Colour field painting

	Here is Helen Frankenthaller's painting, "Nature abhors a vacuum". For the first time since I began drawing and art seriously (about 10 years ago!) I have begun to find such abstract works truly meaningful. Of course, my fascination with abstraction began with Vassily Kandinsky who is featured earlier on this blog. The straight from the heart expression of painters such as Jackson Pollock and other American painters is so seductive. The imagery is at once sensual and direct, without any sentimentality, no "story" to tell and no "message" for the viewer. It allows for instant contact with the painter's inner process. I just found out that Helen Frankenthaller, a leader in this type of painting died in late 2011. Her colour field expressions seem to present "landscapes" that evoke a fundamental understanding of both colour and mood. Really beautiful! Check out this nice review: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/arts/helen-frankenthaler-abstract-painter-dies-at-83.html?pagewanted=all

Dancing Brush: The Fine art of Calligraphy

Shhh...just watch..

This is Shodo Harada Roshi, the head of the Rinzai Zen monastery of Sogenji, Okayama, Japan, giving a demonstration of Zen Calligraphy. Harada Roshi is also the head of the worldwide One Drop Zen-buddhist community.
I have often known that a spiritual discipline leads to the most extraordinary art, especially in the Eastern forms such as Zen or the martial arts such as kung fu or Tai Chi. The complete mastery over space, the beautiful sense of rhythm and complete control over the technique in such forms have always held me enthralled.


In this particular demonstration you can see the undivided attention, perfect comprehension of space, highly calibrated and skilful use of pressure in the strokes--and a pregnant silence that permeates the space.

Calligraphy, amongst several others, is an art form that calls for the practice of "no-mind" or a mental stillness acquired by years of spiritual practice. Each piece of artwork that we just witnessed being created is therefore the result of true mental calmness and focussed intention.
I am still holding my breath...! Whew..

What's in a pair of shoes? : Intention and the Artist

Here is one more post to do with Vincent Van Gogh! This post was triggered when I found some interesting information about Van Gogh's painting "A Pair of Shoes". And a friend of mine just told me she was drawing shoes--
 Van Gogh was fascinated with shoes. The first pair below he painted in 1886, the next three in 1887.











THhe following pair he painted in 1888.

These shoe paintings have in come for a lot of discussion from several art writers, critics and philosophers. They conjecture that these paintings speak of Van Gogh's sympathy and feeling for the underdog, the peasant or the poor. It is said that these shoes symbolised not just the suffering and poverty, but more the endurance, inner fortitude of the peasant towards their lot--and lent it dignity.
There are other theories to say that all these pairs actually belonged to the artist himself, not the peasants whom he was so fond of depicting in all their ruggedness. [His famous painting of the Potato Eaters and other hundreds of sketches he made of the hardship and grinding poverty of the rural peasant reveal an immense understanding and sensitivity.]
It seems quite reasonable therefore to infer that these boots, shoes and clogs that he painted so often similarly were an attempt to reveal the character of the wearer and his situation.
There is even one more theory, that I find quite quaint, that Van Gogh had a great attachment to one particular pair of shoes--and so he kept painting it. 
Be all that as it may, the fact is that Van Gogh himself lived in abject poverty for a large part of his short life. Under these circumstances, he needed to keep finding objects or models which he could use for his paintings. He found everything around him thus served a purpose--of course, his eye found great beauty, colour and character wherever he looked.

Tell me what do you see?

To me everything about these shoes seems to speak--their well-worn lived-in look, weathered appearance and ruggedness greet you at once. And I love looking at them.
They are full of presence.

Falling Water

A photo feature of Falling Water, an architectural marvel.

Frank Lloyd Wright represents some of the most evolved thinking in western architecture. His minimalist style and grand inclusion of space and openness particularly appeal to me.

