The Arts and Young People

On Sundays, I frequently listen with fascination and pleasure to the NPR programme, "From the Top", hosted by Christopher O'Riley, during which amazingly talented young people play classical music and talk with Christopher. This past Sunday, a delicious young woman, aged nine, was interviewed and then played Franz Liszt's Gromenreigen (Dance of the Gnomes). Her name is Umi Garrett and she is garnering prizes and kudos both in the United States and Europe for her mastery of the piano. What interested me and resonated especially was that her early talent for music was also accompanied, from 2 1/2 years old, by classical ballet. She also loves to paint and is good at maths, science and a host of other things.

In other words, she is a stellar example of what can happen when a young person is exposed to the best in what the arts can offer. It is not just in school that children need to be exposed to the arts, it is in everyday life, in every imaginable sphere. This is one area where it becomes so serious that the Georgia Legislature envisages elimination of the Georgia Council for the Arts, the central state funding mechanism that fosters the arts. When possibilities for young people to attend performances of music, ballet or theatre, to visit art museums, galleries or festivals or learn of new forms of art in the public arena dry up, the general level of culture is diminished.

I know personally how memorable live performances can be to a child. Growing up on a farm in Tanzania, there were few such opportunities. It was thus all the more special that on my first trip to England, my mother made a special effort to ensure that I was able to see the Royal Ballet dancing Swan Lake. I was five years old - it was magical - and I have loved ballet ever since. In the same way, a year or so later, the legendary pianist, Paul Badura-Skoda, came to our nearby town, Arusha, to visit his brother. He was persuaded to give a piano recital, in a small theatre with a tin roof ... it rained during his performance and the din above seemed only to underline the exquisiteness of his interpretations of Chopin or Mozart pieces. That evening was one of the most memorable moments of my life - I was so excited that I was soon learning to play the piano myself, not at all well, I hasten to add. But the whole experience helped make me forever a lover of music.

This  recording was made about the time I firstheard Paul Badure Skoda play the piano.

I was lucky - my family made the effort to give me such opportunities. But in Georgia, if opportunities for young people dry up, then we are all the poorer.

Elimination of the Georgia Council of the Arts, take two

Give artists a few hours to get organised, and the angry buzz rises to a crescendo! It seems that the e-mails are flying around Georgia about the likelihood that the Legislature will "zero" out the Georgia Council for the Arts. My e-mail in-box is filling up fast as everyone tries to contact anyone who is likely to protest this decision to the Senate.

The more one thinks about this choice of "economising" to close the huge budget gap in the State budget, the less impressed one becomes about the arithmetical prowess of the legislators. I understand that the overall return for every dollar invested in the arts in Georgia is threefold and counting. That would suggest a very decent rate of return that anyone would welcome in, say, the stock exchange. In a time when everyone is hoping and praying that the economy revives and people find jobs, it seems sad indeed that a very diffuse but real economical stimulus source be eliminated. The arts are not just one single industry, unlike carpet-making or insurance or many other economical activities. The arts are incredibly diverse, spread out all over the State, even in the most remote corners. They engender the most varied of activities: they bring tourists, fill restaurants and hotels, give business to gas stations, art, clothing and hardware stores. The list is as varied as one's imagination, but all these different transactions and actions help drive the economy.

To use an extreme example: imagine New York without theatres, museums, concert halls. What would that city be like? Each of those jewels in New York's crown exist because there is some form of financial assistance to supplement the direct ticket sales or entrance fees, for these can never cover all costs. Most enlightened places, cities, states or countries, recognise that the hallmark of a civilised society includes support for the many forms of art. This support is not only a good investment financially, but it is also an investment in future generations' successful education. It also ensures citizens' ability to find intellectual stimulation, joy, serenity, fascination, amusement – that can lift them out of their own lives for however brief a moment.

It is hard to understand how Georgia's legislators can be so unaware of the incredibly negative and damaging consequences of kicking out the underpinnings from Georgia's arts. I hope the angry buzz of the arts-appreciating citizens of this State gets through to the Senators and Governor and persuades them not to be utter philistines.

