Kazimir Malevich, 4

Transcending representation, even in abstracted form

In Chapters from an Artist’s Autobiography [Malevich 1933, trans. by Upchurch 1990: 174], Malevich described his dissatisfaction with naturalistic painting:

“…the emotional energy of painting would not let me see images in their representational nature…  The naturalism of objects didn’t stand up to my criticism…. I expected that the painting eventually would provide the form deriving from the properties of painting, and would avoid any vital connection with the object…. My acquaintance with icon painting convinced me that the point is not in the study of anatomy and perspective, not in depicting the truth of nature, but in sensing art and artistic reality through the emotions.”

Such a move from careful reproduction of what the eye sees toward careful expression of the emotion (or psychological state) that objects (or ideas) bring to the artist, underlies centuries of artistic movements in East and West.  Most of these movements and styles (such as mannerism, Impressionism, Expressionism) make objects and figures into vehicles for expressing mood, emotion, internal psychology.  Non-objective painting relies on formal elements (shape, color, texture, and their intersections) to convey mood, emotion, and ideas.  The precise language that Malevich developed in Suprematism is but one such language for non-objective expression.

Once we recognize that our consciousness is limited and limiting, it follows that the phenomena of which we are conscious are limited.  One role of artists is to explore the unconscious, and manifest elements from the unconscious so that viewers or readers might be able to lift the veil of their consciousness. 

“Everything which we call nature, in the last analysis, is a figment of the imagination, having no relation whatever to reality.  If the human being were suddenly able to comprehend actual reality – in that very moment the battle would be decided and eternal, unshakeable perfection attained.  [Until then], the fact that our nervous systems and our brains do not function always and absolutely under the control of our conscious minds but rather, are capable of acting and reacting outside of consciousness, is left out of account. …To the human being, the conscious mind is always the decisive factor. …But what is the essence and content of our consciousness? The inability to apprehend reality!” [Malevich 1927, trans. by Dearstyne 1959: 20]

Malevich, Kazimir, trans. by Allan Upchurch.  1990.  Fragments from Chapters From an Artist’s Autobiography (1933).  Pp. 173-5 in Kazimir Malevich, ed. by Jeanne D’Andrea.  Exhibition catalogue.  Los Angeles:  The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center.

Malevich, Kazimir,  trans. by Howard Dearstyne.  1959.  The Non-Objective World.  Chicago:  P. Theobald.  (Originally written and translated into German in 1927.)

We're all artists

My final post on Meyer Schapiro ("The Value of modern art" (1948) in Worldview in Painting: Art and Society).

Schapiro postulated an additional set of characteristics that distinguish “modern” artists from earlier artists. 

1)   The individual artist is driven to continual innovation in his/her work – not just distinguishing that work from that of earlier artists, but distinguishing his current work from her/his past work. 

2)   There are no generally accepted rules regarding materials, styles, subject matter, or formal qualities of painting.

3)   From (2), it follows that anyone can produce art.

4)   From (1) and (2), it follows that in her search for innovation, a contemporary artist may find inspiration from the art (and non-art) of any place and any period.   

Taking this a bit (but not much) further than Schapiro did, it’s easy to see the limitations this places on viewers or consumers of contemporary art:

1)   Without generally accepted rules, how can one discern quality?

2)   If anyone can be an artist, why not consume and enjoy art produced by anyone?

3)   Does the viewer lose some measure of enjoyment if (s)he is unaware of the meanings or contexts of the foreign or anachronistic allusions in a work of contemporary art?

And for the artist:

1)   If anyone can produce art, why would anyone pay an artist more than the cost of time and materials that the buyer would have had to use to produce a work of art?

One key to this dilemma is found in te congruence between art and broadly shared desires in the post-Enlightenment West.  The goals of the modern artist are the goals of most Westerners:  to pursue continual, innovative, self-definition and self-expression without rules except those against directly harming others;  and to make use of the broad sweep of history and culture without letting ourselves be defined by our personal history or the dominant culture.  The culture that many of us inhabit makes the ideals of modern art very appealing.  And if anyone can produce art, then almost anyone will, even though one may have to make a living through other means.  

About what do we paint?

Continuing my reading of Meyer Schapiro ("The value of modern art" (1948) in Worldview in Painting: Art and Society), 

Schapiro acknowledged the heterogeneity of early- and mid-century visual arts.  But he went on to apply a broader view of its commonalities.  “However, if we consider the art of our time – and I speak only of that art which is fresh and original and could not have been done in a previous age – I believe it is possible to discover in it certain features that set it apart from the work of preceding times” [134; emphasis added].  Citing claims that modern art does not have subject matter, Schapiro asserted “in the art of the last fifty or seventy-five years [before his 1948 presentation], types of subject matter that are sufficiently standard and characteristic” [134]:

1)   direct observations of everyday life

2)   the life and work of the artist

3)   “the consciousness of art itself:  [paintings in which] the constituting elements do not form images or signs for objects, but are themselves ideal figures of elementary operations in the shaping of things;  these, too, are an important subject matter of art, drawn from art itself” [135]

4)   “the interior world of the artist,” expressed through non-representational composition of color, line, shape, and/or brush strokes.

Schapiro compared these themes to those of earlier periods of Western painting.  “If the art of the Middle Ages is about supernatural beings whom one never saw directly or in ordinary vision, if the art of the Renaissance is about mythological and historical figures, and if the art of the Baroque period is rich in moral and political allegories, then the art of the last seventy-five years is about ourselves” [137].

If modern artists are individualistic, and face no art-world limitations on subject matter, why was there, up to Schapiro’s writing, so little reference to human inequality and suffering in modern art?  Schapiro turned to this question at the end of his essay or lecture, and gave it too short a treatment.  He glossed over the paintings emphasizing the horrors of twentieth-century war, for example.  He suggested that modern artists’ reliance on individual patrons and purchases disciplined them to emphasize themes of leisure or related to pleasure.  

Formal qualities of "modern" art

I've greatly enjoyed reading "The value of modern art," a 1948 lecture by Meyer Schapiro, published in the compilation Worldview in Painting: Art and Society.  He wrote with a perspective that is rare for someone in the midst of major changes.

Schapiro attempted to analyze the formal qualities of the contemporary art of his period with the same eye that art historians train on art from their past.  “In the same manner that we are able to distinguish the art of the Renaissance from the art of the Middle Ages, the art of Egypt from the art of Mesopotamia, by careful observation of the forms, so we discern in the immense diversity of modern art a broad constancy in its structure and expressive means” [138].

1)   The artist leaves clear signs of the act of painting.  “Hence, in modern painting, the touch or stroke is so very pronounced” [138].  The trace of the act of painting becomes an important part of the form of the painting.

2)   “The modern painter treats the surface of the canvas as a concrete definite tangible ground, as an object in itself” rather than a transparent window into an image somehow beyond the canvas [139].

3)   “The work is so designed or constructed that the composition though well ordered looks undesigned, independent of any a priori scheme.  The artist does not aim at symmetry or a legible pattern” [139].  “The result is a constant interplay among chance, incompleteness, and the final order, completeness and rightness of elements” [140].  Schapiro presented this as a manifestation of the modern emphasis on individual creativity, self-expression and (re)invention.”

4)   “in a modern painting, the artist preserves in various parts of the work the traces of the original instigating object or experience,” [140], rather than hiding the original impetus or pattern under a beautiful representation of a scene.

I cannot but agree with these generalizations of the formal qualities of mid-twentieth-century painting, and conclude that they represent the ascendency of the artist as individual auteur, visibly placing her/his creative ideas and process at the forefront.