RE: '(and yes, though Derek may be dismayed , I am obsessed with aesthetic
satisfaction above all else)'
Not dismayed at all. Lots of people claim to want 'aesthetic
satisfaction'. If that makes them happy, so be it.
DA
On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 3:34 PM, Chris Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The 1915 newspaper that I quoted yesterday was reporting one of the first
> exhibits of abstract painting in America - coming 2 years after the Armory
> shows in New York and Chicago.
>
> It may have been first ever group show of American abstract paintings - and it
> was certainly the first such exhibit in Chicago -- and if you read a little
> more carefully, you'll see that the journalist is not
> being negative about his subject.
>
> (I also think Gene Morgan was a pretty good writer -- and would like to know
> more about his interests and background. He seems quite enthusiastic about
> modern, urban life)
>
> He thinks the show was a hoot -- but that's also how the artists were
> presenting it. "Michigan Avenue between Adams Street and 5 O'Clock" is
> actually a title of one of the pieces.
>
> The artists (from the Palette and Chisel Club) were having fun -- but no less
> so than with their other activities: the tableaux vivants, the outdoor nudes,
> parodies of operas, Salons de Refuses etc.-- to all of the which the
> journalism community was eagerly invited. (and indeed -- many members worked
> for the newspapers as illustrators)
>
> They were clowning around - but they were also quite serious about their work
> and careers, and many of them are currently included in histories of Chicago
> art and Chicago Modernism.
>
>
> William has suggested that "the aesthetic rush one gets from "abstraction" is
> the relation between unique formal presentation and its looking like other
> things or evoking unique ways to re-imagine other things." --- and that's
> exactly what this journalist was writing about.
>
> In 1915, abstract painting was seen as fun and exciting -- and this exhibit
> received as much (or even more) positive attention in the newspapers as had
> Arthur Dove's Chicago exhbit 3 years earlier.
>
> The culture war fought by Tribune columnist Eleanor Jewett and Mrs. Logan
> ("Sanity in Art") would come a decade later -- and the issue then
> would not be abstraction versus illusion. (but rather, paintings were
> attacked for lacking beauty or the proper ideals)
>
>
>
> But still -- when considering the "satisfactions of symmetry and abstract art"
> -- the relation between "its unique formal presentation and and its looking
> like other things" is not that relevant -- to me.
>
> (and yes, though Derek may be dismayed , I am obsessed with aesthetic
> satisfaction above all else)
>
> If something looks really good -- I begin to consider its relationships to
> other things. But if it doesn't look good -- I just don't care whether it
> looks like something else or not.
>
> (which is exactly the same way I respond to more illusionistic work)
>
>
>
> *************************
>
> Here's the quote again -- and perhaps it's this writer's disinterest in any
> serious purpose that really bugging William:
>
>
> "Imagine a picture which looks like nothing, yet everything, and which is
> entitled "Michigan Avenue between Adams Street and 5 O'clock" At first glance
> you might think it was a soup can in a heavy blizzard. A second glance would
> almost convince you that it was J.P.McEvoy's new car embracing a barber's pole
> with its front wheels.
>
> You see, you can never tell what a futurist painting represents. Thats where
> the fun comes in.
>
> Generally, it represents its title like a congressman represents his
> constits.
>
> A futurist painting presents not ideas, but thought harmonies, soul tones and
> notes sounded by the vibrant emotions (It isn't every day you read stuff like
> that)
>
> The harmonies conveyed by these paintings are various. Each painting is an
> orchestra in itself.
>
> One picture may be entitled "Golf Lynx calling its mate" You look at the
> picture and then you think you're hearing a fife and drum corps passing a
> sawmill.
>
> Another painting is named "The Furniture Mover's Lament". You don't see any
> furniture, but you think you hear a piano being assaulted by a cabaret artist
> who has just been fed meat. Still another masterpiece in a gold frame is
> entitled "Silent prayer" It looks like a big squidge of yellow paint, but it
> listens like a circus band leading the second
> division of the parade, with the steam calliope whistling for coal around the
> corner."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
> ____________________________________________________________
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>
--
Derek Allan
http://www.home.netspeed.com.au/derek.allan/default.htm
