On Brown

Brown wasn’t a colour until The thirteenth century. A subdued tertiary orange. Activates and is activated by blues, as far as simultaneous contrast goes. Fascinating colour because it operates at the periphery of our visual field . Calming to the eye. Love the Umbrian bluey browns. How can a soft bluey brown exist? Surely that’s a contradiction in terms?

The Death of Actaeon. Titian

The mystery of origins

Following on from the last post, considering multiple meaning in myth and art. If we look at the meaning of the name “Wallinger”, apparently, and appropriately, the nationality of Wallinger is difficult to determine because regional boundaries change over time, making the nation of origin a mystery. Also, surnames that come from a profession, can come into being in multiple places independently for example the surname “Fisher” which was given to fishermen. Perhaps the shifting historical and geographical origins of Metamorphosis contribute to its mystery.

And yet, crucially, what else is happening

So, Wallinger’s reimagining of Titians Metamorphosis…. Yes, there is an element of voyeurism, and yet, crucially, what else is happening here?
Perhaps an interesting starting point should be the name Diana. Wallinger himself comments on our contemporary royal association with the name. And the ladies performing in his installation are named Diana, so where does this trail of significance lead us?
Diana’s symbol was the moon, and focal points in Titian’s Death of Actaeon, are her fleshy orb, echoed by the illuminating orb of the moon.
But Diana and Apollo represent dual meaning. Its interesting (odd) that Apollo (of the sun) was used to name the U.S. moon missions.

As Selena, or Luna, Diana represents the orb of the moon. As Helios, or Apollo, the sun.
As Artemis, Diana represents a life goddess reflected. Her multiple names thereby emphasise her omnipresense. A sense of multiplicity. Omnipresence in her multiplicity. Like Mr Smith in The Matrix, multiplying omniprescently, morphing into others, and perhaps anyone.
Which leads us to realise that there are multiple ways of understanding the various interpretations of Ovid’s Metamorphosis.

Browneyness

Is it a problem that Wallberg’s peephole experience lacks the browneyness of a Titian?
Brown (adj.) O.E. brun “dark, dusky,” only developing a definite color sense 13c., from P.Gmc. *brunaz (cf. O.N. brunn, Dan. brun, O.Fris., O.H.G. brun, Du. bruin, Ger. braun), from PIE *bher- (3) “shining, brown” (cf. Lith. beras “brown”), related to *bheros “dark animal” (cf. beaver, bear (n.), and Gk. phrynos “toad,” lit. “the brown animal”).

There is an intentionality in the toady brown duskiness of a Titian. Something is being communicated here.

Meaning

If you’re interested in issues of meaning in art, take a look at Prof. Garry Hagberg’s ‘Art as Language…’. Fascinating stuff methinks.

A question of scale

A question. Where is the meaning in an oil painting? Take Titian’s Diana and Actaeon, for example. If we look closely at the swirls and scratches of oil paint, where is the message? Closer still, we become the size of an incy wincy spider, clambering across mountains and valleys of impasto, where would we find themes of voyeurism? Is meaning a question of scale? Where in the primal materiality of oil paint do we find a paintings meaning?

Exploitation, and other things that are going on.

Again in the Guardian newspaper, we have a review of Mark Wallinger’s creative reflection upon Titians Diana and Actaeon, that focuses on the extrapolated theme of voyeurism. The perfect opportunity for some exploitation art indeed.
“The room is in complete darkness, the centre of the space is a room within a room, a second structure, and finally you find a window. The glass is opaque, but a corner of it is broken, and you place your eye against it. You can see into a bathroom. Draped in an armchair, or soaping herself in the bath, or cleaning her face at the mirror, is a naked woman caught in a live act. As you move around the outside of the room, you find other apertures… It is an utterly strange experience that turns the visitor into a voyeur, a peeping tom.” “My purpose was to make that contemporary in the context of Titian and the National Gallery. This building, after all, is all about the history of the male gaze and the female.”

Wallinger himself is forthright about what his installation is about. Privacy, the viewers relation to the artwork, and mythy residue, of course. But what else is going on here. For example, consider the following.
A young first year art student, coincidentally called Diana, has been looking at another Titian painting, at the National Gallery, Diana and Callisto. Diana assists in the organising of three exhibitions at galleries, that she enjoys because they introduce her to new skills, which she uses in forming relationships with galleries. Diana and Callisto portrays the moment in which the goddess Diana discovers that her companion Callisto has become pregnant by Jupiter. For Diana, Titians painting is a tale of deception and loss of innocence amongst other things. Jupiter pretended to be Diana in order to seduce Callisto. She finds it hard to shake such associations when looking at Wallinger’s work.
The residue of the name Diana draws us into a murky mythic world of metamorphosis that welcomes the slitheryness of meaning in art.

Metamorphosis: Titian 2012.

Exhibition. Metamorphosis: Titian 2012. The National Gallery.
Contemporary artists Chris Ofili and Mark Wallinger respond to its collection, in a collaboration with the Royal Ballet to celebrate the 16th-century painter Titian.
The Guardian newspaper asked this week whether Titian does need to be compared with any living artist to be made “relevant”. Apparently “his colours, brushstrokes, stories, characters – for he is a dramatist in paint – blaze with urgency and excitement.”

I suppose the National Gallery is attempting to appeal to a broader understanding of the idea of excitement in art.
Perhaps the point is that, yes, Titian’s mythy expressive masterpieces are exciting, but also this change of context serves to reilluminate Titians works of art, to make them differently exciting. Refreshingly exciting.
Interestingly also, the benefit is reciprocated. The exhibition may serve to give some old masters historical authenticity to the work of these current artists.

But I suppose that the danger may be if Titians paintings lose integrity to the pizaz of contemporary art, and in return Wallingers and Ofili’s work appear stuffy and irrelevant to contemporary concerns.
Whatever the outcome, its an interesting historical juxtaposition.
Second blog and I’ve used the j word already!

First PostHi th…

First Post

Hi there! Lets see how this goes:-)

What I have in mind with this is somewhere that we can share ideas about contemporary painting. This includes everything from working practice, ideas about tecjnique, themes; opinions about works of art themselves, exhibitions and artists historical and current; and ideas about the practice of being an artist, So issues of creativity (or lack of it) dealing with galleries, promoting yourself, studying art…basically anything and everything to do with being a contemporary painter.