Elimination of Georgia Council for the Arts and related Arts Funding

Eliminating Georgia Council for the Arts is apparently the "enlightened" way in which the Georgia Legislature is closing a budget gap for 2011. The budget for the arts was first slashed almost to nothing and then, yesterday, the vote passed the House to "zero" the Arts. Nothing, nada, niente - Georgia now will lead the way in the nation in NOT HAVING A STATE ARTS AGENCY. Wonderful!

Not only does this mean that the activities usually funded by the Council for the Arts will not now be supported. It means that National Endowment for the Arts funding cannot be received either - perhaps part of the assertion of the anti-Washington ethos? More importantly for the large swaths of Georgia who are not endowed with Atlanta's resources, it means that they will receive no Grassroots Arts Programme funds. These GAP monies have not been huge sums distributed to each county on a per capita basis for the past fifteen or more years, but they have been vital seed money. Countless small arts groups have been able to enrich their communities, young and old, with music, dance and theatre performances, art exhibitions and other visual art activities. The communities devised the programmes and applied for the funding on an annual, competitive basis. The arts funding was thus able to perform a magical multiplier effect at the grass roots of Georgia, and everyone benefited from a small but vital investment of tax dollars. This "cultural fertiliser" especially enriched the younger portion of each county, so important for many rural areas.

How can the level of education be raised for Georgia's youth if music, theatre, art and everything in between are defunded, eliminated and, by implication, made of no importance? Georgia is already lamentably far down the ladder of general academic achievement. In their dubious wisdom, Georgia's legislators are ensuring that not only will Georgia be the laughing stock of the nation in terms of culture; it will also slip further down the ranking of student achievement. Apparently legislators do not understand the vital inter-connectedness of the arts and learning about maths, geometry, literature, and science.

One of the many Georgia cultural institiutions dependent to some measure on Georgia Council for the Arts

The faint remaining hope of reversing this amazingly sad decision basically rests on Governor Perdue's shoulders. Alas, I am not holding my breath.

Welcome to Georgia, y'all! Don't count on finding a thriving cultural scene in Georgia.

The Siren Calls of Spring

The stirring of spring, with new growth and blossoms, energises most people. We emerge from shorter days, colder weather and general winter constrictions into the bright, clear light of spring. As days lengthen and the weather grows warmer, everyone starts to think further afield, of more outside activities, more travel, and more plein air art if you are an artist. Endless ideas of where to go to paint come back with insistence, of what to paint or draw, of how to celebrate the world around one.

These siren calls of spring return each year as a renewal of energies for me as an artist. By the end of the winter period, I find myself often flagging, somewhat lacking excitement about subject matter for art. Although the same wonderful flowers and scenes return each spring, they inspire me to draw or paint them, leading to debates about how to depict them in a fresh fashion. Flowers, especially, are my delight. Watercolours and silverpoint both lend themselves to such subjects. The big, bold Azalea indica or Southern Azaleas, for instance, are wonderfully sculptural, their flowers dominating the spring landscapes for a brief and glorious period. I find the subtleties in colour endlessly interesting in the different flowers - Nature is masterful in colour-mixing. It is therefore a huge challenge to be faithful - if one wants to go that route - to these blooms.

Azalea indica George L. Tabor

I realised, years ago, that I owe my mother a big debt of gratitude for any accuracy I may have in colour assessment. As a very young child, barely able to walk, I used to go with her to the brilliantly radiant fields of annual flowers in bloom that we grew for seed on our farm in East Africa. To keep each strain of flower pure and with correct growth, any plant that was of poor quality or with blooms different from the desired type had to be pulled up before it could set seed. I soon became very accurate in detecting variations in flower colour, and I think I retained that eye in later years. I do remember, too, the countless buckets of beautiful, ebullient flowers that we would take back to the house to enjoy because we hated just to pull up a plant and let it die in the hot tropical sun.

