This was the first of a planned series of online seminars for the whole MA group whilst we are in lockdown 3. We were invited to read and discuss a paper by Robert Zimmer which had been submitted to the Royal Society in response to a call for a themed issue 'Abstraction paths from experience to concept'. This paper by Robert Zimmer ranges over a number of ideas, though the abstract of the paper as presented by the author says that you need to " abstract away from exactitude if we are to arrive at meaningful representations".. That makes perfect sense, and is beautifuly illustrated by Picasso's reply to a soldier presenting a wallet picture of his fiance as the 'perfect representation'; Picasso commented (recounted by Solso,1996) that the soldier's girlfriend was rather small. Zimmer argues that abstraction itself leads to increased perception, though I would contend (even having read the whole text) that the converse is equaly true, and that perception allows abstraction. Perhaps I am more sensitive to this as as a result of my prefessional training and as my own eyesight deteriorates with age. I am aware that it all too easy to misinterpret what you see if you dont see it clearly, or are unable to process it due to distraction or illness. This is often the basis for the hallucinations experienced by some in in delirium. There have been many visual artists who have perceived things differently - and have had their own significant visual disorders, from stereo blindnes( Rembrandt) to retinopathy (Degas) or cataracts (Monet). . In the group discussion of the paper we spent some time on Zimmer's pictorial example by Theo Van Doesburg published in 1925. This was a series of 4 images prgressively 'abstracted' from that of a photograph of a cow through to oblong coloured blocks. I and several others did not feel that he had arrived at a meaningful representation. I felt the example was in total conflict with with Hegels (1975) idea that abstraction allows (the painter) to capture the fleeting appearance of nature as something generated afresh by man. Hegel suggests that the process of abstraction to capture the 'essence' is itself manmade. I feel that the final image in the example demonstrates that by the process of reduction it is possible, though not inevitable , to completely loose that 'essence'; of cow or anything else. Maybe in that sense it is manmade. Indeed Zimmer goes on to point out that Van Doesburg himself felt that 'concrete'was a better description of his painting than 'abstract'. Having considered abstraction Zimmer goes on to discuss the psychology of art. He looks at three areas
The peak shift principle is based on the phenomenon observed in experimental animals, that they respond more strongly to exagerated versions of a training stimulus. Ramachandran and Hirstein suggest this principle works throughout all art creation and reception so that we are drawn to exageration. I will repeat the example quoted in Zimmers paper: This figure of an Indian Goddess is about 1000 years old. Not only have various 'female' bodily characteristics been exagerated but also others that were thought attractive including the length of her arms and fingers and the small feet. Looking at this image led me to consider how the peak shift principle might apply to how a culture sees itself and even how fashion in clothes might operate. Why is it that different cultures develop very different ways of portraying human beauty? We are told that even a millenium ago there was considerable cross fertilisation of ideas and cultures along trade routes and through conquest both within Europe and in Asia. India and Japan are not so very far apart by sea but Japan has had long periods of political isolation and its art has developed very differently. This picture of a Japanese Geisha aso exagerates aspects associated with femininity - the submissive angle of the head, abundant hair and the very small hands -but they are diferent from those of the goddess. In addition the very long oval face is not 'lifelike' but suggesting an ideal . Why did these two cultures develop different ideal forms? Was it simply chance or is it these features (flexible and expressive long fingers in India, an oval face in Japan) also help to mark out the geographical difference in bodily appearance, so the 'ideal' in a culture becomes the one least like the foreign one? Xenophobia is not new. Once accepted this ideal would be self perpetuating, as those individuals fortunate enough to resemble it would be more successful both geneticaly and financialy. They would conform to the long term cultural fashion in beauty. Closer to this day and age, fashions in dress tend to change quickly. What we considered very attractive and flattering ten years ago easily becomes dowdy and to be avoided. Yet when we see catwalk models displaying the latest creation from a fashion house, often we react with disbelief at the exagerated ideas. We mutter to ourselves that the clothes look horrible and we would never wear anything like it, even if we could afford to. Yet.....within a few years those exagerated lapels or outrageuos combinations of underwear ond outer clothing have crept into our wardrobes in a modified form. The 'norms' have shifted towards a different peak and now everyone follows them. This paper on abstraction was stimulating and provoking, in a good way, though many of the arguments about abstraction seemsed very unconvincing. The idea of the peak shift principle was very helpful, provoking reflections on fashion and cultural norms and also resonating with my new knowledge about Chevreul's observations on the perception of colour (see blog of 29/12/20). Zimmer, R. Abstraction in Art with Implications For Perception. . Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B (2003) 358, 1285–1291 Published on line on 8th May 2003.
