I’ve had this on my easel for awhile. It worked up quickly. I originally was going to put more layers on it but I wound up just looking at it instead. I did add some paint sticks, tracing over the lines, but that was it. It goes with the 4 smaller canvases I used earlier for the “Center cannot hold”. I wanted to see how that translated into a larger format. I used the canvas from the last “anger” series the one I painted out the figure with black.
36″ x 36″, 90cm x 90cm
These are 2 9″ x 12″ [23cm x 31 cm]. canvases that I had wanted to show a turning or whirling motion. I don’t think these demonstrate that but I like them a lot anyway. I’m having to let go and just paint now that I’ve got some gestures/ideas/motifs going. In both
of these there is a definite organic reference even tho that was not was I was going for. The one on the left was just a study seeing how it would work out. I painted over something I’m not even sure what it was. Maybe a color study. Anyway, The one on the right is more of a finished painting. The connected circles when painted remind me of vines. I used some paint sticks to get some texture ( white areas) So while the motion, the gesture of my hand went in a swirling movement the result was circles that look more like vines. And that is ok. I have a new motif to work with. I’ve actually started painting a larger painting, about 40″ x 30″ [102cm x 76cm] using the connected circles. I didn’t want to do anything too big. [ Yes, I painted on top of an older painting that I didn’t like] I do like the smaller format so I’ll see how it goes.
I painted over the first still point. I wound up painting the whole thing over. I like this version much better than the other. I especially like that the point appears to be as though it is in the process of becoming an object instead of a 2D point. That maybe hard to see here. Also, the image is slightly blurred. I don’t use flash so sometimes that happens.
I’ve been rereading Susanne Langer’s books. I studied her in an undergraduate philosophy of art class. I can’t seem to find any recent writings of other theories. She wrote in the 1950s. Most of it still seems relevant except when she talks about Truth and Beauty. I think those terms have gone by the way side. Anyway, if you are interested her books Feeling and Form and Problems of Art may be worth looking at if one is so inclined.
10″ x 10″ each canvas, 25.4cm x 25.4cm
I hesitate to title these from the lines in the poems as I don’t want them to seem like they are just illustrations. I think of the poems as inspiration. This is from Yeats, The Second Coming #200. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed….” Is that too much information that it influences the viewer too much? Or is it necessary to get them to start thinking?
(I have the Still Point as a painting so I am contradicting myself here)
jancschindler 