It was thus natural, I suppose, that in my art, I return again and again to the sheer joy of flowers when they start blooming in spring. Not only are they lovely in themselves, but to me, they signify much that is wondrous in nature. They offer solace, serenity, hope and energy. No wonder the Japanese celebrate hanami or " blossom viewing" in festivals, of which the most famous are the Cherry Blossom Festivals all over Japan each spring. There is a palpable sense of delight and awe as the Japanese walk beneath these exquisite blossoms and pay tribute to the beauty of nature in all its brief glory.

Cherry Blossom Time in Japan

The same urgent delight and excitement fills me as spring brings its bounty of flowers to the Georgia coast. It is time to start painting!

Time for what we Value

I spent a wonderful day yesterday drawing plein air with my friend and artist, Marjett Schille. It is gloriously the height of spring, with azaleas bursting forth, wisteria garlanding the trees with soft mauve fragrance, and the birds in courtship songs and displays everywhere one goes. We went to an island in the Altamaha River Delta,  Butler Island. South of Darien on the Georgia coast, it is accessible by road, but the area harks back to the antebellum rice plantation days. There are still the dikes and canals, along with the "trunks" which are the historic tide-driven gates that allow water to flood the rice fields carved out by slaves so long ago. The landscape is very much still man made, but since it is a Georgia State Wildlife Management Area, the ponds and fields are home to many bird species, enormous fish and clearly, many raccoons - to judge from the footprints along the sandy roads. In other words, a perfect place to go and paint or draw in spring.

Osprey Patrol, Butler Island, graphite, Jeanine Cook artist

While we were working there in companionable silence, amid a chorus of bird song from the bushes all around us, I kept thinking back to a passage I had recently read in the May edition of American Artist, where classical oil painter Patricia Watwood is quoted as hoping that, amongst other reactions, viewers would respond to her art by sensing"that there is time enough for the things we value. Time to craft a painting, to study, to learn, to enjoy, and time to sit still and contemplate a picture and the world that it contains."

There is a grace and a privilege for each of us if we can somehow organise our lives as artists - and viewers of art too, of course - to have enough time for matters artistic. To be able to have enough flexibility to put aside a block of time just to go off and paint, single-mindedly, for a day outside in some beautiful place. To have had the time to hone one's skills sufficiently that one can feel comfortable working plein air. To have the inner serenity, without nagging preoccupations, to be able to enjoy the whole experience of being out in nature, where ponds pulse with life and the trees are visibly leafing out hour by hour. And indeed, at the end of our time of painting and drawing, to look at Marjett's lovely watercolours and marvel at her creativity that results in highly original yet evocative paintings.

Ensuring that we all have time for the people, the things and activities we value: that is the true art of living, I suspect. As an artist, I felt that my day on Butler Island yesterday met those criteria wonderfully.

That Problematic Word, "Beauty"

I was preparing an artist's statement for a submission for my art to be considered today, and found myself - again! - referring to the concept of nature's beauty being an inspiration and an aid to people finding serenity. I find it endlessly interesting to see how and why people talk of beauty, in any form.

Roger Scruton, in his 2009 book, "Beauty", writes: "The judgement of beauty is not merely a statement of preference. It demands an act of attention. Less important than the final verdict is the attempt to show what is right, fitting, worthwhile, attractive or expressive in the object; in other words, to identify the aspect of the thing that claims our attention." He inveighs against kitsch and the seemingly prevailing ethos that allows us often to live in denial of any sacrifices, any effort to cater to our higher nature, an attempt "to affirm that other kingdom in which moral and spiritual order prevails."

Sir Roger Scruton

I think that most of the artists I personally know are indeed seeking, consciously or not, to show what is "right, fitting, worthwhile, attractive or expressive" in the subject matter they are depicting. The way they depict the material is almost secondary. Certainly I find myself captured by the beauty of nature as I experience it here in coastal Georgia or in parts of Europe that I know. Working plein air, I find that I round a corner and see something that stops me in my tracks, saying insistently, "Pay attention to me, I am important". Often, later, I realise I was drawn by a form of beauty, some elegant shape or intricacy, or an example of something noteworthy, such as the endurance of a tree against all odds. That subtle dialogue is unfathomable to me, but it surely exists. One knows instinctively that the beauty one is seeing is of value for its own sake, taking one into a realm that is almost deliciously childlike, where imagination and serendipity can reign. Once the technical considerations of how to tackle the painting or drawing are finished, I find I can stop thinking consciously and just do.

The other mysterious aspect of this dialogue is that later, other people frequently respond to the image I created. Somehow, if one is fortunate, one has tapped into something greater than oneself, into the realm of the beautiful, the worthwhile.

The Frequent Juxtapositions of Beauty and Terror

The adage about beautiful art being created against a backdrop of terror and upheavals has always fascinated me. I was thinking of its ironies recently as I sat listening to utterly lovely chamber music, of the most civilised and uplifting, and realised that I was facing a huge and dramatic Julian Story 1888 painting of "The Black Prince at the Battle of Crecy" hanging on the wall of the Telfair Museum of Art Rotunda Gallery. I looked further around the walls and there was another savage battle scene, also painted in 1888 by Josef Brandt, simply entitled "A Battle".

The Battle of Crecy, Julian Russell Story, oil on canvas, 1888, (Image courtesy of the Telfair Museums, Savannah, GA)

Granted that the chronologies of all these contexts were totally unrelated. The Savannah Music Festival concert featured a wonderful Mozart 1785 Piano Quartet in G minor and Dvorak's 1878 String Sextet in A Major being played by violinist Daniel Hope, pianist Sebastian Knauer, violists Philip Dukes and Carla Maria Rodrigues and friends. The subject of Story's monumental painting was the 1346 Battle of Crecy, a pivotal battle during the Hundred Year War when the Black Prince Edward of Wales killed King John of Bohemia. The 1656 battle depicted in the other painting recorded a skirmish between Swedes and Polish troops. Nonetheless, the juxtaposition for me, during that concert, reminded me that innumerable musical masterpieces, so much visual art, so many other kinds of artistic creation, are produced at periods of huge strife and stress, whether of war, economic distress or personal illness and suffering. To me, the capacity to create beauty and uplifting art at such times is one of mankind's most admirable characteristics.

Daniel Hope has programmed a very special concert on April 1st, in Savannah's Temple Mickve Israel, which perfectly illustrates this capacity to create beauty in the face of unspeakable suffering. Called "Forbidden Music", the programme features music created in the Theresienstadt concentration camp north of Prague by young Jewish musicians before they met their death. Daniel Hope and his wonderful musician friends will be playing a String Trio composed in 1944 by Gideon Klein. Klein was born in the present-day Czech Republic, deported to Theresienstadt (where he organised concerts with his fellow prisoners) and thence to Auschwitz before meeting his death in Furstengrube concentration camp in January, 1945. Another work featured in this programme again underlines this juxtaposition of beauty and terror: Siegmund Schul's Two Chassidic Dances, Opus 15. Schul, a young German composer, was deported to Theresienstadt with his wife in 1941. Whilst there, he composed this and other compositions, testaments to his strength and resiliency. He died in Theresienstadt in 1944, victim of tuberculosis.

The list of works of art of all description that we inherit from men and women of enormous talent and courage is huge. I think it is good to remind ourselves always that whatever our personal travails, we can find inspiration and encouragement from others that - yes, despite everything, we can still be artists and produce work that can be of value to others.

Art and the Mystery of Personal Taste

I am always fascinated by the mysterious forces that impel each of us to make choices, in all sorts of realms, but especially in music and visual arts. For instance, you arrive as a visitor in a new city, and in deciding what to do and what to see, there is frequently the choice first of which museum to visit, and then, within that museum, which type of art to see. It is often an easy series of decisions if you are used to doing it, but even then, the way one chooses is often a subliminal, almost instinctive affair.