other references Hegel, G. W. F. (1975) Aesthetics, vol. 6 and 7. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [Translated by T. M. Knox.] Ramachandran, V. S. & Hirstein, W. (1999) The science of art. J. Consc. Stud. 6, 15-51 Solso, R. L. (1996) Cognition and the visual arts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
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One of the traps of online shopping, in this case from the Oxfam online second hand book shop, is that it can be difficult to gain a sense of the physical size and academic weight of your purchase. I should have been alerted by the price. This soft back English language edition published in 1999 weighs almost 1.5 kilo. It is full of closely argued text and is 'weighty' enough to earn a forward by Professor John Dixon Hunt (English landscape historian. b1936). I took a deep breath and decided to read it rather than return. The book is proving interesting and has set me off researching more about Land Art and Nature Art, and some of the practitioners. The tome is presented as an overview "intended to make these art movements more accessible". It is is structured into a 40 page introduction entitled 'Art in Nature' then into chapters focussing on on the work of some of the artists the author has judged important. This blog is a brief summary of what I understand so far, with selected examples. One of the challenges to me as an outsider in these fields was the apparantly fluid nature of terms and lack of obvious boundaries between 'Landscape Architecture', 'Land Art' and 'Nature Art'. This point is discussed in the foreword by Hunt who suggests that there is a problem for Lanscape Architecture in having no agreed 'theory' though it increasingly responds to the surrounding landscape. Stephen Bann (Art Historian, b1942) in the second foreword goes further, and states (p9) that not only are there no clearly defined boundaries of Landscape Architecture but that 'great gardens are often created by people of other disciplines integrating their own practice into the creation ' Having studied the introduction I needed a diagram so constructed the one below. Ideally it should be a 3 dimensional model which would allow for an additional field: gardens with and without sculpture. Perhaps in a 2 dimensional plan gardens, both grand parks and domestic plots would fit best overlapping top right. Certainly in this diagram plants and the living element of landscape have almost no importance in the left hand categories but are the foundations of activity as we move to the right. I learnt a good deal more of these modern movements than I had before. I was starting from a low baseline. Land Art was started in the late 1960's by sculptors in the USA wishing to reject the concept of a gallery, museum (or sculpture garden?) and to develop monumental projects far away from the commercial art market. Rather romantically they saw their work as being in a 'natural environment' such as the Nevada desert, (previously used to test bombs) which they then altered by removing or adding natural materials. The landscape was the sculpture. Examples include Micheal Heizer's 'Double Negative' (1969/70) where 240,000 tons of rock were removed from two places at the edge of an escarpment (below left) and 'City' (below right), both in the Nevada Desert. Another example is 'Las Vegas Piece' (1969) by Walter de Maria (left). This is said to evoke the 'first or last tracks of a human being who wanted to make a mark on an untrodden planet' (Weilacher quoting Kellein) Although many early Land Artists were rebelling against prevailing social norms and industry by going into 'pristine' areas, artists such as Sonfist, in the early 1960's engaged with the urban space to create public areas. It was a small park in New York with public involvement to increase understanding of nature-based existence and ecology. Initially this was seen as revololutionary. More recently (1982) Agnes Denes created a wheatfield in Manhatton. Land Art has also been created in old industrial sites, the places that have already been damaged and abandoned such as old quarries or opencast mines. Here the history of the location provides a backstory and part of the message. Hovever 'land recclamation as sculpture ' poses a danger of providing a 'green cosmetic treatment ' and a 'salve to environmental destitution''. In contrast to ' Double Negative' or 'Las Vegas,' Richard Long (British sculptor b1945) in his 1967 piece, 'A Line Made By Walking' hardly made a mark and intorduced the idea that the actual art piece can be the process of creating the art itself. Other works by Long have perhaps belonged better to the Nature Art (also known as the environmental art) movement, where something is constructed of natural materials within a landscape. Some of these sculptures may be durable, for instance stone walls, others last only moments such as the ice sculptures made by Andy Goldsworthy, and recorded in photographs. Weilacher also quotes Winter and Schreier in their discusson of the Schuberg Project (in a German Forest): " structures which develop are dialogic, suitable