Different Ways of Seeing the World
Janet STRAYER- Aug 5, 2024
- 9 min read
Updated: May 24
Different Ways of Seeing the World
We all see the world somewhat differently. Artists create and depict how they see the world, making it available for others to see and to react. They select what seems important, valuable, or meaningful enough to pursue and work at how they can best show or express this. In this manner, different kinds and styles of artworks offer different ways of looking at the world and offer many ways of seeing it. If we can open our eyes and look, artworks can enrich our views and expand our life.
Put several painters in front of the same apple and each will paint a different version of it. Some paintings might look more delicious than the real thing, others might view the apple from the inside out, yet others might show us the worm lurking around its stem. That's the privilege art has: to offer almost endless visions, even of things we think know. Meaningful art (painting, literature, music...) always surprises or touches us in some way.
Looking, too, is an art, and it's alarming how little we make use of this talent (see Art of Looking). I suppose the same could be said for listening -- the talent of keeping ears open to what's controversial or different . There is art to living well (making as good a go of it as you can) under so many different circumstances. It entails finding and using your creative ideas, skills and actions. The commentary below focuses on visual art, but I think it applies also to changing views of life. The material in Schools and Rules, for example, applies to life as well as art. Or do you think not?
Schools and Rules
There are many "schools" of art, meaning groups of artists who share common opinions, outlooks, styles or methods, and creative goals. Artists adhering to a particular school of painting abide by similar dictates regarding the preferred art and procedures to obtain it. And those preference reflect their worldview at the time: the way they choose to see the world and to reflect it.
A curious corollary sets in once a certain style of art-making gets recognizable enough to be be named as a school. However revolutionary its origins, after a school gets established recognition it is then likely generate oppositional reactions. Each school becomes a potential parent of rebellious others.
This article is not meant to list the all the schools of art but to indicate how adherence to a school or style of art presents us with a particular way of looking at the world. Personally, I favour an eclectic approach that values learning about diverse ways of looking at and depicting the world. I've selectively chosen, and briefly discussed, the schools below to illustrate some contrasts and choices for decision-making in art and in looking at the world.
Classical Realism
The school of Classical Realism is one of the most coherently organized and enduring of ways of seeing the world. With its roots in the Renaissance (and revived institutionally in 19th C French painting academies), it values rigorous training to master perspective, rendering, and other technical skills needed to create an illusion that mimics reality on a 2-D surface.
Classical Realism lives on today, as do all the schools mentioned here. I've experienced training in this manner of painting at Toronto's Academy of Realist Art and with Julia Aristides at Seattle's Gage Academy. Its focus includes a planned, analytic approach. Traditional methods are followed for accurate measurement, perspective, proportion, rendering of form, light and shadow, etc. Typical training includes many hours of copying from plaster casts and live models, first restricted to black and white (graphite or carbon), then moving on to paints and colour. Skill, patience, accuracy and practice are emphasized in applying traditional rules and methods to create art that looks realistic. Those rules and methods work. But I confess to wanting these techniques, not to become a Realist painter, but because I wanted to follow my own path without defaulting due to to lack of them.
Photorealism-Hyperrealism
Some of the values and techniques of Classical Realism seem to have been converted to today's Hyperrealism. A big difference is that, rather than representing reality as what the eye sees, Hyperrealism mimics in paint the detailed appearance of a high-resolution photograph. And it does so on a very large scale, much larger than life: hyper-real. Nobody actually sees the world so clearly defined and magnified. These paintings appear incredibly lifelike from a distance, but up close look like abstract marks. Hyperrealism is a school of art that is forms part of a contemporary world filled with virtual-reality.
Dada, Surrealism, Social Realism
Some schools of art are defined by a common philosophy or socio-cultural outlook rather than by preferred techniques. As an example, after WWI, Dadaism was an anti-bourgeois protest that defied the traditional fundamentals of Western art and commercialism by advocating media that would not be considered art by established conventions.. One of its major advocates, Marcel Duchamp (also a founder of Conceptual art) famously presented a urinal as an artwork.
Dada was followed by Surrealism (exploring the subconscious) and Social Realism (representational art serving political-social aims). Both use representational depiction, but their different intentions create very different paintings. Surrealism represents worlds seen in dreams and by exploring the subconscious. Its content is invented by the artist. The world we see in a Surrealist painting is often very intriguing if sometimes puzzling. In contrast, Social Realism uses representation to serve political, social reformist, or propagandistic aims. As in earlier traditions, representational art is very effective at visual narrative. The story artists tell in social-realist painting can change doctrines across time and context.
Varieties of Modernism > Postmodernism: No Schools, No Rules
A burst of many different ways of thinking about and creating art followed upon the startling changes in artistic vision of the late 19th century Impressionists (focus on the effects of natural light, Monet), Fauvists (focus non-naturalist colour, Matisse), and Expressionists (focus on subjective emotions and inner experience, Van Gogh, Munch), and Cubists (focus multiple-perspectives on object, Braque, early Picasso)
The 20th century broke traditional molds for art in the Western world. Modernism took hold as an ongoing, open-ended movement advocating innovation and experimentation and rejecting traditional realistic depiction. Modernism encompasses many different styles and "isms", with so much shifting of boundaries within clusters of like-minded artists that the term "school" seems inappropriate and old-fashioned. No schools, no rules. Modernism introduced non-representational or abstract art into mainstream culture. Audacious innovations occurred in Abstract art(Kandinsky), Abstract Expressionism (Motherwell) , Figurative Abstract Expressionism (deKooning), Action painting (Pollock), Colour-Field painting (Rothko), Pop Art (Warhol), Conceptual Art (Christo), and more.
