Pop Goes the Artist!

“The humility of the early Italian painters constantly compels me to imitate them. Personality cults by contemporary painters infuriate me. One must seek the opposite, fade away more every day, find exactness only in the art of painting, and always forget oneself. Instead, one sees nothing but self exhibitionism, personal confessions, intimate avowals, auto voyeurism, and egoistic declarations. I often say that one mustn’t try to explain oneself, but rather the world and its darkness and mystery… But I’ve always persisted on the path of solitude and exactingness. Painting cannot be done amid the world’s hubbub, by adopting its rhythm and complaisance. It is better to seek solitude and silence, to be surrounded by past masters, to reinvent the world, not to be cradled by false sirens, cash, galleries, fashionable games, etc…”

Many people are aware of Vincent van Gogh’s extensive correspondence with his brother Theo, but he also corresponded with a number of artists, including Paul Gauguin and a younger artist named Emile Bernard, for whom he became something of a mentor.

I was not aware of these letters, which also included sketches of his works in progress, until I read an article about them in this month’s Smithsonian magazine. (The article can be found here, and does not require registration to read, although I don’t know how long it will remain available.) Emile Bernard was a relatively unimportant artist, but van Gogh’s advice-filled letters to him reveal a lot about van Gogh’s methods of working, opinions on working from life vs. reality, and color theory. Here’s a sample:

I follow no system of brushwork at all, I hit the canvas with irregular strokes, which I leave as they are, impastos, uncovered spots of canvas—corners here and there left inevitably unfinished—reworkings, roughnesses…. Anyway, my dear pal, no trompe l’oeil in any case…

I’ve always been attracted to van Gogh’s work, partially because of the dynamism he finds in landscapes (which I talked about once here) and partially because of his brilliant use of colors. This article quotes him as saying “I could hardly give a damn about the veracity of the color” and that’s almost something I want to write on an index card and tape above my easel. Color has so much emotional and visual power, it almost seems a pity to limit oneself to strict realism.

Anyway, it’s a very interesting article and includes a number of pictures of his sketches, letters, and finished paintings of his and Bernard’s. Worth a read.

(Smithsonian frequently has fantastic art history articles. In particular, I enjoyed (but forgot to blog about) this July article about Edward Hopper, another favorite artist of mine, and his lonely, evocative, quintessentially American paintings.)

It’s hitting crunch time at school (exams start on Monday), so it’s time for a cop-out links post.  Hard-hitting social commentary will just have to wait until later.

• Part of the problem I have with trying to sketch every day is that I run out of things to draw–or at least, I feel like I do.  After all, I spend most of my time in the same tiny dorm room, surrounded by the same objects that have surrounded me since freshman year.  Times like those, I turn to lists of sketching challenges like this one from Flickr’s Everyday Matters group.  Sometimes it takes outside prompting to look at a familiar object in a different light.
• This isn’t exactly art-related, but I think it will come in handy when/if I ever set up an Etsy shop for my crafty projects as well as my art.  The photography blog Strobist posted instructions for making an effective “photo studio” for under $10.
• I love retro, pop-art stuff, particularly old advertising and illustrations.  This photoset on Flickr includes more than 500 matchbox labels, mostly from Eastern Europe in the 50s and 60s.  There are some really cute ones.
• Along those same lines, here’s a collection of really over-the-top romance and “good girl” comic book covers, featuring some fantastic, super-pulpy illustrations.  As a bonus, the cover copy is frequently hilarious.  (A little more poking around on the same site reveals a gallery of superhero and war comics as well as some crime and horror comics.  Gold!)
• Spam subject lines are almost always hilarious.  They’re even better made into funky hand-lettered artwork.  Here’s the photoset on Flickr and here’s where you can buy prints.  Too bad I just spent too much money buying prints on Etsy…
• I occasionally dabble in book arts, but I have a full-time obsession with beautiful paper, notebooks, pens, etc.  PaperStudio.com sells beautiful paper as well as other tools and supplies for all your bookbinding, collage-making, obsessively admiring needs.  I particularly love the chiyogami Japanese paper.

That’s all for now.  I really should work on making flashcards for my art history final.  Those Gothic cathedrals are beautiful, but they do all look awfully similar to each other.

One of my (many, many) favorite ways to waste time on the Internet is Etsy.com, which describes itself as a “place to buy and sell all things handmade.” And when they say “all things” they really mean it. People sell candles, fine art prints, clothing, furniture, paintings, notebooks, jewelry, sculpture, everything. And it’s almost uniformly beautiful, cool, unique stuff, with something to appeal to every taste. Generally pretty affordable, too, although I haven’t bought anything yet. (Which is not to say I haven’t been tempted–I have, more times than I can count.) At some point, I intend to set up my own Etsy shop to sell my work. I don’t think it’s a good idea while I’m still in school, since I don’t have the time to consistently add to my portfolio, plus, eight months of the year I don’t even live in the same state as most of my artwork.

Through Etsy, I’ve discovered a lot of really cool artists, many of whom have websites of their own. budanART (blog here) paints incredible abstracted landscape that are full of gorgeous colors and shapes. She offers prints of her paintings as well.

Winged Lion (website here) is a linoleum block printer (and watercolorist and jewelry artist) whose talent awes me. I’ve experimented with block printing just enough to know that it’s very hard work–and the more colors you add, the harder it is. Nevertheless, all of her prints are crisp and perfectly registered. (My favorites are the Earth & Sea series.) Inspiring and humbling at the same time.

Armato Design (blog here) is a husband & wife team who does lovely letterpress stationary on a 100-year-old press. I have no idea how the process works, but their results are wonderful. If I were a richer and more social woman, I would commission them to do a whole set of old-fashioned stationary and I would conduct all my correspondence by snail mail. Someday…

In the meantime, go explore Etsy for yourself and find your own favorites!

I stumbled across this interesting story on Gizmodo a few months ago and have been meaning to share it ever since. A few intrepid people have managed to turn M.C. Escher’s “Waterfall” woodcut–with its gravity-defying fountain–into a sculpture and even a Lego model. Now, if they could find a way to make the fountain work–that would be genius.