Relationship between the Artist and the Critic - Essay Example

The Relationship between the Artist and the Critic: the Written Word as a means of defining Artistic Intention The relationship between an artist and critical interpretation of his/her work through the written word has always been a revealing but difficult one. One of the basic problems is the essential impossibility of "defining" an abstract visual medium such as pictorial art through words. Words are 'certain', they inhabit a Cartesian world of either/or (a word means implies one meaning and not another) rather than the both/and complexity of a painting that may be interpreted in numerous ways. Both Apollinaire and Picasso approach the difficulty of "defining art" through words in characteristically honest manners. In The Cubist Painters: Aesthetic Meditations 1913, Apollinaire gives the following revealing analysis: Today scientists no longer limit themselves to the three dimensions of Euclid. Painters have been led quite naturally, one might say be intuition, to preoccupy themselves with the new possibilities of spatial dimension which, in the language of modern studios, are designed by the term: the fourth dimension.1 The interesting point here is that the other "dimensions" identified by the scientists working at this time could, at least in theory, be clearly defined. They were part of a recognizable structure that had logic and form. The "fourth dimension" that Apollinaire discusses in art is more complex: . . . regarded from the plastic point of view, the fourth dimension appears to spring from three known dimensions: it represents the immensity of space externalizing itself in all directions at any given moment. It is space itself, the dimension of the infinite.2 Apollinaire relates this new dimension to Picasso's developing style of giving added dimensions to the normal two-dimensional representation of three dimensions through the technique of showing a single object, face or body from different angles on the same canvas. Thus the "all directions at any given moment" is expressed on the canvas by a face shown with one eye looking towards the viewer and another staring sideways. Here Apollinaire describes a technique that can be broken down into its constituent parts and thus defined through words. Apollinaire also provides some aphoristic definitions of art and artists that often sound more impressive on a superficial level than they actually reveal. For example, one quoted often with other literature: Artists are, above all, men who want to become inhuman.3 Pleasant-sounding, but not particularly enlightening. Further expansions upon the idea of the artist occur: . . . without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature's monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up into chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere.4 Here is a vital point, that illustrates that words can provide a profoundly revealing commentary on art. Art does not, as had been previously suggested, hold up a mirror to nature, but rather it creates something "sublime" out of the "monotony" that exists within nature alone. According to Apollinaire, Picasso is one of the pioneers of this artistic vision, through the intensity and specificity of his vision. Picasso's vision of art in general, and of the artist in particular, went through as many metamorphoses within his lifetime as his actual painting did. In his famous comments to Simone Tery in 1945, Picasso stated: Art is not made to decorate apartments, it is an offensive and defensive instrument of war against the enemy.5 According to Picasso, at least at this point in his career, art is designed not for its aesthetic beauty or even its more banal decorative value, but rather as an object of violence. The idea of art as destructive rather than constructive is revealing, and is reflected by a comment from ten years earlier, before Europe was plunged into the Second World War. In a "Conversation", Picasso stated the following: A picture used to be a sum of additions. In my case a picture is a sum of destructions. I do a picture - then I destroy it. In the end, though, nothing is lost.6 The idea of art as destruction, or at least the process of creating art as destruction, seems contradictory. Picasso is perhaps suggesting that his art is not intended to be "looked at" and "appreciated" in a passive way but rather should have an active effect upon both the artist and the viewer. The "sum of destructions" may be the destruction of pre-conceived notions and previous attitudes. This is why, paradoxically "nothing is lost" - because, perhaps, something new is gained. As with Apollinaire's comments, Picasso is making a complex argument about the manner in which he creates art, and yet, perhaps, the paintings speak more for this process than the words can. Thus Picasso's remarkable Guernica illustrates both the terror of wartime destruction and also the manner in which the artist destroys old conceptions of war. Also, one may argue that Picasso's development of new forms throughout his life represent a form of destruction-creation-destruction that is echoed in his words. It can, however, be seen in more crystallized form within the actual paintings: Vollard Self-Portrait Rembrandt Without a knowledge of Picasso, or of the years that the paintings were completed (in reality over 50 years) or even any written accounts of the artist's various transformations, any reasonably observant viewer will recognize the genesis of the art works from the first to the last. Does this genesis need to be explained, or is it best viewed in a somewhat "virginal" manner, without the benefit of further knowledge Apollinaire would most certainly not agree, being more of a critic of art (at least of pictorial art) than a creator. Picasso, unlike many artists, did give numerous accounts of both his creative process and the meaning of the resulting works, but, as already discussed, these tended towards the ambiguous, obtuse and perhaps at times deliberately deceptive. Due to the closeness of