What kind of landscapes are you drawn to--peaceful, stormy, mythological, realistic, bright or chiaroscuro, minimalist or detailed?
If you create landscapes, what kind, and in what medium?
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If you were to guess what sort of landscape people universally like--from Africa to America to Asia to Australia--how would you describe it? According to aesthetic philosopher Denis Dutton, author of The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution, it would be similar to the landscape of our Pleistocene ancestors: open spaces with low grasses and copses of trees, especially those that fork near the ground (for easy escape from predators?). An example is the scene below from South Africa. There could be evidence of water, animals, and birds. And the picture could contain a path or road, a riverbank or shoreline, extending into the distance, as though beckoning us to follow it. What's particularly fascinating is that this landscape is regarded as beautiful by people in countries that don't even have such terrain. Dutton points out that it shows up on calendars and postcards, in designs of golf courses and public parks, and in framed pictures hanging on living room walls around the world. Artists create all kinds of landscapes for all kinds of reasons. In the late-19th- and early-20th-century, many Western artists were driven to create landscapes in part because of their dissatisfaction with the modern city. They imagined earthly paradises in paint. Others simply have wanted to capture impressionistically the essence of Nature's beauty around them, or to remember a place they visited. Some wanted to realistically depict the details, especially before photography was invented. And then there's simply the desire to delight in colors and shapes. Based on certain philosophical traditions, a spiritual element might be integral to the landscape picture, creating more of a "mindscape," as in this painting by Australian artist Maria Gorton, or that of Canadian artist Lawren Harris, currently exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Landscapes have gone in and out of fashion in the art world, but they still command our attention. They can be exotic or familiar, bucolic or grand, remote and wild, fantastic or mystical, totally abstract or fully representational. They can be screen-printed, painted in oils, watercolors or acrylics, composed with textiles, sketched in ink, charcoal, pastel or pencil, etched, engraved, captured by camera, and so much more. Here are a few from different times and places and in different mediums. Can you guess when, where, and how? In an interview conducted by Krista Tippett for her program "On Being," the Irish poet John O'Donohue says, "What amazes me about landscape is its Zen thereness. In a certain sense, landscape recalls you into a mindful moment of stillness, silence, and solitude, where you can truly receive time." "The beauty of nature," O'Donohue continues, "is its generosity." He refers to the Celtic view of landscape as not just matter but actually something alive. It's not simply the outer presence of the landscape that affects us. There's also something that connects us to the elemental, to the rhythm of the universe. Questions and Comments:
What kind of landscapes are you drawn to--peaceful, stormy, mythological, realistic, bright or chiaroscuro, minimalist or detailed? If you create landscapes, what kind, and in what medium?
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Recently, my husband emailed me a link to an article in the New York Times. While he often alerts me to stories about art, this one was about women and bicycles in the Islamic Middle East, and whether they had permission from father/husband/etc. to ride. When two women, covered from head to toe, pedaled their clunkers up Salahuddin Road in Gaza, they caused quite a stir. The reporter wrote, "The sight of women on two wheels was so unusual that Alaa, 11, who was grazing sheep on the grassy median, assumed they were foreigners and shouted out his limited English vocabulary: 'Hello! One, two, three!'" In Western countries as well, women riding bicycles were a strange apparition at first. In this British advertisement from 1897, why did the man fall off his bicycle? Was he shocked at seeing a woman dressed in a bloomers outfit or at her having a bicycle? What, you might wonder, does all this have to do with art? The Times article made me reflect on the freedoms and advantages we too easily take for granted. Had I been born 200 years ago, even 100 years ago, I highly doubt I would have had the opportunity to make the choices I've been fortunate to make and follow my heart's desires. I've never had to ask anyone for permission to ride a bicycle, get an education, write articles and books, create textile art, or travel. Indirectly, the article also led me to the fact that March is Women's History Month, at least in the U.S., and that's where art enters the picture. Like a woman cyclist in the Middle East today, a woman artist was also once an anomaly. I still remember my university art history class (1968?): not one female artist appeared in H.W. Janson's text, History of Art. (I understand that the latest editions do include women.) It's not that women artists were non-existent; rather, Janson didn't deign to consider them worthy of being in his history of art. I realize now that, in this regard, nothing during my student years had changed since 1944, when Wilhelmina Cole Holladay graduated Elmira College with a degree in art history. She hadn't encountered women artists in her texts either. But a trip to Europe made her aware of this gross omission when she and her husband Wallace came across paintings by 17th-century Dutch still-life artist Clara Peeters. Since they had never heard of Peeters or other women artists whose work they soon admired, the Holladays began to specialize in collecting, exhibiting, and researching women artists of all nationalities and time periods in order to highlight their accomplishments. In 1981, the Holladays incorporated the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) and opened its doors in Washington, D.C., in 1987. It is dedicated to celebrating women’s achievements in the visual, performing, and literary arts. Toward that end, it has acquired more than 4,500 paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and decorative arts from as early as the 1500s. While some women artists might object to being ghettoized in this way, the museum demonstrates in a big way that art has not been confined to one gender. It's also not confined to the historical limitations of the term "fine arts." This textile piece by South Korean artist Kimsooja originates from a childhood of sewing traditional bed covers with her mother and grandmother. She constructs contemporary collages from bits of old materials family members give her, then embellishes with thick embroidery thread, and adds thinned paint over the satiny jacquard fabrics for texture. Over the years, Wilhelmina created individual committees of more than 1,000 volunteers from 27 states and 7 countries, to provide educational opportunities to children through schools and such groups as the Girl Scouts, as well as offer opportunities for adults to participate in and encourage art in local communities around the world. Because of the Holladays' efforts, I have learned about such artists as Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614), considered the first woman artist, outside of a court or convent, to work within the same sphere as her male counterparts. She was also the first to paint female nudes, and she did it all while being the principal breadwinner for the 13 members of her family. There are so many more that are new to me, from centuries ago as well as in contemporary times. I'm gratified to learn that they've all successfully risen to the challenge of creating art, whatever their conditions and circumstances. During Women's History Month, I acknowledge not only famous women artists, but also those who are creatively engaged and expressive everywhere, in particular, those who struggle against the kinds of restraints women encounter in something as basic--at least to me--as riding a bicycle. For her 2008 documentary "Unveiled Views: Muslim Women Artists Speak Out," Spanish filmmaker Alba Sotorra hitchhiked from Barcelona to Pakistan to meet five women she finds extraordinary. Three of them pursue their creative passions despite the obstacles: filmmaker Rakshan Bani-Ehmad pushes Iran's censorship rules to the stretching point; Afghan poet Moshagan Saadat survived the Taliban; and dancer Nahid Siddiqui is forced by politics to practice her art outside her native Pakistan. You can see them in this trailer. These and so many other women (men too, of course, but this is Women's History Month) inspire us to test and go beyond limitations, whether we impose them on ourselves or they're imposed on us by others. These women also demonstrate that expressing one's art can be as vital as eating and drinking. Questions and Comments:
What woman or women in your own life or in history have inspired you to be an artist or to appreciate others' art? How are you inspiring others to feel free to express themselves artistically--to write, to sing, to play an instrument, to compose music, to garden, to paint, to sew, to sculpt...? |
Mirka KnasterI am a fiber/mixed-media artist with a decades-long career as a writer. Working with textiles and handmade paper from around the world and exploring the heart of art evoke my joy daily. *Blog continues on my website. Click link below for my recent posts.
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