Falling Water is the beautiful house created by Frank Lloyd Wright the famous American architect, known for his landmark buildings all over the US. Apparently Wright visited the stunning location of the waterfall and after accepting the commission to design the house, did nothing for 3 months. At the end of that time he sat down and began to draw--in a matter of just 3 hrs he had put down in complete detail the entire floor plan of the house, with all the levels, the connecting bridge and space that it would occupy just above the waterfall! He even knew the exact location of each tree and rock that was found on the site and included them in his drawing.Every aspect of the house including the furniture and art pieces were personally designed or selected by him and placed in a specific way.
 The house is till today a masterpiece of architecture--conceived with the idea of living within nature, as part of nature. He purposely left out a view of the waterfall from the house--he did not want the owners to take the magnificent waterfall for granted! In order to view the falls, one has to trek a little while into the forest to be able to see it fully, with the house cantilevered above it as though it was carved out the rock itself.
See below also an animation of how the house was created.

Peacocks and Foliage

Some photos of  peacocks I took recently. Majesty personified! Click on the pic for larger view.

Pictures that speak a thousand words

So we have all heard this expression before. Pictures do often speak much more than words can. In some cases, such as in illustrated books they enhance the story so much that they become identified with the tale. Good, imaginative illustrations that we see leave an imprint on our minds for ever. We can then never think of the story without the pictures flashing on our inward eye!

Children's classics are a special category of story-telling that I am especially fond of. I remember thinking as a child that I would never tire of some of the stories I read--I vowed that I would keep them on my shelf (under my pillow?) for ever and never allow the "grown-ups" to replace them with serious reading material.
I remember reading "Treasure Island"--a small illustrated one which I pored over till it was in tatters. Classics have the capacity to bring a whole world of rich adventure, fantasy and dreamland within our reach. For those of us who love children's literature, we can never forget the simple joys of childhood or what it means to be a child--and in some sense we never grow up--just like Peter Pan.

I bought a rectangular little book which caught my eye several years ago at some book exhibition--I think for second-hand books. I could not take my eyes off the cover page. Such detailed, evocative and beautiful colours and textures--the picture of a brownish kettle-like sailboat with tiny little people trying to board it to go to sea seemed lovely, gentle and quite extraordinary. Nothing like I had seen before--and certainly I had seen a lot of children's books by then! I immediately bought the book.
I always thought of it as a treasure.

And what do you know--Robert Ingpen, the illustrator who made this picture is one of the world's best! An Australian, he has won the Hans Christian Andersen Prize for Book Illustration--a very prestigious recognition. His contribution to the world of children's illustrations is enormous--he has lent his talent to at least a 100 of the most well-known classics in the western world--and brought his own extremely sensitive and imaginative reinterpretation of these stories to them.

 Just a very few of his illustrations below. I am sure you can guess the first story. Those of the kettle and the little people are adapted from an ancient Peruvian myth to do with the Hairy Peruvians who set out on a voyage to Austraila and it is called "The Poppy Kettle Papers". Every year in Geelong, Victoria, one of the towns in Australia an entire festival is held around this tale! It is attended by young children who participate in a parade, wearing costumes associated with the story. What fun.


Can you guess what the last illustration is about--if you guess the name of the story I will try and get the book for you! Click on the pics for a larger view!

An Inward Glance--Works of Gao Xingjian

 

The paintings by Gao Xingjian which I just discovered by accident, strike such a chord of deep meaning as far as I am concerned. I am astonished by their fluid, expressive and dreamlike nature---they seem to exist at the edge of reality, touching upon moments of illumination and the innermost depths of the human condition. Gao Xingjiang believed that the our world cannot be explained rationally--he therefore looked within, at the source of the inner light.
I am gratfiied to find that he is the Chinese Nobel Prize winner of Literature in 2000 and has written equally haunting, poetic plays and essays. His works are banned in China since one of his plays is set in the Tianenmen Square.
Xingjian uses Chinese rice paper and ink and brush to paint very pure black and white pictures which straddle abstract and figurative themes. One can see figures which appear as in a mirage, landscapes and a beautiful effulgence of piercing light emerging from deep somnolescence---just as though one were waking from deep slumber. The brush strokes are tender, understated and poetic, yet firm in their conviction. His is a modern mind, but one which captures the universal yearning of man for a state of purity, of being one with a great Truth. Watch this video for more images by him: