1 Feb 2011 10:01
Re: Inttroducing myself
Hi Clive Im sure there is a lot in what you say here. As I said, I am rather structure orientated, and everything from Cezanne to Constructivism means more to me than most other movements. However, I have to say that I would include Minimalism in the structure-orientated category, and there is very little Pop Art that does not evidence a strong sense of form and structure (add design). Abstract expressionists? I see the same complex structures here, and take the same pleasure from it, as those complex cliff forms. This is me, I guess. Yes, abstraction implies abstraction from, in one sense. Two British abstractionists: Barbara Hepworth once said she gained her sense of form, as a child, from driving in the car with her dad across the undulating English countryside. Ben Nicholson (her husband) recommended that artists should spend time on the golf course! (undulating form?). This is part of what I see in cliff structures. Actually, there is nothing new in what I say here. Anyone who visits St Ives in Cornwall, where Moore, Hepworth and Nicholson lived (Gabo too) can see the cliff/stone/natural structures there that are part of the foundations of their work. The whole St Ives school, even in its 1950s renewal was all about 'designed composition'. (I contrast this with post-modernist artists in part because their focus is often elsewhere). My other point about the action of the human brain on the field of vision from birth we are shapers. Its what the senses do, and Ive loved those aspects of 20th century art that go directly to the principle of form, and to forming, and to a kind of instinctive sense of what is right. This is part of abstraction for me too, and those cliff structures appeal to this aspect of my mind. Sam(Continue reading)
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