In Part I of this essay I demonstrated a distinction
between customs and conventions. I
argued that conventions presuppose the applications of language. A convention is a description; it is how we
describe the world. In effect all
conventions are language conventions. Indeed
to describe something as art is invoking a convention whereas a custom in the
sense we are discussing it is a habitual, commonly followed or traditional
practice. While conventions may be
customary and customs may invoke or entail a convention they are distinctly
different activities. This is important
because artists commonly invoke totally new conventions, requiring new
descriptions of their work as a means of promoting understanding. For example consider the painting below.
This work is by the well-known artist Sydney Nolan and
its subject matter will be easily recognized by Australian viewers and those
familiar with Australian history or art.
It is a picture of our most famous bushranger/outlaw Ned Kelly but we
need to apply a convention to understand it and because Australians are so
familiar with the character it depicts they do it automatically. Here we see a two dimensional caricature of a
horse and a ‘thing’ connected to a broom with a landscape in the
background. The ‘thing’ looks like a
pot on the horse’s back with a piston sticking up out of it only the piston has
a see-through slot with two ball bearing-like things in it. All are two dimensional in what is called a naïve
style. I’m sure you will recognize this
is not the correct description but how do we describe this painting? Its title is Ned, does that help? I think
not for sometimes titles of
paintings are merely labels. Well here are two more pictures for those of you
who are not familiar with Ned Kelly.
The picture on the left shows us the home
made body armour that Ned Kelly was wearing when he was captured. The etching on the right depicts the
bushranger in action wearing his armour under his coat. Now we can understand how the artist
arrived at his caricature. What I
described as a pot we can now describe as body armour, the piston is head gear
and the ball-bearings are eyes peering through the slot in the head gear and
the broom is a rifle. As my earlier
description was a convention so is my latter description for conventions are
arbitrary descriptions. Nevertheless the
latter description is the one that provides us with an understanding of what is
taking place in Nolan’s screen-print.
Nolan’s painting is something of visual metaphor for the Ned Kelly legend.
As I noted in part I of this essay conventions provide us with
a context that allows us to adjust our thinking about how a new aspect of our
art-reality is to be understood. The quality of a work of art is a direct result of how we are obliged to describe it; the conventions
we must use. Nolan has chosen a naive
style reminiscent of Rousseau’s primitive manner but highly original in his
attempt to capture the scape of the Australian bush and its most famous outlaw.
Now let us consider a different art form that presents us with a visual
perspective.
What conventions must we use to describe this work by Barbra Hepworth?
We don’t have to describe it at all if we wish but that would pre-empt
our ability to discuss it or think about it.
We have before us three smooth stones or rocks perhaps made of marble
and arranged in a specific fashion on a stone slab. What are we expected to make of it? I doubt we would be allowed to handle them
and their position seems to be significant to our understanding. In this instance the title of the work
provides us with the convention we need to understand the artist’s work. It is titled Three Forms and by describing each of these pieces as a form we can
see the point of their juxtaposition and why they are smooth. The artist has created a work of contrasts
using the same material for each different piece which enhances the notion of
forms. The artist has offered us in
three dimensions what we often see as two dimensional forms and we are reminded
of this by the shadows of each form that fall onto the slab. It is an exercise in demonstrating the forms
within a work as opposed to the form of the work. Again a convention opens the door to
understanding. Here is another work by
an Australian Artist that I purchased without having any idea of the title.
For me it captures the colours of the Australian bush and the denuded,
charcoal encrusted trees left standing after a bush fire. Completed entirely with a palette knife I
recognized from the different shades and strange shapes different levels of the
landscape and while I was curious about them I was impressed with the skill and
talent of the artist. That description
is, of course, a convention. I’m sure it
may be described in a number of ways but when I learned that the title of the
work was Gravel Pit all I could say
was yes of course it is. The boarders of the pit are presented as dark green
and we see different shades of earth as we look down into the pit, a style we
can liken to post-impressionism. Light
is diffused, hazy as if the bushfire smoke lingered. The painting is made up of delineated shapes
of colour reminiscent of Cezanne’s Bibemus Quarry paintings.
Bibemus Quarry
Of course it is not always the case that understanding is forthcoming as
a result of the artist’s chosen title.
