Art and Ways of Looking and Seeing the World

Art and Ways of Seeing the World

Artists depict how they see the world. They select whatever seems important and how they can best show or express it. Different styles of art offer different ways of looking at the world and the artworks produced provide many ways of seeing it.

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 tings we know.

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.

J. Strayer, drawing training exercise at Academy of Realist Art

Classical Realism lives on today, as do all the schools mentioned here. I've experienced it at Toronto's Academy of Realist Art and with Julia Aristides at Seattle's Gage Academy. Its focus includes a planned, analytic approach to painting. 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 done only in 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! I confess to wanting these techniques, not to become a Realist painter, but because I wanted to follow my own path without defaulting to lack of them.

Photorealism-Hyperrealism

Alyssa Monks, Window (oil painting), 2009

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. 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 grew from living in a virtual-media world.  

 

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 not considered as art. One of its major advocates, Marcel Duchamp famously presented a urinal as art. He is regarded also as one of the founders of subsequent Conceptual art .

Hannah Höch, Flight, 1931

Dada was followed by Surrealism (exploring the subconscious) and Social Realism (representational art serving political and 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 seen in earlier traditions, representational art is very effective at visual narrative. The story you want to tell in a painting can change doctrines.

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 C 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 C 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 inappropriately old-fashioned. No schools, no rules. Modernism introduced nonrepresentational/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 subsequent technological and multi-media innovations (Cindy Sherman art). Principles of Modernism-Postmodernism include an anti-authoritarian viewpoint that defies an elitist vs. mass culture distinction, and 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

Some artists paint with intention: they have a general idea of what they want to convey, the materials they want to use, and possibly a plan (not a pre-painted image) for the process or direction they want to go. Not everything has to be deliberate. Unintended things may, and typically do happen while painting, but a mindful decision is made whether or not they enhance the intended direction.  

In contrast, some artists say they paint only by intuition: no plans, everything spontaneous. Without any intention, the art can meander in several directions, resulting in none. It may be an interesting process, but I doubt it will create painting. 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 consider themselves intuitive.

 Expressiveness, Communication, Meaning

Creative art can be made just for oneself. Publicly exhibited art also can be acclaimed for the authenticity of the individual artist's shared vision. 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.

Having an intention doesn't mean that a clear iplan is needed the outset. For instance, I may know I need to paint but am unsure what the painting is to be. Sometimes 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 or feelings emerge that will push the blobs of paint into what the process of painting tells me I want. As the intention gets clearer, I use more discernment in marks I edit out or add in. Clarity and discernment are part of the process. I rarely create a deliberate armature (as below ), but it can be useful, and is especially , especially when you're stuck, feeling something is "off" but don't know what.

The question of intention matters to artists to the extent they want to convey some meaning in their art. It matters 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?

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 process of painting. Experimenting, exploring, and playing around without any set goal are a very important to the creative process. But by themselves, they won't reliably result in a work of art. Happy accidents do occur, but they take some vision to recognize and some skill to achieve consistently.

Composition is fundamental to Classical Realism and similar schools of art. A defined structure underlies the artwork (such as the golden ratio) that seamlessly guides our eyes to the most important parts of the artwork . Whether or not you accept the philosophy behind the classical structures, they remain useful tools widely used in visual art, illustration, and photography,

Many painters today prefer an intuitive approach to any planned composition. Yet, many of them have also so well assimilated major principles in painting that their intuitive preferences move in directions coherent with structured compositions. Why not use compositional "rules" if they help? Particularly when you've lost the thread midway through a painting and seem stuck. Here's an example of painting that was painted in a light, free manner but also has an underlying structure.

Kite Fliers, painting and under-structure (Janet Strayer)

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 was typical in the history of art . 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 other kinds of artworks. Most don't, but still forge ahead as artists.

Lady Cranach Gets Modern, painting by Janet Strayer

Today's artists have no trouble mixing metaphors, combining abstract and representational features in the same painting, and crossing time-zones in their art. Painters throughout history have incorporated old and shaped new ideas and techniques into their work.The Spanish 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, or our prior expectations.