Jam packed week of Art in Louisville and Lafayette

Whew. Last weekend was the Lafayette Community Art Show that is still up at the Lafayette Library. I juried
it on Friday and gave the awards on Sunday. I met new artists and saw some students and friends that I hadn't seen in a while. Here is Ruth Sollers piece from the Lafayette show. Isn't it great?

First Friday was a group show at CFA Gallery for Artist Appreciation Week. The reception was packed and I saw collectors and friends and it was hopping. The show is up for November with 3 pieces each artist. I was back at CFA to teach at 10:00am till 12:30 pm  and then lunch at Cafe de Paris. I left the Arts District at 4pm after a quick hello to Teresa Reed...I spent 22 hours in the same block. Louisville is getting downright interesting. Oh yeah, I did go home to sleep. 

DeKooning Show

MOMA has dedicated the 6th floor to showing over 500 of DeKooning's works.

Wish we were there:)

Here's Excavation from 1950

 

Leo Steinberg, Art Historian passes at 90.

"The Eye is Part of the Mind" Leo Steinberg's view that a work's artistic value lies not only in shape, line, color and the formal visual elements but in how they are applied to communicate content. thank you! rest in peace.

Timothy Harney

When I read the NYTimes each morning, I am often moved to check out artists mentioned on the internet.while searching images for Betty Woodman, I came across this collage and painting

by Timothy Harney. It is such a fine example of Unity. If you like it please add a comment about why it works.

Cezanne

On December 11, we had an invigorating lesson and discussion on Cezanne. Any thoughts since then?
Cezanne

Cezannes purpose was twofold. He wanted to paint nature convincingly so as to reveal its basic structures and their relationship in space. Seldom did he abandon nature and paint solely from his imagination or fail to create a solid, well-balanced form. His second aim was to convey the unequivocal message that his pictures were flat, painted canvases, not imitations of reality. To achieve these ends, Cezanne devised his own ways of using color and rendering geometrical forms, combining them into a method of painting that is at once simple, intellectual and highly intuitive. A method that has given us an original view of nature.

Cezanne - Still Life with Fruit Basket

Cezannes point of departure in painting was radically different from that of his contemporaries. He was not attracted to subjects by their topical interest, charm or erotic content, their inherent drama or possible social or allegorical significance. He looked at them only as visible images beneath which there was a substructure of meaning to be found. It was only through the revelation of this meaning that the artist was able to express his deepest emotions. And the two things the revelation and the self-expression that went with it constituted the artists only reason for being.

None of them (Seurat, Gaugin and VanGogh), he felt, submitted to the hard discipline of finding the inner logic of nature in order to find the inner logic of themselves. He distrusted Courbets assertion that art should be a social commentary, and Delacroixs that it should narrate literary themes. And as we have seen he distrusted from the beginning the Impressionist concern with the fleeting moment.

Several consequences followed Cezannes unique approach to art. One was that an inordinate amount of looking preceded the act of painting. Cezanne had to see a motif first. This is not to say that he could see the whole structure before he began to paint. In fact it was impossible for him to do so. The process of painting itself, if it went well, was a continual revelation of the inner meaning of the scene. But the artist did have to find at least a starting pint on which to build. Lacking this the scene had no significance for him.