14 in the Sky
Print | Ink on Paper | 8″ x 5″
Hi man,
What should I do? Tell me.
My work has been quite varied – one might say ‘all over the place’? Should I focus more? Select what I feel good with and concentrate on that only? E.g. do geometric abstract work for a while?
I do think abstraction is a wonderful means of artistic expression but it is not the only one.
Fantin-Latour did not abstract his flowers and fruits but what an amazing beauty is in his works! And is it not an artist’s job to convey beauty in its broadest sense?
Does abstract work convey beauty? Take Otto Freundlich’s black and white prints (just because I just happened to look at some), if there is beauty in them it must be related to contrast, proportion, composition, simplicity, and movement.
What creates beauty in Fantin-Latour’s still lifes? Can we simply say Fantin-Latour’s paintings are beautiful because flowers are? No, there is more to it. The painter brings himself very much into his work (unlike in most photography). We see the flowers as a product of a synergy between nature and human artistic spirit.
Maybe this is in a broader sense also an abstraction: abstraction as extraction of the essence from a subject e.g. the play of sunlight on a wall paper as opposed to “the wall paper”.
What I listed above for Freundlich’s prints (contrast, proportion, composition, simplicity, and movement) is all present in Fantin-Latour’s work, too. (By the way, I just happened to pick Fantin-Latour, the same is true for Chardin and others.)
Anyway, after all this: I am not ready to go one way or the other, abstract or realistic. What I might be willing to do is explore one or the other more deeply, experiment, play on variations, create works that are somehow related and might enrich a viewer’s experience.
Here is one print (“14 in the Sky”) based on an entirely realistic subject. I let my pen wander though to give the theme more suspense. I might make two versions of this.
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Later,
-M.