their relationship perhaps Apollinaire reflected Picasso's creativity in words and also helped to mold it. As Norman Mailer puts it, Apollinaire and Picasso were artists to enrich each other . . . ready to evoke every transport or romantic loss and longing . . . Apollinaire lived with an equally powerful vision of coruscation and putrescence, so he could provide the poetic overlay needed then for Picasso's poetic vision.7 Apollinaire is also seen as "the guide who will conduct Picasso from the Blue Period into the Rose."8 The idea that a poet who uses words will guide a painter from an apparently period of depression (both literally and metaphorically Blue in nature) through to a more optimistic time is a fascinating idea. Perhaps because words are more concrete than painting in their meaning, indeed, they must be, the poet was able to move the painter from one type of creation to another. Apollinaire, with a poet's eye for detail, makes a revealing comment regarding the years before Picasso turned completely to Cubism: . . . there are some pictures belonging to 1904 and 1905 that make one wonder how he reached the apparent detachment of Cubism without hanging himself. One of these is a big oil . . . Picasso dressed as a harlequin - and the red lozenges clash subtly with her pink, is half turned from her and his greenish face has a look of profound disgust and weariness.9 Consider the painting being described: Au Lapin Agile Are there other possible interpretations as to the look on the Picasso's face Is his expression really one of "profound disgust and weariness" Some might suggest that in fact the expression is inscrutable and mysterious; diffident rather than caring, relaxed rather than wearied. Here Apollinaire is using his own personal knowledge of Picasso's mood at the time of the painting to inform the reader and/or viewer of the artist's mood while the work was being created. Without these words the viewer might be able to make up her own mind about the "meaning" of the painting with greater freedom, and yet also more possibility of being incorrect. The fact of the inexactitude of an interpretation without personal knowledge of the artist to back it up does not necessarily make the viewer's opinion any less valid. Despite the wishes of a critic such as Apollinaire, a painting does not necessarily have one "meaning", indeed, it does not need to have any "meaning" at all, at least in a verbal sense of the word. The painting may effect the viewer in a certain way, but an exact definition of that effect may not be possible. Lack of definition does not imply lack of existence, but rather, as Apollinaire himself suggested, the "immensity" of an art that is extending itself "in all directions at any given moment. For directions the word meanings can be replaced, and the applicability of the statement may actually strengthen. A Picasso painting may have an infinite number of meanings (and thus intentions) or perhaps none, and it is the essential inapproachability of the artist's intent that is most important. As Mailer puts it, "it is hopeless to attempt to comprehend Picasso without assuming that he would never let anyone come near to the immensity of dread he contained within himself . . . he dominated his inner terror sufficiently to use it as a stimulus to work."10 This "terror" is perhaps what Picasso was alluding to when he talked of "destruction" in the context of his painting. The terror was destroyed but, like some ominous Phoenix, it would renew itself after each painting was finished. Thus the fact that Picasso talked of nothing being lost may be regarded as more foreboding than it appears at first glance. It is his terror that has not been lost, which constantly exists however he tries to counter and destroy it. Thus the intention of the artist may be revealed both through words:- what he says himself and what others say - but most of all within the reaction that the works themselves engender. As Shakespeare put it, "the play's the thing"11, and in Picasso's case, one might say that "the painting's the thing". Lesser minds, and Apollinaire, for all his abilities, must be seen in this light, may attempt to illuminate the work of art, but it is the artist's genius that shines forth stronger. The word "genius" is seldom used in scholarship today; it is ideologically inconvenient, claimed to be imprecise, and generally an unpopular idea within a world (that of universities) that supposedly frowns on elitism, and yet which maintains its own strict forms vehemently. But if "genius" does mean anything, then surely it can be applied to the wondrous diversity and evolution of Picasso's artistic achievement. Fighting against the shadows of terror that surrounded him it may have been, and at least shepherded on its way by friends/comrades such as Apollinaire, but his Picasso's art in the end transcended both the environment in which it was created and even the intentions (or lack thereof) of the artist. It exists in that fourth dimension that Apollinaire loosely described; one that embodies a far larger universe than can be suggested by a single of even multiple intention. The "meaning" of a form as abstract as Cubism, the one that Picasso labored within for so long, is directly related to the "intention" of the artist involved. The verbal and pictorial "conversation" that occurred between Apollinaire and Picasso can be usefully placed within the wider context of Cubist Art and Art in general. It is interesting to note that the word "Cubism" actually stemmed from a derisive series of remarks made by Henri Matisse (painter) and Louis Vauxcelles when viewing Braque's 1908 work "Houses at L'Estaque". Matisse reportedly said to Vauxcelles that the painting "seems to consist of cubes"12, and the critic agreed, thus unintentionally creating a term for one of the most influential movements in art history. Cubism might be seen as part of a broader re-evaluation of what the intentions of paining should be at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. For many years painting had tried to put a