If Everything Is Art, Then Nothing Is Art

Three Musicians by Pablo Picasso

Since World War I art lovers have grown accustomed to viewing what is called modern art. These works fill our museums, our schools, our magazines, even jump out of our television sets. Our modern artists, beginning with Matisse and Picasso and continuing through Pollock to the present have pressured us to deny the evidence of our own senses.

We have been pressured into believing that these modernists are the most brilliant artists in all history because they weren't telling us lies like traditional painters - they were telling us the truth. They do not paint scenes rooted in reality or the imagination. They tell it like it is. They give us something that is not banal, silly, or inane. Or even beautiful. What is this great truth, you ask?

Incredible as it may seem, they have proved that the canvas is flat -- flat and thin -- and lacking in depth.

Look at the above painting by Picasso. It is arguably his most famous and most reproduced. It is supposed to elicit an emotion by the viewer, but does it? Frankly, it leaves most art lovers cold. Where is the reality, the beauty? Where is the depth of field, the perspective? It simply does not exist. He created a work in which the forms and shaped do not align or create any cohesive form. In fact, Picasso rejected all prior artistic standards. At best, it is a Rorschach inkblot. You have to be taught to love Picasso because no one would do so otherwise.

People don't have to be taught to love Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Chopin, Beethoven, or even Tom Sawyer.

The point is, when everything can be considered art, then nothing is art.

Just paint it!

American Art Comes Of Age

The Old Oak by George Inness

How much the American art world owes to George Inness can never be computed. At a time when men were painting anemic, emasculated transcripts of nature, he had the courage to break away from traditions, set out on a path he blazed for himself, and to stand on his own theories evolved after serious thought, analysis, and experimentation. Discovered in his studio after his death were literally thousands of unfinished works, sketches, and studies. His life was given to his art as truly as anyone could have.

With him painting was the single motivating force in his life. His mind was occupied night and day with new schemes, fresh theories, and endless plans, with only one thought - picture making.

Inness was born in Newburg, New York in 1825, the son of a grocer. In his youth he apprenticed to an engraver but found the work too taxing. His father wanted young George to work in the grocery but by then the young man had discovered drawing and painting. He took a month of painting lessons from a local artist after which he went his own way, hampered by ill-health, poverty, and uncongenial surroundings, for American art at the time was not very inspiring.

After traveling to Europe at the age of 25, he saw the possibilities of his profession and returned home where he began to paint in a manner that immediately marked him as an innovator. Public acclaim escaped him, but his independence, his supreme belief in himself, and his passionate love of good art carried the day. Caring nothing about public opinion, he continued to paint his beloved New England until his death and infused his works with his love of nature and deep spirituality. His paintings became dramatic, poetic works of great art.

During his lifetime he made several trips to Europe and died in Scotland in 1894. He was watching a sunset and was heard to exclaim, "My God, that is beautiful!" then slumped over, dead of a stroke.

Just paint it!

The Man No One Remembers

Madonna and Child with St. Anne by Masaccio

His name is all but forgotten in the history of art. His paintings are not studied in art schools. His contributions to our present world are but an ancient memory. But it was Masaccio, the youngest of all painters who, by breathing life into the art of his day, worked the miracle of awakening in painting an urgency it never had before.

Masaccio (1401-1428) was attracted to things of art from a very young age. Beginning in childhood, living in Tuscany, he was able to refine his innate artistic and pictorial sensibility.

But it was Florence that influenced and shaped Masaccio's artistic personality. In fact, thanks to the work of Brunelleschi and Donatello, in the early years of the 15th century, there was already an artistic and cultural revolution in progress in Florence where Masaccio moved at the age of 16. This changed much of the way architectural and sculptural arts were realized. Masaccio chose these two important artists as his reference points because of the artisitic affinity he shared with them. These two great artists were later to become his great friends and admirers.

It was in Florence that Masaccio's extraordinary personality exploded into his most important works, especially the frescoes of the Cappella Brancacci. These works are now considered to be the true beginning of Renaissance painting. In these paintings Masaccio concentrated the basis of his naturalistic revolution: space seen through the laws of perspective, light and shade to bring bodies into relief, and deep emotional sensitivity.

Masaccio knew nothing of business and was a lonely, unhappy man, always in debt. He suddenly left Florence and died of grief, in Rome. Legend has it that he was poisoned by a jealous, rival painter.

Just paint it!