Renaissance

From the wonderful Robert Genn

Renaissance means "rebirth." It's a term that refers to the intellectual and artistic movement that began in Italy in the 14th century, culminated with Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael in the 16th, and has influenced thinking and creating ever since. The art historian Ian Chilvers has characterized it as "the time when Medieval turns into Modern and the religion-dominated world of the Middle Ages gives way to a culture more responsive to the individual." It has come to mean openness to change, to rethinking, and to the examination and often reinvention of more classical forms. These days, it seems we are living through a renaissance of realism in a world traditionally dominated by abstract expressionism. Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, for example.

More than anything, renaissance is an attitude that transcends times and places. For creative people, a minor renaissance happens every day as we reassess yesterday's work and adjust our thinking to both its needs and our personal inclinations.

Would-be "renaissance artists" try to range widely in their interests, understanding, and capability. They do many things, know how to quickly research the information they need, do not necessarily follow the recipes of others, and are rather in love with the business of finding out for themselves. They both respect the past and contrive to discover the future. And just like Giotto, Pisano and Donatello, as well as the three guys mentioned above, "renaissance thinking" is learned.

The way I look at it, the idea of renaissance has eight great principles that just might be worth thinking about:

Curiosity as a way of thinking
Suspicion of authority and conventional wisdom
Respect for intelligently filtered history
Aspiration to higher levels of achievement
Vision for renewed potential in all things
Tendency to invent private systems
Reinvention and perfection of former skills
Accepting the challenge of the difficult


PS: "Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's what Yeats called the fascination with what's difficult. I'm only trying to do what I can't do." (Lucian Freud)

Esoterica: I'm laptopping you from the shade of massive plane trees on the ramparts of a defensive wall that surrounds Lucca, Italy. Cooling breezes flow in from the Ligurian Sea and the air is filled with ancient wonder and present curiosity. This is Giacomo Puccini's town, and tonight there will be a concert in one of the cathedrals now converted to a music venue. My daughter, Sara, is living here in a 13th century stone building where she is painting a new series.

The tyranny of reality

Thanks Robert :)

Those of us who sometimes mentor and instruct students are
familiar with trying to get people to really look at things.
Recently, after a few days walking around in a subject-rich
environment, I was agog with new possibilities. Burdened with
reference, I returned to the studio and proceeded to paint the
worst thing I've done in some time. It was one of those
paintings that has you considering a career in accountancy.
During the fiasco I began to better understand a syndrome I've
had all my life. It's what I call "the tyranny of reality."

Let me explain. When we are overloaded with subject matter, we
have an automatic tendency to neglect style and imagination.
Subject matter is no match for spirit. Too much observation can
change the creative event from one of spirit to one of
rendering. Surprise, chance, illusion, personality, audacity,
confidence and desire are the most affected. Abandonment and
even desertion may have to be contemplated.

Sad to say, but glorious nature stomps on creativity. The
artist becomes not a master, but a slave. On the other hand,
reflecting in tranquility, uncluttered by overabundance and the
need to get reality right, one is free to pass to another
level. "Reality," said Joyce Cary, "is a narrow little house
which becomes a prison for those who can't get out."

In 1970, the distinguished critic and social theorist Roland
Barthes wrote, "Painting can feign reality without having seen
it." When I first read that statement a door opened. Time and
again I've seen the idea make timid artists brave. Those who
dare to "feign reality" are in the agreeable business of
surprising themselves. Believe me, it's anticipated surprise
that keeps us at our easels. I hardly know of an evolved artist
in any field who doesn't understand this. "The job of art,"
said Francoise Sagan, "is to take reality by surprise."

Bogging down in detail will spoil the fun every time. I can't
think how many times I've failed to break down that door. Clive
Bell, another critic lashing out in the age of hyperrealism,
noted, "Detail is the fatty degeneration of art." He has a
point. Fat is tyranny. Reduce.

Best regards,

Robert

PS: "The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance
of things, but their inward significance, and this, and not the
external manner and detail, is true reality." (Aristotle)

Esoterica: Many significant artists might say that the opposite
is true, and for many, it is. Artists with no respect for or
understanding of reality can be a slave to their own
imaginations. When these imaginations are shallow, which they
sometimes are, there's nothing like a shot or two of the real
world. One of the hazards of art instruction is where you
suggest one person might loosen up, and you tell another to
start looking more carefully at things. Within earshot, people
are getting the opposite information. It's not like accountancy
at all.

Excercise and Experiment

When all is only exercise and experiment, where
questions give more delight than answers, and results are the
lesser of process, we are given a special kind of energy. It's
shifty sand, though. Joy can be stolen because an artist has to
put enough technique under the belt to be simply confident. To
see a painting that never was, as it is to hear a tree falling
in a forest, witness is during, not after. What happens after
is really someone else's business. And one mustn't be fooled,
as I almost was, into thinking that it was some of my business
where they all end up.


From Robert Genn's weekly esoterica.