Sunday, October 5, 2008

Cubism and Artistic Imagination


With the onset of the Cubist movement, the viewer was forced to look beyond the disjointed viewpoints and peculiar rendering of the flat planes in order to see the image that lied beneath. Prior to this radical movement artists were much more undemanding of the spectator because they provided them with a straight-forward view of their subject matter. Cubism required people to train their minds to perceive everyday objects amid a haze of shapes and varying perspectives. Take Picasso’s “The Accordionist” done in 1912, for example. At first glance it appears to be a jumble of cacophonous forms with no accordion player in sight. It is only after one stares at it long enough that the outline of the man starts to become visible. In my modern art lecture the professor told us about a quote that Picasso’s art collector, Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler said of the Cubist movement. He said that the viewer has to do work in order to comprehend a cubist piece or else they will not see anything past the surface. During my group conference for the same class, the subject of primitivism was also a major point of discussion and I think it ties into Arnheim’s chapter on Form very nicely. We defined “primitive” as not detailed, simple, natural, unrefined, abstract and primary. Artists like Gougouin and Picasso had a fascination with primitive cultures and the artwork they produced and even had collections of their own that included masks, etc. This inspired them to take a similar approach and incorporate these aspects into their own work. I personally find it ironic, however, that Cubism was influenced by something so basic and rudimentary because to me, when I look at a cubist work my eyes feel strained from the complexity of form.
I was also intrigued by Arnheim’s discussion on artistic imagination. He described it as “finding new form for old content” or a “fresh conception of an old subject.” The part that resonated with me the most was when he wrote, “There is more imagination in the way Titian paints a human hand than in hundreds of surrealist nightmares depicted in a dull, conventional manner.” (142) This is something I have never considered before because my obvious instinct would be to convince myself that one of Dali’s fanciful, dreamlike paintings was much more imaginative than any single body part portrayed in a new way. Do you think there is truth to what Arnheim said or do you think that one is simply a more overt form of imagination while the other is a more abstract way of looking at it? The topic of surrealism brings me to my final point. Figure 111 done by the schizophrenic, Friedrich Schroder, a man who spent most of his adult life in mental hospitals and prisons, has some very surrealist qualities to it. Because of his mental illness the way in which he expressed himself artistically was different from that of an emotionally healthy person. His lines were rigid and symmetrical, depth was virtually eliminated and shapes were “devoid of their organic complexity and imperfection.” This occurs when someone who’s mind is “empty or concentrated on some other train of thought” still has their sense of visual organization that is telling their eyes and hands what to do. I guess the aesthetic similarities between schizophrenic art and surrealism makes me wonder how much imagination actually went in to Dali’s work for instance. If it physically looks so much like work done by a man who’s mind is said to be “empty” then how can it really be that imaginative? My uncle on my mother's side is schizophrenic and my grandfather on my father's side opened Gateway's mental hospital in Los Angeles, so I am curious to look into this topic futher and share what I find with everybody in class.

6 comments:

Lindsey said...

I really enjoyed reading Arnheim’s chapter on form. His introductory line about the common confusion of form and shape made me realize I was often guilty of this. In fact they are listed as synonymous in the thesaurus. But Arnheim mainly makes the distinction between the two for his own purposes. For Arnheim shape is the visual pattern and form is the content of the subject matter.

My focus in art history and my conference work for this class is on ancient or “primitive” art so this chapter was particularly interesting to me. The artists of primitive art must have also made the distinction between shape and form although using different terms. Most would probably assume that the relationship between shape and form relies on a developed complex shape to communicate the full content of the form but ancient art often disproves this. The relative simplicity of Ancient Egyptian art and Anglo-Saxon art does not hinder its ability to impact the viewer. In fact, the straightforward lines and poses often create forcefully dynamic images that speak to human understanding on an innate level. Arnheim points out that by not using perspective and by accounting “for the squareness he sees in reality with an actual square in his picture”(97) the so-called primitive artist is more faithfully and universally representing reality. In my opinion this demonstrates a keen understanding of the nature of visual perception and communication.

Lindsey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Madeline said...

"I personally find it ironic, however, that Cubism was influenced by something so basic and rudimentary because to me, when I look at a cubist work my eyes feel strained from the complexity of form."