Experience helps. The more one visits museums and other places where art, two or three-dimensional, is displayed, the more one refines one's choices. The decisions often boil down to seeking to widen one's knowledge or wanting to see types of art which are already generally known and appreciated. I personally find that I will always head for an exhibition of drawings, if possible, because I am utterly enthralled by the directness of the dialogue with an artist who uses a drawing medium. There is nowhere to hide when you draw - you show yourself as an artist, warts and all, particularly when you are using a medium like silverpoint which precludes any erasures. Most drawing media - graphite, charcoal, ink, silverpoint, etc. - allow a subtlety of expression and depiction that one seldom finds in painting. There is also a wonderful expansion of the definition of drawing today, with many novel uses of paper, media, even attitude. The result is a continuous challenge to any preconceived notions of what one personally likes or even defines in terms of draughtsmanship. These are just a small smaple of drawings that I consider totally sublime and memorable.

Head of a Young Man (?) by Michelangelo, ca. 1516, red chalk, 8 x 6 1/2. Collection Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England.

Young Woman Looking Down (Study for the Head of St. Apollonia) by Peter Paul Rubens, 1628, black and red chalk heightened with white, retouched with pen and brown ink, 16 5/16 x 11 1/4. Collection Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.

Woman Carrying a Child Down Stairs by Rembrandt, ca. 1636, pen and brown ink with brown wash, 7 3/8 x 5 3/16. Collection Morgan Library, New York, New York. “

Yesterday I was marvelling at the mysterious delights of personal taste in music as well. It was during another of the wonderful Savannah Music Festival concerts, the second in the Sensations series of chamber music recitals held in the acoustic delight of the Telfair Museum of Art's main gallery. The programme was again the result of skilled personal tastes in selecting the concert's music and then my personal choice of that particular performance versus another being offered last night. Violinist Daniel Hope , violist Philip Dukes , pianist Gabriel Montero and friends played Dvorak's Piano Quartet in E-flat Major,Opus 87, in the first half of the concert. Brahms' String Sextet No. 2 in G Major Opus 36 was played after the intermission. Both pieces were ineffably beautiful and wonderfully played. I personally preferred - if one could prefer one or the other in truth - the Dvorak because I loved the lilting melodies that he had incorporated from Bohemian folk songs and the wonderful subtle treatment of strings and piano dialogues. Yet all around me, I heard differing opinions - some loved the first piece, others preferred the Brahms. As in art, every person brought their own experiences to the choice of music.

In the end, it is a miracle that so many of us like the same music, the same art. It underlines that there are universal attributes to works of art that resonate with most people, often subtle, mysterious attributes, but nonetheless very powerful ones.

Eyes of the Artist

Everyone can appreciate how valuable artists' eyes are, but not everyone then goes on to think about the different ways artists use their eyes.

Of course, seeing the canvas, paper, marble or other vehicle for artists' expressions is key. The subject of the art piece, often objects gazed at by the artist, is also looked at by the artist. Yet the different techniques of using one's eyes as an artist dictate many different approaches to art. Plein air art requires careful observation in person, usually of landscapes.

The Guidecca (A Summer  Day on the Giudecca, Venice, watercolour, John Singer Sargent

Life drawing too implies careful study of the nude model posing, as do still life studies which are usually based on arrangements made and set up for the artwork. Portraiture gets even more decisive, obviously, because a portrait implies a need to reflect some fidelity to the person being depicted. However, the methods of achieving that portrait are varied; one in particular depends very much on the use of the artist's eyes. I am referring to the use of sight-size, when an artist sets up the easel at such a distance that the subject of the portrait (or life drawing and painting too) is the same size as the image being created. Few artists learn this method today, but artists as diverse as Henry Raeburn, Joshua Reynolds and John Singer Sargent all employed this way to convey a unity of impression in their art, rather than copying all the details. A few ateliers do teach artists how to use and trust their eyes in this fashion - Charles H. Cecil's Studio in Florence, Italy, is one, the Bay Area Classical Art Atelier in California is another, the New York-based Grand Central Academy of Art is yet another.

