it present nakedly its raison d'être"¹  This was a defining statement for the whole of the 20th Century, it expressed the wish to expunge representational art. In Holland the Dutch school through a group called De Stijl, people like Mondrian and Van Doesburg further explored this new plastic art which totally ignored the appearance of things, i.e. natural form and colour, in favour of positional relationships, i.e. how one thing relates to another in an harmonic way.

Meanwhile during the Russian Revolution of 1917, art reflected the massive rate of historic and social change that was taking place in the country. Under the patronage of Ivan Morozov, the then modern works of Cezanne and Mondrian , Matisse and Picasso became part of his collection.  Influenced by the latest work from the West artists such as Mikkhail Larionov and Natalia Gonchorova became leaders of the avant-garde.  However, they eventually left Russia with the Impressario, Diaghilev as designers for his ballet. 

The gap was filled by the artists Kasimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin, who were soon discovered by the remaining Larionov group.

Malevich started to develop a type of Cubism similar to that of Leger and Picasso, which eventually led to fragmented collage similar in style to the work of Kurt Schwitters of the later Dada movement.  He worked for Kruchenikh's Futurist opera where he designed costumes and backdrops, one of which was a square divided into black and white triangles.  This idea led to the purely abstract squares, oblongs and triangles which formed the basis of Suprematism.

Tatlin's art took a slightly different path.  He moved to Moscow in 1910 and started exhibiting with the Larionov circle and was influence by him and Goncharova.  But in 1913 he quarrelled with them and eventually ended up in Paris seeing the collage work of Picasso which was to inspire Tatlin who then returned to Moscow.  The First and Last Futurist Exhibitions then followed, where both artists exhibited their work, but eventually in separate rooms as Tatlin regarded Malevich's work as amateur. 

After the Revolution changes in the Art Colleges produced the Vkhutemas where Malevich, Tatlin, Kandinsky and Pevsner had studios.  The Institute of Artistic Culture was formed and Kandinsky formulated their programme.  His ideas were radical and influenced by his religious beliefs, he was a Theosophist like Mondrian.  However, he left Russia and his programme was introduced at the Bauhause in Weimar. 

Malevich was sympathetic to Kandinsky's ideas but remained independent.  When invited by Chagall to become a tutor, Malevich accepted but took advantage of Chagall's temporary absence to declare himself Director and change the name of the school to College of the New Art.  He introduced Suprematism believing it to be more pure than Futurism and Cubism, as a non-objective art form. He met with opposition from the Constructivists who held that  'absolute' objective objects were constructed in the same way that universe constructs its mathematical orbits. Tatlin was more sympathetic to the Constructivist ideals and designed objects including the Monument to the Third International Exhibition of 1919-10.  Eventually as the new Central Government became established, the avant-garde movement of Constructivism was decried and Kandinsky, Pevsner and Gabo left Russia in 1922 to work at the Bauhaus.  El Lissitzky's work was heavily influenced by Malevich and his 'Proun' abstracts were geometric designs for offering a combination of art using imagery and lettering in new ways.  His street poster "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge" illustrates this.  He too left Russia in 1922 and became influential on De Stijl, and the Bauhaus, eventually returning to Russia as a designer of exhibitions and posters.  The Bauhaus effectively adopted some of the ideas of Constructivism through the Hungarian Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who said that art "is the senses"²

Reference: Modern Art edited by David Britt, Cubism, Futurism and Constuctivism, J M Nash, Published 1974
1. Page 191
2. Page 201

BOXES

I was inspired by Joseph Cornell's  "Taglioni's Jewel Box" .  It is a romantic piece of work with hidden depths beneath the ice cubes, with an inscription of the moment when the ballerina is said to have danced on a panther skin in the snow, for a highwayman who had stopped her carriage. 

Having seen how Cornell worked I wanted to create something that might be considered interactive in an albeit limited sense, but as a piece of fun. I conceived the idea of a pun on 'box' by creating a toy box., situated in a diorama setting but without creating an actual room.  I went to some charity shops with my grandson and he helped rummage among the toy section for appropriate pieces, so it was a joint effort!

The items I managed to pick up all lent themselves to being "usable".  Wooden dominoes with images on them which can effectively be played with by piling them against the back wall, a plastic flute, a small ball, a beach hut with walls that can be moved and in the middle a little mouse who's tail you pull to get the arms and legs to flick out.  One of the Lego bricks is adhered to the rear wall and the other brick can be attached or not.  The only black object both in colour and message is the automatic weapon placed on top of the teddy bear 'box'  - a box within a box, repeated in the toy box itself, creating repeating motifs. I wanted the contents of the box to be considered as a reflection of the development of children generally: Love, represented by the cuddly toy, Aggression by the automatic rifle and tiny plastic sword, Intellect by the dominoes, Energy by the ball, Music by the little whistle, Exploration by the beach hut, love of Animals by the sheep, Creativity by the Lego bricks, Fun by the extending mouse.