This idea - that staggeringly complex systems are found within the seemingly most basic of things - is one that has reoccurred in our studies this semester. It can be found both in the art itself - as you point out - and in the viewer of the art himself, whose seemingly straightforward means of seeing the world conceal the vast series of components involved in the act of perceiving, as well as the millions of years of evolution behind it.

Another theme that seems to go hand in hand with this simple/complicated paradox is the reality that the intricacies involved in the act of seeing/perceiving are largely hidden from our perception and understanding. This seems to be one of the many ideas that intrigued the gestalt psychologists who sought to examine the "Kunstwissenchaft" or science of art and the Bauhaus artists who sought to explore those concepts practically through their work. Not since Da Vinci's investigations into human anatomy through line drawings had there been such a prime and intriguing example of science and art intermingling.

As Arnheim writes, "Pure form aims ... directly at the hidden clockwork of nature" (147). The "clockwork of nature" is science, and both artists and scientists alike sought to uncover it through their own area of expertise. Arnheim and the other gestalt psychologists studied existing art and produced experimental images in their search; the Bauhaus artists utilized their findings in the production of their art, which was, in turn, examined by psychologists and psychology students like us. The result is a constant and vibrant conversation between art and science, occurring behind every work of art that seeks and stimulates the "hidden clockwork of nature" within all of us.

Danielle Breslin-Romano said...

I too was interested by Arnheim's ideas on imagination, and as Jessica mentioned Cubism I thought of a quote I know by Picasso: "All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." Arnheim says that "artistic imagination can be more nearly described as the finding of new form for old content or-if the handy dichotomy of form and content is eschewed-as a fresh conception of an old subject." I agree that a fresh conception of a old subject does require imagination. I think that is why art by children can be so fascinating. The drawings in figure 110 are so interesting because they provide us with new ways to look at the human figure. The forms used are different than what we conventionally see. Arnheim says, "Together these pictures demonstrate the abundant resources of pictorial imagination that are found in the average child until lack of encouragement, unsuitable teaching, and an uncongenial environment suppress them in all but a fortunate few" (144). I do think that children are encourage to draw "correctly," that is, what our society has deemed the correct way to depict an image. It is that straight-on view of subject matter that seems to be "correct," but in reality, this type of art is the least interesting. It takes imagination to see things in a different way, to reinvent them. The Cubists reinvented how we look at and depict objects, as did the surrealists, in my opinion. I think that the surrealists, at least some of them, had just as much imagination as Titian. I think both artists are depicting forms in an unconventional way, just as a child sees the world. Picasso said, after all, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."

Kit Golan said...

In Jessica's post, she says, “[Arnheim] described it as “finding new form for old content” or a “fresh conception of an old subject.”” I was reminded in this chapter of children (or adults!) who look at the sky and try to find pictures in the clouds. If you strain your eyes enough, you can see anything in the intangible blobs that float across the sky. I think that searching clouds (or wood grains) for familiar images is a way of “finding new form for old content.”

I also found Arnheim's discussion of imagination and children particularly fascinating, especially in light of my work at the ECC. The students there have a number of creative outlets, and I've begun to notice how even when you ask all of them to draw/paint/create the same object, the form that their images take are vastly different. I was struck by Arnheim's idea that one reason why the images are so different is that a different aspect of the image was valued. This broaches his discussion on anatomy pictures or electrical schematics. Only the necessary details are left in (and they're emphasized), while the unnecessary “clutter” is eliminated. I've noticed that some children eliminate the body when they draw people, attaching the four limbs directly to a head. I wonder if that's because in their mind, the head is the necessary detail about the specific subject, and the limbs are sufficient to indicate that it's a human (and not a basketball with a face).

I was also intrigued by the Arnheim's mention of subway and street maps. I have always been particularly good at deciphering and reading maps (to the point where I've been the family navigator since I was 13), but some people are incapable of telling north or south or where they are on a map. I wonder if that is because those people struggle to orient themselves without certain details they find necessary (which are obviously different than the details that are included).

Unknown said...

I was interested in Jessica's mention of the viewer's heightened level of participation with the onset of cubism. It became more about the experience of art as opposed to just simply sitting back and looking at a clear picture. The viewer is forced to make a form out of many different shapes, disjointed or other wise. I am in the Modern Art lecture as well I and had that Kahnweiler quote in the back of my mind while doing the reading for this week.
I agree with Jessica, it is interesting that the cubists were influenced by something that is described as primitive. The work that came after seems quite complex to me.