Motherwell a Mouthful January 3, 2013
Posted by cantueso in painting.trackback
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Motherwell, like other artists of his generation, wrote extensively about “the bourgeois society” and “the middle class” which had become cliché even then. Here is a mouthful:
“The social condition of the modern world which gives every experience its form is the spiritual breakdown which followed the collapse of religion.”
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(C) ghD
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The public in general was passive. Motherwell’s art met with some skepsis, but at the universities his proclamations were analyzed and even taught. And they were contagious. Another mouthful:
“The emergence of abstract art is a sign that there are still men of feeling in the world. Men who know how to respect and follow their inner feelings, no matter how irrational or absurd they may first appear.”
Notice those “inner feelings” and go figure what an “outer feeling” might be.
Besides, strictly speaking, feelings are irrational by definition, but they are not therefore unreasonable.
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(C) ghD
This painting and the one above are at the Queen Sofia museum in Madrid.
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It was bombast, but welcome, and it was supposed to be the explanation of abstract art. Motherwell says that abstraction is the consequence of
“a most profound, relentless, unquenchable need. The need is for felt experience- intense, immediate, direct, subtle, unified, warm, vivid, rhythmic.”
The photo below was taken……
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(C) ghD at the Queen Sophia museum in Madrid.
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A third mouthful:
the words that Motherwell’s admirers use to describe his work:
most poignant meditations
prolific and brilliant activity
almost infininitely monumental expression
dynamic creative expression
rough textured quality
unique spatial enclosure
almost exclusive use
http://www.abstract-art.com/abstraction/l2_grnfthrs_fldr/g036_motherwell_elegy57.html
And mind you, that isn’t simply as bad as it gets. The museum’s presentation relies on the same verbal garbage:
“Change of paradigm:
The tensions of the venue.
The lowest common multiple of experience.
Structures, systems, and circuits.” ***
*** Seen at the Queen Sophia Museum, Madrid, these words were used to define the room you were in.
The last one — “Structures, systems, and circuits” takes the cake.
Some art experts should be sent to work in the mines.
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“…no difference is made between the few great things and the rest.”
This sums it all up. Doesn’t it? And not in a bad way. ‘The lowest common multiple of experience’ is not evil, just a mathematical value.
That’s what I think.