Sometimes it is left to the viewer to come up with an appropriate
convention in order to grasp the flavour of a work such as Jackson Pollock’s
Number 28.
This is what The Metropolitan Museum of Art offers as a description by
way of a well-known art critic.
The dominant critic of the
day, Clement Greenberg, called such works "polyphonic." "Knit
together of a multiplicity of identical or similar elements," he wrote,
this art "repeats itself without strong variation from one end of the
canvas to the other, and dispenses, apparently, with beginning, middle, and
ending."
The Metropolitan Museum of
Art
Well I guess that’s one way to describe it. Still another way is:
In Number 28, l950 there is
such a careless grace, a feeling of inevitability, a weaving in and out of
those thick and thin black lines over a deep galaxy of silver and blue space.
What gives us such a lift
are those solid, well placed, low and thick obstructions. But they don't hold
us down! There is a whirling, wild sense of freedom here, and at the same a
most cunning arrangement of space as to line, thick as to thin, rise as to
fall, abrupt angle and surprising dash. Here, impediment is a means of freedom,
and the artist's beautiful, central ambition is satisfied, and we are satisfied.
We feel we can be ambitious to be free like that. It is a sign, as Eli Siegel
has described, of the world itself making beautiful sense, and we like it. By Dorothy Koppelman
I suppose it is the signature of much modern and contemporary art that
the viewer must invent their own descriptive handle by which to grasp such
works. While they can easily be
appreciated for the technique applied, the medium used and the object or result
of the artist’s determined conclusion this seems not to satisfy those who
believe an aesthetic description is warranted.
Neither critic mentions the fact that the work is enamel on canvas or
how the artist built the work carefully controlling his colours. Unfortunately
aesthetic descriptions are always inferences
(though they are often mistakenly described as interpretations) drawn to
satisfy a need for understanding. Unlike
artistic descriptions they have little or no truth value nor is this necessary
for they are personal conventions for private enjoyment. Sometimes the ability to draw such inferences
becomes an end in itself and the work of art is merely the catalyst. At other times authorities seem unable to
even recognize some works as art.
Artists
are incessantly experimenting in an effort to create new forms and they tend to
forge far ahead of the vocabulary that provides us with the means to see these
works of art. A classic example is
Constantin Brancusi’s Bird In Space, a
five foot bronze sculpture.
U.S.
customs impounded the piece when it was shipped to New York for an art
show. Though its elegance was obvious,
customs insisted it was raw metal and imposed a tax on it. Brancusi was forced to go to court to force
U.S. Customs to release it on the grounds that it was a work of art. U.S Customs officers were unable to apply a
convention which would allow them to describe this work as art. Having a title allows us to recognize the
aerodynamic sense of flight but we may well have inferred such a description;
the shape predates the Concord aircraft.
Sometimes
merely having a convention to describe a new genre provides a position from
which to value new methods of presentation.
Such was the case for works now recognized as belonging to the genre of
Impressionism.
This work is Claude Monet’s Sunrise which is typical of the genre. The Impressionists were trying to capture the
play of light and shadow as it appeared to the artist’s eyes. They were described as impressionists by a
critic who was trying to depreciate such works but the description proved to be
the key convention that allowed the public a means appreciating impressionism.
But it is not only new movements that require a convention in order to
promote understanding. Consider this
work by Rembrandt.
This work is described as Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer. Could we have guessed who it was that
Rembrandt was showing us? Was Aristotle
ever dressed in such a fashion? Why do
you suppose Rembrandt was trying to show us Aristotle rather than a wealthy
Dutch patron? Aristotle is not dressed
as a 4th century BC philosopher.
He is dressed in clothing contemporary with the period in which the
artist painted; a common practice for Rembrandt. He enjoyed painting such fashionable clothing
for it allowed him to show off his technique with a loaded brush (called
impasto) providing the work with a textual richness.
Some of you may remember those B grade war films where we saw German
army officers at German Headquarters speaking perfect English (sometimes with
an accent). The convention was that we
were to understand that they were speaking German in their homeland. Rembrandt is invoking a similar convention by
displaying Aristotle in contemporary Dutch dress. We are to understand that it is the dress of a
4th century Greek aristocrat.
Launt Thompson
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