not only to avoid the arbitrariness of the sculpture park but also tendencies towards a unified 'gesamkunstwerk' in the sense of the French or English garden. Here no all embracing idea imposes its will on the dialogue between the works and nature, or prescribes their inclusion or position.." He also quotes (p27) Ruth Falazik, who moved her contemporary art gallery outdoors to an agricultural landscape in the village of Neukirchen, as saying 'Art is to be understood as an integral part of the landscape' Both Land and Nature Art are made outdoors and are thus are profoundly affected by affected by weather over time. That awareness of transience/decay, the effects of natural phenomena and nature itself are an important part of their creators' motivations. All have sought to increase perception in the viewer, whether for instance of the majesty of their surroundings, of time, the colours and forms to be seen in nature or the experience of self. Weilacher criticises Landscape Architecture of having a persistent, impersonal academicism and production of the same 'correct' answers to landscape design which has banished the romantic in favour of rational and durable. He asks (p39) whether this new sculptural movement can offer new avenues? The acceptance of transience in Nature/Environmental Art is seen as a problem, but not for all. In his foreword Stephen Bann quotes Bernard Lassus (French Landscape Architect b1939) as saying 'Art and Landscape Architecture are the same thing for me' Of course this book is now at least 20 years old and thinking will have moved on. As of February 2021 Edinburgh University website defined Landscape Architecture as " a creative discipline that focuses on intervention in the landscape through imaginative design, strategic thinking and scientific precision. It analyses, represents and constructs landscapes as places with meaning". This seems very similar to the original intentions of Land Art. The difference may be that Landscape Architecture regards itself as profession, whose practitioners are commissioned to design -usually - large projects in public spaces. Artists are expected to provoke new ways of thinking and to create according to their inspiration, though may accept commissions as well as hoping to sell completed independently conceived works. In this blog post I have only reviewed the first 40 pages, forewords and introduction. Most of the subsequent 12 chapters are the result of personal interviews, whilst the first discusses the achievements of the Japanese American sculptor Isomo Naguchi (1904-1988) who may be regarded as the forerunner of these disciplines and 'who used the landscape as sculpture'. The practitioners he interviews don't fit in just one category, at least on more than one occasion. These people include Ian Hamilton Finlay and Bernard Lassus, together with others I had not come across. I am therefore going to take a bit more time and maybe put in blog entries for some. One big question has been in my mind whilst reading so far. Where do living plants, gardens and any garden sculpture fit into all this? One Nature Art piece that was created from living plants is in Wales on a private estate. This picture is of 'the Ash Dome' planted by artist David Nash in 1977. There are 22 Ash trees planted in a circle, carefully trained over time to lean round and inwards. This picture was taken in 2004. Today, as a victim of ash dieback it will have changed radically, an aspect that the sculptor, interviewed in August 2019 for Apollo magazine, totally accepts. This work does not represent Nash's general output, which is chopped and carved from felled wood; more typical of the classical picture of a sculptor. Weilacher comments (p17): '...only a few artists work with living plant material other than grass...as a surface texture. The living plant often develops an unpredictable momentum of its own and actively alters its environment. Man has traditionally used gardening whenever it was a question of controlling this natural process of change. But in 1968 Robert Smithson asked "could one say that art degenerates as it approaches gardening?" Art critisism has, consequently, been unable to come to terms with creative gardening and sees a direct link between David Nash's Ash Dome of living ashes and traditional garden art. Does this gardening tradition of 'grooming ' provide an explanation for the infrequent use of living plants in Nature Art and Land Art ? or does art choose to steer clear of mediums which develop a momentum of their own?' Food for thought? Kellein, T. "Land Art- Ein Vorbericht zur Deutng der Erde" in Europa/Amerika Museum Ludwig Koln 1986
Weilacher, U, "Between Landscape Architecture and Land Art". . Birkhauser. Basel Berlin Boston 1999 Winter., G. Schreier C "Skulptur im Dialog" in Skulptur im Tal Kuntsverein Hasselbach. Hasselbach 1989 p53 another lockdown has been anounced just when we were expecting to get back in the UCLan studio!
Ah well more reading. |
AuthorI am indulging my passion for ceramics by undertaking studies for an MA at UCLAN Archives
August 2021
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