Imagine a World without Art or Music

Remarks reported the other day about the role of culture in society left me trying to imagine how our world would be today without art, music, dance, sculpture – not a pretty picture!

Leire Giral, reporting in the Diario de Mallorca, was interviewing mezzo-soprano Maria Jose Montiel before her recital in Palma de Mallorca's Bellver Castle circular keep.  Reflecting the parlous state of Spain's economy and its consequent lack of financial support of any type of cultural activity, she was quoted as saying, "Without culture, our minds cannot develop; art, painting, sculpture, music – all lead to moral growth, the only pathway out of darkness."  She later added that for her, "singing is the voice of the soul".

Maria Jose is right - it was not an idle name that was given in the past to the "Dark Ages" when culture was in very short supply for most people.  Today, when there has been such a flowering of cultural opportunities during the boom days of most countries' economies, we all need to become inventive and diligent to ensure that the arts survive and still flourish.

The mere thought that one could not attend concerts, visit museums and art galleries or read wonderful books drives home to me just how integral such culture is to life.  Without them, the days would be decidedly dull and grim, with far fewer moments of beauty and uplifting delight and stimulation.

Abstract Organisation

Thinking further about composition and the fact that the path to achieving a successful painting or drawing often takes one into abstraction reminded me of a quote that I had found by British painter, Royal Academician and art professor at St. Martins, Frederick Gore. He was writing about abstract art back in the mid-fifties, rather against the tide of art in England at the time. He remarked, "The meaning of a figurative work of art lies in its abstract organisation."

Late Evening Looking towards the Crau, Frederick Gore (image courtesy of John Adams Fine Art Ltd.)

During his long and productive life, Gore produced a huge body of work, often working en plein air, and frequently travelling to different parts of the Mediterranean region. It is interesting to look at examples of his work to see how he used abstract organisation to compose his paintings, and thus allow their meaning and impact to be strengthened.

Above, Late Evening Looking towards the Crau shows this abstract underpinning: wedge shapes are counterbalanced by thrusting mounds that echo each other through the painting, each shape linking in subtle fashion with the next.

Paysage du Luberon, Frederick Gore, (image courtesy of Charlotte Bowskill Fine Art)

Paysage du Luberon, another painting done in France (image courtesy of Charlotte Bowskill Fine Art), shows the same strong abstract organisation. Gore used not only the different shapes to form an abstract pattern but he used colour to lead the eye through the picture. This painting is a wonderful example of what American watercolour artist and teacher, Edgar Whitney, always talked about, namely, that a strong shape in a painting is "irregular, unpredictable and oblique".

Puig Mayor from Fornalutx, near Soller, 1958, Frdereick Gore, (image courtesy of the British Government Art Collection)

Another painting, done in Mallorca of Puig Mayor from Fornalutx, near Soller, uses the shapes of the olive trees to organise the painting, with the distant mountains echoing the clumps of trees. As a counterbalance, Gore used the wonderful orange-yellow-russet fields to pull one through the whole composition.

Landscape near Deya 1958, Frederick Gore,(image courtesy of the British Government Art Collection)

In an even more brilliant depiction of Mallorca, also done in 1958, Frederick Gore painted this Landscape near Deya. He organised the canvas into four main abstract forms and one smaller one, always a powerful way of dealing with a composition. The olive trees again lead one into and around the painting. The abstraction allows total coherency in what Gore was meaning to say about this hot, sunlit Mediterranean mountainside.

On a more personal note, I always love seeing how other artists respond to the landscapes of Mallorca, an island I know and love deeply. Despite the more than fifty years since these two paintings were done, this part of Mallorca is not that dramatically changed, something to be celebrated.

Frederick Gore certainly put into personal practice what he advocated. It is good to remind oneself of how to organise an eloquent, powerful work of art through abstraction.

As we move into 2010 in the art world

Happy New Year to everyone! May 2010 be a wonderful year for all.

As I watched the New Year come in under a brilliant full moon shining over Palma de Mallorca, I could not help but think that this decade would probably be as full of radical changes in the art world as in all the other domains, be they financial, technological or environmental.

Each of us, as artists, is constantly trying to think of new and better ways to approach the creation of art. However, one of the most interesting - and metaphorically eloquent, perhaps - ways of creating art has been flowering in the United States and and further afield: the framed reproduction of your personal DNA. On sale on the Net, adorned with jewels or other items to your taste, the DNA picture seems to me to be emblematic of our lifestyle tastes of today. Good or bad - who knows? It is certainly a very personal piece of art that you can put on your walls.

I was looking at an example of this art in an illustration I saw in the Diario de Mallorca last week, and could not help thinking of Josef Albers and his use of colour theory.

Formulation Articulation I & II, 1972, Josef Albers (Image courtesy of Phillips)

Perhaps the DNA pictures could be allied to his sense of colour. The history of colour theory is enough to make any artist dizzy, but it does reward by study! Not only the history of the use of colour, but the history of paint pigments themselves make for the most fascinating reading. Having wandered into the world of pigments, artists often then get totally hooked on learning more of the dramatic stories behind the pigments' productions and discoveries. An enthralling book which I read when it came out in 2001 is Bright Earth. Art and the Invention of Color by Philip Ball, published by the University of Chicago Press. Having learned about pigments' histories, I had a far better appreciation not only of the paints I use when I am painting in watercolours, but every painting I view in a museum has an additional layer of interest as I look at the pigments the artist used.

I wonder if that will be said, ten years hence, of the DNA pictures that are increasingly adorning people's walls. Any bets on this aspect of the future art world?