mirror up to nature, but now that task had been taken over by photography, which could, with little effort and infinitely more accuracy, faithfully record face or a mountain in a manner that painters found impossible. Thus the intention of painting Art needed to change, as it could not possibly compete within its usual sphere. Painters such as Picasso chose to emphasize the flat, two dimensional surface of the picture plane, rejecting traditional techniques that included perspective and foreshortening. His art was still influenced by and inspired by "nature" (and the widest meaning of this word is implied), but he did not feel bound to copying its form, its color, its texture or its space. The art of Cubism, as exemplified by the work of Pablo Picasso, was one in which the world was re-created in the artist's own vision: it was an interpretation of reality rather than a faithful reproduction of it. Of course Impressionist painters from Monet to Van Gogh had been producing their own intensely personal visions of reality for many decades, but Cubism differed from them in drawing attention to the fact that the painting surface (a two-dimensional canvas) is irredeemably artificial in nature. However, this artificiality is a strength rather than a weakness, it is a liberation rather than a limitation. For within (or rather on, as there are only two-dimensions) the artificial space of the canvas, the artist is able to create his/her own worlds without he strictures of adhering to actual reality. Thus if Picasso wants to show a face from different perspectives on the same piece of canvas he can do so because he is not limited by what actually occurs in reality. In this sense, Cubist painters' intentions can be viewed as deliberately challenging photography; which can effortlessly record reality, but for whom interpretation is much more difficult. Cubism reduced the number of colors used by the painter to an almost monochromatic style (glance once again at Vollard) in which the sheer abstract nature of the shapes could come to the fore and subtle evocations of what is actually seen would not be dominated by a bright palette. Ordinary shapes, such as a sunblind (see The Sunblind by Juan Gris) are given new meaning and become the centre of attention rather than the background. The world of objects (which happens to so lend itself to Cubist techniques) becomes of importance, rather than the faces and bodies that had so dominated much of Art before this time. This world of objects is perhaps part of Apollinaire's concept of the fourth dimension. The objects become the centre rather than the periphery. Objects such as tables, chairs, birds, plants etc. have always had a nature and meaning beyond their actual physical form. Renaissance painting is replete with symbolism using the most mundane objects; but Cubism differed from these through making the objects not only mean 'more' than their actual existence, but also making them the centre of attention. Their importance is not as symbols of religious or other abstract concepts, but rather as themselves. Thus the shapes of Cubism that Picasso introduced are angular, geometric and related more to inanimate objects than to life. But his intention appears to have been to give life to these objects through the use of the very "inhuman" technique of shapes and forms. The development of Art that Picasso engendered through these changes led to an expansion in the materials that could be used within the frame. Thus newspapers and other ordinary object might be stuck to a canvas to become part of the painting. A mundane sense of the ordinary is lent an extraordinary air through this technique. Again, what is the "intention" of the artist in these paintings One answer may to be valorize the ordinary experience of ordinary people, in contrast to the aristocracy etc. that had been the subject of painting so often in the past because they were the ones who were patronizing it. Picasso was one of the first modern artists to be actually recognized within his own lifetime in a similar manner to the way he would be made a legend after his death. His intention within art was to break away from the old conventions, both of the paintings and of the actual artist. If, As Mailer suggests, Picasso was in fact constantly trying to avoid and even destroy the demons that he found within his own psyche, then his art was as removed from the painter-as-artisan portrait painters of previous centuries as could be. To conclude, the "intentional fallacy" applies to pictorial art as much as it does to the written work of an author. It is impossible to exactly determine what any creative artist's intention is within a particular work or over the course of his whole lifetime's output - even if he states clearly what his intentions are. The work of Freud, Jung et al. illustrates that the intentions of ordinary human beings may in fact be different at a subconscious level than the ones that they vigorously maintain at a conscious level. The viewer of painting (as the reader of a book) must bring his/her own sense of interpretation to a piece in order to make sense of it. The difference between ordinary art and the art of a man such as Picasso is that his brings an intensely personal experience to as wide as group of people as is possible. It is deeply personal and yet universal at the same time. ________________________________________________ Works Cited Written Apollinaire, Guillaume. The Cubist Painters: Aesthetic Meditations 1913. ----------------------. Alcols et Calligrammes, 1910. Mailer, Norman. Picasso: Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man. Atlantic Monthly Books, New York: 1995. Picasso, Pablo. "Conversation with Picasso" in ed. Wood, Paul. Art in Theory: 1900-1990. Blackwell, New York: 1993. Picasso, Pablo. "Conversation", Cahiers d'Art. Paris, X, 1935. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. OUP, Oxford: 1987. Paintings Gris, Juan The Sun-Blind Picasso, Pablo Au Lapin Agile ------------- Rembrandt ------------- Self-Portrait ------------- Vollard Read More