JUlia Chapin Alsop, 1909, John Singer Sargent

Working directly from life for drawing and painting is a time-honoured tradition down the centuries for artists - learning to trust one's eyes as you seek to capture the image. Quickly capturing the gesture of a moving person, the characteristic flight of a certain kind of bird, the essence of flowing water, the gait of an animal - all these require careful observation from eyes that become more and more trained as the artist grows more experienced. Practice does indeed make perfect or nearly perfect, as the eyes learn to observe. As an aside, I was fascinated recently to read about a current exhibition, "Michelangelo: Anatomy as Architecture", at the Muscarelle Museum of Art at The College of William and Mary through April 11. Twelve drawings on loan from the Casa Buonarroti in Florence apparently are unusual in that they reveal Michelangelo jotting down visual ideas in a hurry, alongside verses of poetry and various notes. We associate Michelangelo drawings with wonderfully accomplished and often very finished works, but this exhibition includes works that show a much more down-to-earth approach to devising and executing an idea. Apparently it is obvious from some of these drawings that Michelangelo was carefully scrutinising ancient sculptures for his human figures, as well as using his knowledge of direct dissection, after he had peered carefully at muscles and tendons in human bodies - in other words, using his eyes a lot.

There is another aspect to artists' eyes that is vital and fascinating. In the March 2010 edition of Art+Auction, Marisa Bartolucci wrote a long and interesting article on "Zen and the Art of Axel Vervoordt". She recounted that it was apparently the Belgian painter, Jef Verheyen, who taught Vervoordt about the Zero movement and introduced him to a fresh manner of seeing. "The way one looks at things is of the utmost importance. You must feel things with your eyes" (my emphasis). This is a wonderful concept, going to the heart of any art, whether it be the eyes of an artist or those of someone viewing a created artwork. Trained eyes, which imply study, practice and much thought in many cases, allow deepened appreciation and skills. Everyone is enriched by the eyes of artists and art-appreciators.

Artistic Individualism

Last night, the 2010 Savannah Music Festival opened with a wonderful celebration. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, directed by Robert Spano, played Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 - lifting hearts and expanding minds. The second half of the programme opened with a flutter of anticipation because Lang Lang, slender and youthful, came out on stage to play Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor.

Portrait of Frédéric Chopin (originally part of a larger painting showing Chopin and Georges Sand), 1838, oil on canvas, Eugene Delacroix (Image courtesy of the Louvre, Paris)

As he played, I was fascinated at his butterfly approach to the delicacy and complexity of Chopin's ravishingly beautiful music. His lightness of touch and sensitivity to the nuances in the music made me think back to other pianists whom I have heard interpret this Concerto. Lang Lang has a very different approach, I decided, and his individualistic approach made me feel that Chopin would be very gratified at this interpretation. Essentially music suitable for a younger pianist, I would argue, this Concerto allowed Lang Lang to show his own understanding of Chopin's musical record of his infatuation for a fellow student at the Warsaw Conservatory, Constantia Gladkowska.

As I listened with delight to the music, I could not help thinking about the aspects of any artist's individualism, in any discipline. A musician has to hew to the notes written by the composer, but the interpretation is his or her own in terms of emotion infused into those notes, in conjunction with the other musicians and orchestra director. A visual artist has another task in terms of defining individualism: first the concept and execution of an artwork has to come from within that artist. Only after creation of the piece of art can a viewer appreciate the individuality of that piece and hence the hallmark of the artist. Perhaps, in fact, the visual artist has the easier task, for the musician has to work within much narrower confines to define his or her essential artistry.

Lang Lang's wonderful technical and interpretive skills, complemented by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's superb playing, allowed Savannah to glory in great musical beauty last night.