I originally considered painting the frame white in similar style to Michale Buhler, but I liked the idea of red because it is an 'active' colour and remembered something that was said, I by Matisse,  that if you are going to use red, use a lot of it.  Having thought of Matisse I remembered his Red Interior painting which I have always admired and decided my Toy Box was going to be red.

The 'box' support was actually a canvas in reverse, which had a painting of the leaning tower of Pizza on the front, which I have left as part of the original object.  I used Artex to form the "frame" and stuck some objects to the "room" leaving others to be played with. therefore giving another dimension to the visual work.

RECYCLE A FRAME

For my recycled frame I decided to replicate one of the sketches I had produced in an earlier exercise.  My intention was to produce something visually fairly plain but to have a narrative that hinted at more complex ideas.  

The title of the frame is "Language barrier".  The image features 'made up' hieroglyphs on the top section with Pitman's shorthand in the bottom section. The two are separated by what appears to be a river or a sea.  Continents with different cultures and languages unable to communicate, hints of the Rosetta Stone and the rivalries over its ownership. Idealistic ideas of communication being a potential instrument for peace (if you can translate the shorthand), barriers, bridges, Gulfs, being engulfed and so on.  It seemed appropriate to use the frame as the river is seemingly without end and therefore the number of languages too.  It is a reference to the field painting of Jackson Pollock which extends beyond the canvas, into infinity, but it also insinuates, or carries a suggestion of, a bridge from one side to the other, at least I hope it does.  

WEAVING

At the time of doing this exercise the Scottish referendum vote is in progress and the outcome unknown.  I thought it would be interesting therefore to "fracture" the flags making up the Union Flag.  I decided it would be better to print the Scottish soltire, St Patrick's flag and St George's flag to ensure I had matching sizes.  I tried painting, but it was not as effective.  I overprinted the St George and St Patrick flags on to one image with the Scottish Soltire printed separately.  After all, it may mean a change of flag if Independence is favoured, presumably the Soltire.  would be removed. By fracturing the images using the weaving technique, I felt it was appropriate to mark the current state of play.  It is also an evocation of Jackson Pollock's US flags.

My first attempt used one inch strips and I don't think I got the alignment quite right.  It was also painted which  wasn't as crisp as I wanted.  

For the second attempt I thought it might be an idea to try smaller strips, just in the middle to see how the image displayed then, and whether or not it would look more interesting.  It was better than the first but didn't quite look enough like the Union Flag for it to have much meaning. Strangely, the tops are aligned yet the bottom is out of alignment but there are no vertical gaps to account for this.

For the third attempt, the Goldilocks principal springs to mind,  I decided to take the central crossover out of the Soltire and to space those strips differently, eliminating two strips altogether.  I also cut the horizontals much narrower still.  The finished result looks closer to a "fractured" Union Flag, with St George's flag more readable and bolder than the other two flags, which is the effect I wanted to achieve.  I hope it is not a beheading offence!

SHAPED PAINTING FROM EVERYDAY LIFE

Because I live in a fairly modern house now I didn't think there was much scope for an "interesting corner".  However, the stairwell possibly had potential so  I thought I would see what I could make of it.  The more photographs I took from different angles, the more interesting the area became.  The clean lines and almost white planes offered an  architectural interest similar to that of the work of Corbusier.

I felt there was some possibility in the photos to produce something with a  geometric sculptural feel to it, a sort of labyrinth of conflicting  perspectives.  Rather than using collage I thought I would use Fireworks to move the photos into different positions to see what I came up with.  

I was pleased with the finished product and it was surprising the amount of moving around that was necessary to achieve the effect I was after, getting the angles right and covering parts of the image I didn't want took some time but I think it was worth persevering . I decided to reduce the colour on one of the prints and turn it around, but am not sure which I prefer, I think possibly the green one. I decided it might be worth increasing the contrast on the near black and white and also the saturation , maybe making it completely black and white, (see third image below), so now I am even more uncertain of my preference.  Just turning the photograph made a huge difference to the feel of the image, and added a vertiginous aspect which I felt was interesting.  It is almost like a dream sequence of a house with stairs that lead nowhere and spaces that don't cohere properly.