It is always darkest before the dawn. So it seems in this season and quarter of unemployment. This morning, the cobalt blue morning sky carved a quiet, majestic background to the front lit trees. The dawn just peeking on the horizon. The moment and the drama didn't last long. And then it was gone and couldn't be caught again.
In my Daily Walk yesterday, I found a used book by Herschel B. Chipp, The Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics (1968) by the University of California Press, Berkeley. Lots of great quotations and excerpts within. As I scan the pages and voluminous entries, I note the following under the Fauvism and Expressionism chapter:
Copyright James E. Martin 2015 Glimmer of Dawn
Copyright James E. Martin 2015 Dawn of Cobalt Blue
"All artists bear the imprint of their time....
but the great artists are those
in which the stamp is most deeply impressed."
Henry Matisse
Separately, others have indicated the phrases
"paint what you know"
"paint what you see"
"paint what you love"
"paint what you feel"
as the drivers for genuine and sincere art that has depth and feeling with the potential for lasting value. I am unsure who said these things first. Sounds like they have been passed down through the academic art ages.
I have been in the press between the plates as it bears down on me.
I have been in the press between the plates as it bears down on me.
I spent some moments listing subject matters that mean something to me, that I have lived, that I know, that are of my life and times, that have affected me, and influenced those around me. Also, there are genres, and methods, and motifs, and values, and subjects that I have thought about and labored upon. Objects that attract me.
These should be the target of my focus, the aim of my energies. I think I know where I should start. This is the oil from the press. This is the wine. This is the vintage.
1957.
1957.
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