Postmodernism is a term used to differentiate it from early Modernist art. I see it as continuing Modernist principles with added emphasis on technological and multi-media innovations. Principles of Modernism-Postmodernism continue an anti-authoritarian viewpoint that defies an elitist versus mass culture distinction and includes a deliberate mix of genres or styles in art.
No Schools No Rules in Contemporary Art
Contemporary art is an open field now containing representational, nonrepresentational/abstract, and a mix of different styles and media, even in the same artwork. That expansiveness may make it even harder to judge artistic merit, but great to see.
It's arguable, but I think some basic principles still guide effective paintings, whether by unknown or famous artists, in museums or in humble homes and streets. I also think we learn to appreciate these guides the more we experience looking and noting our genuine reactions (not received opinions) to the art we see.
All painters, regardless of school or style, work with basic visual elements (shape, contrast, colour, placement) on a surface. Visual elements are like a set of tools used to create an effect, whether that effect is offensive, decorative, engaging, etc. Most painters who have been at it for awhile are also aware of basic principles (value, differences, balance) that guide visual elements into a coherent composition or a deliberately incoherent one
Intention or Intuition
Intention (purpose of the work) matters to artists to the extent they want to convey something by the artwork. It matters to viewers in terms of the results achieved: does the painting make us look, does it engage us further, does it have any meaning for us?
Apart from artists who pre-plan their work out entirely (photographs, etc.), with little left but to paint a good copy, I think most contemporary artists work in territory that balances intention and spontaneity.
By intention I mean artists have a general idea of what they want to convey, the materials they want to use, and some sense of direction in how to proceed. Not everything is deliberate, for sure. Unintended things typically happen, and mindful decisions are made about whether they work or not, given the intended general direction .
In contrast, some artists say they paint primarily by intuition: no plans, everything spontaneous. But intuition presumes you already know how too something without effort or conscious thinking. Without any intention, at all, the art can meander in several directions, resulting in none. Being spontaneous and mindless meandering can be interesting creative exercises, but I doubt that they, alone, will create an artwork . Even if one starts randomly or spontaneously, artists typically look at the mark just made to see what and where the next one will be. This moment-by-moment experience of painting shapes our intentions, even for those who regard themselves intuitive.
Expressiveness, Communication, Meaning
Intention comes into the picture when we seek to express something (if only to ourselves), and certainly when we want art to communicate with or affect others. Art can be made just for oneself, privately. If seen by others, it may or may not connect with them. Publicly exhibited art needs to connect, at least with some of us. It can be acclaimed for the authenticity of the individual artist's vision, but that vision needs to be shared with some of us somehow for the art to resonate. The artist's intentions in making the artwork need to come across from the canvas to us.
Having an intention doesn't mean that a clear idea or plan operates from the outset. For instance, I know I need to paint but am unsure what the painting is to be. Often clarity comes in the act of painting, itself. I might begin just splashing paint and looking at the mess made until, fairly soon the idea and feelings emerge that will push the mess into what the process of painting tells me I want. As the intention gets clearer, more discernment applies to the marks added or edited out. Clarity and discernment guide intentional art-making and seem part of the process, regardless of how much spontaneity enters into it.
Composition
Composition in painting refers to the overall arrangement of elements on a given surface. It can be clear at the outset or it can evolve during the painting process. Experimenting, exploring, and playing around without any set goal are very important to the creative process. But, by themselves, they won't reliably result in a work of art. Happy accidents occur, but they take some vision to recognize and some skill to achieve consistently.
Composition is fundamental in traditional design, especially Classical Realism in art. A defined, underlying structure (the golden ratio,, etc) ) seamlessly guides our eyes to the most important parts of the artwork . Whether or not you accept the philosophy behind the classical-realist structures, they remain useful tools visual art, illustration, and photography: use as needed or not.
Many painters have also so well assimilated major principles in painting that their intuitive preferences move in directions coherent with structured compositions. If that's not happening, why not use compositional supports if they help. Here's an example of painting that was painted in a light and free manner but also with an underlying structure based on classical-realism.
Choices Abound
Some of us have specific tastes and allergies while others enjoy a very broad palette. Some artists devote themselves to one genre or kind of painting, as is typical in the art history . Others, especially in contemporary times, prefer a wide gamut. Despite the fact that commerce in art wants labeled brands and public recognition, a few contemporary painters, like Gerhard Richter have managed to achieve renown for abstracts, representational, and varied artworks. Most don't that kind of recognition but still forge ahead as artists.
Today's artists have no trouble mixing metaphors, combining abstract and representational features in the same painting, and crossing time-zones in their art. But painters throughout history have incorporated old and shaped new ideas and techniques into their work. The painter Goya is cited as the last of the old masters as well as the first modernist.
What Do You Love?
Pundits, gallerists, social media, and investment brokers can tell us what art we should love and buy. But the criteria they use aren't necessarily ones you value. Such decisions remain a subjective project.
Looking actively at art and self-education matter in art decisions. The more we know, the more choices we have. With looking experience, we can see more in almost any artwork. I've found that as our discernment evolves so, does our appreciation. Our tastes broaden. We may love one work for its uniqueness, another for its raw and clumsy simplicity or for its intricacy. We may appreciate a painting for its powerful assault on our senses, but not want to live with it, then see another that invites us to an intimate relationship. Most importantly, we develop the art of looking and know when a work of art connects with us, regardless of its school, assigned category, received opinions or prior expectations.
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